Wanzology

Faith And Courage

Hey, what's going on? How ya doing? I hope you are having a wonderful day. This is The Wanz and you have stumbled into another episode of WANZOLOGY. Welcome!! Yes, yes, yes, yes. And we are continuing with our seemingly never-ending saga of #THEBOOKOFWANZ, which you can find on Amazon.

Today, the chapter is pretty involved.

It reads:
COURAGE IS DOING WHAT YOU DON'T THINK YOU CAN. FAITH IS BELIEVING IN WHAT YOU CAN'T FATHOM. FUNNY HOW THE KEY TO BOTH IS YOU.

Yes. People are such strange creatures. They really believe that most times, they have no effect on things around them. They act as if they have nothing to do with the world around them, and that life just kinda happens. They shrink from the challenges yet blame the world for what happens to them. I am afraid that, at times, I am not all I think I am. That I'm not talented, not a good father, not a good friend or person. At times, I think I'm just a worthless piece of crap. With all the good things that have happened in my life just in the last year and a half, most people find it strange that I can have thoughts like those. It happens, I’m human.

Along my journey, I learned how to recognize fear in all its shapes and sizes. For me, fear doesn't always come dressed up in a black robe and a distorted white face holding a big ass knife. No. For me, fear comes in the shape of a challenge. Any challenge.
I had to learn that:
1. Everyone has challenges.
2. Everyone has their own way of viewing or dealing with their challenges and
3. Someone else's way of dealing with a challenge may or may not be best for me.

One more thing I noticed, the difference between success and failure is tied to the amount of faith you have in yourself.

You are at the center of your life. There is great power in internalizing this one thing. You have the power of choice instead of instinct. It has been said, faith can move mountains. But has anyone ever tried to move a mountain by believing they can? Not literally, no. But figuratively, folks do it all the time. To make a choice requires a certain amount of faith and courage.

Remember, some choices are small ones that don't require much of either. But, you still have to make them. Say, latte or half and half. Left or right or down. Music loud or soft. So many little choices we get to make, and each one has its own consequence. Believing in a desired consequence is faith. Taking action towards that desired outcome is courage.

Neither faith nor courage comes from outside of your mind, and you generate both of them. Maybe not at the same time, but they come from within you. You are the key to your own faith and courage. It's really, really, really difficult to keep in mind the simplest of things. Life is actually pretty simple, just not always that easy. Having courage is just doing something you believe you can do. And sometimes you have to have faith before you can exercise that courage.

I remember that I was listening to a book a while ago, and it said, “act courageous before thinking you can be courageous”. And I had to take that apart a little bit. I had to take it apart to the point where, when I try something, that’s courage.

It takes a lot of courage to sacrifice, or to believe that you can do something, having no idea whether you're going to be successful at it or not, right? You can have faith that you're going to be successful at it. That's a whole ‘nother can of worms. But after that faith, you have to put faith into action and action is where courage really comes in.

Think about it, pizza's in the oven. You don't have an oven mitt to take it out. You know that it's hot, but you also know that it's two or three minutes past when the timer went off and you don't want to burn the pizza. So what do you do? You open the door of the oven and you figure out how am I going to grab that and put it on something before I burned my fingers? I don't know about you, but you know, I've done that before and you kind of have to work your way up to it and count to three, two, one, grab it. Oh my God. and then you put it down, but you did it took courage to do that. How about showing up at a party at a place you've never been and you're by yourself. How about going to a club somewhere out of your normal space? Different town, different state, different country. And you're just going to walk on in, right? Like you own the joint, right? How many times have you said, Oh, I can't, I can't do that. I don't really want to do that. Not really wanting to do that is a hell of a lot different from not being able to do that.

When's the last time you took yourself to a movie alone? Were you worried? People would see that you were by yourself, might think that you don't have any friends. They might just think that you're one of those people. It's possible. Very possible. Well, what do you do? You act as if. What does that mean?
Acting as if? In a way, it’s the epitome of the phrase, ‘fake it till you make it’.

I remember the summer of my 11th grade year. I went to a summer music camp at a college local to my hometown. Kids from all over the state were at this place. Most of them I'd never seen before. Let's change that. All of them I'd never seen before, and some of them were insanely good. Way better than I was. Way better singers than I was. Now, I had come from an environment where I was kind of the big fish in the pond. A lot of people knew me, knew I could sing. And I believed them. I believed them when they said, dude, you are so good. You are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Not realizing how big my head had actually gotten. But man, that first rehearsal listening to everyone else around me and was really wondering, What the hell am I doing here? How did I get here? Why did I think that I could be here? What happened? I lost faith in myself. That went on for about half of the rehearsal, maybe less than that, maybe a third.

The farther into the music we started getting, the more confident I felt because I was reminding myself “Oh, dude, you know what? You can do this. You've done this before.” And then I started looking around, and it seemed like I was the only one looking around, but I know I wasn't. And I just wondered, I bet other people are doing exactly the same thing I'm doing. Looking around, wondering if anybody ‘sees’ them, ‘hears’ them, cause they're not really sure if they're supposed to be here. What if I'm right? What if there are other people doing exactly the same thing I am? And that's where I let it sit. Now, after decades of practice, I have no problem going to the movies by myself, going to clubs by myself, just kind of hanging out with myself because I've gotten used to me. I've gotten used to having faith, not having faith, believing in myself, not believing in myself, having courage, and being a total chicken shit. It's okay. I'm human. I can be a lot of things, including those. It doesn't make me better or worse than anyone else. Tell you what, though. At that music camp, by the end of that week, everyone in that whole choir were friends. We got used to each other. Singing with each other five hours a day, you realize that you're a part of something bigger than yourself fnd that you shouldn't be afraid to be that part rather than thinking that you're on the outside looking in and all these other people kind of have it together. They don't. More times than not, they appear to have things together. They just look good but may not necessarily feel very good. I'd rather look like crap but feel great. Because when you feel great, not much else really matters.

Having faith in yourself can be difficult. I would challenge you to think about how many times a situation is familiar. How many times have you been in a certain situation? Not exactly, but generally. How many times have you been in a certain situation? How many times have you been at the cash register and been short on money and you think everybody and their dog is looking at you? How many times Has it been that you're the one who spills your water at the table in a restaurant? It sounds trivial, but when you're in it, it's not. And if you're paying attention, you know it's not. You remember that split second of, “Oh my God, is everybody looking at me? Oh crap!” Welcome to being human again. Now the courage part comes in when you can recall a situation like that, that may or may not have been embarrassing. And it comes up again. Or a related situation comes up, and you remember the last time. What do you do?

Pretend. Pretend that you already know what to do. I remember, maybe it was the Bill Cosby show I was watching, but there was like this kid that was on the show, and they were just cutting up, cutting up, cutting up, cutting up, and just trying to joke through everything, and he looked at him and he said, “Why don't you act like you've been somewhere before?” Why don't you act like you've been somewhere before…act as if you think you're the only one you think you're unique, even if that were true, which in some ways it is, but you're not tremendously unique. You are still human and everything that goes with being human, meaning, you're going to make mistakes. You're listening to this podcast for decades. Maybe two, maybe even three decades after making horrible mistakes, falling off bicycles, car accidents. Throwing up on the pastor, who knows, but it didn't keep you from being who you are today. So whatever you're going through right now, whatever this is inspiring in you right now, Remember you've been here before, you already know what to do and more importantly, you know what NOT to do.

Turn on the faucet, baby! Let the faith flow and the courage will follow right behind it to make the warm waters of accomplishment.

Believe in yourself. You didn't get to where you are just by being lucky. It took power and that power came from faith and courage. Trust me. And if you don't trust me, then just go back over your own memory and I bet you you're going to find places where you were scared and then after you were done being scared, you got through it and wondered why the hell you were scared at all. Faith. The basis of courage. Take care of yourselves. And I'll see you next Wednesday on WANZOLOGY!!

See ya!!