Thanks Allan, for this hard hitting post and the older one when you explained how everyone is watching you, strangers friends etc.
I know you must get a bazillion emails, so I am not searching for a response, and perhaps you get mean mail, so I’m sending a nice mail. I just want to say thank you for continuing to spread truth in all your writing and for always encouraging lions.
You remind me of Edmund Campion, a Catholic saint I just studied recently with my 3rd grader son. Long story short, he never let lies simmer even for a few seconds… if someone wrote lies about him or the church, he would issue and print a rebuttal (with a super top secret printing press) immediately. And Edmund never caved on his values, even when he was tortured and the Queen tempted him with riches and power. He was a 1500’s dude that would never wear a mask today. And would not let anyone else wear one either. Same with John Bosco, another saint of a different time, he would pass out flyers of truth if any kind of heresy was being spread. John Bosco is the one that said, “the power of evil men rests on the cowardice of the good.”
How true and relevant, the lives and actions of these saints are still setting an example for us today.
I got your latest book, but admit I haven’t read it yet. One thing I notice lately around here is the micro cultures that exist with mask wearing. One playground or grocery store or farmers market might seem more free than another, or some folks in certain neighborhoods are just more compliant. I am taking mental notes, and it is exciting to see the masks come off when they do, like at the kids’ flag football league. When we observed in the winter season around January, a bunch of players and coaches were still wearing the diaper. Maybe 50/50. Now that we joined the spring league that started in April it seems it’s more 80/20, smiling faces winning. I think we are winning there, but then I go to some playground or church and it’s compliant and disgusting. Sometimes I wonder is there a way to break through to the people in these tougher areas.
I went to my “church” recently with the family and we were maybe part of the 1% free. A lady turned around and told our 6 year old, “you have an amazing singing voice” and I was thinking in my head, “ yes his voice is amazing, but duh lady with a diaper. He can sing beautifully cuz he’s not wearing a diaper. This church suffers cuz you don’t even ‘see and hear’ children anymore. You’ve become a stale hand sanitizer loving group of people who don’t believe in holy water anymore, clinging to your idol of mask science.“
“Church” has been the most difficult place for me to witness all the charades crap. I know I’m not doing enough to change it.
Thanks for living free and spreading truth always.
-Mother of 3
P.S. My kids still talk about those freedom meetings with “Allan the freedom loving guy.”
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I challenge you, friend, to live the life worthy of being repeated by a mother to her 3rd grade son 300 years from now.
Such is the time that we live in. If men do not rise up and fill that role, children will be risen up to do that work.
This time will not pass humanity by.
The only question is whether you will be a leader in this time — a man living this life, just like life was meant to be lived. That is a life that is meant to be emulated.
Because the truth is this:
Your life is being emulated. You may be one of the last men standing. Everyone else has bowed down to the greatest evil. The people who have eyes to see, can see you walking differently than the rest.
You may not even be able to see it. You may only be acting as is natural for you.
There will be a time, in which men like me write about men like you. And those stories will be committed to paper. They will be taught. They will be passed down.
Will I be that writer who gets to tell those stories of this era? I certainly hope so. Will you get to be the man that children 300 years from now learn about? I certainly hope you live that kind of life.
But fame is no goal.
Authenticity, values, courage, being the best you can, these are all more fruitful reasons to act.
Or perhaps being told, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
The remembrance of your life through history is not something you can control.
The part you can control is how your life is lived.
To say it a different way: How people react to you — that you can not control. What you can control is how your life is lived.
Live the best you.
It Is, Of Course, Not Just Men Called To This Work
And it is, of course, not just men called to do this work, but it is especially men who must rise up. Women have largely led through this period and the male truth tellers have largely been silent, which makes them no truth tellers at all, but truth concealers.
Whether You Realize It Or Not, You Are Being Noticed, But That Is Not The Goal Of Action
Somewhere around you there may be a mother, a father, a child pointing to you and saying “That is the way to be.” And that is no detail you are likely to be privy to. No matter how much you believe that you are held in high or poor esteem by others, seldom will you know what people around you really think of you, so such thoughts should not be central to the equation of how you behave.
More importantly, let those words of high esteem be what you can say about your day when you settle for the night, as you truthfully reflect on what came and how you were, as you truthfully reflect on the choices you made.
That examination means more than the examination of others.
You can not live life for others. You can not live life for the impact you hope to have. That phoniness eventually shows. It shows in you eventually being but a shell of who you could have been had you focused your attention in the right place.
There are famous people who are empty inside, and there are famous people who are something very special inside. Fame, influence, and wealth are not the variables. Those come to all types.
Living life focused on your values is a reward all its own, though.
There are times in which destinations matter, in which goals mean everything, and there are times in which the process of getting there means so much.
Life is a process.
All the bad that happens to you, all the good that happens to you can all be used to edify, to build character, to build you. It can also be used frivolously to do the opposite. That is opportunity wasted. Even the worst of your life can be turned to good in your life.
Is This Eternal Optimism?
Am I an eternal optimist? No. Some people choose to live perpetually awful lives. That is not my audience. The people who demand better from the short time on this rock are my audience, and I hope to make the mothers of 300 years from now your audience.
All that is required of any of us is to live life by core values and to do it shamelessly. It does not matter who yells. It does not matter who rejoices. It does not matter who protests, who jeers, who calls you bad names. And it does not matter who cheers you on.
Such behavior can be occasional guide stones for how things are going, perhaps a chance to inspire a little self-reflection, but they deserve little more treatment than that.
You keep doing your best to identify your values, communicate your values, and defend your values.
Do that and you are doing alright.
Fickle friends may sometimes turn on you. Enigmatic enemies may sometimes walk alongside you in support. That does not matter. You stay focussed on what matters.
If you do not know what matters, I can not define that for you. That is part of your work in life.
If You Are Uncertain About What Your Values Are…
If you feel uncertain, the Bible is a great place to identify what matters. Read it — cover to cover the way I do, over and over again. Or read it thematically, or even read it haphazardly. Read it whether you believe what is written there or not. That last sentence is so important. So many people get caught up on their lack of faith and then cut themselves off from the wisdom contained within that book.
If I were someone who wanted to deny a person access to the most potent wisdom available to this era, I would convince those who would otherwise read and study the Bible that they have no business doing so unless their faith is unshakable and perfect. I would convince people that those with doubts should never touch the thing nor interact seriously with the ideas therein.
For several thousand years, some of the greatest people who have ever walked the earth have sacrificed much so that you would one day be able to open those pages and glean wisdom. I used to read it and hear every lie that my 18 or 19 years in the indoctrination machine taught me about those pages. I could not hear the wisdom over the lies. If you are where I was, please get a Bible today for ten bucks on Amazon or for a buck twenty-five at the dollar store.
Get any of them, but King James contains my favorite language. I feel like Shakespeare when I am done with it. Lots of people like more modern translations. There are endless, potentially distracting debates about the best translation. I think it is important to just start somewhere and to just start a habit of reading that most potent text of wisdom that exists.
Please pick up the Bible before you pick up any other source of wisdom. There is no end to the distractions offered you in this era.
Starting Is The Most Important Thing
If you are having a hard time communicating your values, just start with the simplest, tiny thing, and go from there. Challenging the face mask is training wheels for much more. It is a reason I spend so much time on that topic.
Mindset: Your Authority
If you are having a hard time defending your values, just recognize that you, the person acting righteously, have authority over what happens around you. You have authority as well about all that takes place in your life. This is a mindset for approaching life with.
The Work Of An Adult
You can accomplish so much good for yourself and others If you can accept that you, if you seek to be an adult are charged with identifying your boundaries, communicating your boundaries, and defending your boundaries, which is to say that you are charged with identifying your values, communicating your values, and defending your values.
You do that, and you will live a life worth writing about, a life worth being spoken of by parents three centuries from now.
Many Live A Book-Worthy Life, But…
As a writer, people approach me all the time about the book that their life could become. The truth is, we all live interesting lives. Good and bad is always coming at us, every one of us.
But we do not all live lives that mean much. We devalue that which was put into us at birth. We devalue it as if it were our well-paid 24-7 job to devalue it. It is the opposite of a well paid job. Devaluing your life costs you. Devaluing your life morally bankrupts you. Yet, devaluing life with our every step is how so many choose to live.
Living an interesting life means so little. Identifying your values, communicating your values, defending your values — that is a life lived in the stratosphere of human potential.
This Is What Happens Of You Choose To Not Lead In Life
If you do not choose to live that life, if you do not choose to lead in your life and those around you, then others will. And you might not like how it will look. And you would have no one, then, to blame but yourself.
But why even talk about that? Why even entertain the idea that you would not make everything you can of the short time you have?
Moment by moment: identify your values, communicate, your values and defend your values. And as you do that, you, my friend will grow in such powerful, meaningful ways.
In every area of life more is demanded of us. Say no to the nonsense. Push back. Lead. If you do not know how, then the bestselling “Face Masks in One Lesson” (available here) is for you. It is about the face masks but also so much more. If you do not know why, then “Face Masks Hurt Kids” is for you. Signup for the hard hitting daily newsletter at www.RealStevo.com (www.RealStevo.com). Refuse to be enfeebled by the world’s nonsense. You can lead yourself, your family, and the world around you toward better.
