Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to imagine the possibilities. My name is Skip Pogue. I have a question. Do you want to make your life better? Do you want to make all things better? Would you like to participate in changing the world? Because I think that's what we're being offered at times, and we don't necessarily see it the way that it's intended. I personally want to make my life better. I just turned 77, so I'm working on 78 years old. I'd like the last years of my life to be the ones that people remember me by and remember the things I did and stood for. So I wanna change. I wanna make my life better. I wanna make your life better. That was the whole point in me starting this podcast. So let's talk about that a little bit. You know, there's things we need to stop doing that we're very good at doing. I've done it, and I'll admit it. We see people, maybe not as educated as we are, or as fortunate as we are, different things, and maybe not to their face, but with other people that we hang around with, we make fun of them. Now, the. The person we're making fun of may not ever know we've done that, but the problem is we know and it affects us. It's a negative to do that. And we have to learn, because I think the making fun part's a learned response. So we have to unlearn that and learn to appreciate everybody on the planet, whether we agree with their politics, their religion, their beliefs in different stuff. It's not up to us to judge people. I remember watching the shack, and one of the things that really impressed me, or impressed was impressed upon me, I guess is a way to say it was. There was a scene in the shack where God took Mack into a cave, and in that cave there was a throne. And Mack said, oh, I guess you're going to sit on the throne and judge me. And God's response was, no, I'm going to let you sit on the throne and judge everybody. Now, Mack didn't know what to say, but he said, it's not my job. And he said, then why do you do it? Think about it a minute. Why do you do it? He said, you judge people every day of your life. You have, you continue to do it. You see people and you judge them based on something that is different for you. So when you do that, you're judgmental. And I've always believed, and I think that the shack kind of proves it. And I think if we really think about it. We can't make ourselves better by tearing other people down. Life just doesn't work like that. It doesn't work. We can't do that. It doesn't make us better. Matter of fact, it makes us less of a person to make fun or light or question somebody's stance on something. You know, if we're having a conversation with somebody and they have a different view than we have, that's okay. What if we all agreed with everything? What fun would that be? Seriously, what fun? I mean, having a good conversation. I have a dear friend of mine, and he and I have these long, drawn out, protracted conversations about anything and everything. And they're fun because it's enlightening. It's a challenge. It's. I will. I have never had a conversation with Glenn that I didn't learn something from him. And I think he would probably tell you the same thing if you ask him that question. Have you ever learned anything from skip? He would probably tell you same thing I just said. Because we can take a subject and break it down and break it down, and then all of a sudden we didn't think we had any common ground. And all of a sudden at some point we realize that we do have common ground, that we are in agreement about certain things, and that's important, that we understand that as humans we have to work not just to make our lives better, but to make all those around us lives better. It's just the way things work on this planet. And we can all learn to get along. We can all learn that. We may not, in fact, agree about a lot of things, but there is commonality. There's common grounds that we will agree on, and those are the important pieces of it, the things we don't agree on. We can talk through it. I'll learn something, you'll learn something. And maybe like Glenn and I do on occasion, we'll get to a point and we just agree we're going to disagree on it. It's not a bad thing, but we don't challenge each other and we're not trying to build other. I'm not trying to build myself up at Glenn's expense and he's not trying to build himself up at my expense. We just agree that we're going to disagree. And that's the way it is. It can't be helped. It's just the way things work. The other thing that we have to pay attention to, and we're probably also all guilty of this at one level or another, is we can't be phobics. We can't fear somebody because of whatever piece of life they've chosen or however they've chosen to live their life, because it's just wrong, you know, it's not our point, it's not our responsibility to judge other people.
[00:05:15] We shouldn't do that. I don't like, and I'm going to do a podcast, probably later on, about putting people in boxes. I don't like to be labeled, and I have been labeled and I've been put in boxes. And the people that label me have no idea who I am or what I believe in.
[00:05:37] They simply label me because of something.
[00:05:41] I'm an old person, I'm a white person. I was born in the south.
[00:05:50] There's probably ten descriptors in there that they will put me in boxes because of that, without knowing me or how I believe or how I think. So we have to be conscious of that, that we're not doing that, we're not grouping people together, we're not putting individuals in boxes because of something that we don't know anything about that person, but because we know one thing about them, we believe that they belong in a box because of that one thing. That's not right, it's not true. I can think of a stronger word, but I can't use that word.
[00:06:27] Like I said, you can't build yourself up by tearing other people down. And if that's what we're trying to do, then we're going about it all wrong, because at the end of the day, we're not going to be any better. Matter of fact, if people then know us, they will truly believe we're worse because of the fact we're doing that. It's okay to be proud, but not arrogant. We can talk about things we've accomplished in our life, but we also need to look at what other people around us have accomplished. And a lot of times that's important. People do things because of their feelings and because of their beliefs, their background, how they grew up, whatever it is. We just have to understand that and work to get along. Because if we don't start getting along, if we don't start doing that, the life that we know is going to change because we're going to become more and more divided, we're going to polarize ourselves, we're going to have fewer individuals that we associate with because we eliminate people we put in these boxes. At one time, I know for a fact I was put in several boxes and this revolved around politics. And ultimately I was. I can't think of the word. I gotta think of the word.
[00:07:50] Ultimately, in an election cycle, I was called deplorable because I have certain basic beliefs that I think are important. But because I had those beliefs, and again, because of my ethnic background and everything else, I got a called deplorable. So did a huge chunk, probably somewhere rough, bordered on 50% of the people. Think about that. Somebody who had a microphone in their hand and actually had people's attention called me and you probably, and a lot of other people deplorable because they wanted to get our attention. They wanted to paint us in a negative way. Well, they got my attention and they, I guess, painted me in a negative way. But that's okay, I realized, and this is something we really have to work on. Well, I don't know if we have to work on it that much or not. If we, if we have a good, healthy, self centered attitude, then it's not an issue. But I knew I wasn't deplorable. I'd been told by numerous people over my lifetime of things I could do and things I would accomplish, and all those came true. And it's like I've told everybody at one time or another that I've known and a lot of people that, that recently I became friends with over the Internet or whatever, that I truly believe that each of us can accomplish remarkable things in our life, and we just have to want to do it. But back to this whole thing about we need to be positive, we need to have to combat these things that are being said and the feeling of possible insecurity, but in wanting to make things better, we have to have a positive attitude. And that's kind of hard to work at. Sometimes when there's people trying to put you down or pull you down, I don't think they put you down as much as these people trying to drag you down into negativity. And if we allow them to do that, they're successful, and we wind up hurting because of that. One of the things, and I've said this in several podcasts, and I'll continue to do it, never stop reading and never stop learning. That will fix a lot of the things I've addressed and will address in the future about us as people. And I think I'm a good example of it, because if you'd have told me that it took me a while to get this podcast up and running, but if you told me, say, three years ago, hey, skip, right after your 77th birthday, you're going to be doing a podcast. You'll become a podcast, and you're going to have to work at it to become successful. It's not going to happen overnight. But if you're willing to work at it and willing to help people, which I am, then at some point you'll realize some success from it. And I truly believe that's what's gonna happen. I think we need to always give 100% of ourselves every day, 100% of what we have available that day. Now, the reason I say it that way is if you're like me, maybe you're not. But if you're like me and you're 77 years old, you may get up one morning and not feel real good. You might not be able to do all the things you wanted to do that day. But if, say, you get up and you're only 80%, but you give 100% of what you've got, then that's as good as you can do that day. And you just have to think about it that way. Back to the positivity or positive attitude that's so important, because negativity will drag us down in a heartbeat if we're listening to things that don't motivate us, that don't pick us up. I don't care if it's gospel music, old time rock and roll. I don't care if it's music that makes you feel good and makes your attitude better, and then it's helping you, you know, baroque, whatever kind of music you enjoy, reggae, whatever it is, if it's good music, not putting people down, not degrading people and things like that, if it's good music has good things, good thoughts, good powerful lyrics and powerful tunes and all that stuff, then, and it's great. I'm all for it, 100%. When we start looking at how we can make things better, we gotta start with one person, and that's us. If we can make ourselves a little bit better one day at a time, just to baby step every day, do something that's. That fulfills something in us, then we will make those around us better. And as they get better, they'll make the people around them better. And like a snowball rolling downhill, it'll get bigger and bigger. Kind of like pay it forward, you know, it's really important that we do that stuff. And if you want to make your life better, then let God in it. Now, I'm not talking about a religion. I'm not talking about you gotta go to church, although some people find that very beneficial. And I'm glad for them. But I'm talking about let God in your life. I'm not talking about letting him in. I'm talking about getting God and holding on to him. Building a personal relationship with Goddesse is something that is ultimately very important. And, you know, I'm not a preacher. I'm not preaching at you, because if you don't believe the same way I do, that's okay, as long as you're okay with me praying that someday you will, because that's what I'm gonna do. But I don't believe in trying to force somebody. It's like putting you in a box to try to force you to believe in God or to build a relationship with God doesn't work. You have to wanna do that yourself. So that's another thing you can do. And I think overall, we've got to just find the things that are pure, positive, and powerful and hang on to those. There's so much we can do as individuals, and there's so much more we can do as human beings that support each other, that ultimately, we will all be able to accomplish remarkable things, things that we didn't think we could do. We can learn new stuff. We can read a book and get inspired by it. I read about a book a week, and several of the books, I usually use a Kindle app to read them, but several of the books were so inspiring to me. I bought a hard cop because I wanted to just be able to pick that book up and read it again and not read it in a Kindle device or listen to it on audible, which I generally do simultaneously. But just pick a book up and read it. And since it's my book, I can highlight text in it, and I can put little book markers in it. So if there's something I'm thinking about or I'm on a downer, I can just reach up, because I'm surrounded by three on two sides now by books at my desk. I can just reach up, pull that book out, open where a bookmarker is. I don't even have to be a special book. It's just one of the books. I don't have anything on my desk that I wouldn't read a dozen times, but pick it up, open it to a bookmarker, and read it, and I'd almost say 99 times out of 100, whatever it says inspires me, and it'll do the same thing for you. So keep learning. Keep reading. Try to give 100% of yourself every day to your job or your family or your friends, and don't get dragged. Don't let people drag you down. Don't let them win, because if they can drag you down and cause you pain, then they win. Don't let them do that. Now, in saying that, there's times that one of your friends or somebody may do that, not intending to do it, and not realizing that maybe you're, the two of you, even if you're friends, may be on different wavelengths that day. I don't know how to say it other than that, but what they say and what you hear may not be the same thing. Their intent may be totally different than what you hear, and it can start dragging you down. The best thing to do in that case, especially if it's a friend, is just talk to them about it. Tell them, say, hey, don't know what brought that on, but let's talk about it. Because what you said hurt me. And I wanna understand where you're coming from. And 99 times out of 100, again, you two will discover that what they said and what their intent or meaning was is two different things. So anyway, just take everything in baby steps and take your time. And I'm here. You know, I'm gonna be releasing a podcast on the first and 15th of the month. That's my plan right now. So you'll hear a new podcast about every two weeks, but on the first and the 15th for sure. So, you know, just hang in there with me, and we're gonna make each other better. I truly believe we can do that for each other. I've got some things in mind that I wanna try later on that maybe fun, and I hope it'll be fun. But anyway, I just. I sat down here with all this on my mind, and I want to talk to you about it. And that's what I'm doing with this podcast. I'm not scripted. I'm not doing anything but sitting down talking about how I feel about stuff. So the. The first thing I want to do right now is I honestly and sincerely want to thank you for taking the time to listen to these podcasts. It, um. It helps me tremendously, means the world to me, and I thank you. I appreciate it. I know you gave up some time. And the second thing is, if you go over to imaginepossibilities, life to the website, there'll be transcripts of the podcast, and there'll also be some other things that just. Just something to make you think about things, you know? And if you've got any questions or comments, there's going to be a place, there's a place to leave those. If you like something, let me know that. If you'd like to see something different or hear something different, let me know what it is. In closing, remember that your future belongs to you. Stay humble, be kind, love deeply, and laugh often. I hope you have a super day, and I pray that God blesses you in a super way. Thanks again. God blessed.
