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Even you can't mess up your own life.
>> Someone said, "Hey, you want a piece of
gum?" And you pulled the piece of gum
and it was a mouse trap. Remember that
prank we used to have? I don't know, I'm
Gen X. We used to have these pranks. It
was look like a fake uh gum pack and you
pull it and it would be like a little
spring trap.
Pop on your finger.
>> Mhm.
>> Remember those?
No.
>> Something like that.
>> Okay. Anyways,
so you're thinking
if I did if I didn't take the the prank
gum, then God would have found another
way to pop my finger. And what I'm
telling you is no, that's not the way to
look at it. No, it's that there was no
way you were ever going to not take the
gum.
>> Mhm.
>> You know what?
>> if you find yourself
>> Do you Do you Do you know three-card
monte? I'm going to take some Advil
right now. I'm getting a little bit of
achy uh
aches and pains. Do Do you know what
three three-card monte is?
>> No.
>> Do you know the shell game?
>> No.
>> I don't know if they really have it
anymore. I think maybe the bunco squad
cleaned it up, but used to have when you
go to Manhattan,
have the con men
out on the on the street corners. They'd
have little folding tables
and they would play either three-card
monte or
uh the shell game. The shell game is
three half shell
uh walnut shells
and a pea, a little dry pea.
They roll the pea around
and uh they hide it under one of the
three shells and they scramble it up and
then you have to track which
shell the pea is under.
And three-card monte is uh
they have three cards, playing cards,
you know, from like a deck of of cards
and you have to follow I think the queen
you're supposed to follow. I don't
remember.
But uh
the same principle that there are three
um choices and they move it around and
you have to track it and then you have
to choose
and that's the game. It's a pretty
simple game.
Okay. So
are you now that I'm describing it do
you you vaguely remember ever seeing
such a thing?
Yes. Yes. Okay. So let me explain
something to you.
Um
that's an absolute scam.
It is not a fair bet.
It's not random.
These guys are street magicians who are
scamming you.
And they they are using prestidigitation
slight of hand
to mislead you.
They know exactly how to misdirect
your eyes
and make you think you know exactly
where the
P is or where the queen is but they are
using their knowledge
of the human
mind
to exactly mislead you
to the option that they want you to
choose.
Now what why do I talk about this?
Because
imagine so how they do the scam is they
hustle you. At first they play it
normal. They don't do any of the slight
of hand
and it's pretty easy to track it if
you're actually watching
and they let you win. You know, it's
it's it's the odds are you're going to
win. If you're if if they're playing
fair and you're watching you're going to
win. So they let you win and then they
say, "Okay, let's let's double down."
And then they start with the
prestidigitation
and then that's how they get you. Now
you shouldn't gamble at all especially
not on the street but
if I were to say to you
um did you lose that bet fair and
square?
Well
you might say might protest and say,
"No, it wasn't fair.
They misled me."
And I would say back to you,
but where where in the rules, so to
speak, does it state
that they have to make it easy for you?
You thought it was easy. Apparently, it
wasn't as easy as you thought.
But you made a bet and you lost the bet.
You just didn't realize how hard it is.
Like when you go to the carnival and you
spend all your tickets trying to knock
down the the milk bottles with the ball
cuz it looks so easy, then you realize
not so easy.
You miss You misjudged the difficulty.
Okay, my point is Why am I saying all
this silliness?
Because
in a certain way,
the way that God runs the world is
>> [laughter]
>> somewhat similar to the three-card monte
game
in that
you are exercising free will.
Like from your perspective, no one's
forcing you. No one's standing over your
shoulder and saying, "Pick that one."
You're free to pick whatever you wish.
It's just that you're you're playing
with someone who knows how your brain
works
and is skilled enough to exactly
orchestrate the options in such a way
where he knows what you're going to
pick. Now,
he knows what you're picking, but he's
not forcing you to pick. You have free
will.
He's not standing over you and forcing
you to pick something you don't want to
pick. You want to pick, but he knows how
to create a situation that is going to
basically make it 100% predictable that
this is what you're going to pick.
So, getting back to our discussion,
you're saying, "If I wouldn't have If I
would have been smarter and I wouldn't
have made that dumb choice, I wouldn't
have saved myself any suffering because
God would have found another way to put
me through the same turmoil. And what
I'm saying is and that is not correct.
Because then you're basically saying
that some aspects of your life are free
are free choice to the extent where it
derails your life from even in in in the
details, it derails your life from from
God's plan. And then there up there
but it also
the way you're saying is but eventually
you know, there's like the comes back to
the
to the default setting and you're not
going to ever get too far away from the
story that God had planned for you. What
I'm saying is no, that's incorrect.
Like literally every single detail down
to the most minute detail down to
the buzzing of subatomic particles like
down to the minutia to the
infinitesimal.
Everything is exactly calculated,
meticulously orchestrated. And yes, you
have free will
and therefore you're accountable for
your choices.
And yet
nothing you do
even on the most microscopic level
causes your life to diverge for even one
moment from the story that God already
had prepared for you.
And so, let's put it very simple.
You were always going to make the
choices that you made.
You were never going to learn the lesson
till you did.
Looking back you said, well now
hindsight is 20/20. Precisely.
You know what you know now.
And it couldn't have been any other way.
So you can stop
you can
I'll put it this way. You know how it's
like futile to to resent other people
and to say, "Oh, you ruined my life. The
day I met you, I ruined the day I met
you because, you know, you messed up
everything and from that day I went off
on the wrong path." Okay. And eventually
you got to give up all your resentments
and realize that human beings don't have
that power. Okay.
What I want to tell you is
the next level is to realize even you
don't have that power.
Even you can't mess up your own life.
Now, you can cause yourself a lot of
pain, but that doesn't mean you messed
it up. Meaning
if that pain was part of your life, then
it was part of your life. And it was a
necessary part of your story.
