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Have you ever had to stop and think,
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what is it that I'm doing?
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Why am I doing this?
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Where is this gonna take me?
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Where is this all gonna go?
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How am I gonna end up?
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And sometimes the answers to those questions
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aren't the clearest.
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Sometimes we may never get an answer for it,
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but we still have to learn to move forward
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and keep going no matter what.
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And on today's episode, it's gonna be a little different.
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And I don't have an anime or anything to go over today,
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but I really wanted to cover and convey
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how I got started with this podcast
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and what it means for me to basically keep it up.
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["Taku Liberation"]
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Hey, what's going on, guys?
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My name is Nate,
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and you're listening to the Otaku Liberation,
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a show where we help you break free from the chains
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that are holding you back in your life
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by connecting some biblical principles
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with themes from your favorite anime.
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All right, and without further ado,
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let's get into it.
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So like I said, this week is a little different
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because not a particular anime per se,
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like I normally break down my episodes,
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but this is more or less how the Otaku Liberation came to be
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and how it was birthed more or less.
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And it started, so it started actually earlier this year,
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this is in 2023 when I'm recording this.
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So in January, my church,
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we go through a 21-day fast every year,
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the beginning of every year,
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it kind of helped get us right for the upcoming year
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and essentially just start off right.
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And this year, it was the most intense fast
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I've ever been on ever.
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Like, I mean, it was pretty brutal.
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And what I did was I basically it was all liquid fast.
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So no solid food for 21 whole days
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and only juice, water, protein shakes,
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and lots of soup, lots and lots of soup.
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I was sick of soup at the end of this.
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But of course, while you're doing that,
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also you're praying, it's praying and fasting, right?
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So you're praying constantly in the Word,
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constantly in God's presence
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and just really trying to connect with Him.
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And during this time, I felt like it was the closest
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that I've ever been to God
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and because I've ever been in my faith.
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And like I said before,
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it was the most intense fast I've ever been on.
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So it's no coincidence that those two things correlate,
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right?
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But it was one particular moment during this fast
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that really shined a light on this whole thing
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and kind of gave me the idea
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to essentially create this podcast.
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And during the fast, that's when Blue Lock,
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Blue Lock's first season was airing weekly.
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And I remember there was one particular episode
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where Isagi was trying to get Baro
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to basically work together like an actual teammate
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and not just be Baro.
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And Baro wasn't having it.
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And no matter what happened,
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no matter how much Isagi tried to coerce him,
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and Nagi tried to help,
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Baro just wouldn't listen and the team was suffering for it.
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And actually they ended up getting scored on
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because Baro was being stubborn
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and he got the ball taken from him
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and then the other guy scored.
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And it was in that moment Isagi was sitting there.
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He was like, you know what? Forget it.
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He's like, I need to adapt to him.
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I need to basically recreate myself
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and use Baro in a way that essentially helps me.
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And the reason that that particular incident spoke to me
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really is Isagi as a whole,
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but it was in that moment
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because there's a concept of recreating yourself.
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You know, when what you've been going through,
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what you know as a status quo essentially,
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when it doesn't work out the way you want it to,
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instead of slamming your head against the wall,
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keep trying the same thing over and over and over again,
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you can just take a step back
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and try to change a few things or do what he did
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and just recreate yourself essentially
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and into a different version.
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And the reason why that spoke to me so much
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during the fast and stuff like that
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was because up until that point,
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I've been pretty much doing life my own way,
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the way I thought was right,
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the way I thought I should be doing this,
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I should be doing that.
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You know, I need to do this
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because everyone else is type of thing.
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And it was in that moment,
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it's kind of, I felt like God was speaking to me
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and just like, no, I need you to basically
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break down your old way, which is never gonna work
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and embrace mine.
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And I mean, that spoke volumes to me
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and then, and just here sitting here recording,
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recording talking to you guys about it,
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it speaks volumes now.
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And that, you know, when we try to do things our own way,
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right, in any aspect of life,
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when we try to go against, you know,
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the plan, the purpose that God has for our life,
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we'll find out sometime sooner than later,
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but eventually we all find out that
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that it's just not gonna work,
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it's just not gonna work the way you expected it to.
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And that's in any avenue of life,
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it can be in relationships, business, fitness,
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anything that you name it.
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If we try to do it ourselves and go our own way
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without God, without following his example
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and his leadership,
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then it's just gonna fall flat and blow up in our faces.
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And honestly, now it may not just be as dramatic
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as we think it may be.
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And other times it very well may be that,
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it may just literally blow up in your face
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and you're sitting there like, man, what do I do?
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But anyway, so it was in that moment when I realized,
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and you know, I said, you know what,
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Lord, just take out everything that is me,
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now who I was and really just pour into me.
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And in taking that, right?
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And just taking that mindset, taking that approach,
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it shifted a lot of things for me in my perspective
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and took a lot of weight off my shoulders
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because it's like, you know what?
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No matter what I do, no matter what it is
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that I'm trying to do, I'm just gonna give it to God
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and let him lead me with it, right?
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I'm not gonna try to force anything anymore.
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I'm not going to, you know, just hustle, hustle, hustle,
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grind, grind, grind, grind, grind,
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and for something that it's not gonna work out.
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Cause now I'm not saying to not hustle and grind
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cause we need to, we all had to put it forth
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our own effort in this.
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But the thing is God wants a partner, not a puppet, right?
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So he wants to do this with us, right?
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He wants us to do it with him and not go off on our own
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and not go ahead of him, but to go and step with him.
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And that was something that I didn't really understand
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for the longest time.
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And I'm still understanding more of it each and every day,
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right?
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Cause there's certain aspects that I understand more of
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and I do better with and then not.
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And that's just a part of life and growing up, you know,
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as we get older, we get more mature, wiser,
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things like that.
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So there's a lot of growth and honestly,
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that's actually a good thing.
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It shows that you're one, you're alive, right?
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And you just get to learn new things, right?
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New things about yourself.
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And honestly, that's a beautiful thing,
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at least to me, right?
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You may have a different opinion about it.
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You may have a different experience with it.
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I just know for myself, you know,
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I've learned more about myself the last two,
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maybe three years than I have my entire life, right?
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And again, I'm only 25.
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So I haven't been on earth long at all.
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But again, the last two to three years,
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I've learned more about myself and my,
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and, you know, and of course with my faith
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and things like that,
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and just learn to accept myself,
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which was the biggest thing.
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Accepting all of me, right?
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You know, the anime lover, the video game lover,
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the hard worker at work,
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the loving son, loving brother at home,
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and, you know, and the man of God above all,
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and really trying to figure out how to incorporate
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all of those things into one, right?
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Because again, I don't want to speak for myself,
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but I know a lot of people probably relate to this,
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is that you kind of go through life
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with a bunch of different masks, different hats,
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you know, different titles that we have.
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And eventually we get so good at the compartmentalizing,
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there we go, you know, each aspect of our life
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for a different occasion.
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Like I said, you got the, okay,
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I'm the employee from nine to five, you know, come home.
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And now I'm the husband from, you know,
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5.30 to midnight, something like that, whatever.
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Or I'm the dad during that time from like seven to nine.
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You know, you have these different roles
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that you're trying to fulfill.
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And overall, and then you just feel drained, right?
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You feel drained because you're not fully embracing
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who you are.
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You're embracing parts of it,
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like I do believe all of those things
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are part of who you are as a person.
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But when you have to switch it up every time,
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you just put on this mask or this hat, you know,
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for this person or at this particular time, at this event,
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then all that constant switching,
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and then sometimes you have more than one person around
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who you act different with, you know,
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then you got to switch back and forth during that time too.
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And all that just wears on you.
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It wears on you mentally, spiritually, physically,
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like it just drags you down, drags you through the mud.
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And honestly, what we really need to do is to kind of,
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again, all the work starts inward, right?
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All the self-work starts inward and just really say,
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okay, one, acknowledge the different aspects of your life,
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the different aspects of your personality, of you,
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and find and really sit down with yourself
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and ask how can I incorporate all of these things into one,
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just to be the same person,
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no matter what scenario you're in,
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no matter where you're at, no matter who you are with,
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and especially when you're alone, right?
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Because honestly, our true sales is happening
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when we're alone by ourselves, we're on devices.
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And, you know, whether that's a good or a bad thing,
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I leave it up to you, there's no judgment whatsoever.
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But it really is a reality check
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that's gonna honestly hit you in the mouth
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because that's what it did for me.
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And I think once we at least have an idea,
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now you know how to have it all figured out
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right this moment, but once you have an idea
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of who that all encompassing person is for you,
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the who you are as a whole, then I believe you,
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is when you can start moving forward,
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when you can start moving past, you know,
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moving past your past and be able to,
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essentially just move with a purpose, right?
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And not just kind of mold through life
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and just kind of, you know, going through the emotions.
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But now you can actually have a purpose,
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you can have a direction to go.
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And it just gets easier because, okay, I know who I am.
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So because I am who I am,
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I know there are certain things that I won't do
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and there are certain things that I will do, right?
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And once you have that guideline, that structure,
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then you're sitting pretty at that point
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because you are sitting ahead of,
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I argue to say maybe 80 to 90%
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of everybody else in the world, right?
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Because whether they're too young to understand this
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or whether they're too set in their ways
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because they're older and they don't wanna change,
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they don't wanna take the time to do the work
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and to really explore who they are.
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Or and then maybe someone, they do know,
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they just don't know how to go about it, right?
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And it's all these different things.
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We were all in different areas, different walks of life.
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And one solution is not gonna work for everybody.
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But I do know once you figure that out,
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once you come to terms with all the aspects of your life,
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the good, the bad and the ugly,
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and realize all of that is me, all of that is me,
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all of that is who I am.
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And one, that's awesome
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because then you have the power to change it, right?
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Any negative, bad aspects of yourself
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that you deem as negative, right?
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Not necessarily what everybody else thinks about you,
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but what you think or think is that you wanna change,
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then you can change them, right?
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Because now that you're aware of them,
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you can address them
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and you can take the step necessary to change them.
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And then on the flip side,
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you got areas of your personality of who you are
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that you really love and like,
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and you think everybody's you love and like, right?
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So now you can strengthen those areas.
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You can take steps to really, you know,
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step outside your comfort zone
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and really just get out there, put yourself out there, right?
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And it kind of tied back to the reason
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why I started this podcast, right?
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Is because, you know, hey, I love anime.
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I mean, I seriously love anime.
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Honestly, 99% of the stuff I watch is anime.
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And, you know, is it obsessive?
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Yes, that's why I call this the otaku liberation.
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You know, otaku is you pretty much
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obsess over some type of thing,
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whether it's your hobby or something like that
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and an animes it for me.
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I mean, I honestly don't see a problem with it.
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I'm not hurting anybody.
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Yeah, just good entertainment, something I enjoy
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and something I can talk about all day, right?
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And then I chose to combine that with my faith
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and Christianity with God, because I know on one hand,
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anime has a lot of bad reputation or I know it did in the past,
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before it became really mainstream for, you know,
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a lot of animes have different demons and zombies
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and all type of creatures and stuff like that on it.
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Cause, you know, that's just the story.
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That's my sales, right?
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And for me, you got to come into it with really a mindset
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of, okay, this is entertainment.
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I'm not taking it too seriously.
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I'm not, you know, reading too much into it
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cause it is a story and I'm just, I'm here for the story.
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I'm here to be entertained, right?
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And now I know it's different coming from
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an older mindset, right?
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When you got kids and younger people who are impressionable,
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I do understand, you know, the concerns of, you know,
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parents of guardians of what their minors watch.
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And honestly, I wanted to bring some good, decent,
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you know, biblical principles to this, to a genre,
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to a thing that I just love so much
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because it's beyond just what you see on the surface, right?
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Just like with honestly everything in life,
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with people, you know, stories, you name it.
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There's always something going on beneath the surface.
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Some good, some bad.
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And I want this podcast to highlight the good aspects of it.
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You know, the good aspect of just good storytelling,
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good character development and have things
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that we can apply, you know, to our own lives, right?
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And then from using biblical principles as well,
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cause we can get all the stuff laid out for us in the Bible
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and to see these principles laid out in the Bible
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that are written way before any of our time,
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seeing played out in today, in today's world,
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today's era with, you know, Japanese cartoons.
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I'm like, you know, this is easy.
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This is easy cause what I come to find out,
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this is something I was already doing for myself anyway,
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just looking at different characters,
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kind of analyze and dissecting them and how they, you know,
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how they think, why they do the things that they do,
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why they don't do some of the things that they don't do.
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And just kind of thing like that.
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And when I started my own self or personal growth journey,
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I should say, and really started working,
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really doing my own self work and just looking at how it
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relates to some of the characters that they were going
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through, especially for like longer,
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longer running series and whatnot.
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Cause you actually get to spend time with those characters.
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You get to see them grow and become more than what they were.
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00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:06,120
Right. You see where they started to how they ended up,
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you know, again, my most famous examples is Goku from
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00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:11,520
Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z.
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00:17:11,520 --> 00:17:16,160
You know, if you watch the OG Dragon Ball anime, you know,
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that's when Goku was a child.
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And now here we are in Dragon Ball Super.
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He's a grown man with kids and a grandchild, right.
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And he's, when he was a child, he wasn't,
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he was stronger than most things cause he was an alien,
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but he still pales in comparison to where he's at now.
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00:17:33,560 --> 00:17:38,160
And just that simple example kind of highlights the whole,
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the whole thing, right?
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We were all going through a journey.
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We're all going through this thing we call life, right?
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00:17:42,920 --> 00:17:44,600
You know, we don't know how it's going to end.
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We just know that it will end.
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And I just want to encourage everybody to make the most of
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the time that we have here and not spend so much time being
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paralyzed by our own mind.
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00:17:56,240 --> 00:17:59,720
Cause that honestly, that's pretty much it.
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That's pretty much it.
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That's the biggest thing that is holding us back from doing
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00:18:03,120 --> 00:18:05,560
so much more doing what we were meant to do,
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00:18:05,560 --> 00:18:09,760
doing what, honestly, what we're capable of is because we're
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00:18:09,760 --> 00:18:12,120
too afraid to take that next step,
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00:18:12,120 --> 00:18:15,880
too afraid to trust in the process, right?
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00:18:15,880 --> 00:18:18,640
To trust in, to trust in God, right?
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00:18:18,640 --> 00:18:19,680
Trust in God and the saint.
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Cause he says, he orders our steps, right?
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00:18:22,400 --> 00:18:26,000
He knows what the end is before he even writes the beginning.
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And we just have to trust in him.
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00:18:28,080 --> 00:18:31,680
Okay, we're going to get to this end because, you know,
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he, the one who created everything deemed it so, right?
398
00:18:34,920 --> 00:18:38,640
And, and, and yeah, I know this,
399
00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:41,400
this type of thing is, isn't for everybody.
400
00:18:41,400 --> 00:18:43,720
And that's perfectly fine.
401
00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:45,480
I didn't make this for everybody.
402
00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:46,880
Cause if I made it for everybody,
403
00:18:46,880 --> 00:18:49,080
then it would be for nobody, right?
404
00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:51,000
No one will see it, no one will hear it.
405
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:54,320
But for those who, who, you know,
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00:18:54,320 --> 00:18:57,120
I like me who I know would truly resonate with, you know,
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00:18:57,120 --> 00:18:59,960
us anime lovers out there who also, you know,
408
00:18:59,960 --> 00:19:04,680
who love God more so, but we really love our anime,
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00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:07,080
love our, you know, our manga, our video games,
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00:19:07,080 --> 00:19:10,120
things like that, where, you know, for the longest time,
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00:19:10,120 --> 00:19:13,400
they've been deemed as negative, violent, as, you know,
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00:19:13,400 --> 00:19:15,040
demonic, different things like that.
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00:19:15,040 --> 00:19:17,760
We see a different side of it because we're in it.
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00:19:17,760 --> 00:19:20,800
And this is just a way to kind of correlate the two
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00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:23,320
for those who aren't, who either A,
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00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:26,160
aren't into the anime space or B, aren't, you know,
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00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:27,760
aren't Christians, but you can,
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00:19:27,760 --> 00:19:30,680
you see more than just, you know,
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00:19:32,160 --> 00:19:34,320
you know, say people yelling at you saying,
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00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:36,240
you're all going to go to hell and things like that.
421
00:19:36,240 --> 00:19:39,320
It's like, no, that's not what that side's all about.
422
00:19:39,320 --> 00:19:41,840
And as for anime, it's not all about, you know,
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00:19:41,840 --> 00:19:44,040
demons trying to take souls from people
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00:19:44,040 --> 00:19:45,880
and bring innocent people into world destruction.
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00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:47,720
It's not all about that, right?
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00:19:47,720 --> 00:19:50,640
There is middle ground and there are extremes.
427
00:19:50,640 --> 00:19:54,200
And I'm sure we've, we've all experienced the extremes
428
00:19:54,200 --> 00:19:57,800
and we tend to judge the rest of it
429
00:19:57,800 --> 00:19:59,360
based off of those extremes.
430
00:19:59,360 --> 00:20:03,400
So, yeah, I just want this podcast to be the bridge,
431
00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:04,640
be the bridge between the two,
432
00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:07,400
the two things that I love the most in the world, honestly,
433
00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:09,360
two of the things I love most in the world, honestly.
434
00:20:09,360 --> 00:20:11,000
So love my family, things like that.
435
00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:13,360
So don't take that any type of way.
436
00:20:14,360 --> 00:20:18,480
But, you know, just two things I'm extremely passionate
437
00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:21,160
about and I just wanted to share with the world,
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00:20:21,160 --> 00:20:24,600
share with people who get it, right?
439
00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:28,960
Who get it, who honestly are afraid to express themselves
440
00:20:28,960 --> 00:20:32,600
in such a pure way, in such a way that, you know,
441
00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:35,120
they're worried about being accepted and things like that.
442
00:20:35,120 --> 00:20:36,840
Now, are there some people who are gonna hate it?
443
00:20:36,840 --> 00:20:38,760
Absolutely, because there's a lot of people
444
00:20:38,760 --> 00:20:41,600
in the world out there who just wanna hate,
445
00:20:41,600 --> 00:20:43,320
in all honesty, just wanna hate.
446
00:20:43,320 --> 00:20:46,120
But that's perfectly fine, right?
447
00:20:46,120 --> 00:20:48,240
Because, hey, if they're hating on it,
448
00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:49,560
that means they listen to it.
449
00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:53,240
And they listen to it enough and I do truly believe
450
00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:54,960
that guy's gonna work in their heart
451
00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:58,240
and, you know, get them on the right path.
452
00:20:58,240 --> 00:21:00,080
So anyway, that's it.
453
00:21:00,080 --> 00:21:02,280
I hope you guys didn't mind me rambling a little bit
454
00:21:02,280 --> 00:21:03,960
on today's episode.
455
00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:06,320
So it's a little different, but I promise the next episode,
456
00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:08,200
we're gonna get right back on track.
457
00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:11,840
And I believe next up is, yeah, next up is,
458
00:21:11,840 --> 00:21:15,160
actually, World Trigger, a very underrated anime,
459
00:21:15,160 --> 00:21:16,000
in my opinion.
460
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:19,640
It actually is in my top five favorite series of all time.
461
00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:20,680
I love it that much.
462
00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:24,960
And again, it's really diving deep into the concept of,
463
00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:26,920
you know, camaraderie and, you know,
464
00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:30,480
the power of friendship that a lot of shows
465
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:32,600
or media has a trope of.
466
00:21:32,600 --> 00:21:35,040
But the way they do it is very unique,
467
00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:36,640
at least in my opinion.
468
00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:40,920
And whereas it's not just the power of friendship
469
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:43,200
conquers over evil, but it's how it's applied
470
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:48,080
and how each person within the group contributes to that.
471
00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:51,840
So that's just a little teaser for next episode.
472
00:21:51,840 --> 00:21:53,640
I'm not gonna go too much into it.
473
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:54,960
But anyway, I just want to thank you guys
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00:21:54,960 --> 00:21:56,640
for tuning into today's episode.
475
00:21:56,640 --> 00:21:58,600
And I pray that you got what you needed out of it.
476
00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:01,360
And hopefully you learned something new about yourself.
477
00:22:01,360 --> 00:22:04,040
Feel free to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review.
478
00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:06,680
I would love, love, love to read you guys' review.
479
00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:10,040
And it really helps me improve each and every episode.
480
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:13,520
And always remember, you are the main character of your story
481
00:22:13,520 --> 00:22:16,800
and that story doesn't end until he says so.
482
00:22:16,800 --> 00:22:17,960
All right, be blessed.
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00:22:17,960 --> 00:22:40,560
And I'll see you guys next time.
