There she is!

Well good evening everyone, not only that's right here in this very room but I just found out today that there are 11 groups now.

We're up to 11 groups that are meeting in other parts of the world right now together not to mention everyone who's listening individually whether you're driving, walking wherever you are right now listening to the porch and being a part of this thing.

We're so glad you're here. My name is Garrett. I get a chance to help out on staff here.

I was at the porch for worth for the last four amazing years so special shout out to my four worth fam. I'm going to be helping out with the Awakened Conference going forward.

If you don't know what Awakened is you should press pause right now and go to Awakened.live. That's not for you right here in the room but if you're online or you're listening Awakened.live it's going to be amazing next May you can check it out.

Let's get started here tonight. Hey are you any of you die hard ready for Christmas already?

I'm offended at all of you. I think Christmas belongs between the day after Thanksgiving and December 31.

I'm just going to I've no I just divided the room terribly but however you feel about the upcoming holiday whether it should be celebrated now or you know when it's proper place just so you know where I stand.

However you however you feel about that one thing is going on right now and it is that little people children are going to be finding out that Santa Claus is actually not real.

And that's very unfortunate for some of you sorry to let you know in this moment I know for some of you this is like your least favorite childhood memory where you found found out that something you thought was so real and so important was actually a myth.

Like it wasn't real some of you had this done really well you have like a gentle parent you know they like sit you down and they're like listen honey we need to tell you something because we love you you know and some people break it to you really really well and then some of you more likely had a know it all classmate whose parents had had that meeting with them and then they come in and just crash your world.

You just crash your world view right there with just no sympathy about it whatsoever but however you found out about it it is never fun it is never fun to believe that something is real that something's worthy of your hope that something is worthy of your trust in your pursuit and then all of a sudden it kind of starts to crash down I had it happened to me nearly recently after I bought my girlfriend now wife a diamond ring to propose one of my friends said hey I bought my wife's diamond ring from the same place and I found out it was fun.

I said oh no Santa Claus is real you better believe it there's no way that you know that and it turned out thankfully that it was actually not true but it shook me you know there's something disorienting and kind of crazy about feeling like oh man the thing I thought was so real is actually a myth and there is a myth in our culture a very well known myth that our society was actually built on and it is this myth that more money equals more happiness.

The truth is that this myth that more money equals more happiness is older than the songs we grew up with our entire society was actually based on this idea that the more happiness you have or the more money you have that your happiness is actually going to increase with it that life liberty and the pursuit of what is a way of life and make no mistake about it we would say that money is intricately tied to happiness and maybe the graph if you could draw it would look a little something like this.

The relationship between these two things would work a little bit like that that the farther you push that way into money the more money you can get the more paycheck you can get that your happiness will climb with it.

And what's interesting is that our society has actually succeeded at that. I mean if you look at the aggregate culture of the United States as it relates to the rest of world history yes there are parts of America that are disadvantaged no not everyone in America seems to have the same fair opportunity that we boast about.

However if you look at the numbers compared to the rest of the world we are in the middle of a 200 year experiment and we are richer than any society that's ever lived have you ever thought about that none of us feel rich we don't seem to feel it you're like where is it I don't have it you know but we're none of us feel it but the truth is.

That at a national level at a societal level we are the richest society in the history of the world however we're also the most depressed.

We're the most disillusioned we're the most disappointed it's as if instead of pushing farther out here farther than any society has ever gone before instead of finding some kind of permanent happiness or contentment all we find is another exhausting goal.

We're the most medicated the most mentally medicated country in the history of the world to the rest of the world America might look like Disneyland but we're the kids who are sad at Disneyland.

Which will show you that not everything that you need psychologically can happen through what you can have materially.

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