Joshua Keith Craft

0:51 You're going to do it with this. Hang on. So you were going to do you were going to do your you were going to you're saying if you wrote the book again. If I was if I'd set out to write the book if I'd set out to write a book. So I kind of took that because you wrote your first book by accident. Yeah. If I'd set out to write a book, this is the book I would write, but I don't want it to be esoteric and where people go, I don't I can't follow you. Right. But it's so because you don't want to be like an intellectual where it's like you just sit around and talk about ideas that aren't actually worth it. I love I love Jordan Peterson, but I can't follow half of what he says. really. Oh, dude. I have to like when I read his books like 12 Rules for Life or even uh Antidote to Chaos or whatever the follow-up is. It was like I don't understand any of this. Huh. I have to read it like five times. I would have thought that would have been like perfect for you, man. So, I know I mean I'm not saying that in a bad way. I like smart as people think I am. Whatever, man. All right. So, look, you said something in our very first episode.

1:45 We're back. Welcome back to The Dialog . Oh, look at you. Wow, that's a great intro, man. But you said something like last time about and I I I'm really curious to pursue this. I'm liking how we're starting this by the way. I think that we hit on something kind of cool like we're everyone just catches us right in the middle of a conversation. Well, if you've ever hung out with Josh, you know that what's great is his internal monologue is nonstop. And so like you can sit down with Josh and just be like, "Hey bro, you want to get a burrito? You know, man, I was thinking about this." And you're like, "So the burrito?" And then like next thing you know you're like because my whole life it's like and it's but I love it. That's what I enjoy about you. We never lack conversational topics, nor do we ever talk about the weather, which, you know, I don't like polite conversation. But you said something on the We live in Texas, too, so it's just always hot. I didn't grow up talking about the weather where I'm from. You know what's funny, though? In England, the weather's always bad, but they talk about it non-stop, so it's kind of, you know, I lived there for 9 years.

2:35 Yeah. They're just different, man. Yeah. Well, I married the best one anyways. Yeah. Took her took her took her to America, made her a citizen. Ah, anyways, but you said something on the last on on episode on our first episode, man, when you talked about how you think happiness is a worthwhile goal. And man, maybe it was just the timing of that comment, but I was thinking about this today, man. Because, okay, we've got, you know, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is in our constitution, right? That all men like are created equal and are entitled like by their creator. Yeah. The Declaration of the Declaration of Independence. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Not the Constitution. Yeah. But like this this is like they're looking at certain inalienable inalienable rights and this is like you that are given to them by God, right? That's philosophy. That's what makes the that's one of the things that makes the Declaration of uh independence so unique. Yes. Is that it says your rights aren't granted to you by the government or by the king. Your rights are given to you by God and it's the government's job to reinforce those rights which is such an interesting concept you know.

3:29 Yeah. But but I mean that yeah that that it's structured in a completely different way because I think you were the first person that told me that like all countries are usually found by one person or one family rising to power and then kind of forcing Yeah. I didn't say that but I appreciate that you is that just think that I'm like a really I I I don't know but yes no because whoever said that whoever told you that Sure. I just put everything down to either Musonius Rufus or you. Okay. Or Garrett or No. Yeah. That's it. I've only got three people in my head going. Uh, no, no, but but so you said this and you referenced this on the last episode about you said, "Is happiness a worthwhile pursuit?" And you're like, "I think it is." Well, I'm kind of curious to explore whether that's actually true because and like we said, we want to explore things and potentially be wrong because here's here's I was thinking about this today. So, this is not the let me give you my life story podcast, but we're going to obviously share things from our experience. I was depressed for six years.

4:21 Yeah. And like heavily depressed, I would say, for at least two to three of those. And when I say heavily depressed, if anybody out there has experienced depression where you just feel numb to everything and you just don't get excited for anything, it's the weirdest thing and every day feels the same and you just, man, it's awful. Okay, but you know what? I was so wanted so bad whenever I was depressed to be happy. And you know what would have made me happy? Figuring out what I what would really make me happy. And you know what was just so consistent in that period of my life was that I was so focused on myself. And ironically, or I don't know, it's not ironic, that's the wrong use of the word, but uh paradoxically, what's true is that you actually find more joy from giving and serving others than you do from trying to serve yourself, right? Like that that was what got me out when I stopped being obsessed with my self-happiness and trying to like cuz what I didn't realize was my governor was my my feelings. So, what's gonna make me happy now? Well, drinking six pints of that is gonna make me feel great.

5:16 And it was true and I felt great until I didn't, right? And and it was it's this foolish loop that you get into. So is so that I I actually am curious to hear your thoughts like is happiness actually a worthwhile goal? Well, I think what's so interesting is is I mean maybe there are people that are very uh controversial or just uh contradictory that that consider that. But most people like the average person never thinks whether or not happy happiness is a worthy goal. They just want to be happy. Right. Right. You don't you don't sit there and go, "Well, is that really the right thing?" So, I feel like there's some kind of thing within us that pursues, you know, we use the word happiness, right? You know, uh there's a lot of different ways that that can be defined and that's often the problem. So, like Buddha Buddha talked about how really at the root of all unhappiness is uh selfishness.

6:12 Right. Right. So, that wasn't just my experience. No, I mean at and it's true. True. I mean, at the root of being an unhappy person is you thinking that you should have something that you don't have, right? So all of So Buddha talked about how all of life is suffering, right? But he didn't use the word suffering. The suffering, the word that he actually used was dissatisfaction, right? So all of life is filled with dissatisfaction, right? Is one of what's called the four noble truths of Buddhism. And so um then he goes on to define dissatisfaction. And dissatisfaction is just really simply wanting things you can't just go get, right? Or it's wanting things you can't control to go a certain way, right? You know, and um that's that's a dynamic that we all live with. And so I think that the the discussion on happiness isn't as much about um whether or not happiness is a worthy goal, it's whether or not we have the right definition of happiness.

7:11 Okay. Right. Like like so for instance Aristotle in his writing he talks about there's a difference between what he calls limited goods and unlimited goods. So limited goods are limited and they're also limited in how good they are for us. So money is a limited good. So money there's a limit there's only a certain amount of money in the world. Money is not infinite. Um money is a tool. Money is a resource. Uh so the so the question to ask with happiness is why do I want to be happy right? So we don't so this is what Aristotle would talk about to go back to limited goods as as we like consider that question. So money is a limited good in that um it's limited so for you to have more someone else kind of technically has to have less.

8:04 Well if you're in the US you just print more. Yeah. Well you know we're we're trying that. How's that working out? So, uh, it's limited in that it's not always good for you in massive quantities, right? Like food is that way, desserts that way, uh, uh, there's all kinds of different things that we could throw out that are limited goods. So, a limited good is uh different in than than unlimited good. So, happiness, how you and I define happiness can be either limited or unlimited. Okay? Right? So, we don't want happiness like we want money, right? We want money not because money is amazing. We don't just have like I mean, you know, again, there's always maybe one person in the world who's like really into money, right?

8:56 And like just have like they're like Scrooge McDuck. They don't spend it. They just they swim in it. Swim in it. But really, we want money because of what money can do for us, right? Okay. So money is a limited good in that uh it's a tool, a resource that leads to something that we think is good. Yeah. Right. Right. Okay. I I think I see where you're going. So the reason we want happiness though, right, the reason why we want something called happiness is for the sake of itself. So that's how you know something is like an unlimited good. that when you have an you you can have an unlimited amount of happiness because happiness in itself is a goal right so a limited good is and there's a whole long I'm not just trying to be confusing I want to simplify it so money is good in that it leads to the things that we think are good it's a it's a tool between us having what we don't want or us not having what we want and us getting what we want. Right.

10:00 The problem arises with money. When we turn money into the goal, right? So when we turn money into happiness, right? Right. Um there's the, you know, the Bible talks about that. It's not, you know, you can hear preachers talk about all that stuff. It's not uh money is not evil. It's the love of money that's the root of all evil. Well, why is that evil in a philosophical way? We can understand why it's evil in a biblical way. idol, idolatry, all that greed, all that stuff. But in a philosophical way, why is that? Why is it bad to like let's say love money? Um because money is not you can accumulate as much of it as possible, but that doesn't mean that you are going to feel any better, right? So like limited goods work that way. They're only good for you. They're they they are limited in how good they actually are for you and how good they can actually make you feel. Like, you know, you talked a second ago about, you know, you think, okay, I'm depressed. I'm going to go drink.

11:01 Yeah. And you just keep, you know, people that do that, they don't ever get undepressed. They just drink more. They Yeah. They just feel better for a time. That's exactly right. They start to live a life, and we've known I I've known people like this on a level. You've kind of had this experience yourself, but we live in a world where like people are this way. They just are they now they don't stay in a constant state of drunkenness, but then every day of their life becomes I've got to get my next drink. Yeah. And maybe they're chemically addicted to alcohol, but even beyond being chemically addicted to alcohol, drinking is the only thing that makes them feel good or numbs the pain or whatever. It's like, no, it it begins to become the thing where every time you do something, you want to have a drink with it because the drink will make it better. And where I found is I got to the point where I was like, what what do I think is fun? And it was always drinking. And I was like, you know what? I'm actually probably the least fun person in the world. Even though I was a really fun drunk, it was like I was the least fun person in the world because it's like I had if I didn't have a drink, I I didn't really know what to do. Like my wife was never into drinking. So when it was like, "Let's go hang out." I was like, "Oh, she doesn't want to do the stuff I want to do."

12:05 Yeah. And it's like what do you want to do? I want to drink. Well, what else? That's it. Uh and and how boring is that? Yeah. So yeah, but that but I and that's like from a if I zoom out on that that became the thing that numbed my pain and also brought me the feelings that I so desperately wanted to quote unquote feel happy and in the end it actually robbed me of any potential uh I became a like dependent on it for the very feeling that I was trying to pursue to the point that I I forgot what I was pursuing. Yeah. And that and that leads to a whole other thing that like feeling happy is not a bad thing. Yeah. But feeling happy is not the goal. Okay. So then So okay, this is what I mean. So is it a feeling or is like contented a good word? So that's what I'm saying. The problem the problem arises in like the definition. Okay. So So if you ask the question to go back to the question I asked a second ago, if you ask the question, why do I want to be happy?

13:01 Yeah. Right. Then you eventually go, you know, what is happiness? What does it mean for me to be happy? And the thing that we know is that that like things like pleasure and fame and all that, you reach the end of that. I mean, you see people that are massively successful, uh, massively famous, have every, you know, Solomon, you can read the book of Ecclesiastes. People ask me a lot of times, where should I get started in philosophy? You should start by reading the book of Ecclesiastes. Wild book. I can't believe it made it in the Bible. you see and we think it's Solomon. No one really knows. Someone's going to be like, "Hey, stop." We don't know if it was Solomon. Like it's like mostly people think it's Solomon. But this person, okay, experienced everything that they ever wanted and they get to the end of their life and they're like, "All this is meaningless." And a lot of people think that's like nihilism that he's just given up on life. But for me, he he ends the the book of Ecclesiastes by saying at the conclusion of everything, nothing is better than to just eat, drink, and and be married just to enjoy your life every day, right? And what a lot of people do is they chase feeling good, right? They chase pleasure. And Aristotle compares this to um he says it this way. He says, "It would be absurd if the end were amusement. And if trouble and hardship throughout life would be all for the sake of amusing oneself, it would be stupid and childish to work hard and sweat just for childish amusement.

14:33 Huh? So, so he compares Aristotle compares feeling happy to being amused. Like there's nothing wrong with being amused. There's nothing wrong with being entertained. But if we define happiness in a way that's just about feeling good, then what we end up doing is living our life like a little kid. Right. So, okay, that's a really interesting distinction there because I think I think even just getting to the question like you asked the question, why do you want to be happy? I'm sitting here trying to think of like a great answer. You know what the answer that comes to my mind that I'm guessing a lot of people listening to this have as well is like well the opposite really sucks, you know? I mean, like being miserable is awful. So, like I don't want that. So, that's why I want to be happy. But like it sounds to me like you're kind of more talking about a place where you can be grateful for the life that you have and content. Yeah. I mean, it's like Buddha, right? What's the cause of our unhappiness in life? Um, uh, all all through history, we we we're unhappy. We have unhappiness. So, like back to what we were saying, um, I'm not ever I'm not really questioning whether or not happiness is a worthy goal. I think that it's just what what we were born to desire, right?

15:44 Interesting. There's this innate thing within each person to be happy and they use maybe a different word meaning fulfillment whatever but they want to they want to ultimately have a life that is in some way satisfactory right in some way like I've I've experienced things or I've done things or I feel a certain way about however however they would they would uh particularly as an individual define that. Yeah. Right. So the fact that we don't ever consider whether or not happiness is a worthy goal just shows to me how important it is to each one of us. Right? And so so if that if that goal is so important, right? Wouldn't it be also important for us to really have a very clear definition of what happiness actually is. Right. Right. For us to say, okay, like what does it mean? What does it mean for me to be happy? What does it mean for me to have a happy life? And these are the kind of conversations that uh like philosophers have, right?

16:44 Yeah. But so how do you rectify that, man? So obviously follower of Jesus, Bible- based. How do you rectify that? Because what I grew up hearing, you know, in Christianity is like, I don't want to be happy, I'm going to be joyful, right? And that was like the that was like the good answer for if you were like a real true Christian. And then I sit there and so I'm listening to us talk about happiness. And I think it's a really interesting statement for you to say that you think we're innately wired because if we're innately wired, where's that come from? Obviously from God. And and like I don't want to be the guy that like pulls out the one, you know, the one exception because I could probably argue against myself, but I think about people like Jeremiah who's like, "Oh, your wife's going to die. You're not allowed to mourn her. Oh, you're going to go get like lay on your side for 390 days. Then you're going to get beat up and thrown in prison, but don't worry, I'll be with you." Or like the Apostle Paul or all of the disciples, you know what I mean? Jesus, he was a man of many sorrows, right? Like these are the things that are written. And so like how do you rectify that with with what we're talking about?

17:39 Um well, there's a for for everything that exists, there's a high there's a highest function for that. Okay? Right? Uh like a knife, right? A knife a knife has a highest function as a as a as a cutting instrument. like a um unless it's a butter knife. Uh yeah. I mean, but there's but there's a better form of a knife than a butter knife, right? For sure. Yeah. So, there's a highest form of that. It's the It's the knife that cuts the best horses have their ultimate expression in like a racehorse. Like when a horse is I don't I'm not into uh horse racing, but like people are really into it. They're like, "Wow, that horse is beautiful, right?" And what makes a horse beautiful is its ability to just be athletic and do do horarsseness. Like there's supreme horarsseness, right?

18:30 Supreme horses within a horse. So the ancient Greeks called this arete, right? They called it virtue. They called it excellence. Isn't that uh Erwin McManus thing? Doesn't he do arete or something? No, that's um Andy Frisella. Okay. And uh Oh yeah. Ed Mylett and those guys. arete Syndicate. Okay. So So the ancient Greeks called this arete, which means excellence. So everything in the ancient world had arete. So when you looked at a beautiful building like a beautiful government building or a cathedral it was like oh that building has arete it has it has excellence within it that building represents the ultimate uh the ultimate buildingness of what a building is that horse is the ultimate representation of a horse that that cobbler that person that makes shoes they can make the best shoe we've ever seen right there's arete within that so then these philosophers started to think about what's the arete of a person like what is it to the what does it mean to reach the ultimate pinnacle of being uh being a person in terms of living out your best life?

19:32 Man, that's a question. Right. Yeah. And so that's where Aristotle landed. Aristotle landed on this idea that everyone wants to be happy, but the problem arises in our definition of happiness. Right. Right. And so we talked about this some last episode, but we talked about truth. And we'll get into truth on this podcast, but there are some things that are always right, always good, and always true, right? These in the ancient world are called virtues, right? And things that are virtues are like always right, always good, always true. And so what what Aristotle called happiness uh is this word eudaimon, eudaimonia in the Greek it means human flourishing is when a person can by reason live in accordance with virtue. Right?

20:22 So when a person puts themselves in a position where they're living every day of their life. So to go back to last podcast if you didn't listen to it we talked about philosophy. The definition of philosophy, really simple, is just your criteria for making decisions every day. When your decisions every day that you're making are in accordance with things that are always right, always good, always true, that's happiness. That's good. So, so Christians use the word joy and the word joy is um you know and again a word like happiness has a certain meaning in our culture that that it it means different things in different parts of the world like happiness in Africa there's there's probably a hundred words for that in Russia all over the world so when we mostly in America define happiness whether that's in the American church or just in the western world we're talking about feeling happy yeah Right? So when Christians go, "Okay, I'm not a happy person. I'm a joyful person." They're trying to access this virtuous definition of happiness.

21:22 That's happiness is not uh a a uh happiness is a byproduct. It's not the end goal. Right. Right. So fe and because most people again the definition of happiness is feeling good. Like I'm happy whenever I got what I you know a big paycheck or whatever. I'm I'm happy when I won the game. I'm happy when I get paid the most. I'm happy whenever my kids are not frustrating. I'm I'm I'm happy whenever, you know, nothing bad happened in my life. If the absence of problems and everything goes your way, you're happy. Which which uh is what you're looking for when you're sitting there being depressed like you're looking for all these external things to go a certain way otherwise I'm not going to be happy. Yeah. So, um, what you put yourself in a position to do, there's only certain things we can control in life, right?

22:15 So, I feel like what I put myself in a position to do when I base happiness on feelings is I require everyone else around me to be what I need them to be or every other situation that I can't control to go a certain way. Otherwise, I'm not going to have a good life. Yeah. And that's such a powerless way to live, right? So Christians use this term joy and joy is the joy is this is biblical joy. It's such an interesting concept because joy is the knowledge. Now I'm paraphrase this definition because we're just sitting here having a podcast. I don't have like you know someone's going to go according to this Bible dictionary. Okay. I thought you think in Greek, bro. What's wrong with you? Joy is the knowledge that everything's working out for my good. Right. Okay. So, when I'm a joyful person, I love that.

23:09 What that means is not that my life's not heavy, not that I'm not in a struggle, not that things aren't going amazing right now, or not that everything's going amazing right now. What joy is is it's knowing that all the things I can't control are working out for my good. Why is that so important? It's massive. The reason why that's so important to me is because the problem that most of us have don't control what we can control very well, right? So, we allow Yeah. all of the things that we can't control to influence us negatively and positively in an insane amount. Oh, yeah. Like, Right. So, like it's called watching the news, bro. I mean, I'm in like, you know, we're we're recording this. It's football season in America and uh everyone here plays fantasy football, right? Yeah. A lot of people do. So, I'm helping I'm helping my wife Courtney with with her fantasy football team this year. And uh people's happiness for the week is based on if their pretend football team on the internet got a victory.

24:10 Yeah, man. Right. It's like, "Oh, man. This is awful. I'm having such a bad time." It's like, "Dude, it's a it's a bunch of ones and zeros on a screen, man." That Yeah. None of those people even know you exist and they don't actually play for your team. But do you think it's the illusion of control that people have? Like they think if they can somehow get the right guys, they're going to win the whole thing. I think I think generally in life people think they can control a lot more than they can. Yeah. You know, I think that uh at the end of the day there's only the Stoics did this, you know, the Stoics landed on this. At the end of the day, there's only three things that we can control, right? We can control our thoughts, our attitudes, and our actions. So what they believed was that everything they couldn't control, so back to the logos concept that we talked about last time, everything that they couldn't control was working out in a reasonable and logical way. And that was always best.

25:02 So if you're a philosopher, things that are logical are always best. Right? One of the ways I say it is uh if you want to guarantee making a bad decision, make a decision based on your feelings. Right? And all of us that have made decisions based on their feelings, me included, know exactly what that's like. Yep. Like when I get upset and I fly off at the handle and I say a bunch of stuff I shouldn't have said, I always come back and regret that later or whatever. You know, people get all upset at their job. They quit their job. They don't have any other job lined up. They're they walk out of the office good for a moment. Three hours later, they're like, "What have I done to myself?" Right? So, we all know that experience. So, if you want to make good decisions, don't make decisions based on your feelings. Right. Right. So, so back to what I was saying, the ancient philosophers believed that the best the best way to live was in a logical and reasonable way and in accordance with reason because the universe was going to work out that way anyway.

25:57 And that was always the best outcome for us. The best outcome for us was everything going towards logic. So, um, scripture comes along in Romans chapter 8 verse 28. If you're a Christian, you're listening to this, you know this to be true. Romans 8:28 says, "God causes all things to work together for our good, for the good of those that love God and are called according to his purpose." That's a thought from stoicism that Paul included in the Bible. Yeah. Um that thought didn't originate with Paul. That thought that thought originated in Stoicism, but actually it originated with Heraclitus hundreds of years before stoicism showed up on the scene. And uh so I'll I kind of alluded to this last time, so I'll like kind of finish this. So this idea of the logos, right? this universe, this logic that governs the universe. It's in John chapter 1. John chapter one says, "In the beginning was the word and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and the word was God and the word was with God and all that." And the word is basically Jesus. Right.

26:54 So, the way I heard that taught all growing up was that the the word word meant Bible, right? Yeah. Right. In the beginning was the Bible and that was how preachers would preach it. Yeah. Um the word John uses there in capital letters is the Greek word logos. and he's talking to an audience that understands this concept right that was very popular at the time that in the beginning was the logos. So the universe was governed by reason and logic and that became a person and that concept became a person in the person of Jesus. So logic and reason and truth Jesus said himself I'm the way the truth and the life became a person and we should live. So, I've always had this thought like Jesus said, "I'm the truth." How can a person be truth? I mean, I know he's not just a person. I know he's God. But how can a person be truth? Well, in a simple, practical way, it's because living like Jesus represents the most truthful, beneficial, and best way to live.

27:52 Right. That's so interesting because in verse 29 following verse Romans 8:28, he tells us what good is. He says, "Those he loved he foreknew. Those he foreknew he predestined to be conformed into the image of Christ." Yeah, that makes sense now. Yeah. And so there's a lot of meat on the bone there that we'll talk about, you know, in all of our conversations. But back to what I was saying. So what what what God is trying to get us to understand or what the universe is trying to get us to understand wherever we are in our faith journey. Don't say the universe. What source I like when people say source now. A lot of people say source. Is that what they say? Source is trying to teach us. Yeah. It's very new age. So anyway, I heard that everything that you can't control, right? Whether you're a stoic philosopher or a Christian, is going to work out for your good? Why don't more things in our life work out for good then?

28:46 Right. Yeah. And the reason why, this is what I've landed on so far, I don't have all the answers you, but this is what in my experience, this seems to be true. The reason why more things don't work out for my good is not because of all the things I can't control. It's because I don't control what I can control very well. I don't control I get in a tough situation. I don't control my thinking very well. My thinking goes sideways. Well, then what happens next? My attitude goes side sideways, which is my approach to life. And then all of a sudden, I start making dumb decisions. Yeah. And it's like I read this story recently of uh it happened in 2019, but I read it recently. There was a guy who's an electrician in Austin in Texas where we live and he got fired from his job and uh maybe he was wrongfully terminated. Who knows? He got he came back and he threatened to kill the people that worked at the company and he got arrested and uh put in jail on like a $5,000 bond and was charged with making terroristic threats which could lead to up to 10 years of jail time.

29:47 Geez. Okay. I understand the difficulty of getting fired. Right. Right? It's hard. It's tough. You can't control that. Can't control if he got fired or not. His life wasn't going to be that bad cuz he got fired. Cuz he could have controlled what he could control really well. This guy's greatest problem was that he didn't control himself very well and created a whole another level of issues. So what happens to us is we have a negative thing that happens that we feel negatively about. It sends our thoughts south. It sends our attitudes south. Then we make bad decisions and we just snowball that keep snowballing that down to where then we prevent all the things that could work out for our best for our good from working out for our good because we're actively working against that. So how do you stop actively working against that? Like I know we're talking about happiness and stuff. So how do I create happiness? Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

30:38 How do I how do I formulate happiness in my daily approach to life? Yeah. How do I control everything to be happy? Yeah. I have to make sure number one that I'm not focused on externals at all. Right. As and that's a lifelong uh pursuit. That's a that's the one of the deepest challenges ever. Yeah. Because we have five senses there. We have five senses. We have external stimuli hitting us all the time. It is why it's it's why life is a journey. It's not a destination. It's like hey Aerosmith said that it's beautiful. Every day is another uh opportunity for us to practice. Yeah. living out this philosophy and saying, "Okay, I'm not going to focus on what I can't control." But then the second thing that you can do is go, "I'm going to control what I can control to the best of my ability. I'm going to control my thinking in a way that's virtuous." So, back to what Aristotle said. So, how do I have a happy life? How do I have happy thoughts? The way I have happy thoughts is I think according to what's always right, always good, always true. The Bible tells us to do this.

31:39 Yeah. Right. Yeah. Whatever is good. Yeah. Whatever you think, think on these things. Yeah. Think on these things. So, scripture tells us to do that. Philosophy tells us to do that. Therapists tell us to do that. So, whoever you want to listen to, listen to somebody. They're all listen to somebody. They're all saying the same thing because this stuff is just true. So, I have to put myself in a position where I'm thinking in accordance with virtue. Then, I have to have a certain attitude in accordance with virtue. We'll talk about attitude another time. But then I have to do things which Aristotle said is the highest form of of the arete of humans. Man, the highest form of humanity, the most happy, the most happy person is the person who does everything that they can in accordance with things that are always right, always good, and always true. I've seen this to be true in my own life. I'll give you a really like simple example. Um there's been one of the things I've learned from my dad is uh whenever you feel like you're going through a hard time to be generous, you know, and uh I've had people I I've seen this phenomenon. It's so interesting. I really don't fully understand it, but I experience it. So, it must be real in some way.

32:47 Um I've had people like take things from me, steal things from me, take advantage of me. And what I've decided to do is see that as me being generous, right? I'm not saying I just get taken advantage of all the time, but all of us are going to experience people doing taking more than they should from us or Yeah. taking I've just decided that you know what that's happening and that's happening because I'm a generous person and whenever I do that I feel better about what's happening. Right. It's I don't feel 100% better. Like it doesn't just fix the problem. But it's like you said, I mean getting your focus not on you Yeah. is what helped you take the journey. Yeah. And so it's not about whether or not happiness is a worthwhile goal. Although, you know, other people might say happiness maybe is or isn't a worthwhile goal. We're all trying to pursue some form of happiness. It's just about making sure that our definition of happiness is in alignment again with virtue.

33:42 And I love that you said that because combine that now with the the definition you gave of joy, which is to that you have a confidence that all things are working for your good. the knowledge that everything's going to work out for my good. Now you've just literally solved for the controllables and the uncontrollables. I've never heard that before, but I love that. I'm going to do the responsible thing, package it up, say I said it, and you know, you know, this is my last episode. Great. Thanks for having me on. No, no, but I think that's so that's the right to me historically, biblically, all the things I know to be true, that's the right definition of happiness is saying, "Okay, I'm number two there's two uh keys to it." And we can end here on this episode. Uh the first thing is this biblical idea of joy which you can go read about and learn about. It's the knowledge and the understanding that everything's working out for your good. But then the second thing is making sure that everything that you can control.

34:37 Yeah. So it's the knowledge and the understanding that everything you can't control is working out for your good. Aka God's in control. But it's also your ability, discipline, effort as it relates to making sure that everything that you can control works out for your good, too. Man, I think you just summed up what Garrett says all the time about God is sovereign, man is responsible. Yeah. So wonderfully. Well, he summed it up better because his his definition is shorter than mine, but that doesn't make it better. He just he's captain concise. But dude, I love that, man. And this is what I love about doing this with you and this dialogue is we come to a place at the end where I'm like, man, this has put things in a whole new light. And like I don't know if you've ever put this all together in your own internal monologue, but I if you have, thanks for letting me in and everybody else as well. Thanks, man. I'm privileged to do it. Well, let's talk again soon. All right. Thank you for listening to The Dialog. Make sure to like, share, and subscribe. And also, if you think someone else would enjoy this, please send it to them. If you want to get in touch or learn more about me, what I think, speak, and write, you can go to joshuacraft.com.

35:42 Or you can also follow Nick and I on Instagram. Our handles are in the show notes. We'll see you next time.