[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome in to Think Deeper podcast. Jack Wilkie here, joined by Joe Wilkie and Will Harab, presented by Focus Press. I always forget to say presented by Focus Press, but we are presented by Focus Press. You can check us out over
[email protected] you can support us there. You can join our patreon there. Go check out focuspress.org you can buy
[00:00:25] Speaker C: one of Jack's dozen books that he's written.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: That's right, another one, another devo book is wrapped and will be coming soon. So if you're doing the Closer Walk series, be keeping an eye out for volume five. Joe and I churn those out. 90 day DeVos are brand new one coming. So Will's exactly right. All those books are available
[email protected] as well. But we have an episode, a timely episode this week for the graduates. For young people, high school, college, finding their way in life, entering the real world, that's something that Joe and Will dealt with a little bit on Godly Young Men podcast. I wrote something about it and they're like, well, we're all thinking about it. Let's, let's sit down and have a think deeper about it.
[00:01:06] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, this is one of those very exciting times for young people. So we, you know, at Chick Fil A, we have a lot of young people that work for us. And there's just a buzz in the air, of course, with summer coming around. But a lot of our high school seniors are, you know, you know, torn colleges and most of them have picked out colleges at this point. And yeah, it's just an exciting time. I remember it pretty well. Obviously I'm a lot, a lot closer to the source on that than you two guys, so. But I think Jack was last.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: It was literally now over half my life ago. So, yeah, I'm feeling it. Well, 20 year high school anniversary, my class reunion is gonna say, you go
[00:01:46] Speaker C: to your high school right here.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was wondering.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that was 20 years. Yeah.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Valedictorian, class clown, most likely to be on podcast with two goofballs and all that.
[00:01:56] Speaker C: No, but what I was gonna say was I remember the kind of the uncertain, the feelings of uncertainty, the feelings of like, man, what all is gonna change and what's unique. I'm sure one of us was gonna get into this here shortly. All three of us had a unique college experience.
Did not do the tr. Certainly not the traditional college route. And so, yeah, we've got some thoughts on that. If you are a rare crossover listener to Our Golly Amen podcast that Joe and I do.
We might cover some of the same territory regarding the quote unquote college experience in this episode. But yeah, we generally just kind of want to discuss the life after graduation for high schoolers, for graduates. If you're somebody listening, you're like, well, I'm not either one of those things. I'm 45 years old or whatever it is, don't turn it off. Obviously this will still be applicable, especially if you have kids, grandkids, but hopefully it'll just be good discussion for you to enjoy. So any introductory thoughts from you, Mr. Joe?
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean we enjoyed ours on godly young men quite a bit digging into it because anytime you can take a baseball bat to certain things like the college experience, quote unquote, it's always fun too. So when you said, hey, let's do a second one, I thought, great, I'll sign up, we'll do that. But again, we want to get into more than just taking a baseball bat to the college lifestyle. We do want to give some advice. We do want to talk about the things that maybe we wish we had heard back then. Some things that might be unique specifically to graduates in 2026.
We live in crazy times. I was looking up just regular advice that you get these days in the top several hits on, on Google and a lot of them mentioned the uncertain times, quote, unquote. We live in very uncertain times. I think that's a factor in the discussion as well. We want to get into that a little bit more as to. We were talking off, off air about like Gen X is pretty certain Gen Z. It's not a Gen Alpha really. And is what Gen Z, I guess Gen Alpha is coming up not too long here where they're going to start graduating and that's really uncertain. They're coming into a world that's just a lot different than it was back then. And I think that plays a role into some of the advice that's given. And so we hope this is across the spectrum. It's helpful for everybody. But I think there's a lot of different angles to get into.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: I want to talk about that to start with. Is it more uncertain right now for young people than it was, you know, way back in the black and white days when I was graduating high school? Or let's see, Joe, when you were 10.
Well, 10, 15 years ago, you know, you guys, 16 years ago. Yeah, yeah, something like that.
But you know, people in the 90s, 80s, obviously there's things we weren't alive for. But do you feel it is more uncertain that that is a talking point you hear, but is it or is it not?
[00:04:21] Speaker C: I'll go first here.
I do think it is more uncertain because I think it's one of those where the options seem to have multiplied exponentially. And so it's kind of paralysis by over analysis. Like I have so many options and so there's an uncertainty with that. I also think with the, with inflation and with making a living being more difficult and kind of just prices going up and honestly, again, just kind of the path is not as clear. I think is maybe the best way that I can put that. I feel like a couple decades ago path was pretty clear. I'll go to a four year school, I'll get a solid degree in X, Y or Z and I'll be able to land a job, make an XYZ if I have any to pay off my debt. Like the path was pretty, pretty clear, pretty standard. Sure you had some people that deviated, went a different route or, you know, whatever.
But I feel like first of all, all the options that we have now and also just kind of the realization that, you know, people have talked to death ad nauseam or ad nauseam about, you know, how much harder it is for young people to buy a house these days. And so with all of that, I just think the path is less clear. Somebody graduating high school, like, you know, hopefully they have their passion, they kind of know what they want to do. But a lot of them are kind of faced with the reality of like, can I afford that? Like, is that going to be able to pay for the lifestyle that I want? How much debt am I going to be saddled with when it comes to the cost of some of these universities? And so that would kind of be my answer is I do think, I mean, to some extent, Joe, I think you said this before we started, like there's always been some level of uncertainty, you know, in the air, so to speak. But yeah, I mean the AI question as well, not to bring, we kind of bring that up most episodes but like specifically as relates to the job market, what jobs are going to be completely obsolete within the next five years, within the next 10 years. And so for all those reasons, I do think it's, it's a little bit more uncertain even than it was when I graduated back in 2017. So Joe, what are your thoughts on that though?
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Well, with inflation, you mentioned technology, with even and specifically, you know, all the H1B visas and all the people flooding in through Immigration, illegal immigration, all those things, all of that creates uncertainty. There was a time when going to college meant that you probably were going to come out and get a halfway decent job, you know, something that might be able to support your family, or you'd start.
[00:06:38] Speaker C: You were going to be well above the poverty line, correct?
[00:06:41] Speaker A: I mean, college actually mattered. So when you went to college, there was not a guarantee, but a pretty decent opportunity coming out of it. Like a pretty decent possibility you were going to get a job. And it created opportunities even in the blue collar field. Like, if you worked hard enough, blue collar wise, you can pretty much put your family through, even a truck driver put your family through, or your kids through college and, you know, let your wife be, stay at home, whatever it is.
Those days are gone. So I think from the financial and the inflation and the immigration and the technology, these are really, really uncertain times for kids. If you go into coding, for instance, which a lot of kids were going into, well, now AI can do what you learn in four years, AI can do in 20 seconds. Like, it's just different. And so you have to think about your future way more than I think other kids did. We talked about extended adolescence, we talked a lot about that on this podcast, and the dangers of extending adolescence. But you can understand, like, there was a buffer period, especially for our age in the 2000s, 90s and 2000s, where that was okay to have a bit of a buffer to kind of figure your life out till 24, 25, 26, you're kind of messing around. Everybody knew that you don't have that luxury anymore. If you don't have it figured out to some degree, you are too far behind the ball. There's too many foreigners that are doing your job for you. Their AI is too far along. So, yeah, I think it's uncertain and I think kids have to have a pretty decent understanding of where they're going.
Jack, what are your thoughts?
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with everything you said. And I mean, the cultural stuff of basically who's gonna run the show. I mean, like, we're at the point where obviously they're the. I mean, the Charlie Kirk thing was very significant in that it showed, hey, we live in a different world where the hatred is very real and so and, well, and even the COVID years and the BLM years, like the job loss that people went through of like, if you speak your mind in the wrong place and the woke revolution and all that stuff, and all of that has changed, but it's still there and there's still uncertainty. From that kind of thing. And so the, the cultural, like what is our cultural morality standard that's still being settled. And so the, I mean, there are places where you had to have pronouns in your bio. Well, some places you still have to. And you've got to play that game. And I mean, like, these are things that people just didn't used to have to deal with while you're dodging. Will this job exist because of AI? Will, will somebody undercut me because they can send it overseas or bring somebody in and pay them less because they're getting, you know, all kinds of assistance and all that. I mean, it's insane. It is very different. I mean, as a millennial, we came out in the middle of the war on terror and the, the, the bailouts, you know, the economic recession in 2008, 2009. Yeah, I mean, like, that was, that was rough. And that was a lot of people. There was just what were you even gonna do? And a lot of people had a hard time getting started there. And of course, as you say, they told everyone to get a degree, then they told everyone to get a tech degree. I was just talking to a guy tonight saying, look, everybody he knows all had, you know, computer jobs and computer degrees and you know, coding and that kind of programming, that kind of thing. And everybody was doing it. They were a dime a dozen. And so like, the advice was bad. And so that was bad.
I would say it's gotten worse.
[00:09:44] Speaker C: I was just going to bring up the short sightedness in that. Now it's easy for us, I suppose, to look back and be able to judge when we've seen what has happened.
But you got to figure whoever was giving that advice back then had to predict that the technology just constantly outpaces itself. And so there's even guys older than obviously millennials who were super knowledgeable about AV technology or whatever and how fast that technology changes and, and so to kind of spin it into looking at graduates right now. Because again, as you're kind of describing that Jack, about the advice to get tech degrees or whatever, there seems to be, maybe there seems to have been, again, easy for me to say now, but like some short sightedness in that, in that there was no concept of like, okay, what about the jobs that are never going to go away? Or that where there's not going to be a significant outpacing of advancement?
Again, I feel like that is advice now that is finally kind of getting caught on to a little bit with the kind of explosion in, as far as enrollment goes with like trade schools and stuff like that, like those blue collar jobs. It's like, listen, I don't care how advanced AI gets, there's always going to be a need for somebody to come fix your AC unit, like that kind of thing. And so I don't know if you guys have any thoughts on kind of the overcorrection and we're about to get to the kind of value of college. Like, is it still a good decision? I think is an interesting question for us to explore as three guys who didn't go the traditional route.
But yeah, kind of that overcorrection into now there is a lot of focus on what are the jobs, what are the skills. You hear that a lot. Joe, you mentioned that, like develop the skills that you're going to be able to monetize as opposed to, well, just get this degree in this very one specialized thing that might become obsolete with technological advancement.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: That. Let's talk about that a little bit, the idea of trades. Because, you know, there was the Mike Rowe thing where he was really pushing that, going to the trades. And that was very much promoted the young people. And I think that's really great advice for a lot of young guys, but not all of them. I have some reservations for that. But Joe, I want to hear your thoughts on the trade side of it.
It's kind of funny. We had that path for us. You know, dad was. He did that and he had his own business and we went a different direction. And I look back on it like, well, you know, even running his business, I might not have been doing the as much of the hands on stuff, but. So what are your thoughts on him?
[00:12:02] Speaker A: I've often thought, I've even told dad this before. I love doing therapy. I have a passion for it and I think I'm, you know, I think I'm a decent it, you know, and so I don't think I'd want to. But on the other hand, there's a big part of me I'd love to go blue collar.
Like there's something very inherent about a man working in the dirt. I think we are for that. Working with his hands create creativity.
I think it's really difficult for guys. First off, I sit all day and second off, the strides that I make and the accomplishments I have are after months and months and months. And for me it's, you know, discharging a client and somebody whose life is really good, which is great. On the other hand, like building something with your hands and seeing what you did every single day, like, man, I put that roof on.
[00:12:42] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: I built that. I, you know, clean this or whatever it may be you get to see in real time. And there's something that I think can be very helpful for a man to just have that constant, like it's a feedback loop almost of what I do matters most.
[00:12:59] Speaker C: Tangible progress.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Yes. And white collar is not near as tangible.
Obviously we need it for those that are looking to go into college. Some people go into college and still choose blue collar after they get out and still are in blue collar positions with a college degree. So I know that happens and I'm not discounting that. So to your point, Jack, like, what do I think of blue collar? I think by and large, guys should have skills that can potentially lend toward that.
We do need high level skill positions, you know, engineers and things like that that may lend toward white collar jobs for sure.
So I'm not discounting that. But I'm saying if you don't have an aptitude for things like that, specifically for STEM and whatnot, man, I would, you know, I would look toward the blue collar. On the other hand, I also believe that we want women working at home and we need men going into all sorts of positions so that women can, you know, we can fill these slots. Yes, that's idealistic. I know that's not actually going to happen. But I also think that the more men we can get doing different jobs, the better that, you know, my wife and I were talking about, we got a speech therapist for our youngest. She was just saying I don't believe in women working outside the home. But the speech therapist we have is really, really good. And she's great with kids because it's a woman and she understands it and so it's helpful to have that. But on the other hand, you know, so create some issues with that. I'm going off topic, sorry.
[00:14:13] Speaker C: So you're supporting the very system that you rail against.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I hate it. But.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: Well, I think the female specific advice, that's something I do want to get to a little bit later because there have been very male focused to a degree, but sure will. What are your thoughts?
[00:14:29] Speaker C: Well, yeah. Nice.
I'll be honest. Like, so my perspective on it is I think young people need to.
We'll save the female discussion, but you know, I'll isolate to guys for a second.
I think you need to look and see where can I create value?
Because that's where compensation, that's where high compensation or even modest compensation comes in, is if you're able to add value and that's where the trades get brought up so often is once again to use the AC example or electrician or whatever it is like there will always be a significant level of value to somebody who can do that type of work and so there's always going to be a high level compensation. I appreciate Joe's point about we believe it's the godly thing for a, for a married couple, for a woman to stay home, for the wife to stay home and be a stay at home mom if she's able to do some work at home, great. But you know, not to daycare should never be an option essentially. And so with that being said I don't necessarily lean one way or the other when it comes to trade school or you know, community college. Traditional like obviously the, the price I think the cost you're going to incur should play a huge factor which would be a mark obviously against the traditional route. But honestly I think where you can create value as a man in your and whatever in your vocation, in your career.
But then the other thing too is I'm curious your guys thoughts on this and Jack, I want you to answer the trade question here in a second but like how much should young people pursue their passion?
I think that's an interesting question to get into for Joe questions for this we are, let me say that, let's come back to the passion question. Jack, I want to hear your thoughts. I don't have a strong trade school take other than again like if you can create value that way man, go for it. I don't think it's like a one size fits all though.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: I agree with Joe the, that it's a good path but we do need guys in other paths and that's kind of been the standard. Yeah, just go and you know, do whatever trade it may be. Okay. But it's good to have Christian lawyers and doctors and engineers and those kinds of things and you know, people working for the state, people you know in those roles and obviously ministry and things like that. And so a lot of times unfortunately that advice is pitched to intelligent high achieving young men of just going to the trades. Like well I don't think intelligent high achieving young men should not be in the trades but I don't think they should all be in the trades I guess is what I'm saying is that you know, we need some of them in some of these other jobs and there's room for that to go around.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: So how would you weigh the cost cost factor though? Because I do think a lot of the motivation for encouraging people into the trades is like, hey, don't saddle yourself with six figures worth of debt.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Right? The, the debt. And the other thing is you kind of need a path. The idea of, right, well, I'll go get just a generic degree. You know, like, some of my options are, yeah, you know, and, and not really have a next step, but if you have a specific a, you know, some people take on great debt, but it's in, in a career like law or, you know, medicine or whatever, where you can see the path to paying that off. So there's that, but there's also other paths where you don't have to take on the high debt. Get in there and do those things. And so.
And the college experience, for whatever it's worth, I think we'll talk about that a little bit.
There are good, multiple good reasons for certain people to go to college that are also bad reasons for other people to go to college. So that's. It is case by case with these, I think. But I think both options should be on the table.
[00:18:08] Speaker C: So your take is basically like, it's great for some, but don't make, don't copy and paste it onto everybody. Essentially.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: We don't need to be shoving everybody into that. It kind of felt like the advice was trending that way for a while.
[00:18:18] Speaker C: Sure.
Let's go back to the passion. Joe, do you have anything. Sorry, just to wrap that up. You have questions on that.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: It's interesting. Mike Rowe, I think, was a big part of that, but it was. Everybody gets funneled into college and then it's been worthless. That's why going into the trades, you create immediate value and make money starting like today versus four years of debt. So for some people, financially it makes sense. But if you have a. This goes. This opens the passion question. Like, if you have a passion, should you pursue it? And to me, it feels like if the passion is in something that can make you money and that can support a family. Yeah, go for it. If you have a passion for engineering. Sweet. Go get an engineering degree. If you have a passion for voice acting, art or what. Yeah, exactly. If you have a passion for that, like, okay, you know, you might, you might do that in your spare time.
But we have to have a job that you have to be thinking, and we talk so much about this for guys. You have to be thinking generationally. You have to be thinking about how to support a family. And we realize a lot of guys graduates, they're not supporting a family today. But we'd love for People to be able to marry younger and younger. That was an interesting statistic. Jack, I think you posted to your Facebook of people like how many people are married by 25 and I think there was some debate as to whether that was legitimate. But it's like 17% of Americans, American men are married by 25 these days versus it was what, in the 60%, 70% back in the 80s or something like that? Just a huge drop off. We want guys to be able to get married young. That means you have to support a family, which means you have to have a career. So the passion so often goes wrong when guys are pursuing their passion to the tune of $120,000 in debt for something that at its most will make you 60 grand a year. Like it's just a math equation so often to me as to why the passions should not be the leading thing. But if you have a passion for a job that might make you some money, therapy, for instance. I had a passion, I had a desire for it. And yes, you know, I'm able to create some wealth that way, which is great. Like, well, that's what you do it for. I was able to pursue a passion and make some money at it. So that to me is where you have to be able to weigh it out and do a little math here
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[00:21:09] Speaker C: We did a Golly Amen podcast episode way back in year one. So 2023 about should you chase your dreams?
Guys like Tebow or were kind of really big prop Tim Tebow were like big proponents of like hey man, always chase your dreams.
And I don't fully remember everything we cover in the episode, but I remember our conclusion was kind of like dreams are called Dreams for a reason. Like, you really should not be giving up everything for the sake of pursuing a dream. I don't think that's the same thing as pursuing a passion, personally. Like, obviously in the Venn diagram, there can certainly be some overlap there, but I do think a passion is something that excites you from a productivity standpoint as well. Whereas a dream can be very much more like, man, I dream about being a professional baseball player, a voice actor, like I just said. Or I. Man, I just really want to do X, Y or Z.
Whereas a passion is like, no, I'm. Generally. A passion is going to be something you're already pretty good at. Joe, your therapy, you came to mind with this question is like, I think you pursued your passion and it paid off, you know, exceptionally well. I do think there's other people who maybe pursued their passion, didn't work out.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: But other.
[00:22:20] Speaker C: But again, I think whether it's starting your own business or, you know, just finding a way for you to love your job like I do, I would differentiate between those two concepts of like, chasing your dreams versus kind of, you know, chasing your passion, so to speak.
So that's kind of my take on that is I don't think that. I think sometimes that can work out very, very well. Not every time. And that's where, man, we need young men with discernment who are going to be able to. To your point, Joe, either do the math on it or go, oh, man, this job is either going to become obsolete or, man, this is just not working out. I need to pivot here.
Again, if it's a passion about good.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: Yeah, no, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you.
[00:22:58] Speaker C: I was just saying, like, if it's a passion about something that's just not going to pay very well or there's just no path for it, they need to be able to pivot and figure that out quickly. What were you going to say?
[00:23:06] Speaker A: Sorry, Jack. Dad used to give us advice. I'm sure you remember this. He said, you can't always do what you love. You, like, you're not always going to be able to do what you love, learn to love what you do. And that plays such a role in finding passion wherever you may be. Because a lot of young men, I think the biggest issue they have, and young women, too, but actually, I think you see this less with women than you do with men. They are aimless. They don't really know what they want. They graduate high school and go, I don't know what career I want. So I'm going to go to a four year school because it actually buys me a little time to figure out.
[00:23:32] Speaker C: I want to figure it out for four years.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: Correct. And so sometimes you are going to go into a job that you don't absolutely love. Like it's not your passion or it's not something that it's not what you love. You learn to love that. My dad worked in water and sewer. I don't think that was his life's dream. When he was five years old, he did really well for himself and he learned to love it. And he was the best in Denver for what he did.
And so he embodied that concept of you don't always get to do what you love. Learn to love what you do and find enjoyment wherever you may be. And I think that can help the passion question a little bit. But Jack, I'm curious your thoughts.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: Well, the funny thing is with your therapy thing, as you kind of got at with your passion, but it was also a market inefficiency of you going, man, in the churches of Christ, there's not a lot of people doing this. So I can. And this is something that people make money at and there's a place for somebody to make money and fill this role. And so it was the nice. It was the perfect mixture of something you were passionate about and could provide for a family. That's not always there. That's, that's, you know, not everyone's gonna have that kind of thing. And so if they don't, it's, you've got to have that as the top thing, is what you can work hard at and provide value. Because that's really the main thing is provide value. Like solve a problem for somebody, be useful.
You've seen that advice before. To young people, that is the best advice. Whatever job you go into, whatever field you go into, be useful.
And so, you know, in your sense you're useful. And there's so many jobs, so many ways in which you can be useful. But the follow your dream thing, so many times it's not useful.
And so many kids want to be the TikTok star, the video game designer, the video game tester or whatever, everybody wants to do that. It's not that useful. You're easily replaced, all of those kinds of things. So look for a career where you're like, you know what, I can solve this specific problem for these people and they will pay me for it.
That's a good way to start to look at these things rather than boy, do I just Have a lot of fun doing it. Like, you know, I have a lot of fun playing Uno with my kids. It doesn't make money, you know, like that's.
Some people try to monetize that. I'm not going to go ahead and try and do that. But yeah. So the, the follow your passions thing. The funny thing is that advice I don't hear, I don't see given to young people as much anymore. It was a luxury of better times. When we're in bad times, it's, it's kind of going away. And, and so the be useful thing. I don't know if we want to go here yet. This is where you can kind of start splitting the male, female part of this is the advice given to young girls coming out of high school, young guys coming out of high school. Is that something you want to go into or we want to save that in the second half?
[00:26:07] Speaker C: Sure. I mean, we're go for it.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: So what is being useful look like? Is that different? I think one of our big passion points is that girls and boys are raised functionally the same, even in Christian households. And that's not great.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:20] Speaker C: And they shouldn't be.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:26:22] Speaker C: So I'll kind of, I'll kind of lay it out here that I'll lay out what makes it difficult.
As we already said, like we are firm believers that within marriage your wife should be, you should stay at home, be homemaker. Titus2 I think that's the way that the Bible lays out the family, that the husband's the provider and the woman is the, you know, takes care of the home.
What does, where does that leave an 18, 19 year old young lady? And you know, there's people close to me that this, this description fits who, you know, love to get married. Not really any marriage prospects.
I sympathize with their position because it's like, well, I don't want to just sit on my hands and twiddle my thumbs for three years or four years or five years or however long it takes.
So, you know, what do I do now? These are the. For a female, this is where I would absolutely preach against in the strongest way possible. You have no business going into any kind of debt, especially if you plan as we think you should not speak for y', all, but as we think you should to not work outside the home once you get married and have kids. So therefore racking up debt for a job you're not going to have, for a degree you're not going to use is even worse. And so that'd be the first thing that I would say.
But yeah, for girls going off to college again, our position being that needs to b with the end goal in mind of I'm not going to be a career woman. I'm not going to be a, you know, self made CEO or whatever it is. I do struggle to find like, what is the balance for a girl with no marriage prospects at 18, 19. I mean you could just go into the workforce, I suppose, but again then it's just you're kind of sitting on your hands, twiddling your thumbs for a couple years.
So. Yeah, what are your. Joe, I kind of hand it to you next. Like, I think that's where this is the biggest, biggest struggle. It's like, what is the purpose of college? The purpose of getting, you know, furthering your education is to get yourself set up well for your career. I mean, that's the purpose of it, right. Is obviously there's other secondary purposes. Education is incredible. Some people do go for the experience, just broadening your horizons, that growing academically, all those things, you know, and so I. Can you do that without saddling yourself full of debt? Yeah, you can. There's community college. You can take online courses, like all those things. And that's great.
But the main point of college to me is to kind of set yourself up well for your career. So. Yeah. Joe, what, what are your thoughts? I mean you both y' all have, we all have daughters here, like they're 10, 15 years away from this decision. So what are yalls thoughts on this for females? I think it's challenging personally.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: This is where. And I'd give the same advice. I'm not a big fan of the, the college culture, the college experience I keep at home. She wants to do college.
We want to figure out a way to do that online. We want to figure out a way to keep her home. But I would do the same thing for boys. I don't plan on having my daughter go to college, but on the other hand, if there was some degree that she really wanted that was going to further her ability to be a great wife and a mom and maybe set herself up, you know, for the time being before that happens and she's not saddled with any debt going in, that would be the biggest thing for me. Can it be done where you're not taking debt into marriage? Okay, my wife's gotten some education. No, not college. She went to a few different training courses, Waldorf training courses and you know, days long or, you know, go there for a week and Things like that. And so she's got education in that way. Our sister did the same thing. Both sisters actually did a little bit of the same thing, but they did it in a way that was doable. So if you're going to, that would be my advice.
I don't think that working in a family company or, you know, a family business, as somebody at the church is a bad, bad gig for a young girl. If she's going to put a little money away for, you know, maybe for marriage when she gets into it, she's got a little spending money or, you know, but she can stay at home and that's the biggest thing is to keep her grounded. And it's the same with boys. I give the same advice. If at all possible, don't go to a four year college where you're going to have to leave and live on campus. Stay at home, go to the same home congregation that you're going to have your family around and all of the great support systems while you're, you know, in the most pivotal years of your life. 18 to 22 is where you're really coming into your understanding of the world, who you are in the world.
Going and being around a bunch of numbskull professors and moron kids is not the place to be for a guy or a girl. So specifically for a girl, because I do think that they are more, as Paul might say, more easily deceived.
I think that's, yeah, I think it's really important that they stay grounded. So if she's going to do the college, I do online. But Jack, what are your thoughts?
[00:31:00] Speaker B: My one of you know, when I wrote on this, my two pieces of advice to young people, or the main piece of advice was focus on the things that have always been important, which are mainly get religion and have a family.
And so both for the young men and we brought this up a little bit, and for the young women, what they do at 18 or 22, you know, graduating right now should be aimed at the target of the having a family. I mean, most people are designed to get married and then from there to have kids.
And you look at the statistics of the more education a woman has, the lower fertility rate, the less she wants children, the less children she has, the later she has children, all those kinds of things.
Some people go, oh, I can't believe you just said that. Well, I did because it's the stats, it says what it says. And so it's kind of.
What do you extrapolate from that is the next question. What do you take from that data what, what I take from that data is you can focus on one thing or the other generally. And yes, you can be weight later on and have one or two kids and things like that.
Sometimes, sometimes you don't. The farther, the later it's delayed, the more fertility troubles there are, there's those statistics as well. There's all of these considerations to be had that nobody is taking into consideration because I can't believe you're talking about that. But it is what it is, it's real. And so if somebody is pointed towards that, you know, an 18 year old girl of like, I want, you know, that you should be pointed towards marriage and a family, Lord willing, and God brings the right guy around, the decisions you make right now will lead to that. And as you're saying, $100,000 in debt to get the Mrs. Degree, if that's what you're looking for, that should not be necessary. Your parents should, you know, the parents should be setting up the networking opportunities to meet somebody and looking to open those doors.
Did you guys see the Dave Ramsey thing that was going viral the other day about the woman? 90,000 in debt.
[00:32:52] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:32:53] Speaker B: Classic. And that's just bringing up this problem of like, it is a problem between her and her boyfriend of like, he doesn't want to take on 90,000 in debt and her parents apparently aren't paying for it. And so you've got all these issues that come up that are delaying her marriage, which is delaying her having kids, like all of these things that happen, the cascade of effects. And so if you point a young man and a young woman towards, hey, you should be aiming to get married and aiming to have kids early in your marriage. Not immediately, you don't have to, but like, that's something that should be on the table.
You're gonna approach these things differently. Does that mean you'll, you're never gonna get a woman any kind of education? Not necessarily. Like Joe's saying, there's, there's options for that, but the, it will affect the, the path that you choose. And I don't think most have been deciding with that factor in mind.
[00:33:46] Speaker C: Yeah, here's, I mean, here's the problem that I see though is that which, you know, we're not gonna solve it on this podcast, pretty much everybody who, who agrees with that already kind of has that bent and that mindset very,
[00:33:59] Speaker B: I don't, I wouldn't say that. I think this is one of those, that people are learning very quickly that, that that tide is turning. Thankfully but it's, it needs to be said more and more as people are waking up to these things.
[00:34:11] Speaker C: Well, but what I mean by that is like if you've got a 16 or 17 year old girl right now, if she's been raised for the last 15 years with kind of the assumption and the notion and the kind of like rearing like, yeah, you know, you're just gonna go to college, this is what you do. I do feel like that's a, that's a difficult ship to turn once you've already, you know, it's like the Titanic seeing the iceberg. Like at some point, no matter how quick you turn it, you're still going to hit the iceberg.
And so where you're right in that, you know, I think the tide is turning. I think that's going to be great for kids that maybe aren't, haven't hit double digits in ages yet, because you can still have that, you can raise them with that as the future again. You got teenage girls right now who have been either thinking college or assuming that's just what I'm going to do because all my friends are doing it or my parents have talked about it for the last 12 years.
And I'm not saying obviously that there's a justification for going to college. I'm just saying that it's going to be difficult, I think, for that to take hold if you haven't been raised with that worldview. And that's where our message that we preach on this podcast of like, hey, maybe we should try to raise our Christian families with similar worldviews instead of like, oh, whatever works for you, whatever works for me. You know, we'll preach that one again to Jack's point of if you raise them to be career minded, don't be surprised when that's what's on their mind. You know, for moms, that's what's on their mind from age 18 to age 37 when they're, when they're in their childbearing years. And so this is a very delicate subject to Jack's point. A lot of people that are going to be very frustrated with it. But you know, again, if you are of the mindset that we are, which is that, you know, the way a family is designed by God is for the wife to stay at home.
I do think if you're going to go the college route, you've got to be very mindful of what is that, what is that promoting in your daughter? What mindset is it career minded? Is it, hey, I Would just like to maybe get some more education or, you know, while I wait for my. To meet a husband or whatever it is. And so, Joe, any other thoughts around that? I mean, I do think the advice that we would give to females is very different than the advice we'd give to guys, obviously.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I don't have a ton to add. I think it's an interesting. And as you said, I think delicate's a good word. We know that this isn't popular.
We know that people don't, like. Like us saying these things.
Uneducated child brides. Right. You know, some people call that. Have called us like, oh, you guys just want an uneducated child bride? Like, no, we want a woman who understands that her place is to run the home. And that is a calling that is high as it gets. And so, wow, you can go out and who knows what. You can go out and run numbers.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: Well, you want a woman who's preparing for the job that you are looking for her to fulfill. I mean, like, that's.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: So it's like, who decided that going out and making money because you can crunch some numbers or you can, you know, you can be a personal assistant to somebody, and you need a degree for that at $120,000 in debt or $200,000 in debt. Like, who. Who is to say that that has more worth and value than being a wife and a mom? So pardon me if I'm teaching my daughter to be a wife and a mom, which is the highest calling she possibly can have, and to not be dumb and saddle herself with debt that her husband's never going to be able to pay off unless she goes to work, in which kids. In which case her kids are in daycare, they're in public school, and they turn out disasters and walk away from the faith. And then she has to back it up, which we've seen a bazillion times by going, oh, it wasn't that. It wasn't that. No, some kids just walk away and they just decide to do it on their own. And it's like, yeah, this started with a really bad choice all the way back at the beginning. We're gonna stop and put an end to it right now, and we'll. We'll help you out because we know how this one ends. We've only seen it 15 million times, so how about we try it our way and see how it goes? And by the way, our way, not to mention the way it was done for 1950 years. So, yeah, we'll go with that one. Thanks.
[00:38:00] Speaker C: Not to mention the fact that society through, you know, and you can cash stones if you want at the trad wife movement, society's realizing like, oh wait, you know, a wife staying at home, raising kids and baking sourdough bread, man, that actually is a whole lot better than me going out, working 60 hours a week and becoming CEO of a company. Like those stats are also out there about women are happier. And so again, I know this is, this is just not widely agreed upon. Even within the churches of Christ, those. That's what the stats say. Like the depression rates are higher, the anxiety rates are higher for women in the workforce. The, as Jack spoke to, obviously the fertility rates are quite a bit lower.
And so yeah, I mean that's just, it's the way God made us. It's the design, it's the nature that God put into us. In the same way that, you know, if you had a guy who took on the opposite role of he's the, he's the guy that says he's the stay at home dad. Right. Doesn't work and the wife, like you don't think, how do you think his life satisfaction is going to be when it comes to the fact that he is kind of going against the design that God made him to go out and be the provider and the protector for his family. So yeah, I mean it's just people going against God's design. And again, size too. I'm not saying that, you know, college should be completely off the table for, for girls. I think you got to be very specific with why you're going and understand like that is going to, that needs to be a secondary priority that come, you know, coming to being a wife and a mother. But again, where I sympathize with people is like, okay, I'm not guaranteed to become a wife at age 20 or age 21. So you know, how can I fill my time? So that's where, you know, again, I'll sympathize with you, but I think just needing to be strategic with it is, I guess the way I'd put that.
[00:39:40] Speaker B: Yeah. And in the same sense a young man needs to be preparing for marriage. She should be as well. And it might not come for him, it might not come for her, but you know, like that be aiming towards that. The, to your point about the Titanic being hard to turn at this point from where people are parented very much towards it and their parents are very hands on. I think so. But one of the advantages of this is people are parenting their daughters to be very independent of them. And I think if they're finding the right sides of the Internet, they're going to be turning because it's. Young men are also the ones that are turning, saying, I want a family, I want kids. You're seeing that shift that is happening from things they are finding online. It's not even necessarily from their parents. And sometimes you'll hear parents say, well, he's getting married awful young. But I guess that's what he wants to do. Like, good for him, you know, like, he figured it out against the advice that he's given. But here's the problem, and this is where I agree with you.
Nobody's saying this to young women. It's the kind of tough love that people started giving to young men 10 years ago, starting with Jordan Peterson and stuff. It's time to start giving that to young women. It's time to start telling them, all right.
[00:40:44] Speaker C: Talk about a market inefficiency. There's nobody saying that.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: I'm saying, well, and it's just. We called young men to be better. We called young men to step up. We told them, hey, you've gotta, you know, really grow up and not do the man child thing anymore. And, man, you're starting to see it happen. You're seeing guys taking that seriously, and it's great. You see that the godly young men discord a lot of great young men. I'm very excited about that.
Now it's time to talk to the young women. And that's the one. There's a reason nobody started doing that. Because as you said, the market inefficiency is. Because that's where you really start hurting mama's feelings. You really start hurting grandma's feelings. Oh, you're saying what I did was wrong, or you're saying that you're going to bind that? No, no, no. I'm just telling your daughter that she can be happier than the path that has been chosen for the last 60 years, that she can stop bucking against God's design for her and go back to the purpose that she was made for and that life will probably be better that way. I'm not probably. It will be better that way.
But again, who is doing that? No, the. The content that women get is you are enough.
Okay, cool. Now somebody tell them what to do. Tell them. You go back to. You guys have brought up Titus 2 a bunch of times. It tells the older women to teach younger women, not teach them a study through the Gospel of John, not teach them study on the Psalms. Those are great things, but it tells them, teach them to love their wives, their husbands, and keep the home.
Is that happening? Is that what they're being taught?
No. And so it's.
So we need this to happen. It's going to have to take people pushing this kind of ideology.
Hey, folks, I know a lot of you are looking for more Christian content for your daily walk. Of course, we often tell you about Focus plus and the daily devos and other content that goes up there. Of course, we have this podcast, Think Deeper. We have the gym podcast Godly Young man by Joe and Will. But I want to also tell you about the Church Reset podcast feed. Every article I put out on my website, jackwilkie Code on the Church Reset podcast feed, along with audio from all of the videos I post to The Focus Press, YouTube, like cultural breakdown, Masculinity Monday and Thursdays through the text. And so if you're looking for something to listen to while you're doing chores around the house or on the go, check out the Church Reset podcast feed. Subscribe to get all the latest content as it comes out. Four or five days a week.
[00:43:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't have a ton to add to that. I mean, I, I think there's, there's a difficulty, too, and I'm, I think there are. And I. With Gen Z guys specifically, obviously there is a positive trend as well.
But about five years ago, I, I do think it was a fair critique for, for, you know, a girl around age 18, 22 in that range to kind of look around at the guys that were their age and go, bunch of idiots, essentially. You know, and again, that's generalizing, but like a lot of aimlessness that Joe spoke to earlier. And so this is where I do think we've seen some positive trends for young men. You brought up the, obviously our, our discord that we have with Forget the Golly Men podcast. But, you know, I think, you know, young men are starting to finally get some great advice that unfortunately, their parents did not teach them about adding value, working hard and kind of making something of yourself instead of just, I mean, you know, taking gap years and just kind of figuring life out and, you know, playing video games for seven hours a day. Like, there was a lot of that half a decade, a decade ago that I think probably drove women to college. Not to justify it, but it's like, well, there's nobody worth marrying, so let me just go get a degree.
I do think that's shifting in a positive direction. And so that's, you know, something that might have been an issue, but I think it's moving the right direction.
[00:44:26] Speaker A: Joe, the ones I worry about are the, the men finding good women because you look at the Gen Z statistics as, as good as, and, and as white pilled as it is for young men, you know, looking like, wow, they're finding religion and they're, they're turning conservative and all this stuff. I mean the, the Gen Z women are off a cliff to the left. Like they are, are raging against God and against everything else. And I'm not saying. Yeah, I'm sure there's some great Gen Z women out there. So nobody come with their pitchforks and, and everything.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: There was a general somewhere that like abortion is like their number one motivating cause in everything. Yeah, like the preserving abortion, keeping that right, like that is the most important thing to them out of anything.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: So yes, this is what guys are up against. We're going to be doing a gym episode, I have it on our notes, doing a gym episode in the near future about navigating modern women. Like how do you, what do you look for? We've done episodes on that, but really kind of trying to understand them because it's not looking great. And this is to your point, Jack. We got a little pushback, we got to have a little friction and it starts with the older men or the older women helping the younger women, calling them out to some degree. It even has love your children in there. I was listening to something the other day about it. Like that's an interesting thing to throw in because the motherly instinct should be there. You know, like it's not just love your husbands, just beekeepers at home. It is to love your children. That means to discipline your children. It means to have an understanding of the beauty of life which when you have an entire generation that makes abortion kind of their rallying cry. No, they don't love children. They need to be taught to love children. They need to be taught to nurture and care for their kids and to discipline their kids and things like that. I think all of that goes into it. This is all tied us to. So yes, we have a crisis going on in the country. We have a crisis of masculinity. But I think there's so many masculine things right now. The manosphere is trying to fix a problem that we see. What do the women have? They don't have the manosphere, they don't have the womanosphere or whatever you want to call it. Like they don't have Anything like that, where women are calling each other to hire, because typically women don't. But the problem is we have taught them to rage against men. And so when a man decides that he's going to call these things out, well, we don't listen to the man. But women can't call each other out or they won't most of the time. And so it's going to take the older teaching the younger within the confines of the church and really helping. And that's going to come from building warmth and relationships, not from college degrees or anything like that. And so we're getting a little off topic from the college, but I think it all is relevant to man. We do have a struggle in America going forward. So, fellas, I don't know what else we want to get into. I mean, we.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: Well, to bring that full circle on the post I made about, you know, just focus on what's important. If you're young, you're not really sure you're figuring out where you're going. Focus on God. Get yourself right with God. That has to be number one in your life. And if you're a Christian kid, stick close to God. If you're not, or if you're kind of looking into it, put all your money on it. I mean, this is where you need to be. And so get that part right. And then the second thing is start working towards a family of your own. It's when you are working towards that and whether you're ready for it or not right now, or you have somebody or not right now. But when you're working towards that, that gets everything else in life to make sense. Like that you're as. Somebody said that civilization is built. Well, yeah, and civilization is built by men with families to feed, that kind of thing. And if you're a young guy going, well, I need to be able to afford a family to feed. So you're working towards that. When you have a. Why, the other stuff is a lot easier to do. Like, you can figure those things out as you go, but you've got the thing that is motivating you to get out of bed every day and to work hard and be diligent, you know, all those kinds of things. And so that's why I think all of this, male and female, the different paths that that puts them on, just thinking, okay, how am I going to be the best Christian I can be? How can I fulfill this particular thing that 99.9% of the young people were created to do? Yes, there are the exceptions, but 99.9% were created to have a desire for this and to pursue it.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: Do that.
[00:48:19] Speaker B: When you're not pursuing that, you're going to be spinning in circles doing things you're not supposed to do. And so really put your eggs in that basket. And I think that kind of goes to the. The male and female advice we just did was all aimed in that direction.
[00:48:33] Speaker C: No, that's great. While we're kind of giving advice here, we've kind of previewed. One of the pieces of advice I'll give is do not go to college strictly for the quote unquote college experience.
You want the full rant on this, check out Joe and I's podcast on the Gallium Podcast.
I have very little kind of patience, I guess, for this type of thing that you generally hear from Gen Xers and boomers about the college experience.
And generally when people say the college experience, that is simply a euphemism for I got to kind of act stupid for 4 years and not really have any responsibilities. Under the worst circumstances, I got to, you know, get drunk and go to frat parties and I got to sleep around.
I would like to think that that's not what people in the church mean, but I can promise you that within the world, when you hear the college experience, that's what people are talking about is, Yeah, I had 12 hours of classes a week, studied a couple hours a day, and then had a ton of free time where I got to, again, go to frat parties and, you know, have basically four years of being immature and again, sleep. I mean, the stats that we read on that episode, Joe, about 78% of people in college. Let me pull it up just so I don't mess it up here.
From a sexual debauchery standpoint, 78% of people report a sexual encounter while at college. And of those, 88% had between one and three partners.
78%, according to Williams Records survey, reported a sexual encounter while at college.
Like, the temptation is just through the roof. The drinking, obviously. You know, again, just to add to that, the partying. Like most statistics have it, around 50 to 60% of college students report regular drinking.
And so, like, it's just, it's just such a.
The college experience. Again, like, I just get so frustrated, that phrase. Because to me it's. It's just a euphemism for I got to go, just go have a ton of fun and be immature and just drink and sleep around. And so my plea, first of all, two things. My number one, my encouragement, my Advice to young people is like, if you want to go to college because you want to get a specific degree, you have a specific plan and you got a specific X, y or Z, okay, great, go for it. But if you're going to college because you're like, well, I don't know what else to do, and I've been told the experience is really fun, please do not go. So that's number one. And then number two, parents, please don't push your kids into college just for the college experience.
Like I think I said, I think I said this on the episode. Like, things that are unnecessary are overrated. And so therefore the college experience is completely unnecessary. Not the college education.
The college experience is unnecessary, which makes it overrated. So that's kind of my college experience rant there, Joe. Looked like you had a thought. I mean, but some of those stats are just absolutely mind boggling.
[00:51:24] Speaker A: No, I was gonna, I was gonna back you up on some stats. We had one on here this 2012. I do think drinking has gone down since then as a culture. But in 2012, more than 80% of college students drink alcohol, with an estimated 40% reporting binge drinking in the past two weeks. And about 25% report having academic consequences because of their drinking. This is the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. But that's in 2012. We realized in 14 years, maybe some things have changed. I do think drinking is down, but 80% say they drink alcohol. So we can say this doesn't happen in Christian colleges. We don't. I mean, I have from personal experience that it does. Not for me doing it, but from knowing people that have. So, yes, I mean, it's not perfect. Our Christian colleges, better, yeah, no doubt when it comes to some of these things, but there's still all sorts of shenanigans that they get up to. And so to me, it's once again kind of the extending of adolescence to do the four years. I'm just out on the whole four years of, you know, in a brick and mortar school. School. I think there's so many other ways to do it.
Yes, you're losing out on the experience to do online, but it's cheaper. You stay connected. That would be my advice to college, to graduates, rather.
You need to be grounded. You need to be grounded. Jack, you had a great article on this of religion and family. You have to be grounded in what you know and who you are and where you come from. And college seeks to take you away from those things. Literally when you're at a, at A brick and mortar school, you're removed from all of those things, and they try to ideologically remove you from all of those things. And it's a really dangerous place to be that you start viewing your parents as, you know, backwards country bumpkins. And, you know, you come from a racist past because years and years and years and years and years and years and years ago, maybe somebody in your lineage did something that was racist one time or whatever it may be, and you start thinking this way. And we're colonizers and Christianity is oppressive, and you know how many times we've seen this. And yes, this happens in Christian schools. This happens in Harding. This sometimes happens in Freed, where people just lose their minds.
And so, yeah, I'm pretty out on that. If you can go to. I'm not saying that they're not going to try to warp your minds, depending on what online school you go to. But you're grounded. You step off of that call or off of that, you know, out of that session, and you walk in and you eat a family dinner with your mom and dad and you talk it through and your parents go, man, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And here's why. And it just grounds you. You need to be grounded as a college student or as just a recent graduate in knowing who God is and who you are to God and your worth and value and who you are as a Christian and knowing your grounding within the family. The Wilkie name matters, and I want the Wilkie name to matter, and I don't want to do anything to besmirch the Wilkie name. And so remembering that, remembering that there's legacy involved here and there's a lot on the table, I think that's huge. And that helps by staying home. It was a huge blessing to stay home past 18 and to not just go into the, you know, that's just what you do. Everybody does it. Like, no, let's think outside the box and think about what is going to help me stay faithful. What's going to help our kids stay faithful, what's going to give them the greatest opportunity to achieve what they want to achieve while staying grounded to their family and to God. We have to be thinking about grounding when they're graduating high school.
[00:54:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't have many thoughts on the college experience because I didn't have it. I know some people speak highly of the Christian college experience.
I still strongly believe staying close to home with your church family, with your family makes it gives you a Better grounding than the Christian college experience. But I know a lot of people speak very highly of it and found a spouse there and have a loyalty to it. But I do think, to be clear,
[00:54:54] Speaker C: I'm sure it's better than, you know, your state school, your SEC school or
[00:54:57] Speaker B: when you're going to find better friends. And that's, you know, the networking side of this is something we're discounting. We've, you know that there is an advantage to that for some people.
Right. So, you know, there it is what it is. But the loyalty, Matt, I think that is one of the biggest factors in people's decisions to be faithful or to leave the church is who they're most loyal to. And where you go to school is going to say a lot about that and where you end up working. So certainly part of it as well. A lot of thoughts here on college, a lot of thoughts on young men, young women. We'd be very interested in seeing you guys comments.
But before we get out of here, we're going to get to a quick think fast and what we've got this week will brought this to our attention. Let me do my little screen share thing.
And here it is. It is a tweet by Matt Walsh which is very interesting seeing as Joe is a therapist.
He might have some thoughts on this.
[00:55:50] Speaker C: Thoughts on this.
[00:55:51] Speaker B: I have thoughts myself but I'm definitely not as qualified as Joe so we'll let him go first on this. Walsh said it has very recently become acceptable to express skeptics very recently become acceptable to express skepticism about antidepressants and anti anxiety meds. The skeptics used to be angrily shouted down, I know from experience. But the skepticism is meaningless if it doesn't go all the way and question the fundamental premise. These medications aren't just over prescribed, they should never be prescribed at all. Anxiety and depression are not literal diseases and any attempt to treat them as such is doomed to fail. We are witnessing the failure right now.
That is a very, very spicy take.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong.
[00:56:32] Speaker C: Facebook had had thoughts on that.
[00:56:34] Speaker B: Yeah, positive thoughts.
[00:56:36] Speaker C: Will, what do you think? Mainly negative.
I think we should give Joe the floor here.
[00:56:42] Speaker B: Go for it.
[00:56:43] Speaker A: By and large I agree with him. I agree with him.
Antidepressants I would not get rid of. And I always say, I've mentioned this before, I think there's three types of depression. I think there's what I would call historical depression that goes back to childhood, goes back to something that's, you know, trauma, things like that circumstantial depression where man, you had a breakup or something, then you're just really low, job is really tough and you just get depressed. And then there is a very small, in my opinion, a very small minority of those that have a true chemical imbalance. And I would literally put that at a probably 5.
Like, I really don't think there's that much chemical imbalance going on. I think antidepressants can help for that. I have no use for anti anxiety. I have zero use for that. I agree with him. I think these things are not just over prescribed. I don't think they should be prescribed. I think it's one of those that when you process through things, it's not just, hey, pray about it and it'll go away.
The praying is very good. I'm not discounting the power of prayer, but I know that that does not exactly solve deep anxiety.
On the other hand, neither does taking meds that get away from it. What these things do is they Dampen because they're SSRIs and there's a whole psychopharmacology side of this. But what they do is they basically dampen the emotion so you don't feel it quite as much. The problem is emotions are not the enemy. You have to be able to feel the emotion. It actually does harm to the trauma work that I do in my therapy when people are on these things and I can tell when they are because they cannot get their emotions to rise to the level we need to, to process.
So instead of going from a nine down to a zero, which, you know, yes, nine is really difficult to deal with and people don't want to do it, it drops you to a zero. This will just put you at a permanent like four or three or two. And so people go see, it's great. But they're always living with a low underlying level rather than processing through things. So I think they're a disaster. Personally, I really don't think they are good for people. I think if we were to get rid of all of them together and people were to get the help they need, we'd live in a better society rather than keeping people on it. I think they're really unhealthy for like 95% of the time and for, in my opinion, for anti anxiety, like 100% of the time.
That's my take.
[00:58:41] Speaker C: That's interesting. Yeah. And I certainly, I'm not going to try to follow up Joe's expertise and you know, knowledge on, on all of that. I think my Take overall, obviously Matt Walsh kind of specializes in a bit of the, the shock factor of, of like you know, saying things that are really hot, takey and spy. I mean I'm not saying he doesn't believe, saying he does an excellent job of framing it in such a way to elicit a certain response which I'm fine with most of the time. Like it's, it's good content so I don't really care. I'm not casting aspersions on him for that.
Overall I am of. Do I think people are actually depressed, you know that there is such thing as depression? Yes, I do, obviously do. I think people drastically overuse that to basically cover up for the fact that well, I eat horribly, I don't exercise, I don't sleep well and so therefore I don't feel great. I'm just going to call it depressed. Like yes, that you know I think most, I think a lot of that could be solved by stuff that basic doctors tell you to do. Eat better again, get, get good rest, stay off your screens, get off of social media, all that stuff. Right. So that I would agree with like again I think that's a lot of the time where people say that they're depressed. That's what, you know, that's what could solve it. Not all the time, course not in every case. For the anxiety, again I'm not the expert here, Joe is and I think he did a much better job articulating than I could.
That's one that I once again I think is just way overused.
Is it a literal disease?
I suppose there are people absolutely who struggle with social anxiety or high levels of angio, obviously have anxiety attacks or panic attacks or whatever it is.
I think that is a very, very small percentage. And so his overall take of you know, doing away or your take Joe I guess of doing away with those antidepressants and anti anxiety medication being a good thing. I do think that'd be a net positive honestly, because I think it would. Again, I think so much of this can be solved by doing things that God created us needing to do.
Exercising our bodies again, eating well, sleeping well, being around people that we love, family for some of the stuff we talked about with the college episode, honestly of like being grounded with our family, having good face to face conversations with people, working hard, you know this all stuff stuff sounds basic but it's like I really do think a lot of that can solve some of these, the majority of these issues.
So overall I mean I would mostly agree with his take, you know despite how strongly it was worded. Jack, any thoughts from you?
[01:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah, man, it is such a spicy topic. I remember Vodi Bauckham had a sermon on this probably 15, 16 years ago at this point where he was very much questioning the hormonal imbalance theory of all of it, or the chemical imbalance, saying, what chemicals? What is the balance supposed to be? They never tell you those things. They just say, well, it's an IM and so let's throw this med at it and hopefully that will help get the chemicals back in balance. And he very much was making the case there was a spiritual connection to it in most cases. And not saying, oh, it means you're a rank sinner if you're depressed, but that there was something off in your life, you know, that needed to be addressed. And to Will's point, of what you're saying, of things you can do, things you can control, and are you controlling those things? And I think that's a great starting place for most people.
And I was unfortunate. There's a guy that had done an unbelievable amount of research on X, dropping articles, peer reviewed stuff, all kinds of things. Basically showing the SSRI medications are actively harmful, that they are really bad for people. They do not do what they are purported to do. And what you see with these cases a lot of times is it's very Stockholm syndrome esque.
They, you get on it and you feel a certain way, but it doesn't make people better. So they end up having to stay on it and they're getting adjustments, their medication all the time. But then they swear I would, I wouldn't be here, I. Or you know, something really bad would happen if I stopped taking it. So I have to keep taking it, even if it's not making it better.
[01:02:45] Speaker C: It's like the COVID vaccine of the people who would still get Covid after they got the vaccine.
Imagine how bad it would have been, right?
[01:02:52] Speaker B: And so you kind of see people talk about it like that of like, man, where would I be without this? Like, I don't know, like there, there's things that we could explore a little bit. And so again, Joe's the therapist here, but you know, I've been through my bouts of depression and things like that. I understand it. It's. It's very real. Been very, you know, in some very low places, very difficult times in life.
The answer was always something that I could, you know, like there was, there was somewhere to turn that it didn't require a pill. It didn't even, you know, necessarily require you know, any of the standard things it was, what are, what can be addressed again with the basics, like you're talking about. And, and a lot of Joe, you'll say your therapy, because I know, you know, a lot of your work is getting people back to their basics, is getting people back to controlling what they're supposed to control and things like that. And people are going to take that as saying, oh, so if somebody has this problem, they're. They're just a horrible person who's. No, no, it. But there might be something in your life you can do to affect this.
[01:03:51] Speaker A: I remember dad saying we were in Paris and he ended up getting a really bad tooth infection, like toothache or whatever, being over in Paris.
And I remember him going to the store, like their little pharmacy, Walgreens esque thing and going to get the antidote, like just give me something to numb the pain. They wouldn't give him that. They'd give him something that was going to actually fix the problem and fix the infection, but it's going to take three to four days. And he was kind of frustrated about it and he realized, I mean, that's Oragel. I could just get Oragel. And you know, the, the states, in us, we in the States really want to fix the problem immediately. We, we want it done.
[01:04:23] Speaker C: The instant gratification, it's.
[01:04:25] Speaker A: The instant gratification, it's, I'm in pain, the depression's really bad, give me a pill and it's gone.
Rather than doing the work. Depression is loneliness in action. Connection really is what takes. You know, you have to get connected with people. You have to have people pull you out of it.
And then the other side of it is you got to be putting into. I always say, tell my clients like, you got to invest in your future self.
No. Depression means I've been incredibly depressed, suicidal at times in my life. Very, very low. You have to invest in the future version of yourself. Meds would not have fixed where I was and even if they had, I would have been a slave to it. To your point, Jack, I would have been a slave to the meds rather than. There are a couple things I can do today and I really need to get connected and I need to tell people where I'm at. So I'm. Depression and anxiety are real. There are people that are suicidal, there are people that are engaging in self harm. The answer is not medication. The answer is deal with the underlying issues in the wounds. Sometimes it's trauma, sometimes it's a attachment work, sometimes it's just learning to control, as you said, control what you can control. Anxiety is rooted in a lack of control.
If you can learn to control it, you can control and give the rest over to God.
That is a huge and now there's a lot that goes into that, sure. But that honestly helps people more than anything. More than meds do is learning to control the things within their life, making to do lists and all sorts of stuff. And it sounds basic. And again, there's a lot more stuff that goes into it. And I specialize in trauma for a reason.
But I think there's meds are just attempting to put a band aid on the problem. And it's a band aid you can't ever take off because you're afraid of what's underneath it. You're afraid that it's going to get a lot worse. Like I'd rather just rip the band aid off and clean out the wound, even if it hurts, even if it's painful, even if it's bad. I'd rather know if I have gangrene than not.
So I don't know. I think it's spicy. Spicy take from him. I can get behind it.
[01:06:07] Speaker B: All right. Thanks Will, for bringing that to our attention. That one. Again, this concludes the Think Fast. The entire Think Deeper episode is on advice to young people. College graduation. We're entering the real world and how that should be different for men and women and a lot of different angles we took on that. So if you're catching just the Think Fast, be sure to stay tuned or subscribe. So on Monday you will get the Think Deeper. As always, you can join us on our Patreon and support us there. Get to get our weekly Deep End episode and a whole lot more. So check that
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Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's focuspress.org donate. Thanks again for listening.
