Real Stuff My Dad Says – People, Places and Things

A Christian Podcast Central Classic Podcast

Hi, I’m Jefferson Drexler with Real Stuff My Dad Says the video podcast, where I take things that I’ve learned from my father over the last 40 years and I turned them into real-world pearls of wisdom. Now, I’m not talking about anything like the Twitter feed or the sitcom that was just a bunch of idiotic phrases that somebody’s dad may or may not have spout it off, though some of them were pretty funny. No, I’m talking about real life-changing dadisms that I grew up with that helped me make sense of my life and the decisions that I make as well as hundreds of other people that my dad has counseled over the years. The first dadism that we’ll take a look at is PPT. And no I’m not talking about anything having to do with PYT or OPP or even the GOP or the GDP.

PPT actually makes a huge difference in each and every single one of our lives. I’m talking about the people, the places and the things that we choose to surround ourselves with. I guarantee you that 100% of the time, the people, the places and the things that you choose to surround yourself with will have a direct impact on the day-to-day decisions that you make. So how does this play itself out? Well, if you go all the way back to biblical times with King David or his son, the wisest man in the world, Solomon, they both fell victim and were uplifted by the people, the places and the things that they chose to surround themselves with. Go back even further to the dawn of mankind and you’ll see Adam and Eve choosing to hang out around the forbidden fruit, sit around and listen to the serpent and all of his temptations and eventually fall from grace.

But that doesn’t pertain to me or my life you say. Well, let’s look at some easy to spell out illustrations. Picture if you will, someone who goes out every Friday night with his buddies that he’s been hanging out with ever since high school. And now he’s in his forties and he is simply having a few beers with his friends, lifelong friends at that every single week at the local pub. Not necessarily a horrible thing, until he notices a somewhat vague disconnect between him and his children and a wedge between him and his wife. That maybe it’s a result of one of them having a tough week and wishing that they could just simply come home and be with their dad or their husband, but he’s with his pals and then he’s nursing a headache the following morning. You do that enough times and it becomes pretty easy to see that his beers and his bros have become a much higher priority than his bride and his kids.

That’s an easy one. How about a teenager who’s dating a boy who may have some great qualities, but who simply has some issues that make him not the right boy for right now. As a parent, you can see the heartache and the devastation that will come to this relationship but of course your daughter can’t see this. What’s worse is that over time, you’ll notice behaviors and choices that she makes based on the influence of the problem child that she’s dating, his friends and the places they go and the things that they surround themselves with. Now, I’m not saying that we should all surround ourselves in tight little holy huddles of church prayer groups and homeschool communities, quite the contrary. Each of us should strive to be a positive influence on everyone in our community, putting their needs and their desires in front of our own while maintaining a close group of trusted friends who hold each other accountable when we see negative people, places, and things starting to have an adverse impact on our lives.

And I’m not just talking about dark alleys and seedy bars. Consider the types of entertainment that you choose. The TV shows the movies, music, and talk radio that you listen to. Think about the well-intentioned people that you surround yourself that sometimes gossip and manipulate then they tend to suck you into those behaviors. Think about websites that you frequent and social media outlets, and then consider, are they helping to uplift your life or are they putting a wedge between you and your family, your close friends and your community. Lastly, when we see our friends and our family members lives starting to turn a skew with bad habits forming, we need to be able to have the honesty to take a hard look at the people, places and things surrounding that person and help them make adjustments in these areas to get back on the right track.

I know it sounds overly simple, and there are some oftentimes self-centeredness and self control issues that follow closely behind, but addressing our PPTs is the perfect starting point to discovering what’s guiding our decisions and plotting out the roadmap of life that often causes us to question, how the heck did we get here. For more Real Stuff That My Dad Says and hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, check out our website, realstuffmydadsays.com and our podcast on the E-Squared Network. I’m Jefferson Drexler and like my kids say, I’m just trying to help.