Episode 23 of Baker Street with Thom Pollard has made quite an impact on a few listeners. So much so, that I’ve decided to transcribe it below. The Episode is about why one should never lie, how it impacts our destiny. It’s also about encouraging others, and why that is so important. Below is the transcript.

(Episode 23 in audio form can be found at BakerStreet.buzzsprout.com – scroll down and click on Episode 23. You also can find my podcast on iTunes, Pandora, Spotify and wherever podcasts are found.)

 

EPISODE 23 – DON’T TELL A LIE, YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT

MUSIC: (00:03)
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Thom Pollard: (00:17)
Welcome to Baker street. This is Thom Pollard. Thank you for coming back again. It has been a long couple of weeks, lots going on. I am eagerly watching the last of the crop, if you will, of Monarch caterpillars turning into the chrysalis and flying away and the late season Monarch butterflies are the ones that catch the thermals and fly down to Mexico for our winter. And then they come back and lay the eggs and those are the eggs of the, of the monarchs that hatch back up here on our patches of milkweed that we see flying around in the summertime. And I reluctantly release summer and slowly bring autumn in, And it’s been a good autumn. I’m still having fire pits. I’ve got a good fire pit. Last night I was warm and, and got in just in time. And then a couple of hours later after I was sound asleep, I was awakened by the sound of rain and it was very peaceful. So it’s kind of an interesting time of year. I always feel a little melancholy this time of year as summer slips away and the cooler evenings settle in. I do love fall foliage but I’d take summer pretty much anytime. I just love the warm weather and walking around barefoot outside and that’s kind of my groove.

Thom Pollard: (01:52)
We are together again on Baker Street. So come on in and why don’t you guys put your feet up, get the most comfortable chair in the living room because today we’re going to talk about destiny and our calling, and primarily why one should never tell a lie. It’s not going to be a long podcast. Right to the point. Rip your heart out and then set you free to go look for your own Monarch butterflies flying off to Mexico like I think that some of us wish we could for the warm weather down there.

MUSIC: (02:35)
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Thom Pollard: (02:37)
We are listening to my man Lobo Loco and I picked this song not only because I love his music, but the name of the song is Battled Daemons. And for those of you who have ever read about or read Socrates, he talked about his daemon, not his demon, but a daemon being a sixth sense, if you will, a voice that would speak to him when a thought or, or an urge came upon him or that was improper or or immoral. But daemon would speak to him and, and, and remind him that, that it would be better for him to not do what it was he was thinking about or about to say. So Battle Daemons – daemons, in the context from what I just shared with you are really good but – but they, they linger and are, call us to our attention, the bad things that can go through our mind. And that’s why also I picked it was because we’re going to talk a little bit about destiny and calling and why one should never tell a lie.

MUSIC: (03:55)
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Thom Pollard: (04:07)
When we do not act in accordance to the central spirit of our being, we become off kilter. And I say that meaning we have been put on this planet and there’s this fire that burns within us that some listen to and some do not. And millions and millions of people live their entire lives, never truly listening to their central spirit of their being and die. And, and when those people die, for every person who dies, never having followed that central spirit, the world ends up, a,, a colder place. And so the calling of this episode is to, to urge all, to listen to the central spirit of our being, to avoid becoming off kilter. Uh, this world is very, very difficult. The Buddha said that life is suffering and, and eh, but for our ways to transcend that we can accept that we can understand, yes, that, that life is suffering.

Thom Pollard: (05:18)
And in so doing, we can experience the vicissitudes of life, the ups and the downs. And, and in, in, in order to do that, we have to let go of attachment. Attachment not only to our material objects or to the love or affection of another or attachment to our own bodies or, if you will, of living here, cause we’re all going to die that much as assured and we’re gonna lose things that we love or that we desire. And so if we were able to let go of our attachments and accept that everything is change constantly,

Thom Pollard: (05:58)
…that change is everywhere. That is the one thing that will always be happening. A beautiful feeling will change. It will go away. An awful feeling we’ll change that will also go away. And everyone knows deeply in their heart that there’s a calling essential spirit. Everyone knows it. We’re all human and we’ve been put on this planet for a purpose and go back in some of my earlier episodes, and I talk about the purpose of life, that, that ability and that, that freedom for us to go and explore our creativity all as one as connected to the source, we, which we all are. So some whom the world often chastises or conversely, champions for living their own calling are heedless to the judgment and rejection of others because they know that their central calling is tantamount to their survival, to their own, if you will. their way of transcending the fact that there is suffering, that there’s sadness, that there is death, that we’re all gonna die.

Thom Pollard: (07:10)
So we have to look at those people who have, who have gotten up the courage to live the life that they were meant to be on this earth for and, and understand that that somewhere deep within them, they have a gratitude for everything. Everything that happens in their life, the good, the bad, the ugly, the indifferent. And for me personally, I’ve spoken about this before in losing my brother to suicide. My soul mate, my best friend, it completely threw my world off-kilter. I was, you know, I, I was, I was gonzo baby. I, you know, my dad had passed away only three months before and my brother kinda rallied and, and then boom, you know, he, he was gone and, and I, the, the, the rug was swept out from underneath my feet. Any, any bullshit lie I’d ever told myself about, you know, me, transcending suffering was I was, I was on my ass.

Thom Pollard: (08:12)
I was, I was right on the ground. And so, you know, and also God knows, I look in the mirror and know that that ugliness of, of whatever moved my brother to do what he did is within me. It’s in us all. We all have that capacity for evil and ugliness. But what we also have a deep and profound and undying capacity for love, for, for joy and, and, and the people who truly embrace that, who understand that, that, that every, any person who is happy, who comes from that place of love makes the world a better place. Those people who do that actually wish not only for their lives to get better each day, but for the lives of those around us. Even our, if you will, enemies. I’ve spoken about Ubuntu, that, that notion that when one wins, the community wins. When one succeeds and, and, and loves the community, succeeds and loves.

Thom Pollard: (09:24)
Imagine what a world that would be if we were to encourage just one other human being every day just in the smallest way. I have a close friend and she’s a middle school teacher and I had this conversation with her recently and talked about how important it is. You know, I love kids. I could never be a teacher. I couldn’t do it. I used to think, Oh man, you know, there’s oh it’s such an easy job. It’s not, it’s such a big job. But I could never do it. I, I always had to be off flitting off around the world on this adventure, that adventure. But, but here are these teachers, they, they, they stand in front of this class and in this classroom there’s 20 kids or 25 middle school kids, 12, 13 some going through puberty, some who are outcasts of some who are, you know, the, the stud or the hot shot or the, or the girl who’s pretty and all this different levels and, and we’d never know what, what insecurities or fears are within them.

Thom Pollard: (10:26)
And back to that conversation with my friend who was the school teacher, I said, can you imagine how incredible it would, how incredible it would be for each kid in, in every class that you teach for every single kid to hear maybe once a week because every day you can’t do it. But every week or maybe every two weeks or 10 days, that every single kid that comes into that classroom is told how capable they are individually of such great things and how beautiful and perfect they are. Just the way they are and all that they have to do. Just one small thing they have to do. Yup. This is the thing that cripples people, is have the courage to embrace the central spirit of what burns within them. Now, for a kid who maybe has a parent who tells them that they’re good for nothing or they’ll never amount to anything, and I never had that.

Thom Pollard: (11:31)
My parents were so cool and they told me how amazing I was probably almost over the top. But there are kids out there who go home and their parents tell them, you are a piece of trash. You are nothing. And they believe it. Can you imagine that teacher telling them, you are amazing. You can do great things. All you have to do is embrace essential spirit of what burns within you. Now you take your time, you wait, you hold onto it and any friend who tells you you’re crazy for having that central spirit of what burns within you. If any friends who says that stupid, they’re not your friend, therein. Is that secret to life. How do I know who my friends are? Boom. You know immediately your friends are the ones who embrace you the way you are and who champion your successes.

Thom Pollard: (12:22)
And comfort you and your loss, right? How many times have we hung out with people or gotten married to people who treated us like crap, but because we were so weak and, and lacking self guidance and assurance that we stayed in those relationships taking the abuse, Oh, I’m good for nothing. I deserve that. So how do, how if a kid looks at you, or your friend and they say, how do I embrace that spirit within me? And the way to do it is to live in truth. And how do we live in truth? Well, it’s, it’s by speaking the truth, by not literally, literally, fundamentally by not lying, which we all tell small lies every day perhaps, you know, um, I’m not talking about, you know, how do I look in this dress kind of thing and saying, Oh, you know, it looks great.

Thom Pollard: (13:27)
I mean, the truth might be miserably on the opposite end of that. But sometimes not lying. Is is merely done by not opening your mouth, telling the truth if you, you know, so and, and if we’re, and here we are, we’re all on our path toward, we’re all going in that same place. We’re all gonna die. So if we’re going to do something, we fricking might as well do that. We might as well aim for some thing that we believe in, right. Instead of, Oh, you know, I think I need to be doing this, or I think I need, you know, you know, you know what the central spirit of your heart is. So many people spend the rest of their, their entire lives crushing it. I’ve had friends, some of my best friends who were artists or writers and, and they gave it up because, and that’s fine.

Thom Pollard: (14:32)
They made their choice because they were like, well, I, I want a bigger house or I want a better car. I want to send my kids to private school. It’s fine. I have no judgment about it. What I’m saying is I could never do that. And wow. You know, I, I, I that well it cost me marriage I suppose in a way. And I know my children listen to my podcast. I’m not saying I was a letch or anything but, but I couldn’t do anything but go after the person I was put on this planet to be honest. But the one thing at least,

MUSIC: (15:07)

Thom Pollard: (15:10)
it at least at least I was going after something right. Why not? Why not go after something that means something true to who you are? And if you lose the person who you’re married to because of it, then who cares? At least you’re going after the right thing and you can look in the mirror with dignity and integrity. If you don’t do anything malevolent or unkind or tell that person things that hurt them and then your children can look you in the eye and know that you are real.

Thom Pollard: (15:50)
The only way to live properly is not to lie to yourself or to others to allow the truth to shine through and not, not, not until allow yourself to be condemned or judged by those we pass by each day. Who are pissed off and angry because their lives suck worse than yours and they just want nothing more than to read about you failing. There’s a lot of people out there like that.

Thom Pollard: (16:14)
We don’t hate them. The people who come from that place of truth and love don’t hate them. We don’t judge them. We just don’t spend a lot of time in their presence. They’re hurting too. They need hope. God knows every single student in that classroom needs hope. Every single person who goes unnoticed every day elsewhere, they cry for some level of understanding or encouragement that they are perfect. You know? Tell them their lives will improve if they practice that. If they practice just living the truth, honoring what light burns inside of them. Never lying is a big challenge for some. I mean, Holy crap. Some people, that’s all they do is lie, but, but how about just by not opening your mouth when you feel a lie coming on, that’s a good start. That’s a darn good start. So many of hopeless, you know, hopelessness in their lives. And you know, when we start to embrace things that come from the truth of who we are and why we were put on this planet, we start to become, you know, surrounded by people who are doing the same.

Thom Pollard: (17:30)
I listened to this, this, this speech recently by Jordan Peterson, who, God, I’m just, this guy tells it like it is. Um, he says, he says something about we’re always bettering betting our life on something. And if you make a commitment truth, your life straightens out in that we find a meaning. And now these are my words, cause I’m just rattling off a conviction. We find dignity by undertaking something of importance in ourselves, in the core of who we are, why God or Source put us here. We literally changed the world one for ourselves. But by coming into contact with the hundreds or thousands of people that we have known or that we know, they come into contact with a man or woman of dignity who is willing to lose, willing to be judged, willing to be shunned by people, for living their conviction. And that is inspiring to students.

Thom Pollard: (18:38)
That is inspiring to the people who have no hope. And when we treat ourselves as an entity that’s worth something by just doing something so simple as not lying. We show ourselves respect. And in doing so every day we grow in dignity and confidence. And so another thing that one time, one thing I heard from Jordan Peterson, he said, when you wake up in the morning, don’t judge yourself on, on the people you look up to or your idols, judge yourself on the person that you were yesterday. That’s, that’s really cool because we can’t be what other people are.

MUSIC: (19:41)

Thom Pollard: (19:42)
So you know, I’m not ashamed to tell you, man, my life has been difficult at times. I was a complete screw up in business. I tried so many times. I was not a great husband. I didn’t cheat. I wasn’t a bad man. I, I never hit, but, but damn, I wasn’t a great husband. I, I just, I mean, I’m pretty sure I was a damn good dad. You know, I, I lost it on my kids a few times. I mean, damn I, but, but for me, I felt like so many things like fell apart from me at times financially and, and even, you know, my brother committed suicide three months after my dad died of lung cancer and we had just moved into our new house up in the Mount Washington Valley of New Hampshire. I was a complete and utter mess and my wife at the time would walk into the kitchen and I’d be sitting there in front of the fire in front of the wood stove just staring.

Thom Pollard: (20:37)
And she asked me how I was and I couldn’t even, I couldn’t even talk. I couldn’t even answer. And she would take my hand and say, stand up and walk me down the driveway, the little pond near our house just so I could go outside and reconnect with the trees and the grass and the air. Feel my toes in the grass. And, and in so doing, I started to remember that life was going on despite my own suffering inside, despite my incredible loss thinking, you know, my kids will never know my dad or my brother, you know, the way I knew them, and you know, well we still got divorced, but God bless her, she deserves something so much more than I was able to give her at the time, you know? And so doing that, the, the gift for me was that another human being looked into, the wretch that sat there before her. And in the simplest act of taking my hand showed me that even in the deepest depths of Hell there is, for lack of a better word, Whoa.

Thom Pollard: (21:43)
Now, almost 15 years after that suicide of my brother I’ve been just as broken many times in between then and I’m sure I will be again working for myself and just following my passion. But, but at least now I look at his tragedy, the tragedy of losing, losing him as a miracle, as a gift. And even in the evil, there’s, there’s beauty. And in one and I accepted that I was never angry with him. But by walking in that truth as one person at a time, we make this world more tolerable. We make it possible to ascend above this suffering and the death and the reality of that we will all one day die and lose those things that we love. You’ll have to say goodbye to our dog or say goodbye to a parent. And if we lie, just one lie, we reject the foundation of what we are put here on earth to experience this, this, this flame that was born within us in our soul, this thing that will never be tampered – tampened? (laughs). And we reject the core of our own being by lying, the true spirit of our existence. The essential core being is to stand straight in truth and accept that which is in us and to be be a person of dignity and honor and courage and not to lie and to tell the truth. When we do open our mouths and speak and as more and more people grow up and take responsibility for themselves, they help eradicate malevolence in the world. Just by keeping their own house clean, to borrow the words of Jordan Peterson, and when we do that, the world is going to be a better place.

MUSIC: (23:44)

Thom Pollard: (23:44)
I hope you’ll visit website eyesopenproductions.com go to contact. Please click on that. I’d love it if you would follow me and I’ll put you on my mailing list and check me out on iTunes and wherever you can find podcasts and I also have a YouTube channel that’s got some kind of cool stuff on there. You can see my funny face when I start to cry and a YouTube. If you hit search Baker street with Thom Pollard, it will come up. I hope you’ll subscribe to me. I appreciate you guys taking the time to listen. I hope I haven’t shocked my children. Maybe I should block them from listening to this one. I love you all. Have a great day. I will indeed see you all real soon.

MUSIC: (24:28)
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