If You Have Problems Trusting, You Will Have Problems Living A Life Of Freedom

As the regime around us falls apart, Americans (and all people) will increasingly look for more trustworthy leaders to turn to for answers.

That is where you come in. My job here is to rouse lions. Your job is to be that lion. Your job is to be that person who walks through the day unable to do anything but be his free self.

In all likelihood, it is the most natural thing you have ever done. It has probably been what you have always done.

It is probably the easiest job anyone has asked you to do — to live life as freely as you can each and every day.

As simple as it sounds, that level of authenticity from a lion, like you, is exactly what is needed to get us out of this mess.

You may not be able to change the world overnight, but through your own free, lion-like behavior, you can deeply impact your life, your home, and the community around you. That is to say that you can change the world as you know it.

Three Groups 

I have written before about three groups of people who tend to form at times like these and who exist through all periods of time.

I speak of a lion as opposed to a more hyena-like person or a more sheep-like person. All three exist in all periods of time. It is the lion that determines the trajectory of history based on whether he is awake or asleep.

How A Hyena Behaves

The hyenas spend their days looking for who to take advantage of. Hyenas are plentiful in our era and are constantly presented in the media as people you are assured you can trust. When allowed to run a society, they do the most untrustworthy things. This takes place when the lions choose to sleep rather than when lions roam their territory. The mere presence of awake lions makes the hyena’s control of society impossible.

How Sheep Behave

The more sheep-like folks are the biggest mass of people in a society. They are generally looking for who to follow. Sheep spend a great deal of time is spent examining who is trustworthy. From one moment to the next, they are skittishly looking about for the best leader.

Notably, this may leave a sheep-like person following one group of people one minute and a totally different group the next minute. This is not necessarily a contradiction, since the values involved are not as important to most sheep-like people as that sense of security, even around following a seemingly trustworthy person.

How A Lion Behaves 

The lions, notably, are not specifically trying to get anyone to trust them. That is something the hyenas and sheep are busy concerning themselves with. The lions are just trying to live more free lives. This brings about a notable conflict.

The hyenas are trying to look for people to devour or control. They, accordingly, specialize in looking trustworthy to others in order to get their way. The sheep are looking for people to trust. They are, accordingly, gullible because they often seek shortcuts to quickly find comfort in trusting a leader, even though such a leader is as untrustworthy as they come. The need to always be following a leader undermines the sheep-like pursuit of safety.

It brings the hyenas great happiness that the lions do not care more about being good leaders. It brings the sheep great frustration that the lions do not care more about being good leaders. In fact, such needs as “Who is trustworthy to follow?” tends to mean so little to a lion that he does not even want to play such a game. He happily leaves it for the sheep and hyenas to play with each other.

The lion is focused on being asleep at the job (where many lions today are), in which case he is focused on living his own free life off by himself, or a lion is focused on being on the prowl, roving his territory, in which case he too is living his own free life. By being awake and living his own free life, a lion spreads freedom better than anyone else in a society can.

In fact, the sheep can only ever experience freedom when following a lion, and a hyena can only ever experience freedom when at the mercy of a lion. Again, neither of those details tend to concern a lion. He is out there doing his own free thing.

Focusing On Trust, Prevents You From Achieving Freedom 

All this is to illustrate a detail that tends to be true in life. If trust is a concept you are stuck on, then freedom is probably not an attribute you can fully embrace. The lion has moved beyond such a worry or perhaps never had it.

Asking “How do I get others to trust me?” or “Who do I trust?” misses the nature of freedom. Freedom is grounded enough to be able to not fear the consequences of not being able to trust your fellow man. The free man will be fine whether or not he succeeds in developing that trust in others. The trust is not primary, but secondary. Freedom is also grounded enough to be able to not fear the consequences of being unable to be trusted by your fellow man. The free man will be fine whether or not others trust him. Being trusted by others is not primary, but secondary. Only in the midst of having little concern for trust is freedom obtainable.

Firm Foundations 

This is not to promote the lion as a loner. Far from that. In the midst of that behavior — in which one is neither needy for trust nor needy to be trusted — very solid relationships can be built on the firmest of footing.

There are plenty of foundations that lions build upon. I have proverbially built many little towers in life upon all manner of foundations. Time and again, I find that most important to me is grounding myself upon God. That is the most stable foundation I have ever known. It is so stable that the contrast between trust and freedom is apparent. If trust is a primary concern, freedom is virtually inaccessible.

Faith Or Fear? 

For a hyena or sheep, faith that freedom will come becomes unobtainable because one is busily occupied on the topic of who to trust or who to get them to trust them.

For a sheep-like person, trust is a pathway to security and other life affirming characteristics. Sheep desire to trust as quickly as they can. This can be seen in the prevalence of sexual promiscuity. It can be seen in the adoration of the most undeserving political and cultural figures. It is trust for the sake of trust. The harm one does to oneself by being so needy to trust is vast.

For a hyena-like person, being trustworthy is something to virtue signal in order to have influence. The extent of virtue signaling in this era is, of course, important — in the absence of true leadership and in the absence of actual virtue, mere signaling is all people really need in order to convince most people, in the short term that they are the real deal. Again sexual promiscuity is notable as well as adoration of figures who do not deserve it. Practices such as neurolinguistic programming or pick up artistry become welcome shortcuts.

A Trade-Off Between Sheep & Hyenas 

Sheep seek to trust as quickly as they can. Hyenas seek to be trusted as quickly as they can. There is often, then, a societal trade when the lions are asleep.

Left to their own devices, the hyenas look for people to take advantage of and the sheep look for people with trustworthy qualities. The hyenas will happily feign trustworthiness if it means they can take advantage of another. A sheep will happily let another take advantage of him if it means he can get comfortable in an environment in which all the right amount of virtue-signaling around trust and security is provided.

A Limit To The Sheep & Hyena Society 

This cozy relationship all makes so much sense until you factor in 2 things:

1.) Hyenas, unable to truly deliver on what is fundamentally needed, fail and create crisis;

2.) Lions exist.

The Hyenas Fail

First, the failure of hyenas.

Eventually, the hyenas run out of room to take advantage of sheep and push things too far, proving themselves so very untrustworthy in the eyes of all watching. Crisis occurs as hyena leaders, each one more untrustworthy than the one prior jockey for influence. Leaders can be at a societal level, a local level, or a personal level. The fundamentals of that undeserved trust are similar. They have nothing of substance to provide and society increasingly finds itself in a mess. Crisis will rouse a lion from sleep.

The Lions Roar 

Second, the existence of a lion.

You might be able to imagine that if sheep and hyena are seemingly comfortable together, the presence of a lion on the prowl is quite disruptive.

In the long term, the truth is, only a lion can ever provide the leadership a society needs — only a lion can live free and create the structure that allows both freedom and security to others.

It is exactly what the mass of people (the sheep) want, yet the lion refuses to placate them with phony shows of leadership. To even behave such a way welcomes the hyena spirit in. It shortchanges the natural potential growth that happens when a lion seeks to placate and destabilizes the future potential of the relationship. A lion is more likely to say, “If you need phony shows of leadership to see why I am better than a hyena, then I want nothing to do with you.”

What Does That Mean In Our Current Context?

To read this in the context of our current climate: A lion will say “If you need phony shows of leadership to see why I am better than a Tony Fauci, Bill Gates, or Klaus Schwab, then I want nothing to do with you.” 

That Does Not Satisfy The Sheep’s Neediness

This does not work for a sheep in the short term. The sheep needs reassurances. The hyena will happily provide those reassurances. This is despite the fact that the hyena 1.) Lacks a backbone, 2.) Lacks a moral compass, 3.) Has no obedience to values, 4.) Cannot lead in all but the most shallow, stilted, carefully-studied, book knowledge, MBA-class-obtained, slithery definitions of the concept, 5.) Will say anything that needs to be said to survive, 6.) Will say anything that needs to be said to take advantage of every scenario for his own benefit, and 7.) Quite literally seeks to devour the very people who are foolish enough to trust him to lead.

So, other than the fact that the hyena is the very last person anyone should follow, the hyena is a really great leader. Sheep end up following the hyena and end up getting all their short term needs for security met. There is a lot of undeserved confidence in that equation.

Why The Lion Is Seen As A Threat 

The lion living his own free life is clearly a threat to the hyena and can easily be seen as a problem to the sheep. He is different. He stands out. He is being free. He refuses to follow the rules that everyone else obediently follows. He knows the hyena has no authority over him. 

The great mass of people can easily be convinced that the lion is the enemy in the short term, when in fact, the lion is the only long term leader that ever makes sense to follow. The roaming lion can easily be made into an enemy by sheep and hyena alike. The sleeping lion, as well, can be seen as a threat.

The sheep often know no better. Those who do want to put short term impressions security before all else, often carry a knee-jerk belief that freedom is the enemy of security, rather than seeing the truth that freedom is the enabler of all manner of good things that allow security to be possible.

The hyena sees this clearly and knows that empty words and superficial attempts at security are the best a hyena can provide, so the hyena is naturally quite threatened by the lion. The sheep see a lion as a kill-joy in the short term. His very presence shakes up the comfort of the status quo.

The presence of the lion leaves the uneasy feeling that something is wrong, and the undiscerning sheep, having no idea what that could be pays no heed to the hyena preying on the herd, but insists the existence of the roaming lion with his toxic, outmoded, and patriarchal notions such as standards, values, or conscience could be the only possible explanation of what is wrong.

Ultimately, The Lion Does Not Care What The Other Two Think 

The lion, on the other hand, does not really care what either of these two think as long as they stay out of his way.

Dear Lion, if you can live your life as freely as possible, grounded on good foundation, ignoring the evil cackles of the hyenas and the frightened bleating of the sheep. If you can stay focussed on how you can live the most free life possible, you will ripple out freedom around you as you win this day.

Say no to the nonsense. Push back. Lead. Read the bestselling “Face Masks in One Lessonif you don’t know how. Read “Face Masks Hurt Kids if you don’t know why. These books are about so much more than face masks. Signup for the hard hitting newsletter at www.RealStevo.com (www.RealStevo.com). Refuse to be enfeebled by their nonsense. You can lead yourself, your family, and the world around you toward better. 

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