Week #38 of 2025 has arrived... And still the only way to live a full, content life, is to see everyone through the lens of loving kindness.

Time to walk over to your 4K Weeks poster and fill in another square.  Done?

This week feels different. The Fourth Turning is all fun and games when it is a theory.

Much of the US can't even talk about politics without shouting, and 60% of people in the US read below a 6th grade level, so for a while it's going to be emotions, not rational discourse.

But...the fight shouldn't be between the Right and the Left (whatever those things mean).  It should be between the 99.5% and the .5%. The top .5% of US households (1,300,000 people) have $20-25 Trillion in wealth.  The bottom 95% (330,000,000) (everyone below $3.5 Million in household net worth) holds that same amount.

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ON WEEK #38 OF 1952...

Charlie Chaplin chose not to return to the US after being investigated by the FBI for alleged communist ties due to some left-leaning statements and sympathies.

He was 3,909.43 weeks or 63.46 years old.

WHAT I CONSUMED THIS WEEK

Telepathy Tapes. Oh, MY GOODNESS. This one is insane.  My physical therapist, Dr. Tim, at Restore/Thrive mentioned this podcast to me as he was viciously rubbing the scar tissue on my arm... jerk! Anyway, Dr. Tim and I have different foundational beliefs, but a shared philosophy that we know very little about the world, and so should keep an open mind. You better have an open mind if you listen to this podcast... To quote the host... "True skepticism begins with an open mind." Also, asterisk: this stuff is not without controversy!

Ray Dalio is certainly in the .05%. but, there is a lot of good info in this podcast.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.." -Richard Whately

If you want to get somewhere, even if that somewhere is "on a beach with a book", you better have a plan.

And if you don't have a plan for the day, it is easy to lose a month.

When we were younger, and the kids were just starting daycare,  each morning felt like getting shot out of a canon.  Chaos reigned, and it is hard to recover from that. 

Unless you have a plan.  There is a saying in meditation... "If you can't afford 10 minutes a day for silence, you probably need 30!"

The same is true for your day.  After the chaos of the morning is over, spend five minutes and make a list of the three most important tasks, in order of importance, each morning. Only work on those.  That is leverage.

WHAT I AM THINKING ABOUT THIS WEEK

Open mindedness and loving kindness

I don't know crap.  Seriously.  If I take all that I know and compare it to all universal knowledge, I know nothing.

And yet, how do you walk through the world without "knowing" some stuff? I know that my feet will not melt into the sidewalk when I am walking home. But does that keep me from being able to become one with the concrete?

It is so hard to have an open mind. Harder than you think if you just thought "I have an open mind."  Even if you could just take the world as it is presented to you, and not worry about all the various reasons someone might want to trick you into believing something, even then,  it's hard to be open to your ignorance.

Historically, life hasn't rewarded us for joyfully saying, "Oh, gosh! I wonder what is around that corner!"

And yet, one of the most powerful muscles you can exercise these days is just that.  The "I wonder" muscle.  Every amazing human made thing in this world began with an "I wonder". My arm... broken, repaired with steel, zero days in a cast, began with a surgeon saying... "I wonder if we still need the cast."

But that progress only happens if the world is a safe place to say "I wonder".

Change is scary.

Progress is scary even when the rewards of that progress are shared equitably.  Progress is downright terrifying when all the rewards are flowing to a few robber barons while the same progress steals your livelihood.  And as we see currently, all of those emotional 6th grade readers end up blaming the progress, not the robber baron.

The only way for us to access the full potential of human progress is for each of us to live into loving kindness for ourselves and for others.  That is how we create a safe place to take full advantage of all the "I wonders".

Until then, we are leaving some of the amazing future we could live in on the table.

But don't despair... embody the change you want to see in the world. Treat all the people you interact with today with loving kindness, and keep wondering about what is possible.

Until next week!

Spencer,

Owner of 4KWeeks

P.S. Click on this reward if you feel like letting me know you read the whole newsletter: The work