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The transcription is a conversation between a group of individuals discussing their experiences with adulting. They talk about the challenges and freedoms of being an adult compared to their time in school. Some find adulting fun and enjoy the freedom it brings, while others find it difficult and struggle with budgeting. The conversation also touches on the idea that adulthood is not always as fun as they were led to believe. Overall, they have different opinions on adulting, but acknowledge that they have only experienced a small portion of it so far. up straight in you're saying I should be normal yeah that's that was the request simple hey show you're working uh show you're working how am I not normal no one said you weren't I just asked you to be so but you said specifically me did anyone else hear that on the recording please audience let me know if you heard at any point me asking specifically kwamada to be normal I would never do that I'm an equal opportunity HR where is our HR this is bulli you you turn up late you make us change location twice you're telling me I gotta be normal I did do that I did do that and for that I'm gonna apologize I can't promise that I won't do it again I'm sorry for the listeners of viewers today is notoriously hard to get a hold of yeah he doesn't want to be out there I've sat there with him and seen his phone ping him open whatsapp to get rid of notification and close whatsapp again you have to go to his house and even then I went there the other day and I said what me well me in at 12 I was like there at 12.02 he's like you're early I was late listen let the record show let's unpack that today yeah let's unpack that let's just take a minute and unpack that you know what I'm ready for this why do you air our messages why do I air your messages okay first of all whatsapp is overwhelming whatsapp is overwhelming because you get in just two group chats and all you'll be hearing is I'm not that's the worst thing you know I was about to get all gassed I'm not the group's popular and I know I'm not because I don't respond in those groups so you're admitting it I'm there to do a little double tap quick quick haha reaction like the crying emoji apart from that maybe a little HBD every now and again not HBD not even happy birthday you have to do HBD XOX listen it is it is what it is is it though it is it is you're listening to things my parents never told me a podcast from study pray center with Thank you everybody for joining us for the very first episode of things my parents never told me this is a brand new podcast from the team at city praise Center our vision at CPC is to build a large outward-looking church in Gravesham one that is strong image Wow strong in membership growing in maturity dynamic in ministry dedicated to mission and awesome in worship we want to create a space for young people where we can grow together we can connect create those friendships grow in faith responsibility find our place within the church but most importantly address the questions that we have that we know our parents went through but never spoke about with me today I have got a fantastic fantastic set of people the people whose WhatsApp messages are never ignore I'll get back to actually never ever I'm going to start top right Karen would you like to introduce yourself my name is Karen I am one of the four young adults leaders at CPC yeah it's a pleasure to be here to like you said today talk about the things that we know our predecessors went through but never spoke about and I think that's key because it's not saying that people can go through them briefly as previously it's talking about the fact that maybe they were to be before just generally because of the times that were but our generation is paving a way of open communication transparency and talking about things equally in a Christian forum and talking about the things that we go through within the world but actually talking about how do we navigate them as first second third generation Christians in the current the current climate yeah next up we have got another lovely lady of God Tammy do you want to introduce yourself Thank you, I love being a lady of God, I love that, I'll put it on my Instagram bio but hi everyone so yeah I'm Tammy I'm also one of the other YA leaders I'm excited to be here I'm excited for us to start this podcast actually for us to be able to have a safe space so we can openly talk about things topics that are we glossed over in church topics that we felt like we couldn't freely discuss with parents growing up and just to learn from one another and share ideas so I'm excited Thank you Tammy and of course Tammy said are our parents that listen to this are they going to find out our secrets things that like because you mentioned that like things that we didn't talk about to our parents are they going to like They might just I like how you asked this question I haven't even had an intro yet so it's cool Keep going, come on Finally I leave this man to last because this is one of the biggest personalities and he needs the space to do him justice for an intro Ladies and gentlemen he is the Baba of the group the Don Dada the Ogad Top really he would be hosting this if I didn't have if I didn't have this particular mic and control yeah It is the one and only Kwame Nutt Nice thank you for having me guys yeah my name is Kwame Nutt also called Uncle by people who are Ops yeah the whole point of this podcast is to those of us in that sort of you know millennial bracket before millennials that sort of thing Navigating life like I am slightly older than a few of these guys by a long way just a bit just a bit my age TBC those who know me now you guys got to figure this out calling with your suggestions yeah so even though I am a bit older it doesn't mean that I have not been through stuff or going through stuff and actually it is a great thing even in the book of Timothy it says those paraphrasing that obviously learning from those who are younger is also very powerful so this is a you know a sort of group that has come through us four have come through quite naturally as friends and we have found ourselves as young adult leaders as our CPC and it feels like we are the dream team we are the dream team and with this journey we are going on you guys are going to be with us every step of the way whether it is me and Tony bickering or yeah me and Tony bickering because he wants to be me I am going to hate this I don't know sweet intro but then he messaged me saying love you bro my whatsapps get deleted I don't have any record of that I don't know what he is talking about I have got them here I have just one message I lost the password to my phone I can't get into my whatsapp it is such a shame I lost the password to my phone I can't get into it cannot get into it it is done listen let's kick this off it has been a long time coming trying to get this first episode done and as it is a podcast about adults talking about the things that their parents never told us let's start with the first big lie we were sold that adulthood would be fun ah man they sold us a dream I want us to start let's go around and I would like ooo Tammy is cracking her bells sad question are we not having fun about it anyway not Tammy about university versus adulthood and your thoughts on that the first question I was going to ask is what is your least favourite thing about adulting but Tammy if you are enjoying it I need you to tell us your secrets what about adulting and you enjoying it no no there are things obviously that are the ghetto like adulting is the ghetto but it is a better ghetto than university for sure for sure university was the ghetto like if you are ranking ghettos adulting is like Camden and university was like Gambia do you know what I mean wait wait wait wait wait wait I love Camden and I also love Deptford both of those places but they are not like bougie places try and get a flat in Deptford or Camden it is two avenues that doesn't make it bougie it doesn't make it bougie inflation doesn't make it equal look at the cost in the UK are we experiencing bougie living I mean some of us more than others because some of us can afford fancy mics and like green screens some of us can afford green screens green screens free my brother the green screen is free we need to free this man free this man Karen how about you are you team adulting is great or team adulting is scum I am on the fence adulting is fun it allows a freedom that you don't experience in structured education in terms of having to holiday outside of term time and being able to have holidays at any time and the luxury of that in terms of so many different things adulting in terms of like more money and having to experience life beyond looking at the yellow stickers in a shop or a food shop so you have the luxuries of that but it adds an element of struggle that you don't experience as a youth in terms of like okay you're having to budget you're having to be sensible when you don't experience that as a youth in terms of okay in your structured education even though there were struggles you see your friends every day you're doing exams but you're with your friends there's a lot more social time you might not have money but all your friends don't have money either so it's like you're bonding over the struggle it's like it's just it's fun if I was to pick one I would go back to like secondary school like year 8 where it's like there's no exams in sight it's just like because year 7 was a little bit hard because you're like new environment year 8 was like you're in this you've made your friendship yeah exams aren't anywhere near it's like oh gosh that was just some of the best years of my life women's secondary school really no but I feel like don't forget like you still have so many years left so the best years of your life baby girl you're just 26 26 you're what? you're what? you're 21 no I don't know I don't know what age I am you're football age yeah we've only experienced a small portion of our adulthood and I think that's a good segue into Kwamena who's experienced a lot more of his adulthood than I have context I'm married and I've got two kids so I have had and I got married relatively young as well so I the things about adulting I don't like is the pocket watching so I think when we are in school as Karen said it's sort of in the same sort of struggle uni again you're like oh I've got exams you've got exams I haven't got money you haven't got money as soon as you leave you tend to start doing this and all that sort of thing and I've had it where over the years friends who I've been friends with at uni who I realised they saw me as beneath them because of the background I came from where's the background they came from when they see me with a nice car they're like oh how can you afford that like somebody asked you that question and they didn't burst into flames how can I afford my car then when I bought my house when we bought our house somebody was like oh isn't it a nice area sorry go back to the ghetto isn't it a nice area exactly I mean that was what they were hinting at but I think for me the pocket watching is a problem because it's like you're in your own race the career I chose which again I'm going to leave some breadcrumbs in there you've got to listen to find out what I do for a living is a long gestation period to get to where I am now so for a long time people were like oh bread boy and then now when I pull up to an event and my car's parking itself and I'm standing outside it they're trying to steal my champagne from a vehicle I mean I say that I think it's a comparison I find the worst thing about adulting because we're all we're all trying to figure out this life that we're living and the worst thing I find the hardest thing is people try and pull you down to pull themselves up and actually we're a lot better when we build each other up but saying that I do enjoy being an adult like the freedoms that we talk about only come from actually protecting your mental health and your things you hold dear like I think for me in the last 4 or 5 years I've realised that play is something that as young men we're told to sort of forego from a certain age and actually play in certain ways like relaxing when you're going to watch football, playing football or you know something which is you know I'm not saying have a vice but like something which is relaxing to you really does help because I end up being a better father than a husband when I've had time to you know an hour to recharge and that only comes with being an adult and knowing who I am as a person because at age 21 I didn't know who I was I wasn't too sure who this corner would be when I got older, again see it's in my age when I got older than 21 it started getting more more, I was more comfortable with who I was in my own skin especially in the world we live in I was told from a very young age you're not welcome even though this is my home so yeah I do enjoy being an adult but I do hear that it's tough but the rewards are great I like that I think the reason why I ask it is because it's all... tell me the question yeah it wasn't a question it was just going to go off of what you said ok ok going off of what you said about comparison and stuff, the pressure that people put on themselves in adulthood I feel like there's pressure at every stage in your life like when you're in school there's always pressure to get good grades and stuff but I'm in my 20s I can say my age, I actually don't mind but I don't think I'm scared to speak no wait let me put this kind of thing I'm not scared of my age people are scared of being my age people think that I'm an old man when I'm actually not well I'm 27 so I'm not like I'm not 30 yet and I don't know what the pressures are between the ages of 30 to 40 but there's always so much pressure I feel like in your 20s to achieve everything before 30 and it's a ridiculous ridiculous pressure because if you think about it your 20s are your first major years of adulthood like fair enough you're an adult you're not from 18 but that teen is still very much there and people give you allowance to make certain mistakes because you're not really an adult and you still have that allowance for a certain stage in your 20s but you're expected to get everything you're expected to get the great job you're expected to find the love of your life and marry you're expected to buy the house you're expected to maybe start having kids why is there so much pressure to have everything done by 30 and I feel like that's what then makes people afraid of turning 30 and getting older like 30 is seen as this really old age and I remember this actually came from your dad Pamela when he came to visit us sorry today's so messy what did you say? what did you say to that? it's so messy it's a cut of the guillotine the guillotine editing what did that do? I'm about to put the 50 cent meme in this in more ways than one it's been seen as a as a hard stop but yeah it came from your dad when he came to visit us after I lost my granddad and he was saying to my mum like look how many years of life you have left to reach the age of your dad so my granddad died at 96 and I'm 27 like if you're 30 and you've lost someone that's 96 look how many years you have left before you reach the age that they reach and you're trying to tell me that 30 is old and I have to have achieved like most of my major life goals by 30 take it easy take it easy it's insane why is there so much pressure? also things like if you look at stats the average first time home buyer is 33 but social media will tell you at 21 if you've not bought a 4 bedroom house in Hampshire you're not living right and I think what happens is I mean I don't live in Hampshire what tends to happen is you sort of see people like engagement farming on social media like hey I've done this look at me and actually like I always say to people my social media is a is an edited snapshot of highlights even all the highlights I have I don't post because sometimes I don't feel like it and so if you, I remember somebody once said oh I saw you did this on Instagram and I was like and you think that's how my life is I think I test drove a car and I posted it or something like that I had a courtesy car or something like that oh you got a new car? I said no oh but you posted it and you believed it if if you follow if you believe everything I post on social media that's how my life is all the time and I think that's where you come from as I've got older and I've realised actually it's all a highlight room really and that's ok like there's a place for it but I think Tommy made an amazing point there like look at how much life we have and I think it could come from a lot of us are first generation in this country and I look at my parents for example they had me earlier than I had my children and they had to you know hustle and so when you have to hustle things out the window like enjoyment now my parents can enjoy themselves because they're in their 60s and me and my sister don't live at home we have our own lives we have our own you know marriages and stuff like that they can now enjoy themselves and they've earned it so and also if you look at busy parents they're not 30 they look like they're 40 or 50 so actually no way my parents don't my parents look fly as I'm going to what's really funny is that my dad and I look fairly similar from a glance for a lot of people and we're similar built stature so a lot of people think he's me or vice versa and we have the same name which doesn't help but it is funny like I think it's that fear of your 20s are the best years of your life and you're as fit as you are because I know I again I play football every week and at the age I'm at I'm not going to be running with the 18-19 year olds but am I always there at the right time because you're making more intelligent movements more intelligent runs I'm not going to chase down the keeper when he's got 30 yards of space because that's what I'm going to do so no pass the ball around me and I think it's that thing of you realise my recovery is going to be different than when I was 21 playing football but I'm still able to do it thank God so it's realising that you're not as you don't bounce back physically like you did in your 20s which is okay but you have something else you have a lot more wisdom and it's not to say those in their 20s don't they do have a lot of wisdom but it's like there's a level of you see you see you see things very differently and you see through a lot of foolishness which if you as listeners if you stick around long enough you'll realise I don't take foolishness lightly what? no you? you're so light and bubbly and easily going the irony is I actually am I'm a delight but I just don't take foolishness oh Terry laughed did she break? I don't know it's just the way you said I'm a delight it gave a stupendous the same message how about you? how do you deal with comparison in adulting? I I think as you were speaking particularly Tammy I was thinking about the comparison between comparison when you were youth and adult so I was thinking about the fact that like when you were a youth or when I was a youth comparison looked like maybe comparing yourself to like the smartest person in your class or the smartest the person who dressed the best in your class or the person who's got the most like looks from the other gender in the class you kind of think okay and I was thinking about the fact that like even though there was comparison as a young person comparison was just kind of secluded between just the people who were within my age group, the people that I saw the people who were like within my close knit I wasn't really comparing myself to like the year 11's when I was in year 7 because they were different to me I was just comparing myself to my year 7's the people that were in my my year group whereas now I think comparison has just become I don't think it's a change of time, I think it's just a change of age that like because I'm now I'm no longer in the structured education system where it's like year above me, year below me and it's like you know this feels like really defined margins between everyone in different age groups once you graduate from uni and it's like you're not in a structured system anymore I think comparison has become a true thief of joy it's like you graduate out of uni and you feel like you're now in the same age bracket of people who have been working for the last 5 years and it's like oh I'm not earning this amount even though I've just graduated it's like you now feel like oh I need to be on the same level as so and so who's been in their career for so many years and it's like we haven't really at least personally I think I haven't really learned how to define what my own personal expectations are for me at this particular age and what my goals are moving forward that aren't defined by what I'm seeing around me social media I always say I hate to be that person that blames life problems on social media but I think a lot of things are a lot of problems are caused by social media that we see what we see, I know Kwame said that people are able to choose what they post but equally sometimes we do take what we see as definitive pictures of our friendships, even the people that we call friends or the people that we also follow as influencers, we do take that as okay this is their life because they have orchestrated this post and that's what they've chosen to post so yeah personally speaking I think comparison has been a particular player point for me as to okay how do I navigate my own personal goals because we all have our own goals but how do I navigate my own personal journey, my own personal walk of life that doesn't involve other opinions other people's markers of success in my own journey of life kind of thing even if that's people who I kind of feel are people of inspiration, family members am I able to define my own walk of life without those kind of external influences, the only influence that I should really have on what my life looks like is big G-O-D and if that's if we're not walking together then life isn't really life isn't really going to be laughing, it's a real thing because I was, I had a long time to think about it as you guys were speaking and I was just thinking the fact that life has just changed as we've kind of come out of the education system and we add a lot of pressure on ourselves even those who are outside the twenties brackets I imagine that the pressures are you know, still similar where did you go with this? I was already at me I mean you you spoke up yeah the pressure's still there and they don't really stop and actually they just change a bit I think what happens you get more resilient in ignoring them but they're still, they're always going to be there, we thought getting married, pressure be off no, how big was your wedding how big was this, what did you spend on this, where do you holiday every year you've got kids, how are they progressing, what school are they going to all that stuff or like you again you are blessed to get a house or how big's your house how big's your garden or what you do there's always going to be something there's always going to be something or even professionally I make it a habit to not wear my profession as my identity so if you again if you follow me on socials you'll see my bio is husband, brother father, son or in that order but my career is last you can pay the bills but it's not my identity, I think for a lot of people they attribute what you do for the respect they should give you it does I wouldn't say it gets worse I look at my parents example they're still dealing with stuff like that they're not dealing with people talking about what their kids are doing can you believe, there are people my parents know who are using myself and my sister as a yardstick for their kids and then they're treating my kids as a yardstick and they're using it through my parents it never stops, there's always something then you get to our grandparents age and unfortunately none of our grandparents are with us but the uncles and aunties are just below that they're all comparing oh I've not had this illness or I have had this we just need to stop comparing ourselves to each other there's healthy competition saying hey look you guys have done well, I want to do well too that sort of thing that I think is healthy to say oh my brothers and sisters they spur me on to be a better person x y z yada yada but comparing yourself to other people to the point where you are devoid of joy in what you're doing you're just like I've got to do this because I mean again an anecdote guys I use a lot of anecdotes these guys know, they're all in their eyes already but a lot will come we had a friend they bought a house quite soon after they got married quite young and in order to do that they lived at home with one of the couple's parents and they didn't buy a single thing fun for three years when I say that I mean things like buying a Snickers bar was taken out of their house fund house fund sort of thing they bought their house and I was like yeah you got your house but at what cost at what cost you lived in your in-laws house for three years as newlyweds nothing wrong with living with in-laws sometimes you have to, sometimes these things happen but you're choosing to do that as newlyweds to save for an asset ok did it help they're still together thankfully they're still together but I've seen people break up it doesn't change it just what would I say the goalposts move it doesn't really shift there is joy in life and this is one of those ones where I bring it back to the title things my parents never told me about comparison right when we think about it as we're talking about this now and they're like my parents did this, my parents do that that is part of the culture that I know that I was brought up in like whether that was comparing me to my siblings, comparing me to people in class that comparison is something that we have been conditioned into and then absorbed and taken in upon ourselves I think it is one of those things that for me I want to change about how we work as a generation and as mentors to the next generation as well part of this pod is supposed to be about opening those doors, changing the conversations that we have sorry I lost myself for a sec and yeah we want to make sure that we're changing that because comparison we think about all of the things you've mentioned, social media is one of the worst for it right, that idea of I know I think the worst thing for me is I know that it's just a snapshot, I know it's not necessarily the full picture of how this person is living and yet it's still eats at me I'm still there like it's like you say once we left school the problem was we moved from we're in this year at or in this year at school to we are in the workplace and there are people who have similar work, similar job titles to any of us but they've been doing it for 10 years, 15 years and the number of times I've where where now seriously it is it's crazy because I think as growing up in church as well with the parents that I had, mental the conversation around mental health was always black and white, it was binary either you are well or is mentally unwell and that was it, never understood that mental health like physical health is something that can get worse, can get better, it's something that you you exercise right, you build it, you strengthen it and they never really took into account that impact and the cost of comparison on that ability to find happiness in yourself I think it's really and particularly I'm talking as someone who's grown up as a church kid right I'm going to elaborate a bit further on that because we know your background do you want to elaborate a bit more about that because I'm sure there are people listening who have had similar experiences that I'm bringing to you but may not have had it verbalized in the way you can verbalize it yeah yeah for sure, so I was a pastor's kid was am a pastor's kid they're still doing the Lord's work hallelujah and what that meant was that every Sunday we'd be in church every Wednesday we'd be in Bible study Friday, Thursday, like my social cues up until I want to say first year of uni were still centered around that Christian shielding it's great because I had adulting at uni as a topic so it's a lovely little segue my most embarrassing story from first year was I went to a it wasn't quite the ACS, it was like the Nigerian Society NSOC at Warwick and they had like a meet and greet, they were serving Jollof music was playing I bet you it was bad Jollof I bet you it was bad Jollof no, the Jollof was wonderful uni Jollof is not always good what do you think I was trying to say we just had to confirm that's why I said excuse me I said some of the uni Jollof is not good does that mean we're not race right oh my goodness not my uni mates and I remember it so clearly my friend came up to me she was my friend immediately in the aftermath and she sang, she spoke the lyric my money and your money no be mates it's a lyric I know but what kind of entrance no, no, no, I'm pretty sure the song was probably playing but I didn't know it now what I said in my attempt to be like ok cool, I'm being let in let me church boy get that in, I was like yeah of course because you know as nice as your money is probably 419, it's probably fraud and she looked at me like pardon excuse me what you don't know me like that what are you trying to say so I was that type of church kid so when I'm talking about churchy I wish I knew you then the screamer would have scrumped I don't think you'd have liked me in uni I don't think many people would have liked me in uni if we'd been so real we're all grown like the uni people I went to uni 3 times officially back when uni was grizzly what's the word I'm looking for I paid enough I was before the 9.5k fees it's showing your age without telling your age it lets people figure it out if people can tell me what age is they get a Snickers bar I went 3 times and I had 3 very different experiences the first one was that typical uni experience where even though I grew up in the church I wasn't a pastor I had a similar thing where you come in thinking ok I've got to operate in this way, I've got to find my wife, I've got to do this and then it just doesn't work like that, you meet people from all parts of the world who live differently to you and you're sort of fooled even talking about the uni I went to it was, you started in September by January you had to figure out where you live in next year because they only had a convention for first years on site so you're saying that you got to decide who you're living with for a year in 3 months of knowing them with everything else going on as an 18 year old and you're surprised that fights occur thankfully I never had any fights with any housemates, if you're listing ex-housemates you're liars but it's a thing where you're you're sort of forced into an adult like situation so it's not natural like I always say to people when they go to uni yes you have the freedom but there are a lot of not barriers, there's a lot of things you're protected from, council tax for example which is let me not start on that you're protected from that sort of thing it's like there are things you can do as an adult you're kind of given money to sort of set yourself up doesn't really happen in the real world so it's even though I've been best part of a decade in post university education it's it's not the vibe people think it is I don't think and it's not for the unis either it's I think it's a lot of people it's a lot of people go for the vibes and end up regretting it and then it's a perpetual cycle of I went for vibes I regretted it, I've now left uni those who didn't go for vibes who are working hard, they're now doing better than me, how dare they I was at uni with it it adds to that sort of death spiral of comparison but I think this conversation about adulting there are so many things that are good about adulting and I think a natural thing is to think of the negatives tell me more so what's a good thing about adulting the level of freedom I think Karen you alluded to or even said about you've got responsibility and there's no real safety there is a safety net to a degree but there's no real safety net if I don't go downstairs and cook myself dinner I won't eat whereas if I'm at home with my mum and dad I've eaten, everyone needs to eat it's that sort of thing now it's like you've got to fend for yourself I kind of enjoy that you know, taking on a challenge, building something from nothing project sort of thing so whenever there's a situation where you've got to I mean my perfect holiday is one where I'm on my own, navigating the country, start at one place end another and make my way back which is great for my wife and children because they for a week, they don't hear from me but I think there are a lot of great things about adulting, I think there is a freedom and there's an element of you can get return on your investment in the things you put your energy into I mean when I think about freedom straight out of uni I always think about how I felt when I got my first paycheck after I graduated I started my first role out of uni like 3 or 4 months after uni and obviously that was a big a big jump for me got my first paycheck at the end of the month and it was, for me that was the biggest paycheck I'd ever received in my whole life. I looked at my bank account that day and I was like I'm a baller I literally had to google I literally had to google what do I do with money because I was like what do I do with money? Do I buy a house? What do I do? I was so used to like maybe going to Tesco's every week spending maybe £30 max that's really less than £100 or something a month this paycheck was a lot more than my £100 a month that I was used to buying essentials with at the time and I was like ok this is freedom but how do I navigate this freedom this is new, this is exciting but there is no the same way that people say there's no playbook for having kids there's no playbook for being an adult and I was like come on I don't want to mess this up if I just go to H&M or whatever my shop was and just blow all of this I can do that because I have the freedom to do it but I know that I'm not meant to do it and I don't know what the right thing to do is yet because I haven't it's my first time being an adult so I think that's the difficult part about being an adult yes you have freedom and freedom is exciting but how do you navigate freedom as a Christian and even when we're speaking about comparison how do I navigate the freedom of being able to have all of these exciting things the bag that I've always wanted I remember when I was able to buy my first phone that I've always wanted when I was in secondary school it used to be my parents that bought a phone for me and I was able to buy that for myself how do I navigate that it's just so many different facets that come into adulthood that can be exciting but then it adds a huge new element of responsibility that there isn't in youthhood you have naivety in youthhood of oh my gosh you're able to do all of these things you're able to earn money it's like earning money means that you have to be responsible do you think the thrill of losing it because the thread I'm getting is there's that element of okay you can earn all this money but then you can also be responsible for losing it all if you make the wrong decision do you think that's something that's prevailing in our culture, in our society in our demographic, in our age groups that we don't really engage with the fear of we have so much compared to what our parents would have or what our ancestors would have but there's a fear of it could all go if we make the wrong call I mean I think personally I wouldn't call it a fear of, I don't think that you know, I don't walk by the spirit of fear so let's just land that in there but for me I wouldn't call it a fear, I think it's just a, again, personal pressure that it's not like I'm scared like oh I don't want to mess up, oh no because I think for me at least personally fear would cripple me I'm not the kind of person that works when under fear so I think for me it's like a personal not pressure but a personal drive to make sure that I'm better than the person people that went before me and I want to make sure that I'm putting in provisions for the people that go ahead of me, so I think it's not a fear of, it's like a drive to so that I am you know, leaving a legacy and also um um, being the person that my parents kind of wanted me to be and being the person I want to be um, but all of that can, I guess it can add pressure, it can make an environment quite tense, it can add again the comparison as to what what navigating your life looks like but I think for me it um it's definitely like okay, yeah yeah I hear that, I mean because I remember when uh, you got your car how excited you were but you were trying to keep it very low key and you you kind of kept like because you were talking to me about it, we were just having a chat about it and you were like, yeah I'm going to get this and it's cool and I, I remember I kind of say no this is a good thing like you're doing good things and I could see in your face you'd be like like you're almost like you let yourself enjoy it more outwardly because I know you enjoy things I think it's like you're you're excited about maybe a particular season that you're in, you know you've had a baby, you've gotten married you've bought a house but it's like you don't want to get too excited because you're, you've only ticked one thing off the list of ten so it's like, I don't want to be too gassed I would love you to get gassed because again I've learned that over the years, get excited, let them know you're happy because I mean when you then came to church the following week in the car with your plate on and you were you were bumping R&B and you just swooped into your space and popped crickets we all saw that, you made a statement and then I'm airing everything, you made again I get messages from Karen and she'll take a picture of my car parked just on the line so we kind of have this little God how would you put it war, tit for tat, like you're just coming for me all the time back and forth who's the worst parker is and I think you're winning in terms of receipts yeah but sorry I digress, I think it is okay to not to call you out I think it is okay to celebrate things that we're happy about, I can understand the whole thing of you don't want to you know, you've only ticked one thing off but in the grand scheme of things that ticking one thing off is amazing for some people just getting up in the morning is their tick box, it's like I got up today and I got showered because I've been in those places where it's been so tough, just getting up getting showered, getting out of the house and going for a walk has been all I've managed in that day there's other days where I've done multi million pound deals, I've done this I've done that, I've done this, I've done that and I've ticked everything off and I've felt accomplished, I think it's really good that you said that because I noticed that trend in all of us, not just Sydney, all of us as a collective, all of us where we initially get excited and we sort of temper it down, but we don't want to talk too much but I say, talk your talk like, if it's important to you, it's important to God, like don't worship things, there's a nuance there, but if God has given you something, because I'm talking from the eyes of a father myself, like if I give my my eldest came into the day and she had, she just cut her hair and she went to me, Daddy what do you think, you look amazing, I could see her face lit up because it was like, she was so excited and I shared that excitement with her and I think God kind of wants that with us anyway he's like, God look at what you've done for me, this is amazing and he delights in that, that's why I understand, but I can also understand the earthly feeling of I don't, you know I haven't quite got to my yeah, I've done well, because I've had this one, I remember I had an exam and I mean, I passed I passed really well, but I wanted a higher grade and I remember my sister-in-law saying, you've passed though, why are you complaining about not getting the top mark, you've passed, and I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to you know, being the top and I mean, you hear stories like, I was first in my class all our parents could not have been first in their class there weren't enough classes there to be first so, I can understand where the pressure can come from it's interesting that we talk about we talk about the joys of coming into church with new gifts whether that's new cars, new jobs new boyfriends girlfriends, husbands, wives I mean, if anyone just turned up to church with a new husband or wife, that would be wicked and wild but stranger things have happened um I think not as easy listen I promise you there's some people who I've spoken to who've been like if you just see me turn up to church one week and I've got a wedding ring on my finger don't ask me nothing I've heard that too but I think it's a really good question there, because it's one of those elements of adulting at church that doesn't necessarily get spoken about as much is like, how do you how do you manage balancing all of those challenges of like, from the moment you went to uni, to you've come out of uni you're dealing with your budgeting, you're dealing with your bills you're dealing with comparison in church and Tam, we've not heard from you in a bit, so I'm going to come to you sure how do you find that? I was just like, listening to what everyone was saying um I'll say, first of all for comparison, for me um, one thing I really have to do is actually just learn to block certain things out, so if I had certain triggers I would identify them, so like social media, I went for a period I unfollowed a whole bunch of people because you guys were unknowingly, because you don't know me but were giving me body issues, ok, I didn't have body issues until I got social media and now suddenly because I don't look like a BBL bandit I now, like, have major anxiety what? oh I realise I have really unhealthy thoughts really unhealthy thoughts about myself and my body image, so I had to go and unfollow because staring at the same people all the time was not good for me and when we're talking about things that we enjoy about adulthood, I think having a community where you can freely discuss that, whether it's your group of friends or just people around you that you can freely talk about your life experiences what you're going through, how you're feeling I think is so much better as an adult, because I think as kids you're just your friends, but not that your friendships are sort of governed by your parents, but your time almost is, so I don't have time to be calling my friend at 3am like, oh my gosh I can't speak because X, Y and Z, but as an adult you can do that, and your relationships become so much deeper because you're actually now actively doing life together, as opposed to we're just friends by circumstance, so even in church, just actively speaking to someone and building the community is so important, I feel like, for just growing and navigating these difficult time periods, so like setting your boundaries, and then having a community, and having someone to be there with you, and then like you said, comparison is a thief of joy I always like to look at comparison as like I'm driving and if you're going down the A2 at 70 miles per hour, and you are looking at the BMW to your left it's not going to end well it actually is not going to end well you're going your Ford your Ford was good but because you've now turned to the left and you've seen the BMW, you've now averted your gaze from the lane that you are in, it is going to end in calamity for you, and for you you're also going to take some people out with you, because you are just moving to a lane that you're not supposed to be in, and that's always how I look at it, so when I find myself like comparing myself to other people feeling bad, I just say you're heading towards a cockroach it's so true we say to people like I've started saying to people you're not my wage mate when they try and make a comparison and it's not to be rude to say like you're in a different bracket to me and that's ok or you're in a different space to me and that's ok or I'm in a different space to you and that's ok I'm happy for what you have I'm really great for you, I've come to house for me but it's ok that I don't have what you have at this moment it's ok that you don't have what I have at this moment and actually it's ok we both have the same thing what you said to me is so apt about, you're driving down the A2 and you're looking at the I mean I would say if you're passing a BMW on the A2 you're going very fast to tap into that stereotype as an ex BMW owner myself I buck that trend there's a lot why are you screwing your face up tell people why you're screwing your face up because you didn't you thought I was going to duck it you didn't buck the trend you were one of them, you're the worst of them if there was a league competition of BMW drivers you would be the winner I don't own a BMW so I'm the spirit of the community right now but yeah you're also right if you're looking at what someone else is doing you're not looking at what you should be doing what God's asked you to do what God's put in your heart you're like I want to do what they're doing and God's like I didn't ask you to do that and that's one of the things I've had to learn over my formative years you're looking at your friends and they're doing this and you're like I didn't tell you to do that and that is really hard when you have your heart set on a certain way literally and it's always good like we're talking about God and it's always good to take it back to scripture and the wise I apologize the wisest man, Sullivan let's just look at what he's saying about the comparison because I was just giggling what does the Bible say of some words of wisdom that we can sprinkle so if we go to Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes, goodness me you know the book Ecclesiastes goodness me you know the book verse 4 this is the ESV version and he said then I saw that all toil and all skill in work came from a man's envy of his neighbour this also is vanity and striving after wind like do you know how silly you are striving after wind like that's crazy it's just very humbling like being envious trying to compete comparing yourself to others it gets you nowhere there's no point in the analogy about the two cars I was also thinking about not only the impact of okay if one car swerved into another car's lane and the car that swerved the impact of the car that took the impact is that both cars would be damaged and thinking about that in terms of personally if I was comparing myself to one of my friends not only would that have an impact on me as the individual who was comparing that would have an impact on our friendship because now our friendship is no longer on a friendship basis there has been comparison that has altered the friendship it doesn't affect the recipient of the comparison because it's like okay now I know that Tammy isn't just seeing me as an equal in friendship Tammy sees me as a threat or Tammy sees me as a you know, there has to be some friction it would impact both individuals not necessarily equally but it would impact both individuals so yeah, comparison really is the thief of joy not only in the whatever is causing you to compare it can steal I was going to say conceive it can steal the joy of friendship it can steal the joy of the relationship that was there 100% but how do you think question for everybody how do you combat that then? I would say that my immediate answer was by prayer through faith but equally I think that comparison will seep in through the devil through natural means, through all the things that we do see we may choose not to see but all the things that we do see through imagery, through billboards, comparison has always been there that's why I always say that I don't like to blame life's problems on social, comparison has always been there in terms of the billboards, the glossy magazines the news anger who's got a really nice outfit and you think oh I need that for work or something it's made it easier it's made it easier so I think we need to be intentional about how we combat that and I think for me faith and also like you said Tammy, the relationships that I have with the people around me I think that's why I started clicking my fingers because I think the people that you keep around you it's probably a whole other podcast but the people that you keep around you, it impacts your life generally, it impacts the direction to use the analogy of driving of your life because it can really impact the way that your perspective the way that you are receiving because equally the people that we have around us are equally receiving the same things that we are we're all recipients of social media we're all recipients of the things that we see so when you have people who are all in a similar wavelength you're all able to navigate that and share share thoughts share ways that you're currently kind of navigating so I think for me it's faith, it's the people around me and it's being candid as well by saying I'm actually struggling in this season again I think that's something that our generation have done really well in actually being able to say you know what, I'm not doing well right now and I do need a little bit more support from people right now or I am doing okay so I am able to take more of a mental shift more than my friendships so those are three strands but there's probably many more that I can think of later down the line I like that I think being honest as well being honest with yourself is so important I think a lot of the times we see it in church but I think we are at risk of also doing that in our real life like in church we always have to do this whole pretense, well we don't have to but there is at times some pretense in church of oh okay because I'm a Christian everything must be going well with me like I'm never ill you know it is well even though it is literally a calamity but it is well like it's okay to say things aren't going the way you want, the way you would have hoped, the way you expected in life so I think being honest with yourself about what's going on, how you truly feel, also being patient because you might have wanted like your dream car at this certain age but it might not be time for that yet like God might be telling you to wait so just be patient and wait God might also have said no so just accept the no I think something I've really had to come to grips with recently is that not everything is for you like it is quite possible that you might never get, just say something I don't know, you wanna be gutted, you've been gagging for one for ages, it's quite possible that that might never be in the cards for you like I'm just Back to gender Not you specifically but just sometimes we do have some goals that might just not come to fruition because it's not God's plan for our lives Today is going to be messy I wasn't, I was going to be a hater and I said you know what Tammy said let's not Tammy said we need to look beyond, we need to make sure that we are our brother's people No don't No Honestly there are sometimes I told you this last week, there are sometimes a hating thought comes to mind and it's hilarious in my head And then you have to grab yourself Go and say it Go and say it This one I told you, when I catch myself with an unnecessary hating sentence, I'd hold it It doesn't need to come out There's literally no value to it The audience want to know now They want to know what foolishness you're going to say Look, all I know is you were saying Back to gender, back to gender, back to gender and I said You know what you're saying because none of us on this podcast has a Bugatti You may never have a Bugatti Come here I can't put car seats in a Bugatti I can't fit two car seats in there I mean, I've got a garage No one lives in the garage I'm telling you all I said was a hater sentence It added no value to this whatsoever What it did is show people how much you beef me behind closed doors Everyone thinks I'm the bad guy You're the one who's poking me in the tractor Wait, sorry Excuse me, pardon? You're the one poking me in the car Ah, we lost him again We're doing that now, cool I'm being muted I'm being muted, cool You're being censored I'm going to come to your house and rip that podcast off you You're being censored This is 100% a dictatorship I just need the people to know This is not a democracy Sorry Tammy, you were speaking No, no, that was it Like literally just being honest and listening to God is the most important thing Be patient and just trust God because he's leading you You're praying for something, you will commit it into your hands into his hands allow him to lead and listen to his voice and his command but when he says no, also just accept the no, like be okay with that, because I think sometimes he's said no and because we're so wrapped up in our own wants and our own desires and this no you're still trying to turn this no into a yes and it will literally it's not going to end well so yeah, trusting God and allowing him to lead and also accepting the fact that genuinely not everything will be for you not everything that you want is going to come your way. It's a sad realisation but yeah, sometimes I just think about it like, right, I might want X, Y and Z, but it might not be what is meant to be mine and I think on top of that, you're right, things are going to come your way and I've found the things that don't that I want that don't come my way God put something else on my heart or he did something even better or he reveals to me why that's not good for me and if you're in tune with that you realise, okay I didn't need that nor was it the right thing for me at that point and actually I don't want that because it's not what you want God and I want what you want because I know what you want or he's literally been like you want this? My friend behind door number 2 is saying 10 times better if you just trust me and every time it's been like, right, like even like one day I talked about the prices of buying a house and how fun it was not we were looking to buy a house and we initially went quite conservative in the size of the house we were going to get and we were sitting there saying, you know, I'm going to go for the smallest size house in our bracket. They're literally like you know you can afford this? We're like, yeah, but you know we'll be careful. No, no, no, you don't understand I think our broker had sit down and say to us you are able to afford this the difference is £50 a month and we're like, oh, that was God that was us saying, we want to buy a house and God's saying, you're focused on this specific property but I've got something bigger for you and I'm currently sitting in that property that God wanted for us so that's just a house, it's just bricks and water it's not it's not it's not again a reflection on God's provision or God's glory that yeah, I've got a house and I'm blessed, no, it's not I don't believe that at all but it's true, if it's not for you having that peace and understanding, I think what is hard for some of us to understand is when we say, it's not for you it's not to say, you're going to feel desolate or destitute or oh, it's not for me, God really puts his hand on you and says I've got something better for you or I'm not giving you this because I know better, again, I look at my children all this one, she wants ice cream for breakfast, I've got to say, we're not doing that today she'll get upset and I literally will give her a call and be like, I don't want you to be sick let's have your Cheerios and then we'll head off to school and she's like, oh, ok yeah, yeah, you're right ice cream's not good because I'll be sick, I don't want to be sick and it's that understanding, if I got irate or mad about it, it wouldn't work but God talks to us in a way that is so soft and so gentle in those moments when we're crying out and saying God, why not me? and I always believe he's saying I've not left you, I've not forgotten you yeah I think for me it's really interesting because I've had a lot of challenges with comparison especially in church so I do a lot of I'm on the worship team in church and I have had a lot of challenges with that because growing up I don't, ok this is where it's going to sound really self-critical but I need everyone to not jump in and be the, oh my gosh, no really, you're ok self-critical and it is very it's going to sound really harsh to myself but it's honest I don't see myself as being like the I don't see myself as being good at the things I do so singing, playing the keys I play the drums, I've never seen myself as good because I've always been surrounded by people who are great and so when I look at the things they do, for years and years and years I've struggled to separate my perception of my value from how I saw them and the kind of level I saw them at and that came a lot from kind of the way my parents raised me and that constant question of you've got 98% the other 2%, right, anything less than perfect wasn't good enough and so for the first few months when I was in, actually no, the first few months when me and Rach got married I didn't, I didn't I didn't sing as much around her because in our house she's the much better singer, just phenomenal, phenomenal voice and that's true, if you ever go to their house, he says she's a phenomenal singer, she is, he's also a phenomenal singer and it's like being in the house with it's like, how do I put it it's as if Mariah Carey has married Nick Cannon that's, that's it's like Mariah Carey has married Nick Cannon Bruno Mars or Usher they literally are both harmonising and just, and they're humming and you're in there like who got what huh? Don't stand behind Rachel Antonday in church it will be like caramel in your ears, it's just sweet, and then when he's when he's leading worship, it's just smooth, like let's call a spade a spade I just love that Antonday said I'm gonna get a little bit self-deprecating here, don't do any, oh no you're not, and then immediately, the church people immediately jumped out, I couldn't help it we can't unlearn that, we've got to get into it, it is true it is true we have to find ourselves our strength now that's not sorry what I was trying to say though is in the comparison, I've had to I've had to really unlearn that and I think what you said to me about kind of just being aware and listening to God there is work that we need to do as well as Christians I know we like to go purely on the pray on it, read the Bible and everything shall be well, I think there is huge value as well in therapy and balancing it, go to a Christian therapist, find someone who can really speak to you well to identify these issues because the reason why I can say it now is because I had it identified, I didn't know why I did that before, like I had do I still have? who knows, we'll see when the situation comes up, but I had real issues with if I saw someone who was good at something I was good at the moment my brain told me that they were better at it than I was I stopped that thing completely so I had situations where with the worship team, if there was a better someone who I saw as a better keyboardist and that's not necessarily if someone's older, one of my like he's one of my baby brothers, he's phenomenal right he sings, he plays as well but when he started coming up in church he was maybe 16 15, 16 at the time and I started to hear him play my confidence in myself was so low that I was like, the good thing is I was able to use it to advocate for him because if anyone knows what Nigerian churches are like, they will go by age instead of by ability, I recognize that his ability was phenomenal and to give him the opportunities I would advocate for him but a large bit of that selflessness was coming from a lack of self confidence like I was pushing other people forward so that I could hide and to this day I think I still do it to an extent when I'm in worship leader meetings the main thing that I talk about is the things that I don't do as well as the others, now I'm at least in a place where I feel the feeling and I do it anyway, like I don't shy from leading, I don't shy from taking responsibilities but there are still those moments where I listen back to me, the YouTube on a Sunday and I go, oh man that was flat, that was flat, you missed that this was missing, this was missing and if I do it the next week when someone else is leading, I'm just there like, oh my days, the way Victor did that run, oh the way Christine does yeah listen, I tell you, when I look at the other leaders I am so grateful for the people I have around me because they I now can use them as motivation in the past they would have been reason for me to shut down, but it's fantastic to see how good they are and the things I can learn from them I think for me that has been the real change point when it comes to comparison especially in church is not hiding from the fact that if we are in similar teams and we are working with people who have similar talents there is going to be those moments of comparison where we see how one person does something that we do and they do it slightly differently or we think it's slightly better and the question is do we turn that into a reason to shy away or do we turn it into a way to push us forward and grow ourselves and invest in ourselves instead and I think that for me is something that's missing at times in church, I think because we we either pretend that we're not comparing or we pretend that everything is good and great, we miss opportunities to develop because we're so closed off from the motivation and learning points we can take from each other or we lose we lose those opportunities to grow ourselves because we look and we see ourselves as less than and unworthy or yeah, just not worthy of our own investment in ourselves so we don't even do that for ourselves I think that's a big thing for me anyway yeah 100% I mean I completely concur you end up in situations where because somebody is better because I've lived that in my career where I've been in new people and they are getting awards, being put forward for awards winning this, winning that, top of the class they end up feeling less than and I think this is how God sort of showed his mercy you then bump into them years later and they tell you that you were the reason they pushed themselves because they wanted to be as good as you were and for me that was a bit like it wasn't a validation of yeah I'm the best it was more of a flip like I influenced somebody to be great the only thing I did wrong was I didn't see it as well both would be great and this was my was me not being great if that makes sense and actually they were like the fact that I was around and I was a positive influence in their life meant that they were able to be great because I instilled it in them so yeah I've lived that and it's interesting how like as you get older these things are revealed to you and again I'm a big advocate for therapy too because my therapist taught me that there are things that would have happened to me that you end up just suppressing and actually those could be triggers could be massive triggers you said you came off social media or unfollowed people on social media because it was triggering you about how you felt about yourself for me it was the pressure to post or the pressure to be relevant or the pressure to be seen as and I mean that's kind of why we joke about my age but I generally don't care because I went through that phase of I need to have everything done by this age I need to do this by this age I need to be done when I hit that age and those things weren't done the world didn't stop spinning and actually the white noise stopped and I was able to, it's like you know when you use noise cancelling headphones and you turn the noise cancelling off for the first time I was in a really busy area and then once I hit that age the noise cancelling went on and I was like ooh I can hear my thoughts and I can understand who I am and I can actually be a better friend, be a better brother, be a better husband, be a better father I wasn't a father at the time be a better person because I was able to, I wasn't so focused on the noise and I think we are, there's a lot of noise around us, like I know there's a joke where the noise I had was in black and white but no the noise we have today is you made it, you made it, don't try and brush past it we're all going to let that stew, let it ruminate listeners, the noise he heard was in black and white ok, he was a radio listener, he was on teletext teletext wow no, teletext was in colour, it was before that it was analog switch TVs, you had to no remote, no remote big back off TVs yeah it was, and I think being able to understand who I am and what my triggers are helped me to understand, ok I don't have to be in this space, I don't have to be in that space, I don't have to accept this this level of whoever it is, or I do want to accept this, and I became free and I became I was able to understand who I am properly and actually be a better person and be more more in touch and be more available to people rather than the shell of the person or the illusion of the person that we all portray in our early years I think it's also, I think it's so important as well to always remind ourselves of what God says about us the world says so many different things about you whether it's people that have nice upbringing from positive homes so they could have heard bad things being said about them from their parents, teachers will tell you that you will never, not never succeed, but like never get certain grades, you might never get to a certain university the world just says so many negative things about you in life in general but it's so important to remember what God says about you I think in periods like that, it's very hard because when you're in a negative space and you're in a downward spiral, it's very hard to take time out and think about what does God say about me but something I love is that the Bible literally says that He knows the number of hairs on our head, like that is insane because we have millions the amount of thought that He put into creating you you know, things that you're fearfully and wonderfully made there's only one of you like there's no one else like you so just the care that God put into making you the love that He has shown you, the love that He continues to show you like literally things like when I'm in a negative space and I just remember things like that and even when I talk to my friends I do have a friend that sometimes she gets into periods like that as well where she doubts herself or she's being really hard on herself because she's maybe not where she wants to be just like literally remember things like that like, do you know how precious you are to God, okay this is not going well, okay the guy that you had a crush on literally just said like, you know, it's over like, okay, do you know that my father up above said I'm fearfully and wonderfully made he adores me like, just lovely little things like that or just write in your whole day and put a brand new perspective on, like I'm loved, I'm adored by the creator of the universe, I feel like that's such a big thing, the creator of the universe hello I think it's also layered to that because we're like, okay, we're loved by Christ but like, I want more than that because I compare myself to other people and it's like, well other people are loved by Christ and other people also have more than that too so it's like, even though we know that as a foundation sometimes we're still not satisfied by that but equally, again as you were speaking, I always think a lot as people are speaking, I was listening to what you were saying I was thinking as well that like we, in addition to what the Lord has told us, you know, the things that he kind of declares over us and the love that he has for us that's scattered throughout his words of course we believe as Christians that we have a purpose on earth as well that like our purpose is to spread the gospel basically we are the gospel I always say we are the gospel, this is the gospel so we believe our purpose is to spread the gospel and a verse I was looking at was Galatians 1 verse 10 with the perspective that our purpose is to spread the gospel it says am I now seeking the approval of man or of God or am I seeking to please man if I was seeking to please man I would not be a servant of Christ that's basically saying that if I'm seeking to please man rather than God again with the perspective of my purpose being to be a servant of Christ and to spread the gospel then I'm not really fulfilling God's purpose for my life on earth and again thinking about it analytically I'm not really doing what I'm meant to be doing by seeking the approval of man, my key purpose on earth is to seek the approval of God to be a servant of Christ and to spread the gospel so yeah I think it for me again that's one thing that is a driver by knowing that okay seeking the approval of man is not really something that I'm meant to be doing, my key purpose on earth is to spread the gospel and as long as I'm doing that then I'm good to I want to get to heaven and that's it Karen wants to get to heaven you know what I've realised and I think it's really good you said that I'm going to sort of nicely segue I think wanting to follow what Christ says and being true to it, I've come to a realisation that I don't want anybody to ask me to go camping ever again because I am tired of people saying we're going to go to this church event and we've got to camp and I've got a I've got a, my face can't lie I'm tired of it God does not want me to cosplay homelessness He wants me to stay in the Hilton with room service and ropes I'm sorry to offend anybody, I'm not really sorry at the same time, please stop asking me to go camping, I've done it, I don't want to be homeless why would I build my home for two or three days not shower properly not have hot water, not be able to you know do my skin care not be able to have my Yeezys why would I do that when I can just go to the Hilton where I can have all that and watch BBC News at the same time, so please PSA stay in the place of the Firm Foundation and exactly, the Firm Foundation are actual foundations made of bricks and mortar with running water so please if anyone else asks me to go camping for a church event don't be offended by the face of Paul so, because God has told me no that is, that was Sidenotes with Kwamena a new side segment to trial, that may be the first and the last, but it's also absolutely the reason why we don't let Kwamena do segways, because where was that going where did the rest of us come in on that he just, he just, I think he's just letting us know never invite him camping but I would never camp anyway you've never done it? I've never camped, I've never camped and I have no desire to camp so you're laughing at me but you don't want to do it either no no no, I've never done it but like, I tell everybody I am not a camper, I can't do bugs I can't it's not related damn it Grace what might that mean to the ground I'm sitting on just as long as I'm not the one building, I said I don't mind it because I did DV, I don't mind just as long as I'm not the one building the tent and um building the patio and doing all of that I can, you know, walk to the site, I can sleep there but I don't yeah, that's my contribution I can lamp I can lamp I can stay in a caravan, I can lamp I mean caravan is fine because you're not on the ground it's that why am I sleeping on the ground why am I doing this but why not sleeping on the ground isn't even worth getting it's the fact that there can be bugs you can be in your tent and then a spider can just crawl there can be bugs in your house too you can be in your tent and a bear can come in have you been in the campsite and horses have got into the campsite and you see a silhouette of a horse's head outside your park that's not funny it's funny it's funny but you're like you see a silhouette of things and you open your eyes and you just all you see is that and you dare scream because game over no, when I'm in the Hilton, I open my eyes I see Egyptian cotton sheets and a big screen TV in front of me is yeah yeah, no no, not camping, no, I've done it plenty of times don't don't ask me to go camping don't go camping, it's from the devil this is yeah, this episode has been brought to you by Decathlon for all of you can you imagine can you imagine the ad opportunity where they send me camping and I just hate it the whole time actually hey, Decathlon, call us up if the bag's good enough you might convince me that's so funny I'm all about outdoors I don't want to be outdoors I don't want to sleep there no yeah, you've passed that period of your life I don't know I guess people still do it's not an ace thing people spend lots of money on camping you can build a lot of money I think the myth is that it's cheap I've seen some boozy tents the myth is that it's cheap because it's not as cheap as you think friends of ours went to a camping and we sort of looked at the prices and I was like the hotel down the road is cheaper and I'm the bad guy I'm not fun here in the week well, you know what we are coming to the end of our time I know we've still got time but we've got one last topic Karen, you brought up the time that you thought was the best time of your life to date and so I would like us to end on that question if you could go back to any age this is assuming no changing of consequences you could go back you have all of your knowledge that you have now so you have life you're going back with that wisdom what age would you go back to? and Karen, you're allowed to change it because you did say year 8 so that would be 13 12-13 so I'm going to start with me I'll start with me and I'll give you all time because I obviously had written down the question and I knew when I was going to go to for me, year 10 year 10 because precisely for that there's no worries about exams year 10 isn't an exam year it's stress but it also was the year that I really started to come into my full form like puberty hit between year 9 and year 10 that summer I lost weight the roundness was gone, my face was there and all of the resilience I had built up from year 7 to year 9 meant that my humour was phenomenal like I was at my funniest, I was at my flyest, I probably the best I felt the best about myself in that time because I had just used the pressure to become a diamond year 10 phenomenal times and if you had this knowledge outstanding I guarantee you everybody would love me, your parents would love me your friends would love me everybody would love me like there's no doubts about it perfect version year 10 I've been watching High School Musical The Trilogy this weekend yeah so I you've not got a say-so about that no, no it's a segue, I'll get there so of course each movie has it's own story, the third one is like the grand finale they're about to finish their exams they're about to leave for school the first one is where they fall in love it's like all the romance second one is a bit of a it's not really my favourite it's a bit of a filler and because of that because of my love for the first one I'm going to stick with my answer, it's like a sickle twist I'm going to stick with my answer of year 8 because it feels like the first High School Musical where everything is just emotional, it just feels like you're just living your best life there's no pressure of I'm leaving East High this year like it's just your best life ok that was your Gabriella year yeah it's my High School Musical year I see it first movie ok, we're all in this together I hear it who's next do you want to go next I don't know this is hard for me I haven't got an answer you go and I'll see if I can have one I'm kind of a cheat because I don't really have I don't feel like past me is better than who I am today I always try and be a better person today than I was yesterday so my mind doesn't really go oh when I was this age it was better like everything I went through I had to go through for me it's moments I want to relive for me is I think I'm going to say answer the question answer the question when it comes to interview questions let me just say that I'm not trying to go back because I was better before you're going for the star model what is this as I was trying to say last summer I went on a solo trip partly solo partly with friends it was our 10 year wedding anniversary and we went to Paris myself wife and my daughter my wife was pregnant with our second daughter and my wife and daughter went home on the Eurostar it was all planned and I was going to go off driving across Europe meeting with friends and stuff like that and there was one moment where I was at an alpine pass in Austria it was all planned and I got up early I didn't camp I stayed in a hotel in Munich it was phenomenal and I got up at 4am went up to the mountain I was there by 6 sun rose and I was like top of a mountain just sitting there drinking coffee looking out at this amazing like scenery in front of me and it was just silent because the motorbike is going to come off the mountain yeah it was just clear and I think reliving that because that was a moment where I honestly felt God just breathe into me and be like there is more than what you've been trying to focus on over the last decade there's more to this I want more I want you to want more sort of thing yeah I think that moment I want I'm going to relive going back there this summer but that was a really I felt a switch you know going to be so I think to go back to that moment with all the knowledge I have now I'd be unstoppable the stuff I've learnt in the last year boy so yeah I think that's sweet I like it it's staying in I want you to go back to pre-adult so this is an adulting episode we're going back to the times yeah that's easy my first year of uni my first year of uni I went to uni down the south west I went down to Plymouth and I think for me that was the first time I went outside of London M25 proper I travelled a bit across the country but proper and I was moving there I think for me it was that feeling of discovering just something different a different way of life a different vibe and just the excitement the joy you have of what's tomorrow going to bring sort of thing so yeah I think my first year of uni just remember packing my Ford Fiesta with all my belongings heading out to Plymouth and just you know figuring it out thank you thank you for answering the question damnit we're going to fight you know get over it I've had some time to think now but first I was going to say I would go back to summer 2015 the year I entered uni just before I entered uni wait wait I'm doing math here you entered uni at summer 2015 no I entered uni in 2015 I would go back to summer 2015 so you started in 2015 grandpa I'm so sorry Tammy yeah I did I'm younger than her Karen I was your youth leader so we know there's a big age gap between me and you oh was it making you feel some type of way it just clicked I was like oh snap alright yeah I know what I'm doing anyway sorry yeah I entered in 2015 so I was going to be like maybe I'd go back and be like just have a look at options like don't just do uni because won't that student loan be coming out of my paycheck it makes me feel some type of way sometimes it really does I cannot lie but then I would never have met my uni friends and I absolutely adore them and I can't imagine doing life without them I think I would go back to probably like you said first year of uni and one tell myself to take a bit more risk like I'm very risk averse so try some new things obviously not dangerous things but take a bit more risk to put yourself out there a little bit more two say no to some trends when I look back at the fashion sense in 2015 and 2016 some of the things we were going out in it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no it's ok to say no just that time had one wig my gosh guys can we get a picture can we get a picture no no you can not but just say no to some trends as well would be a thing say no to some trends I think those are character building moments you know you look back and you're like wow I can't believe I used to dress like that I can't believe I aged myself before my return listen these are the things our parents never told us about adulting you look back on those uni pictures those albums full of 150 pictures from one night that you put onto Facebook you tagged everyone in it despite not realising that in 10 years time you're going to look back and go why I for one can talk to the testament of my parents they told me the internet lasts forever be careful that one day let me know shout out to the mummies and daddies there we are going to wrap this up here I think this has been an amazing amazing first episode thank you everybody for listening thank you Karen, Tammy and Kwamena for your amazing insights and for the wisdom that you have brought to this please do go on to Instagram and follow us at CPCYA is there an underscore on it CPCYA CPCYA underscore CPC.young.adults right now there is nothing on there actually wait there is one video on there we are going to be posting a lot more just the games night which was amazing we are going to be posting a lot more if you are in the Gravesham area and you are looking for a church please join us Sundays at 11 the address is 9 to 11 Lower Higham Road Chalk Gravesend DA12 2LY we have been telling you things our parents never told us about adulting and as we say every Sunday at the end of our service we want you to love God, love people and love life say bye everybody see you later guys have a good camping CPCYA
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