Hello everyone, this is Tshepang John Emmanuel Molatedi and I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Wick Guardians of Thought.
I hope that you have been well, I hope that you're weak, you're dead, your month has been full of self introspection,
full of you getting to learn more and more of yourself and discovering great things about you, moving towards that ideal character, that ideal version of self.
I'm hoping that you are doing well, if you're not, I'd like to encourage you and pass on that hope that there is always light at the end of the tunnel in each and every day that you walk through.
If you've been planting consistently and you haven't been seeing any results or any evidence that your work, that your persistence has been actually doing something, rest assured, though it takes time, though it tarries, it shall take place and it will happen for sure.
So with regards to today, there's a topic I want to touch on and I don't know how long I'll be speaking today but this is one topic that I've kind of had some experience on.
I would say that this experience was more on the good side but I've also had that experience with not knowing how to actually use this to my advantage.
There's this other amazing quote that says that,
Laws that you do not know are laws that are usually used against you. I think that is one of the last laws in 48 laws of power but also I think I've heard this being said before in financial books that those who do not know the laws of finances or financial laws are usually victims of the people who actually know these laws
and use them against those people in order to benefit from them.
So yeah, I've been a victim of this topic and I've also been someone who has benefited a lot from it.
So in this episode I'm going to be dealing with systems and I want to tackle on how systems are vital in our lives, what systems are, what systems can provide us with and how in general we need to make sure that the systems that are running our lives are aligned to the goals
and the aspirations we have with regards to whatever we're doing.
So I think when we look at systems, most of the time this sounds like a concept that is really hard to grasp, a concept that sounds sophisticated, something that is out of reach, something that also at the same time seems like needs a lot of energy and effort to actually implement.
But one thing that I've noticed is that your current state of being or your life in general is going to be guided or led by certain things that you do in your life.
If you have certain habits, if you have certain character traits, if you have certain things that kind of guide you through the day, that kind of lead you towards acting in certain ways with respect to certain situations,
you are most of the time going to receive certain results because of those things that you've put in place.
Sometimes we put things in place, sometimes we don't.
And the sad thing about this reality is that usually the results we get are dependent on the systems that we have.
So a system generally can, we can break it down from it being the simplest things that you do within your day. Systems can relate also to how you keep yourself in check, how you keep yourself in this state of maybe being your ideal self,
how you keep yourself focused despite everything that is happening around you. And this can be emotionally, this could be mentally.
Systems are the devices and the things that you have used in your time of introspection and in your time of goal setting to kind of guide you through the day so that you focus more on actually grinding and putting more effort into your goals
rather than trying to get in the zone. So I think systems are a very fundamental thing in that regard because like I said, most of the time we spend a lot of time and energy trying to get into the zone.
And because of this energy that we waste trying to get into the zone, we do not get much work done. This is where usually procrastination kind of has its way in our lives and keeps us back.
But one thing that I've noticed about having good systems and having good things that keep you in the right state of mind is that you get to actually bring the best version of yourself and put that best version into whatever you have set your mind to do in that day.
So when it comes to various aspects of your life, this might be, let's say for example, with regards to your mental health, with regards to your stability, one might ask themselves, what are the things that affect my mental health?
What is the state of my mental health? What are the things that affect my mental health? What are my thoughts? What kind of mental environment am I living in?
Then you might ask yourself how you could possibly dissociate yourself from maybe what I would say is your current self and take a step back, notice what you want in the future and then start tweaking the things in your surrounding to make sure that you kind of stay in a path that is leading you towards an ideal self.
I hope I'm not making this too complicated. So in, I would say that in the example of maybe your mental health, you might notice that you have so many negative thoughts that are kind of prevalent in your thinking, prevalent in your everyday living.
But what are the things that you could do to probably help you stay in line or maybe things that could help you or bring you back to that equilibrium position?
I would say that in that case, one thing that might help would be making sure that the things that you feed yourself do not add to any external voices, any negative external voices that, no, they don't add to any internal negative voices that you have already had.
Because, like I said, this kind of relates back to making sure that there's no enemy within because if you're able to kind of make sure that you have certain structures that pull you back from your negative thoughts or pull you back from swaying,
you are always going to be able to kind of control your state of mind until you get to a point where you do not need to use a lot of energy by your own, but your system kind of becomes a part of you and helps you keep on track.
So I was just giving an example with regard to maybe your state of mind, but this applies to various things in your life. This applies to your studies. This applies to your spiritual life.
This applies to things around you, things that you want to attain. If you implement systems that are going to break the barriers or make it much more easy for you to attain your goals,
it's going to be easier for you to actually put effort into your goals.
And I would say that the opposite also applies. If you have certain goals and aspirations and you do not have certain things that you have put in place to actually push you and help you or help you facilitate the birth of those goals or the birth of your efforts,
you are going to be fighting a lot of things along the way. You're going to have to do a lot of recalibration by yourself.
And this is where we kind of get into a loop of feeling like we're just tired or maybe starting new goals, sticking with them for some time, then leaving them.
The reality is that with regards to certain things, or I would say with regards to most things in life, systems will determine your results.
But then one can ask themselves, like, how do I actually come up with the right system? How do I dethrone my current system and in state, a system that will push me forward and push me towards my goals?
I feel like dethroning a system is one question and something that I feel like we have been kind of touching on here and there, but we haven't fully got into.
And also establishing a new system is something totally different. We would actually have to make two separate recordings, I think, or even more, just touching on these.
But today I want to just focus more on just like the benefits of having a system. I would like to look at systems also with regards to spirituality and your spiritual life.
I would say that one thing that I've learned from consistent men and men who have had amazing results in their spiritual lives and in their walk with God is that they had some sort of system that they leaned on, despite how they felt physically and despite the things that were going on in their lives.
These systems were dependent on prayer, dependent on worship. You know, we hear of Daniel, he used to pray three times a day and consistently, despite how orders were, new orders and new laws were being established to try to actually get him murdered because of his system, because of his consistency.
So I would say that one thing I've learned from these men is that systems keep you in check. Systems provide you with results that you couldn't get before.
But also I would say that systems, in a way, with regards to spiritual life, show your complete surrender to God and to his will with regards to your life. Complete surrender towards his principles, believing that he is able to do what he has promised within your life.
So I think being in a system also protects you from the temptations that may lie on the side of your path.
It's a beautiful thing to be in a system because a system, I feel like systems are the things that make great men and walking out of systems has been the thing that has caused a fall of great men in the past.
If we look at David, for example, I would say that David was a worshipper. David was a man of prayer. David was a prophet and a leader. And yet we look at the story of him and Uriah and Bethsheba, who was a worshipper,
did something that I would say a worshipper is not expected to do. And yes, we are human. Yes, we do err. But I feel like if we actually read the story, you'll notice that the events of the things that happened between David and Uriah and Bethsheba.
The timeline of those things was actually spread over some time. I'm not sure if it was days or months. And one thing I would say is that if indeed, I think this was something that I was thinking about.
I was like, if indeed David kept towards his prayer life, kept towards worshipping as he usually did, I think some form of conviction would have hit his heart.
And the same was that God had to send through Nathan the prophet would have not had to be sent through the prophet, but rather would have come directly.
So I feel like in a way, the temptation that acted within this event or within this time in David's life was not just the temptation of seeing Bethsheba and having his heart move towards in an adulterous fashion.
But rather it was also a huge attack on the system because it kind of broke his communion with God for some time and also blocked him from not hearing from him to an extent where the prophet that we've been talking about David was so blind to the things that he was doing that another prophet had to reveal it through a parable and not directly.
So I think because David stood out of his system, he was easily attacked by his would say tempted by his own desires and by things that would have not usually got to him if he was still on his system.
But one thing I really love about David is that when noticing how he had air, how he had messed up, he managed to go back to his system.
He prayed to God and asked him not to move his presence for him, not to take his spirit away from him.
He kept in prayer and supplication, he kept in praying and praising and despite maybe his prayers not being answered with regards to the child that he was going to have with Bethsheba,
even after fighting out the results of the verdict that God had given him, he still, I think he wiped his eyes and went to the house of the Lord still.
And I think this was him showing that, okay, I have kind of learned my way, I've learned my lesson, I have been found guilty of a certain crime,
but he did not let this crime kind of hold him down, but rather he used this event as a learning curve and walked back into the system that he had before.
So one thing that I have noticed also with regards to systems is that systems as we had spoken about David, prepare you for your day of adversity.
So with regards to your life, there are going to be challenges, there are going to be things that are going to shake your faith, things that are going to have you question yourself,
have you question the people around you, have you questioned God's love, have you questioned a lot of things.
But one thing I would say is that if you continually make sure that your system, the system we're talking about is a system that keeps you in the ideal version of yourself,
if you keep in that system, you will be able to stand strong in your day of adversity.
This is a principle that I have noticed in Ephesians 6 when Paul was talking about having the four armor of God,
and when we actually break down the four armor of God, we notice that there are certain parts of the armor that relate with certain things,
and I think by my revelation with regards to this is that all these pieces of the armor of God are systems in themselves because Ephesians itself, 611 says,
put on the four armor of God that you may take stand against the devil's schemes or take stand in the evil day.
So we have evil days in different parts of our lives. We have evil days or the evil day with regards to our academics,
with regards to relationships, with regards to so many things, but you actually put it on the armor of your system.
The armor of your system will help you to be able to stand when winds try to push you off of your path.
So I think in general, we as young people, we as the leaders of now, are supposed to always check our systems,
see how to improve on them, see how to tweak them in order to make sure that we are getting the best versions of ourselves.
We are getting God the best versions of ourselves that we could possibly give, and this not being us trying to kind of gain favor in his sight because of our works,
because that is useless before him, but rather it is us giving up and letting him do what he has already done through the cross.
So I think from henceforth after this recording, I think it is very important for us to sit down, look at some of the goals in our lives,
and check the systems that we have. I have at times failed to fix up some of my systems, and that has led to me with regards maybe to my academics having to put all-nighters.
I don't think I'm the only one who has done this. I would say with regards to certain things, I have maybe not taken care of my system,
maybe with regards to self-improvement, and I've had to maybe have a day where I had to like read for 4 hours to try and make up for the week,
even sometimes I've had weeks where I didn't manage to actually push with regards to self-improvement as much as I wanted to before,
and that's something that I feel shows the faultiness of the system that you have.
But then again, we do have evil days, and one thing I can say is that the days that you have within those evil days or your days of testing
are not the same as your days outside of testing. The days outside of your testing are the days in which you are supposed to keep in your system.
You're supposed to grow within your system, but your days of testing, your days of trial are the days where the system that you've been using all this time
is supposed to work for you, and it's supposed to show the results of your labor.
Systems are like, I likened unto this parable that I have heard time and time again.
They're like, they're like, what? Likened unto the water cycle in a way, because when it starts off, you have all this evaporation,
and usually with regards to evaporation, it is very hard to see evaporation itself, but we know that this is an ongoing process.
And then from evaporation, or at the same time as we have evaporation, we have this process of condensation.
And after a while, when you have had a lot of condensation and your clouds are fully pregnant with the water that has been accumulating in them,
we get the process of rain. So your system is not just something that keeps you in check, but it is something that is supposed to give you fruit
and something that is supposed to turn up for you in your day of trial.
It is something that is supposed to keep you in line and something that is supposed to bring the current version of you to the ideal version.
Systems are essential. Systems run our lives, and systems are the key things that are going to help us to actually attain our goals.
Now I feel like I am going to touch more on systems with regards to internal systems.
These are systems that are going to deal with our thoughts, our subconscious mind, and the conscious mind,
because I feel like there is a lot I have learned about how much power your subconscious mind has over your daily routines.
It in itself, your thoughts and your beliefs within your subconscious will govern your life and will lead you to having certain results.
You will also be able to look or consider them a system in a way. Then we will also talk about external systems,
which might be the habits, some of the things that you do to try and push you towards your goals.
We will also talk about abolishing old systems, then actually building new systems.
I hope that this recording was a blessing. I hope that God continues to reveal himself to you in ways that blow your mind.
I hope that his love continually guides you through each and every season of your life.
In seasons of darkness and seasons of light, I pray that let him, let his love, let his word
be the thing that leads you, be the thing that gives you life, be the thing that gives you nourishment.
That gives you the joy that he has promised us, the joy that he has fully and freely given us through his Son, Jesus Christ.
I would like to thank him for giving me this message and for pushing me through this recording.
I would like to thank him for what he is doing in your lives. That is all that I have heard for today.
I hope you guys are blessed. I hope you are chilling. I will see you guys next week.
This is your boy, Tapanjon Malatedi. Tapanjon Emmanuel Malatedi.
I would like to say take care from the family at WIC, Guardians of Thought.