The WAY to WOW Shows
Grog & Duty
May 8, 2025
Automatically generated from YouTube captions; names and wording may contain errors.

[0:26] Hello and welcome to Jiggers's Place. It's Thursday afternoon, 5:00 pm, and we're heading toward the end of the week. And so this is our uh every other week get together to talk about all those things that have nothing to do with careers, business, finance, building wealth, all that's for earlier in the week. Um this is our opportunity to have a cocktail and talk about the the really important things in life, relationships, ideas, books, uh hobbies, all those all those kind of things. So thank you for joining me and uh as as

[1:04] build for today, I'm going to be talking about duty. What is duty? Why is it important? To whom do we owe duty? And uh interestingly enough uh earlier today uh there was a serviceman here uh at my my house and we got into a conversation about that very thing. Uh and and he was there were he had some issues on his mind and so we we talked about it for a little while. Uh so I I think uh uh especially

[1:40] among men among men this is a very important issue and so uh we're g we're going to tackle it today. So whenever I think of duty I think of the Navy um first the Royal Navy, the British Navy and then the United States Navy of of which I was a part. And in the Navy historically, the cocktail, I'm using the term somewhat loosely now, of choice is something called grog. So grog u was what is is a mixture of rum. Now,

[2:17] not the rum you may be used to, not the light rum. It's made with with with dark rum, which is historically um the type of rum that was drunk with water or hot water. Usually some lime was put in it, lime juice. um that uh in in the from the you know mid- 18th century and earlier um on wooden sailing ships limes were were uh kept aboard ship for the sailors and officers to consume to avoid a disease called scurvy which came from a lack of vitamin C. Um

[2:53] and in fact the reason that British the British are called and especially British sailors are called limeies is because that was the citrus fruit that was most often carried on British ships in order to avoid scurvy. Um and then there was usually some molasses or brown sugar put into it. Um the the recipe if you if you saw if you got my uh email this morning uh you saw this the recipe I'm using which is very simple uses brown sugar or you can make brown sugar syrup but brown sugar syrup is really

[3:28] just hot water with brown sugar and since the base of grog is hot water give you real you know no no need really to make brown sugar syrup. Uh, and so, um, I'm going to be using, uh, Banks Golden Age seven-year-old rum. Um, it's it's a mix of Jamaican rum, which that that's in honor of my friend Dell from from college. Um, Gana, Java, Trinidad, and Guatemala, Panama, and Barbados. So, this is kind of a multiccast rum. Uh, and you can see it's it's a it's a dark color. Um, I've got some lime juice

[4:04] here. Obviously, fresh squeeze is better, but you know, uh, don't have that. Here's my brown sugar. And while this is not traditional, I'm going to drop a cinnamon stick in mine. It gives it a little bit of of extra flavor. So, I've got my um hot water here. Uh, four to 6 ounces. Um, I'm going to I'm going to use I've used 4 ounces. So, uh, first thing to do is to dissolve a teaspoon of brown sugar in the hot

[4:39] water. This up. There we [Music] go. So, I'm going to dissolve the sugar. And you might be wondering, why am I making a hot drink? Uh, you know, in the in the springtime in Los Angeles, especially today was the start of a 4-day hot spell. Well, you know, still a warm drink is nice to have. Okay, so we've got we've got our our sugar

[5:15] dissolved in our hot water. We're going to use half an ounce of lime juice. There we are. [Music] And and we're going to use 2 oz of

[5:50] rum. Okay, we're going to bounce. Again, slightly more than 2 oz, but that's okay. Doesn't have to be exact. And we're going to stir it. Mix it together. We don't have to worry about like in a shaker making sure the ice melts so the flavors blend. And like I said, I'm going to put a um cinnamon stick in it. As long as I can get the uh jar open. Cinnamon smells so

[6:28] good. Okay, and here we go. Cheers. It's a nice, very light cocktail. You know, I put it in quotes because I don't think people historically think of grog as a cocktail, but I would call it the navy cocktail, especially with the lime in it. It it offsets the sweetness of the rum and and is just a lovely lovely mixture. Okay, I'll see you on the couch.

[7:32] So, here we are and uh like I said, it's it's Thursday. Um, I don't know about you, but for me it's it's been a a pretty pretty busy week and uh it's not done yet. Tomorrow is going to be uh a challenging day, but uh at least for now, we get to uh sit and relax and and just uh talk and and enjoy a libation. I guess this that's what I should call this. My dad would have called this a libation. My dad was a a Navy man as well.

[8:10] So the topic for today is duty. I remember being a boy scout and the boy scout uh oath the promise was um on my honor I will do my duty to God in my country uh to obey the scout law and blah blah blah blah blah. I I used to know it. Wow. On my I will do my duty God in my country and to obey the scout law um to help other people at all times. uh to keep myself physically strong uh something rather and morally awake. So

[8:46] um in any event uh for me I was raised uh from boyhood uh to do my duty. Um and it wasn't just in the Boy Scouts. Um my father uh who as I mentioned a moment ago was also a Navy man. So he was raised in the ethos of duty. Uh he was he was raised in in what was originally a traditionally religious

[9:22] Jewish family. Uh and and we've we've talked about in fact just a um maybe a month ago, couple of within the last month or two, we we we talked in here at Jigger's Place on the idea of of of what are called the mitzvah or the mitzvote. Um and and I explained these are the ways we uh develop a relationship with God. And from uh a sort of a global perspective, it's as as uh traditionally religious Jews, it's our duty to do the

[9:59] mitzvote uh to create that relationship with God. Now, you might say, well, how can you have a duty to have a relationship with anyone? Well, that's the challenge, right? uh especially when you know talking in the context of God we're talking about a a non-corporeal being. So I want to talk about three aspects of duty. Uh the first is why it's important. The second is to whom do we owe a duty and third

[10:35] how do we go about fulfilling that duty. So let's start with the why question. Why is duty important? And I would argue that um as American society has become ever more selffocused and this was something that began I think really in the 1970s uh when I was a teenager. uh America uh you know post World War II achieved a level of

[11:11] prosperity for the sort of average person that no other country in the history of the world had ever achieved. So you could go back to Rome for example the Roman Empire. So the average person was not prosperous in Rome. the average citizen was okay, but the citizens were actually a relatively small group of the population under Roman control uh in I I I over over the last month or so I've read uh uh histories of China

[11:49] and Japan and again in both both societies were were were feudal at one point um and then they were um um um monarchical. Uh and in in both cases, it was only the uh elites in those societies who were materially wealthy. Um the average person, the the the peasants and such, they oftentimes didn't even own the land that they tilled. Um and so they were not particularly wealthy.

[12:25] uh and and and in Europe as well. So uh England, France, uh Germany, Spain, they were probably the closest uh to the United States um in terms of having a a prosperous middle class. But preWorld War II um they weren't in their middle classes um weren't certainly weren't better off than the middle class in the United States. And post World War II, they were

[13:02] nowhere near as well off because the war had so ravaged Europe. World War II had so badly ravaged Europe that their societies needed to be rebuilt. Whereas for the United States, while we participated in the war, of course, um it didn't it with the exception of Hawaii, the war didn't really touch uh the continental United Well, yeah, didn't really touch the continental United States. There were a couple places where uh you know submarines uh shot a you know a a torpedo or something you know um but

[13:38] but you know really there was really no danger being in continental America and and for that matter um with the exception of a of a couple of islands uh in in the illusion change chain Kiska and uh um I can't remember the name of any Alaska wasn't really affected by uh World War II. in terms of being in danger. So after the war ended, uh the United States was really the only ally uh left left or the only ally I shouldn't say left, the only ally that

[14:15] uh didn't have to rebuild itself, didn't have to rebuild its uh its housing, its industry. Whereas France, England, um they had been both had been bombed um andor under Nazi control. Uh Spain was not a particularly uh prosperous country u even preWorld War II. Certainly post World War II, although Spain was arguably neutral, um it it didn't experience a great deal of prosperity during World War II. And so coming out

[14:51] of the war it was not uh I was in better shape than than other European countries but but not not by much. So the United States and then the United States really because we we took it upon ourselves to rebuild Europe and Japan. So the material the material necessary to do that a lot of it was produced in the United States which created a great deal of incentive for industry to build up etc. And then two, uh, during World War II, people bought

[15:26] war bonds. Um, there weren't a lot of consumer goods to purchase, and so people had a lot of savings, uh, pent-up savings, you might even say. Uh, and there was a strong desire among returning service members and women u both who had been in the service and who were who remained on the home front to start families. And so the formation of families meant wanting houses, wanting furniture, wanting all the autoutramal as the French say of of setting out on a life. So so industry as rapidly as it could

[16:02] shifted from wartime production to consumer production. So starting in the late 1940s, the United States built an even deeper consumer culture. And by the time the 1970s came around, when the earliest baby boomers were in their early to mid20s,

[16:37] uh, or and and later baby boomers like me were in their teens. So a generational shift was happening whereby we baby boomers had not lived through the hardship of World War II to have the same kind of appreciation that our parents had for the prosperity that they that that was present post war. um they that that they had not experienced um having gone through first

[17:13] the Great Depression and then World War II and of course even earlier generations uh might have gone through World War I and and and and other hardships. So I think my generation uh number one did not have the hardship against which to balance the prosperity. That was number one. Number two, our parents, as a generation, this was not true of all baby boomers, of course, but as a generation, our parents were very focused on us fulfilling our needs, wanting us to live a better life than they did, which primarily meant not

[17:50] suffering the way they had suffered. And so, again, we we lived relatively, and I'm I'm talking relatively in terms of generational relativity, relatively easy, fairly carefree lives and it allowed us to be very selffocused. And so there wasn't a whole lot to put upon us a sense of obligation or duty to anything other than ourselves

[18:26] and perhaps our families. And that's where I think the the breakdown of a sense of duty among Americans began. And then as the generations continued beyond that. So uh you know they were even more distant. Um now you might say well what about the Vietnam War? Well, the Vietnam War, uh, it affected a ve a much much smaller number of people in America than than World War II. Uh, number one, and

[19:01] number two, uh, because partway through the war, uh, a lot of Americans turned actively against it. So, the war experience that Vietnam veterans had was very different than the war experience that people in World War II had. Now the people who went and fought in Vietnam often did so because they thought they thought it sincerely it was their duty to do so. Uh but but you one can see the attitude toward duty

[19:36] changing as attitudes toward the Vietnam War changed uh you know in that era. So as people became more selffocused right then ha you know ha having a sense of duty became archaic essentially so now one might say well we have a duty to ourselves well okay yes um but I think that's that's stretching the definition of duty uh beyond what's really intended

[20:14] We have we have an obligation to keep ourselves healthy. Those kind of things. I would define duty as that which we owe to other people not to ourselves. So we we owe it to our family etc. Okay. We have a duty to them uh with respect to ourselves. So and this is the conversation I was having with this uh fellow rich earlier today. We have an obligation to ourselves in large part so that we can

[20:50] fulfill our duty to others. So if we are not physically, mentally and spiritually healthy, it's going to be very difficult for us to attend to the needs of others. Okay? So in order to fulfill our duty, we need to take care of ourselves. We need to exercise self-care. And and that's why I think we need to make a distinction between duty, which is to others, and not make

[21:25] it duty to ourselves. That I think makes us too self-focused. We need to think of taking care of ourselves as just that, self-care, but not be so overly involved in ourselves that we become narcissistic. So hopefully hopefully that makes sense. I'll give that time a little bit time to sink in. And this gets down to the root of why duty is important. without

[22:00] duty, especially as I've defined it, which means obligation to others, the tendency is to become too self-focused and verge into or actually become narcissistic. And in many ways, we live in a very narcissistic society, right? A lot of what we see going on the self argrandisement especially at the expense of others is not healthy either for the individuals exhibiting the behavior or for our society as a whole. And so duty is important because

[22:40] number one it helps us better uh form our own characters and two because it actually gives us something of substance on which to build our self-esteem. Okay. This is another aspect of the conversation I had with Rich is taking care of ourselves. Hopefully, it doesn't give us a huge sense of accomplishment because

[23:17] it is such a fundamental thing that we need to do, right? We can't rely on other well, when we're children, we we do, but once we become adults, we can't rely on other people to take care of us. Now, we may get sick and and you know, God willing, we have a spouse and our spouse takes care of us or if not, we we go to the doctor, we go to the hospital, the health care professionals take care of us. But our our primary self-care uh impetus is is is the need to take

[23:53] care of ourselves, but we don't want to become overly self-focused in doing so. So to build our self-esteem on what we do for ourselves is to actually build a hollowedout foundation. If all we're doing is building for ourselves, think about it. When we die, everything our life was about is now dead. Whereas if we build a life based on fulfilling our duty to

[24:29] others, then when we die, we leave behind a legacy of memories, of hopefully appreciation, and of example that others can think about, can emulate. That is a true piece of rock on which to build self-esteem. Okay. So this is why I think it's it's important for us and our

[25:06] society to refocus to on refocus on our on uh duty and understanding our duty to others and how to fulfill it because in the end it helps us build a life on a firm strong foundation. Okay. Now why why do I say it's particularly important for men? Well, one of the reasons is because as men we will never experience child birth. Okay? It's biologically

[25:41] impossible. So the act of giving birth to a child and nurturing that child in its infancy is in many ways a duty that a woman I'm not saying I don't mean literally she can't avoid it but if she chooses to have children she's now choosing to perform a duty. Okay. And it's not the same for a man. Okay? While men of course are necessary to the uh creation of a baby.

[26:20] Uh you know, we're not going to nourish that baby from milk from our bodies, right? Uh we're not going to go through the ch the challenge of having the baby, you know, in our our womb for 10 months. we're not going to go through the pain of childbirth. So, we don't have that same connection. Our connection to our children comes through something else. And so, we as men need to build the ethos of

[26:56] duty in order to become effective husbands and fathers and good men. even if we choose not to get married and have children. So this is why duty is so important. It is the catalyst for building a solid character. And I'm not aware of anything that can be substituted for it. Okay. Now you may be thinking of some other things. So let's move to question number two.

[27:37] To whom do we owe duty? Well, as the organizing unit of society, first and foremost, we owe a duty to our families. Now, if we're not married, we still have hopefully I I understand there are some people they're orphans. They have no siblings. Got it. Okay. Uh but for most of us, we have a family. We have one or more par. We have one or two parents. We may have a

[28:14] sibling or two in, of course, in former times, maybe a lot more. We may have grandparents. We may even have great-grandparents. aunts, uncles, cousins, right? As we get into extended family, we owe a duty to our family members to to be there uh in good times, to be there in bad times, to support them uh certainly spiritually and emotionally and if we can

[28:49] financially. Okay. All of these are all of these are duties that we have to our family members. If there's a a special event, we need to be there. If that event is is uh you know, god forbid, a funeral, we need to be there to offer their comfort, offer them comfort in their mourning. Okay. Now we may be mourning the same person in which case we have reciprocal duties to each other to help us through our period of mourning. Okay. So first and foremost we

[29:27] owe a duty to our families. Okay. Next, we owe a duty to our community, to the to the other people in the village, town, city with whom we live. Now, let me be clear about this. While we have a duty as citizens or residents of a community to vote that well and that is a a real duty, that is not enough for us to fill our duty

[30:02] fulfill our duty to our community. And indeed, engagement in politics, I would argue, is actually a relatively small aspect of our civic duty. and perhaps not a particularly important one. Our real civic duty is to be part of a community, to be aware of the things happening in our our friends and

[30:38] neighbors lives. to help them out to see to it that uh if something bad happens there's some support there. Okay. You you you might call them our extended family. I I don't I don't think that would be a misnomer. Uh do we owe as deep a duty to our community as we owe to our family? No. As we go out into more larger concentric circles, you know, the amount of time,

[31:15] effort, even money that we can offer in support of our community is by necessity less for most of us, okay? Unless we're fabulously wealthy, okay? But we we still have that obligation to our community, right? That was for example in the Boy Scouts, this is one of the things we learned. We we had to we had to earn uh when I became an when I became an Eagle Scout, two of the required merit badges were citizenship in the community and citizenship in the

[31:50] nation. And both of those were about training us as Boy Scouts in our duty to those respective [Music] um concepts I guess I will call them. Okay. So we you know uh let's say we we have public a public library and if we use the public library we have a duty to treat the books well to return them on time to be respectful of the rules for

[32:25] using that library. That's part of our duty if we drive. Part of our duty is to follow traffic laws, to not pull into crosswalks where we could potentially hit a pedestrian, to not drive too fast down uh streets, especially residential streets where children might be playing or a pet might run out. Right? Our duties are actually mostly really small. They're the daytoday

[33:02] things of which we need to be conscious so that we are not putting our neighbors and fellow community members in danger and we're not taxing them in terms of creating greater anxiety because you know as they walk down the street they have to be hyper aware of whether you know a car is approaching. Those kind of things, those are our duties, right? To be aware of other people and

[33:38] that their needs in the community are as important as our own. Okay. So that's the community. Next I would say is we have a duty to our country, our nation. Okay. And many of the duties that we owe to our nation are similar to the duties that we owe to our community. Okay? So there are there are national laws. We we need to abide by those laws. We we need to pay our taxes.

[34:13] Okay? Uh you know, no matter how if you're like me, you're very tax averse. But I have to take I have I I have a duty to pay my taxes honestly and on time. Whether I like it or not is immaterial. That's what the rules are. That's what the law is. I have to fulfill that duty. Okay? If I don't like it, then I can advocate to change it. But until it changes, I have to fulfill my duty. Now I I think too we have a duty to support

[34:50] our country. That was one of the major reasons why at the you know young age of 46 I joined the United States Navy because there were hundreds of thousands of young people in the military in some cases being shot at and and even killed. And here I was at 46 living my nice life and I couldn't take the cognizant dissidence. And so I felt I had a duty

[35:27] to go serve in the United States military. Now I recognize not everybody can and or will serve in the United States military, but there are other things that we can do to serve our country. So, we can organize a cleanup project in a national park, right? Uh we can uh trying to think of something. Uh trying think other ways. Uh uh I had some in my mind and now they've

[36:02] all gone away. Okay, I got to have another sip of of uh of my libation. Um, so we can participate in events to showcase our country. We can participate in an Independence Day celebration. We can recognize holidays, whether it's Washington and Lincoln's birthdays,

[36:37] whether it's Armed Forces Day or Thanksgiving, right? That's why I do special editions of the way to Wow Show. It's part of what I think is my civic duty at the national level to recognize these days that have been designated as national holidays. So, we can take them seriously. We can put our flag out. I'm I'm pointing over here because my flag gets mounted over on a bracket uh on the on this side of my house outside. Okay. Even such a

[37:13] small thing as as as putting out the American flag on a national holiday is it's a duty we have and if we take it seriously again, it's something on which we can build the foundation of our character. It's showing honor and respect for our country. Whether we agree with the, you know, current people in power or not is is immaterial. Our country is is is an entity apart from whoever is running the government, right? And and it's to our

[37:49] country that we owe the duty, not to individual politicians or bureaucrats who run the government. We may or may not or uh feel a duty to them. We may feel a duty to oppose them. Okay? And that's perfectly legitimate as we advocate for what we think are appropriate laws, policies, etc. But we still have a duty to honor our country and and the opportunity that it

[38:24] gives us even if it's not as big an opportunity as we would like. I was listening to a podcast earlier today and uh it it was the Honestly podcast by Barry Weiss and she was interviewing a man and some of you will know his name because you're big into sports. I I'm not a big sports guy, but he she built the podcast as the man who made Michael Jordan who he was. Now, in for for me, even a non-sports guy like me, Michael Jordan loomed huge. One

[39:00] of the greatest athletes of of my era. And uh so this man grew up in very poor circumstances at a time when black Americans were uh routinely discriminated against. Uh and he uh be um he his his father died when he was a child. His his mother had uh crippling health problems. He was raised by his grandmother and and yet because he had an opportunity to go to a Catholic school uh where he was able

[39:36] where he he grew into a a a tall man especially for his time 6'4. He had an opportunity to play a lot of sports. He ended up getting a scholarship uh to college to play basketball uh at um I don't remember remember the name of the college now and eventually went on to become the first uh black uh college basketball coach. And despite the hardship and the discrimination he faced, he expressed tremendous

[40:12] gratitude for this country because of the opportunities it afforded him. And I I admire that tremendously. He he had to overcome hurdles that are inconceivable to me. And yet he's grateful to live in this country and for what this country has done has has a has has given him the opportunity to do. And so I think that's that's the

[40:47] attitude we all should have. And we have a duty to adopt that attitude and and fulfill that duty as well as we can. So that's next. And then I do think we have a duty as sort of a you know to other people and countries in the world. Uh you know as we go farther out maybe the duty isn't as strong. Uh but I I do think we have a duty to be uh good international citizens. Uh that doesn't mean we need

[41:22] to con condone uh terrorism. Uh it doesn't mean we need to condone or support uh tyranny quite to the contrary. Uh but I think um you know to say that all that matters is us and the United States and everyone outside doesn't matter. I I I think that's a sherking of our duty. Um, we we we need to have a concern for the lives and well-being of people who don't live in the United States, most especially for those who live in countries where they

[41:58] are prayed upon by their government, where their government allows them to be abused uh and and uh and and where the government because of policies essentially keeps them impoverished and denies them opportunity. you know how much we have to do about that. I think that's a more that's a matter of conscience conscience and interest but I I I think that uh we do have a duty to a common humanity and and sort of a common environment in which we live. Okay. And then last but certainly

[42:36] not least I think we have a duty to God. Right? in there there's a a line you hear among traditionally religious Jews. God runs the world. Everything that happens is is at God's behest. And so we have a we have a duty to to him as a result. And that duty, I think, is one of uh creating a relationship with God. And that's extremely difficult to do and maybe impossible to do without some kind

[43:13] of religious structure. That's that is essentially what every religion is about. It's about creating a system that helps us have a relationship with God. right now. I I did another show sometime in the last I think couple of months where I talked about the problem with societal institutions and religious institutions. Those are real problems and they hamper us doing our duty to God because I think they've

[43:50] lost what should be their primary purpose which is to help us fulfill our duty to God, help us build our relationship with God. They've they've gotten involved in too much as we say in Yiddish Nadeshkite. So, nonetheless, religion is the truest road to having a relationship with God, especially because we have other people with whom we share that religion to help

[44:27] us on that path. So that's that's to whom we owe duty. I have to say it's it's just nice. Okay. Finally, how do we fulfill our duty? Well, first and foremost, while we can

[45:02] sometimes fulfill our duty to strangers, largely we're going to fulfill our duty through having relationships with people to whom we owe a duty. So, there are ways to fulfill our duty outside of relationships. I mentioned I mentioned a couple of them. Putting out our flag on a national holiday. That's one way we can fulfill our duty without having relationship. Respecting laws, whether it's driving laws, whether it's rules about using uh

[45:39] a public library. Okay? We don't have to have a relationship with anybody to do those things. We can do them. and other people who are essentially strangers to us, they can benefit from it. And those are important because they create a a certain uh gestalt is the word I'm coming up with. a certain atmosphere in our society of concern for other people's welfare even if we don't know them or

[46:17] know them well. And that that definitely has a positive crafting on our souls. But the most important duties we're going to fulfill are going to come through relationships. Okay? And these these are the duties to our family. So, uh if if if you're familiar with the ten commandments, the uh I think the fifth commandment is in

[46:54] Hebrew kiva, honor your father and your mother. It's it's essentially impossible to do that without having a relationship with your parents. And then we have a duty to honor them. How exactly do we do that? That's a question that's been debated for millennia. Okay? And maybe I'll do a a show on that at another time. But our siblings, our brothers and sisters, our extended family, our wa our spouses, our children. How do we fulfill that

[47:31] duty? Part of it is understanding what role we have to play in the family. Another is understanding what their needs are. Right? It's it's difficult to say that we're fulfilling our duty toward another person when we don't know what the needs of that person are. That's why the relationship is so

[48:06] crucial. That's why going back to God for a minute, religion is so crucial because religion explains to us what God wants. And once we have a sense of what God wants, now we can fulfill our duty. But if we just decide this is what God wants, we're not fulfilling our duty. That becomes a narcissistic relationship. Oh, I've decided God wants this, so I'm going to give it to him. So, imagine having a friend come to you and say,

[48:42] "Uh, here I'm giving you a box of peanuts." And you have a peanut allergy, right? And the last thing in the world you want is peanuts. That's what people do sometimes. And when you think about it, that's pretty crazy. So we need to understand what other people need and then we can understand how to fulfill our duty. Now there are challenges to this. Sometimes people don't know what they need. Sometimes

[49:19] people won't tell us what they need. And so we grope around in the dark. Especially if you are a spouse or a parent or or a child in the in the nuclear family unit and especially for the adults and older teens in that unit. It is crucial to h to to building a successful relationship to helping others

[49:54] understand what your needs are and for you to do your best to understand what their needs are. That is fundamental. I might go so far as to say if someone is refusing to tell you or to explain to you what their needs are or is withholding from you. Yeah. Is withholding from you what their needs are or or you are refusing to make efforts to understand their needs. There is no relationship there. And if you

[50:30] think there is, you're kidding yourself. So this is what we need to do. We need to be looking for opportunities to fulfill our duty. Okay? In my daily to-do list, one of the things on my list is to do a good turn daily. That's the Boy Scout slogan, do a good turn daily. That's part of my duty to my community. That's something the Boy Scouts taught me. I put it in my to-do list so that I

[51:05] I've now now I've habituated it. But before I put it in my to-do list, I would oftentimes forget. Now I have this reminder because I need to check it off. And so, for example, when I go out exercising, when I do my walking, I look for opportunities to help people. I remember one time, this is now several weeks ago, I was walking down Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, and I hadn't fulfilled my I hadn't done my good deed for the day. And I I was looking for something I could do. And as I'm walking down the

[51:42] street, a woman is walking toward me and and and she she as she comes toward me, she says, "Pardon me. Pardon And I I walk with uh they're not earphones in my ears, but I walk with they're called aftershocks. They sit them they sit in front of my ears. And I stopped and I kind of took it off so I could hear her better. And she asked me to direct her to I think it was the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. I'm like, "Oh, thank you. I can do my good deed." Right. Um it was it was a I was I was you know so happy um that the opportunity you know came to me

[52:18] because that's a duty I take very seriously and it's it's also because I have that duty in my mind it's also in my mind when I drive so I can be a more uh you know a more respectful driver. Okay. It's it's it's I I do my best to keep it uppermost in my mind, especially when I'm out and about among other people so that I can remember that I'm part of a community. So these are the kind of things that we can do to fulfill our duty. And I I want to I want

[52:54] to leave you with this something I mentioned a while ago. Now, most of fulfilling duty are little things. Doing dozens of little things to fulfill your duty is far far better than doing one seemingly large thing. Because most of us, most of our lives happens in those minor interactions between family members,

[53:30] between neighbors, between strangers. So, I'll leave you with that. So, thank you for joining me. I hope you enjoyed some grog with me. And the cinnamon made it just you know I'm sorry for this all the sailors who couldn't have cinnamon in their gro. Uh this is our this is my last show for this week. So next week at 10:00 a.m. on Monday at 10 a.m. Pacific time is my show Trust and Estates Weekly. Uh my

[54:07] guest is going to be Andrew Nutbr. He's an international estate planning attorney and he's going to talk about crossborder estate matters. On Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time is my show, Business Lessons from the Military. On Wednesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time is my show, People Making Money. And then we'll be back in two weeks for the next edition of Jiggers's Place. So, I wish you a wonderful rest of the afternoon or evening depending on where you are and a restorative

[54:45] weekend and signing off as I always do. Marie Darling, you afforded me the opportunity to do my duty and there was a lot of mutual love created as a result. And that's why you are and forever will be my bell. Courage at all times, my friends.