This video is brought to you by the Dynamic Catholic Ambassadors Club. 

You're awesome. 

The speed of joy is:

Holy.

Graceful.

Amazing.

Creative.

Wise.

Beautiful.

Welcome back to Best Advent Ever. To make our journey towards Christmas, it's interesting to pay attention to God's call, to slow down, to step into His peace, and the world's call to speed up and to step into its chaos. God's call to step into His peace and order versus the world's call to step into its stress, anxiety, restlessness, and chaos. Each day, as we make our way through Advent, the joys should become clearer and clearer. And we should develop more courage to choose God, to choose His peace, and to choose His order. We've been talking about slowing down the speed of joy. We've been talking about the dangers are busy, the toxicity are busy. But our quest is not for the opposite of busy. And our quest is not just to slow down. Slowing down is not our goal. Our goal is human flourishing. Slowing down allows us to reconnect with our humanity.

Think about that, right? A chance to reconnect with our humanity because the culture is constantly dividing us, separating us from our God, and separating us from our humanity. Slowing down allows us to reconnect with our humanity, our needs, talents, desires, hopes, fears, and dreams so that we can learn to flourish again. So that we can learn to flourish again. That's God's dream for us that we flourish.

Busy prevents us from flourishing. It's an obstacle to the fruits of flourishing, which are emotional well-being, happiness, joy, satisfaction, contentment, mental health, the ability to bounce back from adversity, a strong sense of self, and your profound worthiness. Positive relationships, strong social connections, the awareness and energy necessary for empathy and kindness, physical health, vitality and energy, a sense of your meaning and purpose, engagement at work, the ability to do your best work, creativity, innovation, openness to new ideas that are not your own, spiritual health, better decisions, the ability to identify enduring wisdom and apply it to your life, to name just a few. These are the fruits. These are the fruits of flourishing.

I remember working on this paragraph. It took me like three days to write a paragraph. And then to really think about, okay, what are the fruits of human flourishing? What are the benefits of human flourishing? Why should you want human flourishing? Why should you want human flourishing for people in your life who you love? The fruits of human flourishing. Yes, vitality and energy and physical health. But the awareness and the energy necessary for empathy and kindness. See, in order for us to be present to a person who is suffering, however great or small, in order for us to have that empathy, in order for us to live kindness, we need to be aware of the opportunity, but we also need the energy. And how often we have the awareness, but we lack the energy. We have the awareness of this person is suffering. Or this person could really benefit from this kind act. But we lack the energy. Flourishing, human flourishing gives us both.

What about this one? Openness to new ideas that are not your own. Why? Because it takes a spiritual strength. It takes a spiritual courage. It takes energy. When you're tired, you are not open to new ideas. When you're busy, you are not open to new ideas, especially other people's. The answer to almost everything is no when you're busy, stressed, anxious, overwhelmed. They're the fruits of the culture. Busy, stressed, anxious, overwhelmed. And when you're in that state, the answer to almost every question is no. Why? Because you're in survival mode. The gift of flourishing, just one of the fruits of flourishing, openness to new ideas that are not your own. Better decisions, spiritual help, ability to identify enduring wisdom. Enduring wisdom. That's the key. That's where greatness is. Why is Mozart, Mozart? Because hundreds of years later, we still recognize it as genius. Genius is enduring. Our culture is constantly pushing us stuff that's here today and going tomorrow. Genius is enduring, love is enduring, virtue is enduring. Why? Because God is enduring. He's forever. And any of these things are just a momentary glimpse of the genius and the beauty and the greatness and the magnitude of our God who cares about us enough to say, I want to teach you how to love and I want you to flourish as human beings.

What is the ideal speed of life? The speed at which you can flourish? What is the right amount of busyness? The amount of activity that facilitates your flourishing? Are you flourishing? When I'm not flourishing, I'm probably trying to do too much. When I'm not flourishing, I'm probably in too much of a hurry. I think you will find that the same is true for you. If you haven't grabbed a copy of the book yet, I encourage you to do that. Also, encourage you to grab a copy of the Limited Edition Journal. The team did an incredible job putting that together. And one of the things they reminded me of was that journaling forces us to slow down. You might say, ah, I'm not a journal person. That might tell you something right there. That right there might tell you that you're actually moving it too fast to clip. Grab a copy of the journal. Journaling forces us to slow down to the speed of joy. That's a beautiful thing. God bless you. Have a great day and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.

Thank you, Ambassadors. You are changing the world. See you tomorrow.

Have a great day.

Have a great day.

Have a great day.

Have a great day.

Have a great day. 

Have a great day.

Bye-bye.

Have a great day.

Have a great day.

Have a great day.

Come on.

Have a great day.

Have a great day.

Bye-bye.

Simon, come sit.

I love you.

Have a great day.

Have a great day.

Have a great day.

Have a great day.

See you next time.

Bye.

Have a great day.

My biggest obstacle to slowing down on Sundays is the beautiful chaos of my family. With five kids aged 11 and under, often my standard operating mode is hurry. And on Sundays, with the myriad of tasks, activities, and opportunities that present themselves, I find myself jumping around between things and making one millimeter of progress in 1,000 directions. But a line from <em>Slowing Down to the Speed of Joy</em> recently stopped me in my tracks. Jesus was never in a hurry. I had to pause and think about that for a while and really let it sink in. Jesus was never in a hurry. The Savior of the universe, with a mission to heal the sick, preach the gospel and redeem humanity was never rushed. He rested with the Samaritan woman at the well. He didn't panic when he heard his friend Lazarus was dying. He never had to hold up his hand to someone and say, "Listen, I hear you, but I have like 15 other things to get done today." He was always in the right place, at the right time, at the will of his father.

And from that insight came the habit that's helping me reclaim my Sabbath. A simple question I ask myself throughout the day. Am I in a hurry? Now, I have to admit, I am not great at this yet. It's a constant battle. But that simple, repeatable reminder has borne real fruit. Instead of rushing to finish yard work, I now can pause and watch my three-year-old daughter show me her spin and dance around the living room. Instead of stressing about dinner, I'll sit and talk with my oldest son about his coding project that he's working on. Instead of checking email to prep for work, I'll work on a puzzle with my wife. It isn't a complete reworking of our lives, just a simple reminder that recenters and refocuses my heart. A simple question that helps me reclaim my Sabbath.

So I'll leave you with that challenge today. Jesus was never in a hurry. Are you?