It’s easy to think about yourself. And it’s easy to tell yourself you’re thinking about your kids. But what does that really look like? What does it mean to be thinking about our descendants? To plant trees under whose shade we will never sit?
The speaker explains they are at a Minneapolis gathering focused on recovery and culture and that they spoke on a panel. This orients viewers to the event and the topic of being good ancestors.
The speaker shares a proverb about planting trees under whose shade we will never sit and asks what actions we take now for our children and future generations. They emphasize modeling optimism, kindness, and patience as ways to plant those seeds.
The speaker challenges listeners to identify one concrete thing they can do in the next day that is intentionally for the next generation, clarifying that everyday caregiving doesn't count. This section frames healing and learned behaviors as a starting point and encourages practical, service-oriented choices.
The video closes by encouraging service and thinking of others as gifts to the next generation, then notes it is recovery month and urges those in recovery to celebrate. The speaker signs off with a brief reminder and goodbye.
Hey everybody. I am actually in Minneapolis at a conference and I just spoke on a panel as a matter of fact. Amazing, it's not even a conference, it's called a gathering. It's this amazing look at wellbriety, at recovery in native community that really looks at the combination of culture and recovery. And it's been a wonderful experience. I got to speak on a panel. And the panel though was focused on like, how do we, how can we be the best ancestors for our descendants. And so it's really thinking about like, how do you live your life now for future generations?
How am I living my life for my daughter, for my daughter's kids, for my daughter's kids' kids? Who knows exactly all the different things, you know, that are impacted by us? In the description, I put the question, the saying, a proverb even, that we spend our lives ideally planting the seeds of trees under whose shade we will never sit. Basically meaning we do now things that are not for us. They're for our kids and they're for our kids' generation. And it's like, what am I doing for my daughter, for my daughter's friends, for her whole generation, for all of Gen.
Z? Are there things that I can be doing? We've got enough negativity, we've got enough cynicism, we've got enough pessimism, we've got enough fear, we've got all of that. So every time that I do something different than that, I think I'm doing something for that generation and maybe for other generations as well, including my generation. Every time I can model optimism, every time I can model kindness, every time I can model patience, every time I can model these things, which are not my strong suits or haven't been in the past, but are getting better and better, every time I can model those things, guess what?
I'm planting seeds for trees under whose shade I will never sit. That's a beautiful thing. So this weekend, think about what are you doing? What are you doing for the next generation? And maybe it is just the behaviors you're learning, the healing work that you're doing. You know, that's a start. That's a start because obviously, yeah, we have to heal. We have to be in a good place. But it goes way beyond that when we truly think about being the best ancestors we can be for our descendants, at least for me.
And so as a task or something to think about, I encourage everybody who's watching this to just really say to themselves, What's one thing you can do, just one thing you can do in the next 24 hours? One thing you can do consciously that is for the next generation and not you. And no taking care of your kids is not part of it, right? Because We all take care of our kids. You're supposed to take care of your kids. You're supposed to be there for your kids. That's just like the very, very, very baseline.
No, I'm talking about like, what's one thing you can do in the next 24 hours intentionally that is planting? Easy there, Luke. Okay. Yeah, The hair's getting long. The hair's getting long. what is one thing, one thing you can do very consciously to be a gift to that next generation, to do something that says, oh, this is for them, not me. And there's so many different things that we can come up with that we can do. And that is the gift as we begin to think of others and think of ourselves, less of ourselves, and thinking about being of service.
So something to consider, as always, it's recovery month, not always, but every September, and this is recovery month, second Saturday of recovery month. So celebrate recovery. Let people know how happy you are to be in recovery if you're in recovery. All right, take care.
