Have you ever thought about the price of the apps on your phone?
That's the question one of our brothers asked me last week while our kids did a parade of goggles and tubes around the lazy river at the pool.
Think about it, he said. There's so much information, content, tools, and resources out there — for free. Why is everything free anyway?
If there's no price tag on the product, that means you are the product.
Look at it another way. What's your hourly wage at work? $20? $50? $100-plus?
Now look at your screen time. All of those "free" apps have taken how much of your time? What does that translate to in dollars?
Frankly, my social media time over the last seven days works out to hundreds of dollars of my own wage. Spent on what?!
Well, in an effort to utilize that time for good, here's a couple things I learned online recently.
⚡️ F5 Fast Files - Short Summary
Cringy online catchphrase, but ownership, boundaries, and joy shouldn't be.
The audience already knows what you need to do.
You're an agent to act, not an object to be acted upon.
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🎬 Main Character Energy
Yeah, the phrase is cringe half the time. Some guy calls himself "the main character" for dancing to his headphones between sets at the gym, and we roll our eyes right along with everyone else.
But strip away the fluff and think about the concept for what it's actually describing: Someone who takes ownership of their life, sets clear boundaries, and finds joy in the ordinary instead of waiting for extraordinary.
That's not cringe. That's the whole goal.
On the rational side of bold, what does that look like?
Ownership — Stop narrating your life in passive voice. Not "that's just how things worked out," but "here's what I chose and why." Own the marriage, the business, the body you're building — even the mess.
Boundaries — A main character doesn't apologize for having a schedule, a standard, or a "no." Say the hard no this week. Protect the one hour that makes you a better husband, father, or leader.
Joy in the ordinary — Romanticize the boring stuff. The workout before the house wakes up. The drive to work. You don't need a highlight reel to have a good scene, you just need to actually be IN the one you're already in.
📽 What Would The Audience Scream?
I heard this question posed online that keeps coming back to mind: “If your life were a movie and the audience had been watching up to this point — what would they be yelling at the screen?”
You already know the answer just like they do! That's what makes it funny, and a little terrifying.
"Leave the relationship — it's not working." "Have that conversation with your wife." "Put the phone down." "The job isn't the problem, the avoidance is." "Say the thing. Do the thing."
I don't think we should outsource our decisions to some imaginary audience. But framed this way, it's a good gut-check: is it actually obvious what you need to do, and you're just the one character in the theater too scared to hear it?
Enough with the avoidance tactics → scrolling, numbing, over-working, whatever yours is. Start living. Take responsibility. Make the decision. Take the action.
⚔️ The Eternal Truth Underneath It All: Agency
Here's what both of those ideas are pointing at, whether the internet realizes it or not: agency.
You were given the power to choose. Taught plainly by Elder David A. Bednar: "You are an agent to act, not an object to be acted upon."
An entire war was fought over this one freedom — Lucifer's plan would have stripped it away entirely. We won that war. We carry that freedom into every single day.
And then we give it away cheaply, for free actually (at least the app is usually free). We give it away watching someone else's highlight reel instead of living our own. We trade it for cheap thrills, lust, entertainment, or by anger and resentment that blinds us and boxes us in.
Freedom you don't use isn't freedom. It's just potential, gathering dust.
🔥 Be the Main Character
We celebrate freedom in this country. We celebrate it as men of faith. So let's actually use it.
Make the choice. Take the action. Find the joy. Have the hard conversation.
Stop watching the movie. Go be in it.
I, like many of you, need to get off my phone and back into real life. And no, I won't earn back all the time lost simply by sharing these insights with you.
Take a look at your screen time. What is it costing you? Take a minute to decide, as an "agent unto yourself," how your time online needs to be rebalanced.
Go get em boys!
Justin
F5 Brotherhood
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