The purpose of this article is to answer the question, will understanding and handling my KUs with excellence help me to think more clearly and make better life decisions?

Many Americans have experienced a deteriorating quality of life over the last 15 to 20 years. According to Newsweek, “The U.S. has dropped to its lowest position ever in the 2025 World Happiness Report, ranking 24th globally, down from 11th in 2012. The Report considers key factors such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and perceptions of corruption. Those under 30 ranked America in 62nd place.”

Determining why the quality of life in America has fallen is certainly a quintessential KU. We can begin to understand this KU by examining the role that the mass media has played in shaping life in America. For decades, mass media journalists have increasingly become active cheerleaders for more government spending and regulation as the simple one-size-fits-all solution for nearly all of society’s complex problems. National leaders of both political parties embraced this media advocacy for an ever larger government, because the additional spending increased their power and their odds of being reelected. The media’s advocacy for larger government was very effective. Total governmental spending as a share of America’s GDP grew by over 51% from 1960 to 2025, saddling us with insanely high levels of debt and inflation.

America now borrows money to pay the interest on our national debt, a frightening portent of things to come. And our personal finances aren’t in any better shape than our national finances. “A 2023 Forbes Advisor survey revealed that nearly 70% of respondents either identified as living paycheck to paycheck (40%) or—even more concerning—reported that their income doesn’t even cover their standard expenses (29%).”

Clearly, our margin for error is gone, and we need to begin making changes now.

What is America’s best path forward to a prosperous future? What can we do to increase our odds of finding a pathway to national and personal prosperity? How can we best handle these KUs?

We can begin answering these questions by acknowledging that most Americans fail to process their KUs well. Typically, when a KU presents itself, it’s ignored and whatever wisdom and benefits that KU may have added to our life are lost. We need to train ourselves to handle KUs better. Ideally, we will resolve to regard a KU as a sort of flashing warning light, which tells us to slow down, pay attention and invest some time and effort to investigate and understand the Unknown. It’s essential to avoid prematurely locking in conclusions that may need to be abandoned once you’ve ascertained all the relevant facts.

Martin Luther’s life offers some valuable insights about handling our KUs more adeptly. Luther was serving as a Catholic priest in Germany in the early 1500s, a time when the Church dominated society. Life was hard and almost everyone was extremely poor. Around 1517, the Church launched the practice of selling indulgences as a way to bring in additional income. Catholics were told that purchasing an indulgence would guarantee them a better life after death. Luther was very upset by this practice of selling indulgences, and it eroded his confidence in the validity of the Church’s teachings. He was depressed and angry, and felt trapped by his intense spiritual struggles. Luther’s all-consuming KU was whether he could find his way to the righteous and joyous life described by various New Testament writers such as Paul and John. Eventually, Luther experienced a profound transformation in his relationship with God when he realized that a righteous and joyous life is actually a gift from God. Luther described his revelation, “Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. Here a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me.”

Luther’s insights eventually spread widely across Europe, fueled by the fact that his translation of the Bible into German became one of the new Gutenberg Press’s most popular books.

Luther’s experience is just one of history’s many fascinating examples of individuals figuring out their KUs with spectacular results. In 1787, America’s Founding Fathers faced an all important KU. Could they create an enduring form of government which emphasized freedom and liberty, while fostering economic and spiritual prosperity? The Founding Fathers struggled greatly with this KU, sweltering in summertime Philadelphia while they argued and debated for months, endeavoring to create what we now know as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Notice that the Founding Fathers were able to come together, stay focused on what was absolutely essential, and that they persevered until they succeeded. Against tremendous odds, a tiny fledgling country was born which went on to dominate the Western world for many generations to come. This story of how America’s government was formed should encourage us to likewise be tenacious and relentless in handling our KUs.

On a macro level, we see that the result of Luther and the Founding Fathers successfully resolving their KUs improved life in the Western world for centuries. On a micro level, I believe that handling our personal KUs with excellence also offers tremendous life-changing benefits.

Many people in their 30s and 40s struggle with enormous financial challenges, such as student loan debt, credit card debt, high interest rates and absolutely sky high home prices. Nathan Haberstadt of New Founding recently posted a graph on X, showing that the percent of 30 year olds who are both married and are homeowners has fallen from about 52% in 1960 to under 15% in 2024. Getting married, buying a home and starting a family must seem to many young people to be no more likely than finding a winning lottery ticket.

How can struggling younger and older adults build a better life? Why not start by considering the words of Jesus, who promises the best life imaginable when he says in John 10, “I came that they might have Life and have it Abundantly.”

The late world-famous wrestling personality Hulk Hogan gave a strong personal testimony about this Abundant Life when he was baptized in December of 2023. “Total surrender and dedication to Jesus is the greatest day of my life. No worries, no hate, no judgment… only love!” he wrote in a December 2023 X post.”

Hulk Hogan’s powerful words will encourage some of us to seek after God. Others might be inspired to search for God by the natural wonder and beauty surrounding us. Consider that a healthy 10-week-old fetus weighs just 1.23 ounces and yet has everything he needs to eventually grow into an adult with 206 bones, and approximately 700 muscles and 900 ligaments. This amazing complexity doesn’t just hint at a Designer and a Creator, it shouts it from the rooftops. And if one is willing to acknowledge that he is a wonderfully designed and created being, then naturally some of the most important KUs are likely to surface. “Why am I here? Where did I come from? Is my life random, or do I have a purpose to search out and discover?”

As Mark Twain stated, “the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

As one endeavors to figure out these essential and foundational personal KUs, many will find comfort and inspiration from the promises written in Luke 11, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.”

A generation of legacy media journalists and their bosses faced a fundamental KU back in the 1960s and 1970s, when they had to decide if they would be better off practicing fact-based or advocacy journalism. If they had responded to this KU by committing to elevate truth and accuracy in all of their reporting, it is likely that America’s government today would be far smaller, and we would not be standing on the precipice of economic ruin.

Going forward, we can resolve to learn from the legacy media’s mistakes. Rather than preemptively dismissing anything we don’t fully understand or that doesn’t immediately appear to line up with our world view or our personal values, we can instead seize each opportunity to handle our KUs with tenacity, honesty, skill and humility. If we ignore just one new KU per week, that means we’re creating 52 gaps every year in our understanding of how we can live our best lives. Which brings us to our concluding KU: Are you willing to settle for an ever growing collection of costly missed opportunities or would you prefer your life to be guided by increasingly better decision-making skills?

The post Unlocking the Power of Known Unknowns appeared first on Free the People.

I have been a Celtics fan for over 50 years, but I am one of those who chose not to watch this year. Are the Celtics and the NBA interested in me becoming a fan again? If so, then please allow me to share how the Celtics and the other NBA players can rescue their failing league.

Perennial All Star Bill Russell retired from the Boston Celtics in 1969, having led the team to 11 NBA Championships in 13 years. As a young fan, whenever possible, I would fall asleep listening to Johnny Most broadcasting the Celtics games on my little clock radio. When I heard that Bill Russell was retiring, the news was so unexpected and devastating that I literally cried off and on through the rest of the night.

The days of Bill Russell are long gone but the Celtics have remained a winning team with a huge nationwide cadre of super loyal fans. When my son was growing up, we used to watch the Celtics play on Sunday afternoons, where stars like Boston’s Larry Bird would take on the likes of Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan.

The athleticism was great, the passions were high, and the consistent effort to be the best of the best was inspirational. The Celtics were among my heroes, and the same became true for my son.

Living in Florida at the time, it seemed unlikely that we would ever get to see the Celtics in person. However, while watching a game on ABC one Sunday afternoon, we saw an ad offering two seats from the recently torn down Boston Garden. I was so excited to think I could have a piece of the Garden that I could barely wait for my wife return home, so that I could share this truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When she arrived, I went through a dramatic, emotion-laden sales pitch of why we needed to buy these Boston Garden seats. I brought up how the Celtics were such a big part of my life growing up, reminding her of how I cried the night Bill Russell retired. The sales presentation only intensified from there when I brought up how the Celtics had become such an integral part of life with my son, and how these two Garden seats would forever immortalize all these good times. I could tell my wife was leaning my way, and I was just about to close the sale when my 9-year-old Chris added to the conversation, “Yeah Mom, and these seats cost 800 bucks!” I swear, people all the way from Florida to Boston heard my balloon pop. No seats for you, Mark!

Chris and I finally got to see the Celtics last year in Boston, third row seats, bucket list checked. Celtics fever was at an all time high for us, as father and son shared the great joy of watching Jason Tatum grow to become a first round All Star pick in 2020.

As indicated, I don’t watch the Celtics anymore. A couple of months ago, I was hoping that the NBA would not go all in on Black Lives Matter, but that hope was shattered when I turned on the first game of the NBA Bubble, only to see the basketball court emblazoned with the text “BLACK LIVES MATTER.” When my flag and my country is disrespected, it is personal for me, because both my dad and my father-in-law fought for the USA in World War II. Dad was a Major in the US Army Corps of Engineers and you can read about his bravery in building pontoon bridges in France for the Allied troops advancing towards Germany.

My father-in-law was a navigator on an Army Air Force Combat Search and Rescue Team, flying the skies of the Mediterranean and North Africa, rescuing pilots and airmen whose planes had been shot down by the enemy. Both men willingly risked their lives in order to preserve our freedoms.

Maybe America is overwhelmingly racist, as BLM and the left claims today. However, if we go back to 2016 we find Gallup stating that race relations deteriorated during the Obama presidency. In 2008, 70% of Americans felt race relations would be improved with Obama as our president but that didn’t happen. Instead, in 2016, 46% of Americans felt that race relations had worsened during Obama’s presidency. Obama failed to challenge the false narratives the leftist media peddled about the deaths of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, which greatly helped BLM to grow size and influence. Recently, America has seen BLM grow even more powerful with the riots and looting in the Democrat-run cities of Portland, Minneapolis, Seattle, and others—being portrayed by the media as an understandable reaction to centuries of racism. Following Obama’s example of silence, not a single speaker at the recent Democratic National Convention criticized the violence.

I think if it were to be possible to poll the entire country, we would find the vast majority of Americans believe that black lives matter. As chaotic as things seem now, I believe that healing can come to America when our focus shifts to what we have in common. According to the Declaration of Independence, America was founded on the belief that all men are created equal. As the Pledge of Allegiance states, we are one Nation under God.

As an evangelical Christian, I am promised to have a life dominated by love and joy and peace if I am fully surrendered to God. When trials come, my way, I have an ever present help in times of trouble. It’s an absolutely awesome life and how I wish I could talk personally with Jason Tatum and all the other Celtics players so I could share how this abundant life is available to each and every one of them.

I miss my Celtics and hope to be able to watch them play again, maybe even someday soon. In the meantime, I would encourage the team, as well as fellow NBA players, to fervently seek after God with all of your heart because as James writes, “the wisdom that comes from above is pure, then also peaceful, gentle, full of mercy and good fruits…”

The post How the NBA Can Still Save Itself From Itself appeared first on Free the People.