The days continue to grow shorter in the northern hemisphere. Nights are colder. Winter is only a few weeks away. It is a season where the north winds bite our face and turn our ears red. It is a season where snow will cover the ground and life enters a dormant stage. It is a season for reflecting on where we’re heading. If we’re not happy with our direction, we can think about where we want to go. It’s not by accident that spring follows winter and is filled with new life and hope. After this winter, a new spring awaits you. It’s still a way off, but it will come. Use winter to prepare for the new life that will arise in you.
think
Think About It
In this digital age, nothing is hidden, it’s all out in the open for public consumption. We’re recorded on videos with and without our knowledge. Our online behavior is tracked by countless agencies. Every time we use our credit card, change channels, or make a call, someone is listening or watching. Privacy is a thing of past. We can’t run away from it, it’s ubiquitous. We accept it as part of a new order. We may not be able to change it, but we can shape, to some extent, how we deal with it. If we live our lives in a way that upholds integrity, honor, and responsibility we can walk through the morass of the lack of privacy with our heads held high.
Think About It
There are 24 hours in a day comprised of 1440 minutes and 86400 seconds. Each person on our planet has the exact same amount of time. Time doesn’t classify by wealth, place of birth, or religious belief. How we use our time writes the story of our life. Each 24 hours is a chapter. One page (an hour) doesn’t make a day, there are still 23 hours remaining. We often give the negative experience power well beyond the time of its existence. If we isolate a negative experience to the one hour of its existence we can tell ourselves, “I’ve still got time to make it a great day.” Yes we do. Take control of your time.
Think About It
When I was in school, teachers used a chalk board. In elementary school I had the job of erasing and washing the chalk boards after school (It was a punishment for for my talkative behavior – LOL). I didn’t mind the job. Today we use our technology to quickly delete our work on our computers or tablets. We can do the same things with minor incidents that interrupt our days. If we erase or delete them from our active mind, we give ourselves the freedom to move on. When we fail to erase or delete minor irritations we allow them to fester and affect our attitude and moods. I always felt a sense of pride when the chalk boards were clean and Ms. Borchers would say, ‘Thank you, Ray.’
Think About It
We give our hopes freely to sports teams. They may be teams in professional leagues, college teams, or national teams. We experience moments of euphoria when they win and moments of depression when they lose. We take losses personal. Players and coaches of winning teams are praised and players and coaches of losing teams are criticized. One thing I am certain, no player or coach wakes up thinking, “I want to lose this game/match.” They wake up filled with excitement for the competition. The competition is a good assessment of which team is the better team at a certain moment. Each morning when we enter our day normal people don’t set a goal of making the day the worse day ever. Every normal person wants a good day. As we work ourselves through the day we compete with the challenges that come our way. How we handle the challenges is our measure for the moment. When we fail, we only fail in that moment. If we get up and start over, learn our lessons, we may discover that we are victorious over our next challenge.
Think About It
““We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains (Li Po).” The Chinese poet Li Po offers us a great truth. The Earth will continue to take its trip around the sun after we have died. If we reflect on our lives we have an opportunity to examine how we are living and the memories we’ll leave to those most close to us. We can ask ourselves, “What will my life say about me?” Is the answer we find what we want our life to say? If we want it to say something different we can map a new course to our lives. We can also change the attitude we take toward the path we are walking.
Think About It
Each day I witness great degrees of loneliness. Loneliness is not relegated to the aged. It crosses all ages, races, and gender. I witness people more engaged on smart phones than in person to person interactions. Interpersonal interactions are not always easy. They are the way we get to know each other. They are the way we communicate more openly and honestly. They require us to set time aside to listen and to respond meaningfully. There’s something special about sitting down for a meal without technology and communicating. There’s something special about a “cheap date” at a coffee shop and talking about life’s issues.
Think About It
I can’t complain about how things are working out if I continue to act in the same way. I canexpect but the same results if I continue to operate with similar patterns. If I want different results I have to change how I’m am acting. Waiting for things to change without personal change is akin to waiting for a warm summer’s day in the middle of January in the northern hemisphere, it’s not going to happen. If you change and you’re still not getting the results you want, what to do? Change again and again, you’ll get it right. Don’t quit.
Think About It ~ Success is Important, but . . .
It’s important to be successful. It’s also important as to how one goes about being successful. I’ve known people to lie and cheat their way to what they thought was the top. I wondered the top of what? I’ve known people to use others to get to their goals. They didn’t care about anyone else’s dream but their own. I’ve also know people who’ve busted their butts doing it the right way. These folks didn’t sacrifice their honor or integrity to succeed. If given the choice between sacrificing their honor and integrity and perceived success, they would choose honor and integrity. Success is important. How we live and treat others on the road to success is more important.
Something to Think About
One cannot rip the past out of his/her life. it’s stuff that happened to us and it’s stored at a cellular level in our memory. The best we can do is to make peace with the past. It’s not always easy to make peace with the past because lots of the characters in our personal drama are no longer in our lives (they’re either dead or no longer live near us). If we can find ways to forgive those who hurt us, we loosen the past’s grip on us. That’s easier said than done. Yet, it has to be done if one is to find peace and eventually happiness.
