My Biggest Challenge

Of all the things that cause me trouble, the day-to-day grind is not really a big issue with me... ie/doing your work, meeting with other people, communicating information to others, etc. Most of these are just "small stuff". The things that give me the biggest problem are the bigger things. The things that might require a lot of hard work of the mental variety... ie/something that requires a decision to be made, and sometimes things that looked easy when I started but obviously are not going as planned. THOSE are the ones that cause me to..... procrastinate and waste time and lose my focus.

The right way to handle these is probably to FOCUS on them, and come to a decision point on them. Take some action, any action. Do something. Take responsibility.

I am starting a list right here with this post of things that required a little extra effort resolve or come to a decision about. GL me.

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I Find Stuff

Found the following things in the last few days:

1)
Tuesday. Found a Bob's World Authentic Snow Gear Snow Donut while jogging in a commercial area that had blown there by the wind.

2)
Wednesday. Went to Taco Bell and a customer ahead of me had left his/her change in the automatic change dispenser.

3)
Thursday.
Found a gold ring and a penny while jogging in the same commercial area as Tuesday.


Here is what I did.
1)
The Snow tube had an owner's name on it so I put it up on the Craigslist lost&found.
2)
I tried to find whoever was customer #64 but I couldn't find him/her... they had already disappeared. (customer #65 said he paid by credit) so I put the change into a donation device that was there on the counter - I don't remember what the donation was for.
3)
I looked up the gold ring online to find out its worth. You can buy one of these for around $50. This one is also going on Craigslist lost & found.


My question is, what do you do when you find things that aren't yours that might have some value to somebody?

A) Be thankful for your good fortune. Finders keepers!
B) Return it if it has a lot of value, otherwise just keep it.
C) Go to extraordinary lengths to find the owner, if not found, donate to charity.

Out of Shape and Out of Order

Time to get back to business. I'm out of shape and I feel terrible. I never take time to excercise. I have picked up some very bad eating habits along the way and a health screening report from my work tells me that I should do something about it. Anyway, this should be quite a challenge to get things back in order. I currently weigh 194.5 and I should be around 175. But more than the number, I really need a lifestyle change in order to get back to good health habits.

Honestly though, there is more going on than just health issues, I need to change more than just that. I need some mental excercise as well. I have gotten lazy there as well. There is so much to think about and so much to do. I would like to pray every morning in order to help me think clearly and make sure I am on track for the day. Organize my days and get things done.

Current things on my plate. Kids have swimming lessons from March to May, I have to plan for that. My in-laws will be here from April to August, I need to plan for that. At work, I have a number of tasks to organize, in order to accomplish as much as I can there so others can continue to make progress. Finally, I need to make a concerted effort to study Java so I can get a Java programming certification (the hardest certification in all of IT I am told)

To start, all this off, I am going to take a quick 2 mile jog.... and when I return, I need to... take out the garbage, make a post on Craigslist for our daycare, then I need to log into work to see if I can get a jumpstart on a few things there, drive my daughter to school, then head over to the office.

Have a great day me! Have a great day you!

P.S. I will have to measure success somehow and I think the way I will do it is that if by this summer I will have A) Be able to head to the beach with less concern because my kids have improved their ability to swim. B) My in-laws are enjoying their summer here --- or at least have things they can do and enjoy while here C) Completed my Java Certification D) Organized my home office so that both my wife's business and my own Papers are in order ie/mom's books are in order/our finances are in order/our taxes are done.

Reality

This is my first REAL post in which I neeed to state the obvious. If you have not figured it out yet... you should understand that the world is more than what it appears on the surface. I am not talking about imaginary friends, gnomes, ghouls, and the stuff of fairy tales/ children's stories. The "more than it appears" that I am talking about is the fact that we live in a physical world with a spiritual dynamic. Most of the western world struggles and puts a lot of effort into understanding the physical world as well they should, but put up the blinders regarding any "spiritual" reality since it is not as "concrete" as the physical world and cannot be "seen" and therefore cannot be measured or undergo a battery of physical tests. I am no eastern mystic but it seems "reasonable" to me that some kind of due diligence is in order to figure out something about the metaphysical beyond what can be seen/touched/smelled/tasted/heard.
Now this is getting way ahead of myself but it would also seem "reasonable" to me that one reason we might even be able to perceive or think about something beyond the physical realm is because there is some aspect of ourselves that makes this possible, the "spiritual" component of ourselves.

The motivation I have for writing this today is that I want to be aware of the spiritual side of things every day. Far too often I think I just go along with the rest of the practice of my culture which is to see things only from one dimension and ignore that there might be a bigger picture going on all around me. I have to think that ignoring the metaphysical nature of my existence could cause a large host of problems by making wrong moves. For example, doing the right thing at the wrong time and the wrong thing at the right time, because I do not understand things as they really are being played out in all dimensions.

Also I don't want to live in a rut, doing the same things day after day, even when they fail to bring any sort of progress.

I think too that a lot of this is spelled out in the Bible of which I have not paid a whole lot of attention to lately. I think I should at least pray the Lord's prayer every morning to get each day's thinking started in the right direction. One of the things that has nudged me toward this "moment of clarity" was reading about some people that have had extraordinary survival experiences.... from an old Larry King live show I think from around 2006.

All I know is I need all the help I can get and I don't want to be like everyone else and make light of what is more important than anything... The spiritual dimension. In fact, I am often quite literally amazed at the incredible ability of some people to ignore or discard all things spiritual and that in spite of overwhelming evidence that might be staring them in the face. I do not wish to continue blinding myself like that. I want to be aware of, include, and embrace it.

Where to look? That is easy. The Bible. And also to open my ears to others that are already in this path. Lately, I have been most impressed with

Revive Our Hearts

by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. I listen to it on the radio after dropping my kids off for school. I know it is a ministry to women by women but there is something about it that is right on the mark as far as I am concerned.

First Prayer Journal Entry

Just one request. Be patient with me as I develop this prayer journal! I am not even certain yet what type of information I will include in this prayer journal or even whether this could be properly called a prayer journal. I do know though that this will be a small nook of the virtual world where I will document my day-to-day progress as a human being, as a friend, a co-worker, an American, a father, a brother, a son, a husband, a Christian, and as a neighbor. This should be interesting to try to explain how I manage all these things on a day-to-day basis! (at least for me, and I hope for you)

Yours truly,

Roger