Let He Who Is Perfect Cast The First Stone is a post from: Deliberate Legacies

Wisdom has two parts:  1) Having a lot to say 2) Not saying it. – Church billboard in Vermont

There are days when I have the gift of gab.  On those days, I am funny.  I am quick with the one-liners.  I am a source of knowledge and understanding.  On those days, I am warm and welcoming.  I put others at ease.  I am refreshingly honest and positively a hoot.  On those days, I’ve just “got it”.

There are also days when I have the curse of gab.  On those days, I am funny… when my friend is trying to be serious.  I am quick with the one-liners…shooting them out there repeatedly – zing…zing…zing – so much so that the person I am speaking with says less and less.  I am so confident in my ability to pass on good, sound advice that I don’t listen to what is being said to me… I just hear the words and offer up several solutions.  Rather than being warm and welcoming, on those days, I am full of commentary and self righteous pats on my own back.  The uneasiness can clearly be felt by everyone but me.  I am bluntly, even brutally honest and positively a harpy.  On those days, I am dishing it out freely regardless of who wants it or not.

I am not the only one afflicted with the gift/curse of gab.  And in our defense, sometimes, we just don’t know when the gift is going to come out or the curse.  Sometimes it’s a bit of both.  It’s our version of Tourette’s Syndrome.

I worry that my children will inherit this trait from me.  Already I can see my son not letting his daddy or I get a word in edgewise (BTW how did “edgewise” become an idiom?? Who came up with it?) and/or answering before he really hears the question.

We want our children to grow up to be good friends and good leaders.  Heck, we want to be good friends and good leaders.  I know that in order to be both, one has to be a good listener.  We have to embrace the wisdom of listening.  When I think of people I consider to be good friends and/or good leaders, I can clearly see that the common trait of all of them is that they have mastered the art of listening – which is completely different than just hearing.  Listening is not only hearing what is said but also what isn’t said.  The wisest leaders and the best of friends know that hearing themselves talk is no way to build trust and goodwill.

When a friend needs to talk, I need to resist the urge to give advice right away and just listen. I need to make sure that I keep the focus on them for as long as they need/want it.  Life is NOT a competition.  No need to see their hurt and raise them a tragedy.  I need to ask questions, and really try to understand the answer….ask questions that encourages them and allows them to express the deeper feelings that might otherwise gets brushed aside.

Listening in my marriage is equally important.  I need to not focus on the letter of the law – that is, hearing the word for word complaint being voiced and pointing out that when he says that I always do whatever the offense is, that the statement is clearly false since I don’t alwaysdo whatever the complaint is so therefore the complaint is null and void due to improper and false wording (point for me).  We both need to be able to speak freely without fear that the other person is about to launch into a fix-it speech, I told you so speech, or probably the worst possibility – yeah-ok-but-you-won’t-believe-what-was-done-to-me/I’ve-been-through-today speech.

Jill Savage of Hearts at Home is often encouraging us moms to be more of a “yes” mom more than a “no mom.   In addition to that, I hope to  develop that leader-like sense of when to open my mouth and when to keep it clamped firmly shut.

The Wisdom of Listening is a post from: Deliberate Legacies

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
-Abraham Lincoln

I once had a conversation with a friend of mine who said to me, “With all that you’ve seen and experienced, how is it that you are such a happy person?”  My response, “I choose to be.”  For some people out there, happiness just is.  It’s hard-coded in their DNA.  The sun is always shining for them and if there does happen to be a cloud or two in the sky, it’s most certainly a silver-lined cloud.  And then there is the rest of us… we have to choose happiness each and every day because it just doesn’t come naturally to us.

Like all good habits, there are tricks to help you keep making that daily choice to be happy, and like all good habits, if you keep at it long enough,  you’ll find that what used to feel unnatural now seems a bit more familiar.

1. Don’t Believe Everything You Think
According to medical experts, we have on average 60,000 thoughts per second during every waking hour. Of those 60,000 thoughts, 95% are the same thoughts we had yesterday, and the day before that. What’s worse is that for the average person, the vast majority of those thoughts are negative. Even worse – most of those thoughts simply are not true.

From my own life: In high school, I did Lincoln Douglas Debate. I was good. I won often. However, each time I won I was truly shocked. I just couldn’t understand… if they knew all about me, there would be no way that the judge would vote for me. This was particularly true one time when I was arguing the pro stance on a topic. (For those that have not seen LD debate, topics are decided by the committee at the start of the year. You must come up with a for (pro) and against (con) stance. Before each round, you flip to see which side you will be arguing.) Every time I spoke, the judge frowned. The more I talked the bigger the frown. Twice I stopped talking and almost just went and sat down. After all, it was clear that he did not care for one word I was saying. During my closing speech, he simply put down his pen and crossed his arms. Great, I thought. Why do I even bother? I did not even deserve to be there with all those students who were way better than me.

After the round was over, I waited to collect my critique sheet from the judge. I knew it wasn’t going to be good, so I braced myself. Then I read my sheet. Nothing but praise. While he was there to judge us on our speaking points, style, presentation, etc., he said that going into it, he thought to himself how could a pro argument win for this particular topic? He personally believed in the con side. But he listened to my points, found them to have merit, and what is better is that I spoke with such conviction that he felt compelled to give my argument a chance.

What??? Why the frowning then? Well, perhaps he was struggling with the thought of liking me and allowing my points the time of day, but the point is that it was his issue to deal with, not mine. And there I had been, ready to throw in the towel and had all but convinced myself that I was stupid for having even tried. Don’t believe everything you think because sometimes the thoughts you have are not based on fact.

2. Notice the Happy Things in Your Life No Matter How Small
One evening a Cherokee elder told his grandson about the battle that goes on inside people’s heads. He said, “My son, the battle is between the two ‘wolves’ that live inside us all. One is Unhappiness. It is fear, worry, anger, jealousy, sorrow, self-pity, resentment, and inferiority. The other is Happiness. It is joy, love, hope, serenity, kindness, generosity, truth and compassion.

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Because of our negativity bias (we tend to believe the negative over the positive), we often feed the wrong wolf. We need to even up the score. Make a point of noticing everything good that happens to you: any positive thought you have, anything you see, feel, taste, hear or smell that brings you happiness. This intention activates the reticular activating system (RAS), a group of cells at the base of the brain stem that’s responsible for turning on your memory system and allowing it to bring anything important to your attention. Have you ever bought a new car and then suddenly started noticing the same make of car everywhere? It’s RAS at work. Now you can purposefully use it to be happier.

3. Choose the Happier Thought
The next time you’re faced with a challenging situation that gives rise to negative thoughts and bad feelings, find an equally true thought about the situation that makes you feel better – and lean into it. This doesn’t mean you deny negative feelings – just pay more attention to the positive part of the truth. The classic measure of optimism, seeing the glass as half full rather than half empty, is the perfect example of leaning into the equally true but happier thought.
The next time you are stressed and sitting there thinking negative thoughts about how you cannot get everything done, you don’t deserve to be a mother, you are a lousy wife, etc. STOP. Search your mind for positive thoughts that are equally true – you can ask for help, your friends love you and will understand, your children love you and just want time with you, your husband loves you and probably doesn’t care of the laundry gets folded tonight or not.

4. Tend to Your Relationships
For women, relationships may be even more important than for men. Scientists have found that while both men and women release adrenaline and cortisol when under stress, only women release oxytocin. The more women engage in bonding activities, the more oxytocin they release producing a calming influence and further lowering stress. So the next time you’re upset or feeling stressed, don’t say you don’t have time for friends and family. That is precisely when you need them the most!

The best way to keep relationships happy, healthy, and supportive can be summed up in one word: appreciation. When we demonstrate our appreciation for the support we receive from others, it reinforces that behavior and deepens our connection to them. In turn, it helps them feel more connected to us.

5. Find Passion and Purpose
One day an old woman walked up to a building site where three men were laying bricks. She asked the first man what he was doing. “Can’t you see?” he replied. “I’m laying bricks. This is what I do all day – I just lay bricks.” She then asked the second man what he was doing. He replied, “I’m a bricklayer and I’m doing my work. I take pride in my craft, and I’m happy that what I do here feeds my family.” Walking up to the third man, she could see his eyes were full of joy. When she posed the same question, he replied with great enthusiasm, “Oh, I’m building the most beautiful cathedral in the whole world.”

Like the third bricklayer, a survivor will bring a sense of purpose to any activity. Bringing a sense of passion to mundane activities will boost your happiness, but so will taking time to find your true passions. Think about what activities most absorb you and analyze what it is about those activities that make you happy.

I am not saying that we should deny our feelings and choose to be happy regardless of the circumstances.  As a matter of fact, I have it on good authority that “there’s nothing wrong with bein’ grumpy, if that’s the way you’re feelin’ today.” (Grumpy Bear of The Care Bears).  “As long as you’re not hurtin’ anybody, keep on feelin’ that way.” But I am saying that we can take a stand and choose our daily attitude (and sometimes, the choice has to be made even more often than daily… or maybe that’s just me…) rather than letting others determine what our outlook will or won’t be.

5 Traits of Shiney, Happy People is a post from: Deliberate Legacies

The first couple of times my son did this, neither my husband nor I had any clue where he had picked up such a phrase.  It made perfect sense and like I said, the gusto with which he exclaimed it made us double over with uncontrollable laughter.  It wasn’t until the recent 1 millionth (give or take a few) viewing of “Ice Age: The Meltdown” did I find the source of my son’s favorite saying.  See, during the movie, Manny and his friends have met up with Ellie who is a woolly mammoth under the impression that she’s an opossum.  While they are fleeing what appears to be sudden doom (the melting of the ice caps), a large bird flies overhead and in typical opossum fashion, Ellie and her “brothers” instantly pretend to be dead.  Manny, not long on patience and already growing tired of Ellie’s delusion that she’s an opossum and knowing that the real threat they are facing is the impending flood, lifts her eyelid and utters the famous phrase, “If you play dead, you’ll be dead.”  The valley they were in was about to be flooded and they needed to reach the safety of the boat or higher ground – that was the real threat, not the bird flying overhead who was really too small to swoop down and carry Ellie off.

Sometimes, I have to admit, I am a bit like Ellie.  I will react to the perceived threat (the bird) without even realizing that there is a greater, more real threat looming out there… like when my husband and I will argue out of frustration over our finances (perceived threat) without realizing that we are using the stresses of adult life to disconnect from each other (greater threat).  It can be hard to focus on the greater threat when the immediate ones are so pesky and demand so much attention RIGHT NOW!  Thank goodness Ellie had Manny there to remind her that there were other things to be more concerned with at that moment… it’s not that the bird flying overhead wasn’t cause to exercise caution, but it wasn’t reason enough to lose all perspective.

Back to my adorable son who gets a huge kick out of lifting our eyelids and making his pronouncement… My husband wants to have this phrase put on his tombstone when his life here on Earth has ended.  We found ourselves discussing just how profound a statement it was:  If you play dead, you’ll be dead.  If you go through life acting as if it’s already over, it may as well be.  It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.

I know people who are right now just playing dead… they’ve given up, stopped caring, and just walk through life not really seeing or feeling anything at all.  I was that person for a while.  I could fake it, but if anyone worth their salt took a deeper look at me and how I lived compared to what I said, they’d see I was just saying and doing the things that were expected of me, but I wasn’t really living.  Living involves risk…living involves being intentional about choices…living involves active participation from both your heart and your mind.  I wasn’t living, trust me, but thank goodness someone was there to push me, nudge me, and basically let me know that if I continued to play dead, then I may as well be dead.

Are you playing dead?  Then let me be your “Manny” and lift your eyelid and remind you that if you play dead, you’ll be dead.  Do you know someone who is already playing dead?  Go be their Manny – they may not seem appreciative now but they will thank you for it later, I promise.

If You Play Dead, You’ll Be Dead is a post from: Deliberate Legacies

1.  Don’t miss the boat.
2. Remember that we are all on the same boat.
3. Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.
4. Stay fit. When you’re 600 years old, someone might come along and ask you to do something really big.
5. Don’t listen to critics; Just get on with the job that needs to be done.

6.  Build your future on high ground.

The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.  -Helen Keller

I’ll be honest… #6 here has been hard for me to write.  I started this blog entry weeks and weeks ago (January 19th to be exact) and never got beyond listing the first 6 items on the screen… then I’d just sit here and stare at #6:  Build your future on higher ground trying to come up with some witty, yet meaningful piece of insight or wisdom to share.  But each time, I’d end up hitting “save draft” and tell myself that I’ll just come back to it later.  Later has come and gone and still sitting in my draft box was this entry.  I don’t have any witty, yet meaningful piece of insight or wisdom to share as of yet, but I’m going to start writing because I have come to the conclusion that the “WordPress Draft Fairy” has clearly gone AWOL (and normally I’d be a bit more concerned for said fairy, but right now I gotta focus on this entry or else!!).

In high school, I hated to be labeled (and truth be told, I’ve never really grown a fondness for labels, but I’ve learned to accept that our society feels better when it can “safely” classify something or someone):  nerd, teacher’s pet, goodie-two-shoes, foster child… the list goes on and on.  The various labels – some good and some bad – all placed expectations on me which I found to be quite overwhelming at times.  People had preconceived ideas of what a nerd was or teacher’s pet or foster child, and they treated me accordingly.  Sometimes I could use those preconceived ideas to my advantage, and sometimes I couldn’t, but in the end, I always felt suffocated by them.

I think that what bothers me the most about labels is how easy it is to start believing in them.  And in my experience, once you start to believe in something, it’s not long before you start to act on that belief.  Like I said, some of the labels were “good” or harmless… I mean, what ill-will is being wished on someone who is labeled “most likely to succeed”?  But, what happens when the person who received that label begins to believe that and then finds themselves falling short of “success”?  It can be devastating – far more devastating than the actual failure – when you realize that you cannot live up to the label that you’ve come to know as your identity.

And that’s just an example of when someone is given a “good” label… what about the bad ones?  Trouble maker, loser, apple doesn’t fall far from the tree… What happens when the expectations of others and the ones you’ve come to have for yourself are so low that you find yourself always able to live up to them but never able to climb any higher?  Never believing that you could climb any higher?

Talk about a catch 22 and/or a double edged sword.  (Are you seeing why I had/have such a hard time with good ol’ #6 here??)

Most of my life (and by most, I mean every single moment of every single day), I’ve struggled with what I hope to be true, what I know to be true, and what I worry could be true about myself.  Sometimes it’s hard not to fall back into a belief system that was built and established while I was in the valleys of my life.  I’ve seen what happens when people – my own family members – cannot see beyond the valleys.  I’ve watched as they became so embittered by the mountains surrounding them that they began to blame the mountains for their miserable existence there in the valley… it was the mountains that held them back and kept them separated from what they felt was surely a better future.

I watched, learned, and could have easily become just like them but every now and then someone would encourage me to climb a mountain… a band teacher, a pastor, a heroine in a book that I read or a movie I had seen…and so I’d climb a little higher, and a little higher, until one day, in my mid 20s, I peeked out above the valley and above the clouds and I saw that there were lots of other mountains and lots of other valleys and the only way to get from one mountain to another was to cross a valley or two.  It took effort and more encouragement, but I soon wanted to get beyond those valleys and up those mountains.  I began to see – to believe – that my future wasn’t in the valleys.  I began to seek higher ground.

I know that there is no way I’d appreciate the peaks in my life (my current marriage, my son, the impending birth of my daughter) were it not for the valleys I’ve had to walk through (my first marriage, my 6 miscarriages, the loss of my job in Feb 2009).

What about you?  What do you believe?  Are you just passing through the valleys on your way to the next mountain top or do you resent the mountains because they surround the valley?

Build on High Ground (Noah’s Ark Wisdom Part 6) is a post from: Deliberate Legacies

Now, as I sit at my desk, reflecting on my son’s amazingness and our conversation, I keep thinking back to one part where he asked why a bad guy keeps on being a bad guy, and I said that sometimes it’s a choice they actively make – to do the wrong thing because it’s easier or serves only their needs, but that other times it’s because they don’t learn from their mistakes… they don’t grow.

Don’t just go through life – grow through life.  – Eric Butterworth

It’s often pretty easy to get caught up in the motions of going through life.  After college, the “wonders” of being an adult start to wear off (and for some of us, the wonders never existed).  Soon we are working 40 hours a week (or more), managing our bills and credit cards (often times not all that well), figuring out how to be in a relationship with another adult (and finding out that it’s harder than we thought AND that we aren’t necessarily all that and a bag of chips too as we had been led to believe), starting families, making major purchases like a car or a house, filing taxes (and graduating to something other than the 1040 EZ form), car maintenance, life insurance needs and retirement planning ,  meals, laundry… the list just grows and grows and at first you’re living for the weekend but soon you realize your weekends are full of responsibility too (mowing lawns, repairs, buying groceries, etc).  And before you know it, you’re just going through life on autopilot… or maybe it’s just me.

And don’t get me wrong, being on autopilot occasionally can be really nice.  For me, there are times when I just cannot stop thinking or worrying but switching myself to autopilot and cleaning the house allows my mind time to work through things without me analyzing the process along the way.

But going through life mostly on autopilot is not a good thing.  I think most of my early 20s was spent on autopilot, and I can tell you I made the same mistakes over and over again… Why?  Because I wasn’t growing with each lesson.  I wasn’t even aware that there was a lesson in most of the situations.   It’s easy to see things – the big picture – when you are on the outside looking in, but when you are smack –dab in the middle of the eye of the storm, it’s not always easy to see just how big and bad things are, where to go, or what to do.  I’d make one bad decision, realize at some point it was bad, perhaps get myself out of that situation only to rinse and repeat in one form or another… and I would be baffled as to why these things kept happening or why I couldn’t get ahead just once.  It wasn’t until I pulled myself out of the middle of the storm and started to do more than just go through life did I even begin to see the lesson that I needed to learn.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that the lessons are only in the mistakes we make… because take it from me, they aren’t.   I cannot tell you the countless times something “good” has happened, and not only did I not “get” the lesson, there were many times when I actually took credit as being the reason that the good came about.  When I tried to replicate the situation and therefore achieve the good result, oddly enough, it didn’t work out the same as it had before, and I’d be disappointed, frustrated, and sometimes angry, but I didn’t see that once again perhaps I was missing the lesson the first time.

I wished I had kept a diary from my 20s or that I even kept one now – other than this blog and my Facebook status updates… I am really more of speaker than a writer – because I know that there are mistakes I am still repeating because I haven’t sat down and figured out what the lesson is and then made the appropriate course changes.  And now, I have a 4 year old son and a daughter due in March… and while I know they both will have to make their own mistakes and learn their own lessons, I’d like to think that many of my adventures and misadventures would be of benefit to them one day whether they asked my advice directly or read it in a letter.

Don’t just go through life – grow through life.  When I am 80 years old and some child comes to interview me (because you know all children get that assignment where they have to talk to an older person about what life was like or what wisdom they have to pass on), I want to experience that sweet smile many elderly get when they close their eyes and think back on their life and see the wondrous rings of growth like that found on a glorious redwood tree.

Are You Going or Growing? is a post from: Deliberate Legacies

One point that the speaker brought up stayed with me and has had  me thinking about it over and over again.  His comment, “We need to spend more time planning our BE … not just our DO.”

Up until that point in the talk, my mind had been wandering… you know how it is, shopping lists, mental check list of things to get ready for the rest of the week, random thoughts about silly stuff you read or heard earlier on Facebook, observations about the other people sitting in the audience with you…. but once he made that statement, my mind zeroed in a bit and began to really ponder how often do I plan my be in addition to planning out my do?

The honest answer would have to be almost never.  And the almost never instead of an outright never is only because now and again I’ve said to myself that I will “begrudgingly go and at least pretend to have a good time.”  That counts, right?

I like having a plan of action for just about everything I do.  It’s not to say I cannot wing it, because I can, but even then, I have a general idea of what’s gonna happen and when.  Depending on the task at hand, I might even write out the “do” list.  And as women, there are a lot of people we tend to be responsible for so that means making their “do” list, too.

But now I’d been introduced to a new concept… plan out my “be”… this meant giving conscience thought to my attitude and mental state prior to beginning my action steps.  Deciding what my attitude will be ahead of time puts me in the driver’s seat and often times has a direct effect on what my actions are going to be.  Being able to visualize how I will be AND what I will do is a great tool and one that up until now, I’d only been half way using.

How about you?  How often are you purposefully choosing your be and not just what you’ll do?

Ok… here’s the paraphrased version of Chick Moorman’s points from his topic The 10 Commitments (and I want to say that these 10 commitments are great for any relationship you have – work place, home, social settings, etc):

1. Experience can be messy.  Allow children to learn from making messes AND from the clean up that follows.
2. Culture an attitude of accountability in the family.  We all need to be accountable for our choices, and children need to be taught this with gentleness and love.  Be consistent and allow them to experience the consequences (good and bad) that flow naturally from their actions.
3. Suspend judgement.  Mistakes need to be seen as learning experiences.  Parents should perceive their children’s choices as appropriate or as opportunities for learning and growth…not right and wrong.
4. Manage your mind first.  Realize that how you approach a situation affects the outcome and that you alone control your approach.
5. Search for solutions.  Fixing the problem is more important than assigning blame.
6. Speak self-responsible language.  Be aware that your language patterns will reflect your belief in autonomy, personal responsibility, and ownership of one’s actions and feelings.
7. Help children develop their inner authority.  One’s inner authority is the only authority that we all take with us no matter where we go.  As parents we need to strive to  make ourselves dispensable (over time) and assist them in becoming increasingly in charge of themselves.
8. Model the message.  Attitudes are more easily caught than taught.  Children often pay more attention to what we do than what we say.  Become the message you want to deliver to your children and others.
9. See my child as a teacher.  Children are in our lives as much so that we can learn from them as they are so that they can learn from us.
10. Create a sense of oneness.  Be present.  Develop roots.  Encourage feelings of belonging.

Choose Your BE, Not Just Your DO is a post from: Deliberate Legacies

1. Don’t miss the boat.
2. Remember that we are all on the same boat.
3. Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.
4. Stay fit. When you’re 600 years old, someone might come along and ask you to do something really big.

Everyone’s A Critic (Noah’s Ark Wisdome Part 5) is a post from: Deliberate Legacies

1.  Don’t miss the boat.
2. Remember that we are all on the same boat.
3. Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.
4. Stay fit. When you’re 600 years old, someone might come along and ask you to do something really big.

What female in these United States isn’t trying to “get fit”, “stay fit”, or at the very least “appear to be fit”? Noah was a male… it always seems to be easier for men to “get fit”, “stay fit”, or at the very least “appear to be fit”… am I right ladies???

I’ve always had a struggle with my self image. I was very thin as a child, and I developed early which got me a lot of unwanted attention. Being thin wasn’t something I conscientiously strove for – it was a result of little food intake and lots of expended energy.

By the time I reached high school, my circumstances had changed. I was living in a foster home that had plenty of food, and I was expending a lot less energy. Plus, I had learned, no one pays that much attention to the slightly overweight girl – not fat enough to get teased mercilessly but not thin enough to be every boy’s dream.

In my 20s, I ate emotionally, worked compulsively, and exercised in spurts. I was a yo-yo… up and down with whatever fad was new. It wasn’t until I turned 26 that I started to think that perhaps my ideas were a bit out of whack. Maybe rather than striving for some sort of number on a scale or a certain size pair of jeans, perhaps I should focus on how I feel. Now, it took a while for that little thought to overcome my total need to give each and every new fad a try (and even now, I still trip up now and then), but eventually I’ve refocused myself.

Admittedly, no one has asked me to build an ark… but when I became a mother, suddenly being fit was far more important than it had been before. Now, three mornings a week, I go brisk walking with my good friend, Moria. (OK, well I did up until recently – first I was in Delaware and then I got some concerning news from my OBGYN…) I try to be aware of my grazing habits. I spend time playing with my 4 year old. I try to make wiser choices about the calories I take in.

When I read #4 – Stay fit – I have to admit that my immediate thoughts went to my weight and health. But after those initial thoughts, I realized that being fit relates to more than just our health. We need to keep our minds fit – do puzzles, read books, form an opinion of our own rather than just repeating the one we heard on TV. We need to keep our hearts fit (and I don’t just mean beating well) – get involved with the community, serve in a soup line, show more than just a passing concern for the frazzled lady with the screaming child standing in the checkout line. We need to keep our humor fit – laugh… laugh with others, laugh at ourselves, laugh out loud, laugh loudly, laugh!

By keeping fit in all areas of our lives, we stay fresh, sharp, open, and we feel better. Otherwise, we just become complacent… and that breeds mediocrity, lacklusterness, apathy, and eventually leaves us barely able to function (although we often don’t realize that we’ve reached that point until it’s too late).

So, maybe no one is going to ask you to build an ark… yet… but you never know what might be asked of you or when, so stay fit!

Stay Fit (Noah’s Ark Wisdom Part 4) is a post from: Deliberate Legacies

Everything you ever need to know, can be learned from Noah’s ark…

1. Don’t miss the boat.
2. Remember that we are all in the same boat.
3. Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.

Have you seen Evan Almighty? In the movie, Evan is asked by “God” to build an ark. Evan resists at first, but soon finds that he can do nothing else but build the ark as instructed. People watch and shake their heads at what is clearly a man going through a huge midlife crisis. When Evan is asked why he is building an arc, Evan says that it’s because God told him about a flood that is coming. More head shaking as people walk away thinking to themselves that an impending flood is the furthest thing from reality there could be. Clearly this movie is a take on the story of Noah’s Arc from Genesis – but I imagine Noah had similar reactions from those around at the time. Not sure I could continue under that much scrutiny and criticism.

As I stated before, I am a planner. In my head, I have all sorts of plans for what needs to be done and road maps for how to get them done. Sometimes I can get so caught up in the plan that I become inflexible when outside forces necessitate a change in that plan. I’m still a work in progress, so I haven’t given up hope yet… I’m learning to be more flexible.

We are all planners… especially those of us who are parents. We plan our child’s quality of education. Some of us are currently planning how to get out of debt. We plan for retirement. We read books in preparation for teen years. We plan for vacations. Plan… plan… plan…

But #3 here got me to thinking… about the things we don’t plan for: the death of a spouse, the loss of income, the inability to conceive, the death of a parent or family member, serious illness, fire, car troubles, when the nest is empty, a 40 day and 40 night flood… You know, all those bad things we’d prefer to not think about. Who does? OK well, maybe some people do, but for the most part, we go through life aware that those things happen… just to other people.

Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to give those topics some thought (DO NOT OBSESS OVER THEM). Talk with your spouse. Make sure you are both on the same page. Just expressing the fears can go a long ways towards strengthening bonds even if neither of you has a plan yet. Even if you have already started to feel the falling raindrops, you can still begin to make some plans for how to handle the rain. But waiting until the waters have risen to just beneath your nose might be a tad too late.

Oh, in Evan Almighty, “God” who is played by Morgan Freeman gives this little nugget of wisdom to Evan’s wife, Joan: God does not give things, but only the opportunity by which to obtain things… That statement has stuck with me since seeing the movie. I believe that God loves us, wants to help us, and will do so, but He expects a certain amount of “elbow grease” on our part.

Plan Ahead (Noah’s Ark Wisdom Part 3) is a post from: Deliberate Legacies