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Inspirational Articles |
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Gold in Goals If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. But fruitful lives are built around carefully selected goals that can make or break your happiness and fulfillment. There is gold in goals. Use the SMART approach as a guide: Specific Specific. Having a goal like "I want to be rich" is not specific. As most wealthy people will concede, material wealth does not create happiness. Millionaires usually lust to be billionaires. The desire for more money is infinite. The wealthiest in the world are often those that have few things. Jesus owned no worldly goods but He gave everything He had, His life, for those he loved. Measurable. Whatever your goals, they must be measurable to know if you are advancing, retreating or standing still. Tying that measure to a time interval works best. Attainable. In America, it’s believed that any dream is attainable. While true, not everyone gets what they want even when they try their hardest. While brains and looks can make a difference, sometimes luck is the key. The answer to "attainable" may take time, trial and error to determine. Relevant. Don’t be like the guy that climbed the ladder of success only to discover that the ladder was leaning on the wrong wall. As life experiences shape and change you, adjust your course to make sure your goals still fit. Small adjustments are much easier to effect than trying to live your life over. Timed. Timing is everything. It’s said that God invented time so everything doesn’t happen at once. Complicated goals must be executed over time, one step at a time. Complicated goals take time to gel. Getting a doctorate degree can take 20 years or more of education. Gaining true wisdom can take a lifetime, if ever.. So, execute a more fulfilling life by writing down specific goals and the plan of attack. As parts of the plan are achieved, cross them off the list and move to the next part. Thar’s gold in them thar goals. BACK Two Wolves A wise old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, pride, superiority and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith." 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." BACK A Smoot Point Most folks look for a way to make their mark in the world. Some do it with fame, some with fortune, some with notoriety and some with service to others. There are many ways to get noticed in the world. Consider the case of Oliver Smoot. Oliver attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the 1950s. Like many young men, he pledged a fraternity. As one of his pledge duties, he was required to measure the Harvard Bridge which connects Boston to Cambridge. For many college kids, the trek across the Harvard Bridge in winter was a cold and windy ordeal. So, the thinking went, knowing how much farther it was to go would be useful information. The twist on this task was that Smoot was to measure the bridge with his body. Smoot was chosen because, at 5' 7", he was the shortest man in the pledge class and the job would be hardest for him. So, Oliver and several pledge brothers set about the task. He would lie down, a chalk mark was made and then he’d get up, move forward and repeat the process. Every ten body lengths, a painted mark was made. Since the bridge is over 2000 feet long, the exercise soon grew tiring so part way into it, his pledge brothers began carrying him from one position to the next. When all was said and done, the tally was 364.4 body lengths. One of the fraternity brothers named the measurement the "smoot" in Oliver’s honor and because the term sounded scientific. While this prank seemed senseless and immature, something about it struck a cord with the locals. It had two components of a classic MIT prank: a hint of science and a low level of vandalism. But keeping the smoot alive took the cooperation of strange bedfellows. As part of an annual ritual, the fraternity brothers repaint the smoot marks. And during a 1990s bridge renovation, the government contractor agreed to score the sidewalk every 5' 7" in honor of Smoot instead of the traditional six feet. The legend has been passed on now for 50 years. But it doesn’t end there. Oliver was a dedicated student and eventually earned a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree followed by a Juris Doctorus (JD) law degree. His long and distinguished career included serving as Chairman of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and President of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Both organizations deal with, in part, establishing standards in measurement. And there’s more. Google, the internet’s largest search engine, includes the "smoot" as a unit of measurement in its Google Earth measurement tool. [Download Google Earth at http://earth.google.com Launch the program and go Tools>Ruler>Line tab. Use the drop down menu and voil !] So what does this all mean? What started as a prank of a few captured the imagination of many. God has designed each of us with special talents. Discovering those talents and using them for others is what we were made for. For the too serious, the smoot reminds that the world really is a random place no matter how we like to categorize, define and contain it. The foot, the yard, the mile and the smoot are all arbitrary measurements. There is comfort is knowing that randomness is still honored. There is little in life we truly control. Those that think they do lead tense and frustrated lives. Those that are happy knowing they don’t maintain a sense of humor and humility. Letting loose of the reins will help you sleep better. We can and should rely on others for help. Smoot’s pledge brothers carried him in an effort that made him a legend. Instead of spectating, they got involved and lent a helping hand. No matter what greatness we achieve, we need others to help do it and make it meaningful. It’s not how you measure your life but how you finish. Piling up trophies, money and goods is self serving. Use the talent and treasures you’re given for others. That is how to truly finish well. Seemingly meaningless events can produce profound and lasting impacts. Smoot inspired a legend, incorporated it into his career and Google memorialized it for all of us. What is the measure of your life? For some, the measure is pointless. For others, the point is Smoot. BACK Leader Giving Nothing speaks to others more loudly than generosity from a leader. True generosity isn’t an occasional event. It comes from the heart and permeates every aspect of a leader’s life touching their time, money, talents and possessions. Effective leaders, the kind people want to follow, don’t gather things just for themselves, they do it in order to give to others. To cultivate the quality of generosity in your life, do the following: 1.
Be grateful for whatever you have. The only way to maintain an attitude of generosity is to make it your habit to give...your time, attention, money and resources. As Richard Foster says, "Just the very act of letting go of money or some other treasure does something within us. It destroys the demon ‘greed’." From The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader. BACK High Tide Every one of us is called upon, probably many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job or a limb or a loved one, a graduation, bring a new baby home: it’s impossible to think at first how this all will be possible. Eventually, what moves it all forward is the subterranean ebb and flow of being alive among the living. In my own worst seasons I’ve come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again. It’s not such a wide gulf to cross, then, from survival to poetry. We hold fast to the old passions of endurance that buckle and creak beneath us, dovetailed, tight as a good wooden boat to carry us onward. And onward full tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another–that is surely the basic instinct. ...If the whole world of the living has to turn on the single point of remaining alive, that pointed endurance is the poetry of hope, the thing with feathers. What a stroke of luck. What a singular brute feat of outrageous fortune: to be born to citizenship in the Animal Kingdom. We love and we lose, go back to the start and do it right over again. High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is. From "High Tide in Tucson" by Barbara Kingsolver BACK If I Knew If I knew it would be the last time That I'd see you fall asleep, I would tuck you in more tightly and pray your soul to keep. If I knew it would be the
last time If I knew it'd be the last
time If I knew it would be the
last time, If I knew it was the last
time For there’ll always be
tomorrow There will always be
another day But just in case I might be
wrong, Tomorrows are not promised
So hold your loved one
close today, Take time to say "I'm
sorry". What is the value of time? Consider the value of: Ten years: Ask a newly
divorced couple. Time waits for no one. No one knows the number of his days. Treasure every moment and seek what is eternal. BACK
Bridge Over Troubled Water God promises to give us strength to meet challenges, but he doesn’t promise to eliminate them. If he gave us no rough roads to walk, no mountains to climb, and no battles to fight, we would not grow. He does not leave us alone with our challenges. Instead, he stands beside us, teaches us, and strengthens us to face them.
When you’re weary, feeling small,
When times get rough This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice in it. Excerpts from The Bible and Paul Simon BACK |
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