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2015-07-04T20:03:00.000-07:00

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So your first choice isn’t the best

2015-06-09T05:30:00.000-07:00

For some reason, we often expect our first choice to be the optimal choice. However, it’s actually quite normal for your first attempt to be incorrect or wrong. This is especially true of the major decisions that we make in life.

Think of the first person you dated. Would this person have been the best choice for your life partner? Go even further back and imagine the first person you had a crush on. Finding a great partner is complicated and expecting yourself to get it right on the first try is unreasonable. It’s rare that the first one would be the one.

What is the likelihood that your 22-year-old self could optimally choose the career that is best for you at 40 years old? Or 30 years old? Or even 25 years old? Consider how much you have learned about yourself since that time. There is a lot of change and growth that happens during life. There is no reason to believe that your life’s work should be easily determined when you graduate.

When it comes to complex issues like determining the values you want in a partner or selecting the path of your career, your first attempt will rarely lead to the optimal solution.

James Clear

Every person

2015-05-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

Every person has a story-and if you look hard enough you'll find a dark place.

You owe it to your future self

2015-05-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

Especially when you are early in your career, one of the worst things you can do is sacrifice learning opportunities, growth, and valuable connections for ego. You owe it to your future self to make decisions today for the right reasons and the long term. -Clara Shih

Enemies

2015-05-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

Enemies are people whose story you haven't heard, or who's face you haven't seen. -Irene Butter

Dealing with Hard-Headed Men

2015-05-22T05:30:00.000-07:00

Men are generally pretty thick-headed. But a man’s hard-headedness can work in your favor. Most of the time, their desires and motivations are pretty upfront.

“He’s frowning." Does it mean he is mulling over that argument you had? Nope. He’s just hungry.

If you think much below the surface, you are likely to miss what many men are feeling and waste time attributing to them a level of emotional depth they seldom reach. You can (if you like) get miffed and back the guy in a corner. If you do, many men will simply cling to their position. If this happens, you will be able to point to their aggressive behavior and bursts of rage to say (again), “All men are as stupid as the day is long.” That may reinforce your worst fears about the gender, but it doesn’t really help you a lot.

Try making him believe it is his idea. Expound (gently) on the benefits--the benefits to him. Allow him to then convince himself. You simply have to be satisfied with the knowledge that you are the one who started the idea. You just can’t let him become aware of it.

Yes, this is a shallow way of relating. But if you are dealing with someone who knows no other way of relating (because they choose not to know another way or because they are in lifelong the habit of relating to others this way) then this sad state of affairs is their own doing. You are simply allowing them to be who they are.

Of course, this assumes you will attempt to develop a more significant way of relating to them, giving them the opportunity, from time to time, to engage in a more real relationship. When you do this, you eagerly look for signs of change and willingness from your hard-headed man. Hopeful, but realistic about the outcome.

This strategy of leading someone toward your desired goal until they arrive at your intended conclusion won’t do when it comes to you most trusted and intimate relationships. You want to be honest and real with those who are closest to you. Or else they really aren't that close to you, are they?

Stephen Goforth

The Procrastination Equation

2015-05-21T05:30:00.000-07:00

A business professor has come up with a formula for procrastinators. It’s designed to help them figure out if they can overcome the failing. Piers Steel from Canada’s Calgary University decries theories that blame them for laziness or being too careful. Steel says up to one in five of us is a “chronic procrastinator” living with the mistaken notion that we can’t complete a task that we don’t care about. That separates the serious procrastinators from those who are simply lazy. The later don’t care if a task is finished or not.

Here’s Steel’s formula: U=EV/ID

Use a rating of one out of ten, you multiply your expectation of success (E) by the value of completing the task (V). Then multiply the consequence of failing to complete the current task (I) by your previous tendency to delay tasks (D). The first total (E x V) is then divided by the second figure (D x I) giving the likelihood of completing the task in hand or the utility (U). If you come up with a score less than 3 then you are, according to Steel, an official chronic procrastinator.

He says, "When we procrastinate, it's almost always about long-term objectives. 'Instead of attending to those, we go with what is more pleasurable or less painful right now."

Steel offers more details in his book The Procrastination Equation: Today’s Trouble with Tomorrow.

Stephen Goforth

Hold me

2015-05-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

Don’t hold me accountable… hold me close. Bob Goff

Reading.. Talking.. Listening

2015-05-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

Do a lot of reading. Talk to a lot of people. Do a lot of listening. -Joyce Carol Oates

God and us: The Difference

2015-05-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

The difference between God and us is that he never thinks that he’s us.

Confusion

2015-05-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

Confusion isn’t the enemy of understanding, they are allies. - Rhett Allain

Being in power

2015-05-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

Being in power is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t. – Margaret Thatcher

Predicting our Future

2015-05-08T11:00:00.000-07:00

Because we naturally use our present feelings as a starting point when we attempt to predict our future feelings, we expect our future to feel a lot more like our present than it actually will. -Daniel Gilbert

Beautiful Old People

2015-05-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art. – Eleanor Roosevelt

Charting the Course

2015-05-04T11:30:00.000-07:00

Anyone can steer the ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course. John Maxwell

After 20

2015-05-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

After 20, success has very little to teach us.

Budgets

2015-05-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

Budgets are moral documents.

"But I'm right!"

2015-04-29T11:07:00.000-07:00

You're right not because others agree with you, but because your facts are right. - Warren Buffett

Abandoned by God

2015-04-29T05:30:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, if you turn to Him then with praise, you will be welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting an double bolting from the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away.

CS Lewis
A Grief Observed

The next chapter

2015-04-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

You can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.

Your talent

2015-04-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

Your unused talents give you no advantage over one who has no talents at all.

Living in Forgiveness

2015-04-24T05:30:00.000-07:00

The penance of perpetual regret can be a cruel stumbling block. Despite acknowledging God’s forgiveness, you can’t forgive yourself. You must let go of attempts to “make up” for your failures and instead rest in complete forgiveness. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Let that renewal flow through you to others so that you become a channel of forgiveness, freeing others from the bonds you suffered from yourself.

“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’ Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away. One at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" ‘No one, sir,’ she said. Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin.’ (John 8:3-11)

There was one man who had a right to throw a stone at her that day. Instead, he forgave and told the women to live in the knowledge of that forgiveness. Likewise, he forgives us and tells us to live in that forgiveness and not in condemnation.

The prison door is open. Will you walk out?

Stephen Goforth

Travelling within

2015-04-22T11:06:00.000-07:00

Your circumstances.. shall not long remain if you but perceive an ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without. - James Lane Allen

Your anger

2015-04-20T11:05:00.000-07:00

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.
-Buddha

Murder your future

2015-04-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

You must choose a future—and then, one by one, murder all the futures you passed over. – Andrew Boyd