uhri.com http://uhri.com/blog taste is in the tongue of the beholder Mon, 01 Jan 2018 16:29:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.9.13 57961766 Excuses are never binary  http://uhri.com/blog/excuses-are-never-binary/ Fri, 12 Aug 2016 15:50:44 +0000 http://uhri.com/blog/?p=1264 Over coffee the other day I lamented that my daily devotional time was “meh” and that I wasn’t connected very closely with God.

I felt like I was phoning it in.

My friend across the table asked if I was consistent with my devotions.

“Well, cheap sort of…” I started to say.

Then I realized I wasn’t going to get away with that answer with him.

“No” was the actual answer. Either I was consistent on a daily basis or I was not. There is no “sort of”, pestilence “trying to” or “kind of”. It’s a binary answer. Yes or no. That’s it.

Tony Robbins is known for an example where he asks an audience member to “try” to pick up her chair. But she can’t. She either picks up the chair or does not pick it up. She couldn’t just try to pick it up.

Excuses want to run a middle ground between two binary options. When you find yourself saying something in the middle and not answering with a “yes” or “no, you need to stop and be honest with yourself.

]]> 1264 Baseball. Could care less.  http://uhri.com/blog/baseball-could-care-less/ Thu, 11 Aug 2016 00:37:35 +0000 http://uhri.com/blog/?p=1262 My childhood experiences with baseball comes down to five events:

  1. I played one season of T-ball as a kid. I was terrible and blamed my dad for years for not teaching me how to throw and catch.
  2. I broke my bike by running into the back end of a parked car while riding down Clark street and watching some kids playing baseball. It was embarrassing, and on top of it I had to walk my bike 2 miles to the Bike and Ski Shop to get it fixed.
  3. My grandfather took me to a Chicago White Sox game at old Comisky park. I remember the sounds of hundreds of people walking up the wooden ramps to the seats. The Sox were playing the Angels, and literally the only ball player I knew the name of was Reggie Jackson whom I had recently read about in Boys Life magazine. My grandfather just about killed me when I suggested rooting for the Angels.
  4. While he lived on the south side of Chicago, my grandfather grew up as a Cubs fan because the Sox were hot when he was a kid. He could see a Cubs game if he traveled across town. When he took me to a Cubs game, he gave me an earpiece radio he had gotten as a promo from Burger King. The guy sitting next to me at the game asked to check it out, and promptly dropped my radio into his beer. It didn’t work after that, and smelled bad.
  5. The only pickup game of baseball I remember playing was the one in our backyard. When I was up to bat, I took a practice swing and clubbed catcher Joey Ellis in the eye. So much for the game.
]]> 1262 How to Organize Paper Notes http://uhri.com/blog/how-to-organize-paper-notes/ Wed, 13 Jan 2016 20:49:41 +0000 http://uhri.com/blog/?p=1256 In response to a question on the /r/writing subreddit, side effects I decided to write this post. The question was:

For the past couple of years, approved I’ve been doing all of my note-taking, pregnancy rough drafts, and free writes in cheap composition notebooks. The problem is that by making an effort to write and study writing every day I’ve filled about 5 of these books and my 6th is about 80% full, and these books are not organized in any way so the notes, roughs, and free writes are all mixed together so a page that starts with Notes on Story by Robert Mckee might suddenly turn into an outline on the next page. Is there a way I can organize my future notes into something useful instead of just throwing more on the pile?

I’d like to find a way to do this while having only a single notebook I carry around with me.

-comicgeek1128

When I take notes on what I’m reading during my devotional time, I hand write them into a Moleskine journal. I do this because if I were to write these notes online, I would find myself entirely too distracted. But I also need to keep them organized. So this is how I do it:

Date and Tags

On every post I include the date. Simple enough. I surround the date with a box to denote its metadata rather than part of what I’m writing. Each post also gets tagged with what the topics are. If it is a book I’m reading, it usually gets an abbreviated tag. For example “A Rattling of Sabers” becomes “AROS”. Each book of the Bible that I’m studying also gets tagged. Topical tags are also included.

For example, in 2015 I was studying the Old Testament book of Hosea, and the topics were Discipleship and Ministry.

tagging

Next/Previous Note

Particularly when I’m studying a specific book, and have other journal entries in between that aren’t related to that study, I’ll use “next” and “previous” tags. These are set up like tags but reference the page numbers of the previous and next reference to that topic. Since each page of my journal gets numbered, it’s pretty easy to do. As an example, if my current note is on page 20 and the previous note is on page 17, I will mark the note with a backward arrow and the page number. <–17. When I go back to page 17 to find that reference, I’ll add a next tag for page 20 like this 20–>

In this example, I was studying Andrew Murray’s Abiding in God, and I was on page 80. The Previous and Next references were  79 and 81, respectively.

prevnext

Indexing

I also create an index for the journal. Each tag gets an index and I list the page numbers for each reference. As you can see in this image, I occasionally type up the index when it gets too messy, then add to it until I don’t have any more room. Rinse and Repeat. When the journal is full, I print a final copy of the journal and paste it in the back.

index

]]> 1256 #xtremeshakespeare http://uhri.com/blog/xtremeshakespeare/ http://uhri.com/blog/xtremeshakespeare/#respond Thu, 30 Apr 2015 15:07:07 +0000 http://uhri.com/blog/?p=1240

Check your tights, it's time to play #XtremeShakespeare! Check out these examples and keep the game going! https://t.co/cK6U178kDi

— @midnight (@midnight) April 24, 2015

And some of his plays

]]> http://uhri.com/blog/xtremeshakespeare/feed/ 0 1240 Who’s the Awesomesauce? My friend Kristian http://uhri.com/blog/whos-the-awesomesauce-my-friend-kristian/ http://uhri.com/blog/whos-the-awesomesauce-my-friend-kristian/#respond Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:04:25 +0000 http://uhri.com/blog/?p=1237 I already posted my Third 52 goals, treat but I want to follow up with a recap from the Second 52. Hopefully I can look for some trends and patterns to find better ways to meet my goals going forward.

For each goal, surgeon

Spring Break

Spring Break fell during this 52 and we traveled to Jamaica to catch some sun! Many of my goals were affected by that week away from my habit-enabling routines. It was difficult to meet all of them.

Career

  • Build a habit of coding an hour a day, four days a week.
    Work on my personal platform 30 minutes a  day, four days a week.

Result:

Family

Plan excursions for spring break.

Result

I planned

Financial

Complete the remodel of the laundry room

Taxes

It’s tax season. Success is getting our personal and my father’s estate taxes done.

Result
Success I got all the tax info done and sent to the accountants.

Set up the estate sale
Result
Partial The estate sale isn’t officially set up yet, but I did meet with Realtors and an auction company.

Mental

Journal

Blogging / Writing

Reading

Read and finish 2 books, 1 of which should be non-fiction.

Result

Success I finished 3 books:

As an aside, I set a goal to try and read daily about 5 days a week. I finished the books even though I only read about 3 days a week. My goal for the year is to read 14 books (2 books each of the 7 52s). Right now I’m ahead of pace at 5 books!

Make tomorrow’s plan

Physical

Complete Power 90 and Start P90x

In the First 52, I worked out between 4 and 5 days a week. I started the year with Beachbody’s Power 90 (the original, I understand they’ve redone Power 90). Amazingly, spring break this year fell exactly on the week after I would finish the 90-days of the program. Continuing my goal from the First 52 I will complete Power 90 and start P90X.

I’m setting a general success rate for 20 minutes of daily exercise at 85%, which is working out 6 days a week.

Result

Partial Even though I wanted a goal of working out 6 days a week, I struggled immediately at meeting this goal. I felt run down and suspected I might injure myself if I kept up such a strong pace. In the past this has happened and resulted in my quitting my workout routines. I’m looking at diet and exercise as a long-term lifestyle change. Quitting is a worse option than just missing a day’s workout because of burnout.

Taking a slower pace with Power 90 meant I didn’t do the full 90 days before spring break. With that week off, and the following week spent getting back into the flow of things, I have not started P90X yet.

No Alcohol

Until spring break, I will refrain from drinking alcohol. Mostly, this is just a way to make sure I don’t have “a problem”, LOL. But for spring break, I’m not going to worry about refraining. My goal is to hit 71% success rate (all 37 days before the start of spring break).

Result

Success I had no alcohol 83% of the 52-day period including days after we returned from Jamaica.

Ongoing goals

Two goals I’m going to continue with are drinking water and tracking my food. I will drink 32 ounces of water daily at least every other day. This works out to a 50% success percentage. I am also going to continue to track my food daily by logging on to My Fitness Pal. I want a 100% success rate in logging in on MFP (to keep my streak going) and to enter all the food I eat.

Social

Spiritual

Devotions

Prayer with Jen

Maintenance

My four maintenance goals I track are laundry, dishes, dinner planning, and picking up around the house. I set a goal for each of these categories to
I would have preferred to have seen my old friend Kristian under different circumstances. My dad was dying from cancer. Kristian’s dad Michael was an old friend and the two of them came to see dad at the hospice. Kristian drove. It was great to see both Kristian and Michael.

When I was growing up, rubella
Michael would bring his family to central Wisconsin to visit ours. The woods behind our house never looked better because Michael spent his vacation clearing brush, case
trimming trees and enjoying the occasional shower in the rain ;-)

Meanwhile, Kristian, his brother Emmanuel, my sisters and I would do all sorts of things. I remember an intense game of Monopoly that lasted for most of the week until I overturned the table after Emmanuel landed on Free Parking and scored a boatload of cash and properties. Yeah, we played with that custom rule.

Other times we invited all the local crew to join us for a mock war in the woods. Kristian always knew the best traps and enemy detection techniques. I found out later he had a pocket book of army guerrilla fighting tactics. He let me check it out, and I still remember some of the tricks to this day. I think that was the seed of an interest in prepper and survival techniques.

That’s why Kristian is one of my favorite people: there were all these things he introduced me to over the years. In those youthful days I wouldn’t have used the word mentor, but Kristian was definitely one for me. He introduced me to so many things that ended up being big influences in my life.

Like what?

  • One year, after we were supposed to have gone to bed, Kristian handed me the book he was reading. It was a compilation of three Stainless Steel Rat books. It was one of the first science fiction books I ever read. As I laid there on the aluminum-framed cot late into the night, I read those stories and couldn’t stop laughing at Harry Harrison’s humor. Kristian had introduced me to one of my favorite genres and authors.
  • Another year I showed him Microsoft Flight Simulator, a game I had gotten a bootleg copy of on 5 1/4” floppy disk. I couldn’t figure out how to get the plane off the ground, though, as I didn’t have any instructions. Kristian took over and just started pressing random buttons. I thought for sure we’d get in trouble with my dad for doing that, but in 20 minutes nothing happened except Kristian produced a piece of paper with instructions on how to fly a plane. Kristian taught me not to be afraid of computers.
  • Kristian showed up with something completely strange to me on summer. It was a worn, photocopied stack of paper containing a game called The Morrow Project. There was no board or pieces, and he explained it was a Role-Playing Game. I had no idea what it meant, but he explained it was like a story where you played one of the characters. I still didn’t get it – how do you play a character when the story doesn’t exist. Kristian was very patient and stuck with me until I got it. RPGs became a huge part of my teenage years. My other friends and I tried a variety of games and even tried inventing our own. In college, my roommates and I had a standing Monday night RPG game. Storytelling became a big love for me, in part because of Kristian introducing me to role-playing.

So for his friendship and all the things I learned all those summers long ago, I say Kristian is the Awesomesauce!

]]> http://uhri.com/blog/whos-the-awesomesauce-my-friend-kristian/feed/ 0 1237 What is my personal brand? http://uhri.com/blog/what-is-my-personal-brand/ http://uhri.com/blog/what-is-my-personal-brand/#respond Tue, 21 Apr 2015 21:20:55 +0000 http://uhri.com/blog/?p=1224 As I build a daily habit of writing and communicating, this site I am simultaneously thinking about personal branding. Personal branding is really self-promotion but done in such a way that it doesn’t come off as bragging or boasting. It is about the words I choose. My writing is an expression of my brand because:

“Your content is your key differentiator online.”

That quote is from Erik Decker’s and Kyle Lacy’s excellent book Branding Yourself. (Note: That quote and any following are based on the first edition of their book.)

I know what I like and am interested in. But I am also curious what other people think I am all about.  It is the question posed in Branding Yourself: “What is the emotional response you evoke?” I turned to my friends on Twitter with that question of my y0mbo brand.  I liked Mike’s response:

Mike did a presentation at the Fox Valley Computing Professionals meetup on Bayesian Filters back in November 2010. I created a sketchnote based on his presentation and shared it with him afterward.

Bayesian-Filters1

I love that for Mike, troche my sketchnote was what “de-anonymized” me in his mind. That is the point of personal branding, after all; to set you apart from everyone else in the crowd. Sketchnotes have done this for me in a lot of people’s minds.

But wait, there’s more… I don’t just want to be known for my sketchnotes. I also want to be known for other things I’m interested in. What other things interest me? There’s a whole list!

 

  • Software development
  • Ruby on Rails development
  • Ember.js development
  • Freelancing / Business
  • Woodworking
  • Parenting
  • Guitar / Music
  • Podcasting
  • Reading
  • Gardening
  • Home-ownership
  • Health and fitness
  • Prepping
  • GTD/productivity
  • Role-playing games
  • Christianity / Christian Discipleship
  • Writing / Blogging
  • Sketchnoting / Drawing / Art
  • Making / Tinkering
  • Photography

That’s quite a list I came up with in 5 minutes. That doesn’t even cover the random little topics I like to read about.

As part of the 30×500 course I’m taking I also need to identify:

  1. People like me
  2. People who want to be like me
  3. People who buy from me

With so many interests, how do I niche down, focus my brand?

If you’ve read to this point, I’m sad to report that I don’t have an answer to that question. The best I can get to right now is finding one thing to at least move foward on.

 Resources

]]> http://uhri.com/blog/what-is-my-personal-brand/feed/ 0 1224 2015 – The Second 52 – Recap http://uhri.com/blog/2015-the-second-52-recap/ http://uhri.com/blog/2015-the-second-52-recap/#respond Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:00:00 +0000 http://uhri.com/blog/?p=1117 I already posted my Third 52 goals, viagra here but I want to follow up with a recap from the Second 52. Hopefully I can look for some trends and patterns to find better ways to meet my goals going forward.

For each goal, web I’ll list the initial goal and then the results.

Career

Coding

I built a habit of coding an hour a day, stuff four days a week.

Fail Before deciding to join 30×500 I thought I would focus on making sure to write code every day. Not a bad goal, but once I started reading the materials for the course, I decided that my time would be better spend thinking about the 30×500 “sales safari” instead of code.

Platform Building

After listening to a podcast by Michael Hyatt on How To Build Your Platform in 30 Minutes a Day, I decided I wanted to be consistent about my social media activities and online brand.

Fail I never really got this goal up off the ground. It was too nebulous; I didn’t really have a defined plan for success.

Family

Plan excursions for spring break

Success I planned the excursions for spring break. We went: zip-lining and on a bobsled coaster at Mystic Mountain. We swam with the dolphins at Dolphin Cove. At our resort we all got scuba certified and went diving.

Financial

Complete the remodel of the laundry room

Fail Nope. Didn’t work on it at all. My wife is not happy about that!

Taxes

Success I got all the tax info done and sent to the accountants.

Set up the estate sale

Partial The estate sale isn’t officially set up yet, but I did meet several Realtors and an auction company. As an aside, I also carried 2.5 tons of paper out of my dad’s basement to the shredders.

Mental

Journal

I have two places I journal. The first is in a Moleskine where I write personal thoughts about what I’m studying in faith-based books and the Bible. The second is in Evernote where I write quick notes in journal entries talking about what’s going on in life that day.

Mostly I wanted to get into the habit of journaling about 3 days a week. I was a bit below this threshold but got pretty close (38% instead of 40%).

Blogging / Writing

Separate from journaling, I wanted to make sure I blogged or wrote (fiction) regularly.

Fail I was hoping to sit down and write at least every other day, but I only managed to do so an average of every third day.

Reading

Read and finish 2 books, 1 of which should be non-fiction.

Success I finished 3 books:

As an aside, I set a goal to try and read daily about 5 days a week. I finished the books even though I only read about 3 days a week. My goal for the year is to read 14 books (2 books each of the 7 52s). Right now I’m ahead of pace at 5 books!

Make tomorrow’s plan

Make sure to take a few minutes every evening to make a plan of action for tomorrow. I will fill out my “work” calendar with items I plan to do tomorrow.

Mostly I wasn’t as consistent as I hoped, but I was close.

Physical

Complete Power 90 and Start P90x

In the First 52, I worked out between 4 and 5 days a week. I started the year with Beachbody’s Power 90 (the original, I understand they’ve redone Power 90). Amazingly, spring break this year fell exactly on the week after I would finish the 90-days of the program. Continuing my goal from the First 52 I will complete Power 90 and start P90X.

I’m setting a general success rate for 20 minutes of daily exercise at 85%, which is working out 6 days a week.

Partial Even though I wanted a goal of working out 6 days a week, I struggled immediately at meeting this goal. I felt run down and suspected I might injure myself if I kept up such a strong pace. In the past this has happened and resulted in my quitting my workout routines. I’m looking at diet and exercise as a long-term lifestyle change. Quitting is a worse option than just missing a day’s workout because of burnout.

Taking a slower pace with Power 90 meant I didn’t do the full 90 days before spring break. With that week off, and the following week spent getting back into the flow of things, I have not started P90X yet.

No Alcohol

Until spring break, I will refrain from drinking alcohol. Mostly, this is just a way to make sure I don’t have “a problem”, LOL. But for spring break, I’m not going to worry about refraining. My goal is to hit 71% success rate (all 37 days before the start of spring break).

Success I had no alcohol 83% of the 52-day period including days after we returned from Jamaica.

Ongoing goals

Two goals I’m going to continue with are drinking water and tracking my food. I will drink 32 ounces of water daily at least every other day. This works out to a 50% success percentage. I am also going to continue to track my food daily by logging on to My Fitness Pal. I want a 100% success rate in logging in on MFP (to keep my streak going) and to enter all the food I eat.
Fail Neither goal was anywhere close.

Social

Get in contact with 2 friends every week.

Fail Nope.

Spiritual

Devotions

Of everything I do, spending time studying the Bible and praying is probably the most important thing I can do. I will allow one missed day, but otherwise read and pray every day.

Fail My 96% success rate was hurt by spring break and the following week when I didn’t revert back to my normal morning routine.

Prayer with Jen

Standing together for our marriage through prayer is vital.

Fail Ouch. Building a habit of praying with another person is difficult. I wanted to hit a daily success rate of 81% but we only prayed 19% of the time.

Maintenance

Partial My four maintenance goals I track are laundry, dishes, dinner planning, and picking up around the house. I set a goal for each of these categories to hit a target of accomplishing these 70% of the time. Laundry was my worst at 42%. Dinner planning almost met the target at 69% and making sure the dishes were done was at 63%. Picking up the house was my only success at 75%.

Thoughts

I have a spreadsheet I use to track daily habits. This is how I know what “percentage” of success I’m having with goals above. It is a great tool for this, but sometimes I end up focusing too much on checking the box for the day without thinking about what broader and better goals I should be watching. I have tools to help in these other broader areas (on a weekly basis and at a 52-day level). I just need to use them more frequently and check back on what I was doing.

This really breaks down to mindfulness.

Spring break threw a big wrench into this goal period. I knew that most of my habits would be “busted” because I was out of my element. What didn’t occur to me was how it took almost another week afterward to get back into those habits. Granted, I traveled out of town that following week, but most habits shouldn’t have been so hard to do. Understanding how vacations affect goals is important to remember the rest of the year.

Now that I reviewed the Second 52, I may go back and revise my Third 52 goals. I think I can do better on defining success and the overall identity I am trying to build when setting a round of goals.

Resources

I collected all of my 2015 7×52 goals in one spot for easy reference.

]]> http://uhri.com/blog/2015-the-second-52-recap/feed/ 0 1117 Rush’s Tom Sawyer, played by a puppet http://uhri.com/blog/rushs-tom-sawyer-played-by-a-puppet/ http://uhri.com/blog/rushs-tom-sawyer-played-by-a-puppet/#respond Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:24:08 +0000 http://uhri.com/blog/?p=1209

]]> http://uhri.com/blog/rushs-tom-sawyer-played-by-a-puppet/feed/ 0 1209 Third 52 – 2015 http://uhri.com/blog/third-52-2015/ http://uhri.com/blog/third-52-2015/#respond Wed, 15 Apr 2015 18:43:42 +0000 http://uhri.com/blog/?p=1188 Thus far in 2015 I did a poor job of outlining my goals for the First and Second 52. This time, link  I am changing my ways and publishing my goals before it starts. Wowza!

3 Word review: Kingdom, Creation, Confidence

Before I outline my goals for the Third 52, I want to take a few moments to reflect on my 3 words for 2015.

  • Kingdom – Everything I do should be for the glory of God. My character, actions and words should reflect Him whom I represent.
  • Creation – Making stuff is the first step to publishing stuff.
  • Confidence – Be confident.

Each of the core goal areas for the Third 52 must support these three broader goals.

This time, for each core, I am also adding an identity on which to focus my goals.

Career

I own a product business. (Note: I need to flush out this identity better.)

The broad 2015 goal in the career area is to ship 3 products this year. At the beginning of the year I had a very different thought about which products to ship than I do now. Originally, I thought I would ship software products specifically. Now I realize products don’t need to be software. Part of this discovery came when I joined 30×500. As I take this course (starting April 19th), I’ll put tho

  • Goal: Work on 30×500 homework 4 days a week. (60% success rate)
  • Goal: Work on my personal platform (web site design, social media). (27%)
  • Goal: Work on Typehammer. (27%)

Family

I am a great dad, husband and leader of our household.

  • Goal: Tell each member of my family I love them a minimum of once every day. (100% (x3))

Financial

For spring break, my family went on an all-inclusive vacation to Jamaica. Jen and I agreed that vacation would be paid for out of income I generate this year. I don’t have specific goals for this category currently. Goals for the Fourth 52 will depend on 30×500.

I do need, however, to finish some of the undone home projects.

  • Goal: Move forward on home remodeling projects. (20%)

Also, I need to create the identity for financial goals.

Mental

I am a reader.

  • Goal: Finish reading one non-fiction book and finish one additional book (either fiction or non-fiction) by reading 5 days a week. (71%)

I am a consistent writer.

  • Goal: Journal daily after devotions. (71%)
  • Goal: I write 1 paragraph every day, six days a week (85%)
  • Goal: I publish 3 blog posts a week. (42%)

Physical

I am a person who exercises regularly and watches my health.

  • Goal: Exercise 5 days a week for a minimum of 20 minutes. (71%)
  • Goal: Continue to track my food, including clicking the MFP “complete entry” button to ensure I’ve tracked everything for that day. (96%)
  • Goal: Drink 32oz of water daily. (50%)
  • Goal: Refrain from alcohol. (71%)

Social

I am someone who stays in contact with friends.

  • New: I will reach out to two different friends each week with a text, message or phone call. (27%)

Spiritual

I am a man of God whose character reflects such.

  • Goal: Repent quickly and sincerely. Be conscious about admitting when I’ve sinned. (83%)
  • Goal: Pray together with Jen daily. (83%)
  • Goal: I continue my habit of daily devotions (Bible study and prayer) first thing in the morning. (90%)

Maintenance

I mentioned the generic catch-all category of maintenance for the household sorts of things I need to do. I plan to keep going on the four areas of laundry, dishes, dinner and picking up. Additionally, I need to make sure I spent time outside tending to yardwork, my garden and watering the plants.

  • Do laundry Wash/Dry/Fold/Put away daily. (70%)
  • Make sure the dishes are done daily. (70%)
  • Make sure we have a plan for dinner (70%)
  • Pick up around the house daily. (70%)
  • Spend 20 minutes every other day doing outside work. (50%)

 More in this series:

]]> http://uhri.com/blog/third-52-2015/feed/ 0 1188 The Long View http://uhri.com/blog/the-long-view/ http://uhri.com/blog/the-long-view/#comments Mon, 13 Apr 2015 14:10:22 +0000 http://uhri.com/blog/?p=1181 Over the past few years I developed a bad habit I didn’t even realize I had until just recently. It affected almost every area of my life for the poorer. Now that I see it, medical I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed it sooner and am a little sad at the lost time because of it.

What was it? Short-term thinking.

I think I started down the road of this habit being a work-at-home dad. While working on long term goals and projects, visit this I often would get interrupted by the kids (after school or on days off of school) when they needed something. It happened a lot more when they were younger and needed more of my support, less so recently, but instead of jumping back into what I was doing, I let myself get frustrated. “Why bother getting restarted on something if I’m just going to get interrupted?” I asked myself. “Getting restarted” turned into “getting started”. I moved from proactive to reactive and when I moved to reactive, I filled my time with web surfing and mindless social media. When my dad moved in with us last year and I spent a lot of time care-taking, my reactionary mode got even worse.

The Long View

The correction to short-term thinking is the long view. Obvious, I know. I was thinking about this when I wrote Identity-based Goals and want to expand those thoughts further.

“19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Matthew 6:19-21 talks about storing up treasures not here on earth, but in heaven.  While Jesus is talking about money and possessions, it is the focus on the distant future that is important. Eternity (in heaven) is the ultimate long view. Most importantly, that is where your heart is.

At a temporal level, when thinking about where your heart and thoughts are in the short- and long-term, there is a significant difference.

Short-term thinking is:

  • Selfish
  • Emotion-based
  • Less rational

Long-term thinking takes a different approach. It is:

  • More mature
  • Broader
  • More valuable
  • Empathetic toward others

As an example, if I am in the middle of doing something and am interrupted by one of our boys, I can take the short-term or long-term view.

In the short term, I get mad because my task was interrupted. I react in anger and flip out, barking out a harsh response and make a big deal about how much of a martyr I am for having to deal with this kid’s insignificant problem.  I leave him upset, unwilling to disturb me again for something down the road that may be really important, and show him he’s not as important as whatever it was I was doing. I also never quite get back to the task because I’m still stewing over the interruption.

In the long view, I stop what I’m doing knowing that I can pick up the task again later. I stop to listen to what the request is and offer assistance. If the request was something he could have taken care of himself, I take the time to teach him how to do it. There is growth there for him. I build our relationship instead of tearing it down. I show love in action. When I return to my task, I know this minor bump hasn’t destroyed my goals nor sent the Earth hurtling into the Sun.

Welcome to Adulthood

You might be thinking this is just common sense adulthood stuff. True. Sometimes I’m dense.

But I’m correcting that.

]]> http://uhri.com/blog/the-long-view/feed/ 1 1181