The-Strange-Phenomenom-Saying-No.mp3

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The-Strange-Phenomenom-Saying-No.mp3 (3.54 MB)

Basic ideas: 

1. It reveals maturity. 

2. Brings inner peace and stress relief.

3. Positions your for growth.

Bonus: Helpful ideas from the Mayo Clinic: 

When to say no

Sometimes it's tough to determine which activities deserve your time and attention. Use these strategies to evaluate obligations — and opportunities — that come your way.

• Focus on what matters most. Examine your current obligations and overall priorities before making any new commitments. Ask yourself if the new commitment is important to you. If it's something you feel strongly about, by all means do it. If not, take a pass.
• Weigh the yes-to-stress ratio. Is the new activity you're considering a short- or long-term commitment? For example, making a batch of cookies for the school bake sale will take far less time than heading up the school fundraising committee. Don't say yes if it will mean months of added stress. Instead, look for other ways to pitch in.
• Take guilt out of the equation. Don't agree to a request you would rather decline because of feelings of guilt or obligation. Doing so will likely lead to additional stress and resentment.
• Sleep on it. Are you tempted by a friend's invitation to volunteer at your old alma mater or join a weekly golf league? Before you respond, take a day to think about the request and how it fits in with your current commitments.

How many people are searching for something --- some type of fulfillment, feeling, meaning or memory. Like the glory days of high school or the freedom and newness of college life. 

The freshness and innocence of puppy love or the nervousness of love at first sight. When life isn't giving us goosebumps, we may want to relive the glory moments of the past.

Our minds and memories are powerful things. They have the ability to reproduce some of those feeling while we imagine. But it can also stuff and burry our bad decisions that have led us to the condition we are in. 

I don't like to remember my mistakes.

I like to blame circumstances or feel like I've chosen the high road when in reality I'm just settling. I've chosen the wide road. When I finally became acceptable and popular I make choices that kept me from sticking out.

Who wants to stick out when their ideal and goals have not yet become reality. 

Who will support you when you're weird and unsuccessful?

Before we can be real to others, we need to be real to ourselves.

We are living and reaping the fruit from the decisions we've sown in the past.

I know we can't be perfect, we can't go without mistakes and mishaps -- but to live with regret for not trying, for not living, for not fully being who we were created to be is not something I want to settle for. 

Selah. . . 

Why is it that I spend the majority of my time talking and blogging about things I don’t really care about. Tweeting and studying things that don’t mean much. And thinking about things don’t necessary hold high value... Oh yeah, because it’s my job! 

No, my job isn’t to study stuff that means nothing me. But my job is to do stuff that makes money. And even though I do not really care about the subject in heart felt priority, I do care about providing for my family and even helping my clients who do care about what I know. So that makes it all worth it... I guess? 

Now that I’m in my age old thirties, I no longer spend time with wishful thinking about a utopian existence where I forsake everything, but only do what I want, what I love, what pleases me. When I neither live for the dollar nor live for survival, but all is peaceful and serene where I look inside my heart and only do the activities that are most beneficial for me at the time. 

It’s interesting how I can turn and be sarcastic about this. Knowing it’s a very serious subject -- at least to myself. I treat this back and forth struggle as if I’ve got a grip on this subject and I know the answers. I call the dreamer naive and the conservative wise. And of course I’m not naive. 

But that is my issue. I need to think I have grip on the truth. Or a truth. I need to have a handle on things so I can live my days in a consistent relation to it. If my truth becomes wobbly my entire world is unstable. And who could live in an unstable world? So I find a truth that fits. One that makes sense. Fitting nicely with my understanding of the world and my life. Both of these things must fit into their places in some cohesive manner. The world and my life.

The world is so vast and my life is so linear. And so no matter what happens to me, good or bad - expected or catastrophic, I look to the world to see if it has happened to someone else. Good. I’m not alone. And it might not be my fault.

I look to scripture to see if there is a verse the explain or encourages me. Good. God is with me. And he might actually work it out for good. I look outward to see if my vision for the future is still obtainable. Good. Let’s keep living. I start moving as quickly as possible pick up a book or a tweet or email to put my mind back on work.

P.S.

Side thought. Maybe I do stuff and learn stuff that doesn’t mean much, because it allows me to do stuff that I do care about? Yeah, I sweat in vanities to build strength in priorities.