Out of Time

Undoubtedly, there are things that you would like to be doing with your life but you feel that you simply don’t have the time.  When you add up the time spent getting ready for work in the morning, the time spent at work, working from home, and commuting, your job can easily consume 12 hours each day, leaving you with about 12 hours.  If you get the recommended 8 hours of sleep per night (yeah right), you’re down to 4 hours.  Add another 2 hours per day for preparing meals, eating them, and cleaning up afterwards and you have 2 hours left.  Add 45 minutes for exercise and travel to/from the gym and you are left with only 1 hour and 15 minutes to spend with your family, help your kids with homework, feed yourself intellectually, grow spiritually, and find some form of recreation.

 

So what can we do in order to find more time to do the important things?

 

Well… I’ve looked everywhere and you cannot “find time”.  All you can do is decide what to do with it.  If we look at how we spend our time, there doesn’t appear to be much we can cut out.  Usually sleep and exercise are the first things we delete from our schedule, but when we do so, we undermine our ability to effectively use the time that we have.

 

The obvious area of opportunity here is that huge chunk of our day spent at work.  But we have to work, or else we can’t support our families, right?  Not so fast.  I know there are situations where a single mom may be working two jobs simply to make ends meet and her time spent at work is truly an investment her children’s future, but I also know of plenty of professionals whose families have an abundance of material possessions; however, they are impoverished when it comes to the things of real worth. 

 

I think we need to ask ourselves if our jobs actually support our families or if they support our ego.  That’s a whole posting in itself, so I won’t go into it now.

 

What about the time spent working?  You can’t just stop working… and if you cut back on the hours that you work, you may be perceived as a slacker or lazy.  These days, that could lead to a serious reduction in your hours at work.  What can we do?  We can’t add more hours to the day and it seems that we can’t cut anything out.

 

I believe we need to change our thinking.  Instead of compartmentalizing 12 hours per weekday for work and using the 1 hour and 15 minutes left over at the end of the day to feed ourselves intellectually, grow spiritually, find recreation, and grow as a family, what if we added those aspects to our work?

 

What does that look like?  We need to ask ourselves if we are growing intellectually at work.  If not, then we have reached a plateau that will lead to discontentment and we need to look for some opportunity to grow.  Is your career in line with your spiritual beliefs?  This doesn’t mean everyone has to join the ministry full time.  We should; however, understand our spiritual gifts and apply them in manner that will give glory to the One who grants them.  What about recreation – is it possible to find recreation at work?  I think it is if our careers are based on our passions.

 

That’s what it really boils down to.  If we take that large portion of our day that is spent at work and use that time engrossed in the things that we are passionate about, then we may just find that we come home fulfilled rather than frustrated and exhausted.

 

You see, I don’t think our problem is a lack of time.  Our problem is that at the end of the day we feel that our day has been lacking in significance.  That’s why we wish we could do all of these other things if we just had the time. 

 

Find a way to add some significance to your workday and see if it doesn’t add to your job fulfillment.  If you’re a boss, understand what makes your employees tick and incorporate that into their objectives.  Show your children that you are passionate about what you do because you work towards the fulfillment of your mission daily.

 

I Caught You a Delicious Bass

There are certain memories in a dad’s life that will always be locked away for safe keeping.  I had one of these last week when I took my 3-1/2 year old daughter on her first fishing trip.

 

Outfitted with a Scooby Doo fishing pole and a Mystery Machine tackle box (which was full of bubble-blowing toys), we went to Lake Lanier to seek out my little girl’s inner Bill Dance.    The area we went to consists of a parking area with a cove used for fishing on one side and a sandy beach for the sunbathers/swimmers on the other side.

 

Mom and baby sister went to the beach side while the little angler and I climbed down the bank to fish.  It was about 87 degrees, so I knew that I would not have much time before the fisher would become the fish.  Olivia watched intently as I tied a little jig head onto her line and was excited that she got to pick out the color jig she would use.  Her casting still needs some work, but she can reel in the line like a pro.  Every time her bait came back, she would say, “Hey, I didn’t catch a fish.”

 

Altogether, she probably did 10 or 15 minutes worth of fishing before she decided she wanted to go swimming on the other side.  She spent about an hour and half on the beach side building sand castles, picking up shells, and playing in the water.  Apparently beaches are more appealing than fishing to a 3-1/2 year old.

 

Later that evening, exhausted from the day’s events.  I asked Olivia what her favorite activity was.  Her reply was, “Going fishing with you, daddy.” 

 

Totally worth it.

 

I’m sure you did a lot of things last week.  I bet you completed a lot of tasks that were related to your career, furthered you education, improved your home, or allowed you unwind from the stresses of your life.  How many of you created a memory that will last a lifetime?

 

 

By the way, I have no idea who the kids portraying Napoleon and Pedro in the photo are.

 

Fear of Failure

Have you ever considered that it may be easier to succeed than to fail?  With all of the work and worry we put into our quest for success that may sound absurd, but think about it.  What the broad population considers “success” is usually nothing more than the sacrifice of our time and talent in a career for which we have no passion so we can rely on the security afforded by that career.  Or maybe we are in the right career, but for the wrong reasons.  Rather than using our career as a platform for our mission, we squander opportunities for real significance and choose instead to make selfish ambition our mission.

 

Face it – we are afraid of failure.  We think that if we fail, people will regard us as incompetent, lacking talent, or just plain dumb.  But consider the alternative.  If you have not experienced any significant failure recently, then I can speculate the following about you:

 

·         You chose to structure your life and circumstances with low risk in order to eliminate failure as an outcome

·         You lack courage

·         You lack faith

·         You are frustrated and bored with your career/life

·         You know that you should be doing more with your life, but constantly make excuses to justify inaction

·         You feel that you are full of potential (…but never seem to live up to it)

·         You allow pride for what you have to overshadow the possibility of what you could be

 

Why are we so afraid of what others will think of us?  Why are we so afraid of failure?  Here’s my theory:  If we are not pursuing our mission – if we are not doing what we were created to do, then there is a disconnect between who we are and who we know we are meant to be.  When this disconnect occurs, our defensive mechanism is to make other people think we are successful even though we are miserable.  We are not finding fulfillment in what we do, so we try to seek it in what others think of us.

 

“Wait a minute,” you think, “that’s not me.  I’m not held captive by what others think of me.” 

 

Oh really…  Then why do you feel prideful when you succeed in a career that offers no fulfillment?  Why are you afraid to step away from your standard of living so you can pursue you mission?  Why do you turn your back on the most important aspects of your life so that you can advance in a career you sometimes despise?

 

If you never fail, you are not getting anywhere close to realizing who you could be.  You are content to remain enshrouded in the safe harbor you have built up around yourself. 

 

Go out and fail some.  Then you can experience some true growth.

 

Happiness Through Giving

If you read my book, you know that one of the messages I try to convey is that it is not what we have that makes us happy, but what we can give.  Here is an article from the Associated Press that shows some scientific evidence to support this belief:

 

Article from the AP:

Science, Bible Agree: Giving Is Better

WASHINGTON – The Bible counsels misers that it’s better to give than to receive. Science agrees. People who made gifts to others or to charities reported they were happier than folks who didn’t share, according to a report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

While previous studies have shown that having more money can increase happiness, the researchers at the University of British Columbia and Harvard University wondered if the way people spent their money made any difference.

Turns out, it does.

Lead researcher Elizabeth W. Dunn, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, said she wasn’t surprised that doing something for others made people happy.

But she was struck by how big the effect was and that how people spent money was more important than how much money they had.

“This work suggests that even making small alterations in how we spend money on a daily basis can make a difference in happiness,” Dunn said in a telephone interview.

“That doesn’t mean go get a high paying job so you can spend tons of money on others. The message is, given what you have, how can you make little alterations to do something for others,” she said.

And, she added, “there’s nothing special about money,” giving can involve time or special skills to help other people.

The report didn’t surprise Sue Citro, senior digital membership manager for the Nature Conservancy:

“We do hear from our members and our supporters that they do get a real feeling of satisfaction from knowing their giving is doing good,” she said.

Andrea Koslow, director of advertising at the American Red Cross, said: “The act of helping has its own profound effect.”

“People need a humanitarian outlet … feeling that they make a difference … that’s very motivating,” Koslow said.

The good feeling associated with giving is why workplace charity opportunities can engage employees and lift morale, added Kristine Templin, director of corporate partnerships at the American Red Cross.

The researchers started by asking a sample of 632 Americans, 55 percent of whom were women, to rate their happiness on a scale of 1 to 5, the higher the number the happier.

Then they asked the participants to report their annual income and estimate how much they spent on paying bills, buying gifts for themselves, buying gifts for others and giving to charity.

The first two were considered personal spending and averaged $1,714-a-month, the second two were termed “prosocial” spending and averaged $146-a-month.

“Personal spending was unrelated to happiness,” said the researchers. “But higher prosocial spending was associated with significantly greater happiness,” they found.

Not content with that, they then studied 16 employees of a company in Boston, asking about their happiness one month before and six to eight weeks after each received a profit-sharing bonus from their employer.

In the second interview they also asked about personal and prosocial spending and once again those who spent more on others were happier.

“The manner in which they spent that bonus was a more important predictor of their happiness than the amount of the bonus itself,” the researchers found.

Finally, 46 Canadian students were asked to rate their happiness and then each was given a random envelope containing money, ranging from $5 to $20. Some were instructed to spend it on themselves, others were told to buy a gift for someone else.

At 5 p.m. that day, they were called together again and asked to rate their happiness.

The amount of money had no impact on happiness, but those assigned to buy something for another person reported greater happiness than those told to get something for themselves, the researchers said.

A separate study published in 2006 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the same parts of the brain that produce the good feeling when a person receives a reward also respond when they give to someone else.

Indeed, researchers led by Jordan Grafman at the National Institutes of Health found the reward areas were more active when giving a gift than when receiving one.

Associated Press Writer Natasha Metzler contributed to this report.

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

A service of the Associated Press (AP)

 

Where’s My Jet Pack?

Remember all of those science fiction movies that took place in the distant future and featured flying cars, post-apocalyptic leather chaps (Mad Max), robotic butlers, and ray guns, yet still maintained the mulleted and feathered hairstyles of the 70’s and 80’s?  I thought it would be interesting to check out when these events in the distant future were to take place… no really; I did think that would be interesting.  Here are a few popular Sci-Fi movies/television shows and the date in which they were set:

 

·         Escape from New York – 1997

·         2001:  A Space Odyssey – I think you can guess that one

·         Blade Runner & The Running Man – 2019 (only 10 years away… seems like the Y2K scare was just yesterday)

·         Lost in Space – 1997

·         Star Wars – A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

·         1984 – I know it’s a satire, not sci-fi… but it has talking animals.  Oh, and it took place in 1984.

·         Strange Days – 1999

·         Terminator 2 – 1997

·         Transformers the Movie (Animated) – 2005

·         Project Moonbase – 1970

·         Timecop – 2004

·         Death Race 2000 – Take a guess

 

Where’s my jetpack?  Here we are in 2009, twelve years after Will Robinson and his family took a wrong turn in their Jupiter II, and I still don’t have a personal spacecraft, a metallic flight suit, or a robot that dispenses a nutritious meal replacement supplement.

 

The point here is that time has a way of going by faster than we anticipate.  Back in 1965, when Lost in Space came out, the year 1997 seemed like the unimaginable future (it would be equivalent to 2041 to us now).  All of those spaceships and robots seemed perfectly plausible 32 years in the future. 

 

What did we actually get in 1997?  Vanna White got new touch letters so that she wouldn’t have to turn them, IBM’s Deep Blue became the first computer to defeat a human world champion in chess, the Dow topped 7,000 for the first time ever (a remarkable sign of growth that would be repeated… last week), and the Treasury Department unveiled a new $50 bill.  Somehow this falls short of the anticipated advances.

 

The point I am trying to make is that the future keeps becoming today.  If there is something important you want to do with your time, talent, and passions, you’d better get started soon.  Don’t wait until you retire, the kids are off to school, or you get that anticipated promotion.  By then, who knows where the world will be?  Vanna may have a remote control that allows her to light up the letters from her Hoveround and the Dow may reach some crazy number like 10,000.  Hey we can dream, can’t we? 

 

Everyone’s Minisitry

My recent trip abroad got me thinking about what it means to “minister” to others.  If you’re like me, when you hear the word “minister” you usually think about a church pastor, religious leader, or the head of a governmental administrative office.  While these may fit a few of the definitions of the word, it is a mistake to believe that ministry work should be left only to those whose full-time job is in “the ministry”.  There are actually several definitions for the word minister.  Those listed below came from Dictionary.com.

min⋅is⋅ter

–noun

1.	a person authorized to conduct religious worship; member of the clergy; pastor.

 

2.	a person authorized to administer sacraments, as at Mass.

 

3.	a person appointed by or under the authority of a sovereign or head of a government to some high office of state, esp. to that of head of an administrative department: the minister of finance.

 

4.	a diplomatic representative accredited by one government to another and ranking next below an ambassador.

 

5.	a person acting as the agent or instrument of another.

–verb (used with object)

6.	to administer or apply: to minister the last rites.

 

7.	Archaic. to furnish; supply.

–verb (used without object)

8.	to perform the functions of a religious minister.

 

9.	to give service, care, or aid; attend, as to wants or necessities.: to minister to the needs of the hungry.

 

10.	to contribute, as to comfort or happiness.

 

The first eight definitions go along with our stereotypical view of the word, but look at nine and ten.  This is something that all of us are called to do.  When we “give service, care, or aid” and when we “contribute… to (the) comfort or happiness” of others, we are providing ministry.

 

During my recent trip to Belarus, our team ministered to the needs of our students.  We gave them a service by providing them with an English course, but we also contributed to their comfort and happiness by providing an atmosphere where they could have fun and take a break from the hurts and disappointments that they experience outside the class.

 

Do you have to go halfway around the world to minister to the needs of others?  Of course not!  There are ministry opportunities in your community, at work, even under your own roof.  Recognizing and acting on those opportunities will help us find significance regardless of our job description.

 

I think this is where many of us lose our direction.  For example, you may be in a predicament where you feel that you should be doing more to minister to others.  You have a heartfelt desire to put your own selfish ambition on hold while enhancing the lives of others, but you are not quite ready to quit your job and enroll in a seminary or join the Peace Corps.  We have this “all or nothing” mentality that erroneously believes that if we cannot dedicate all of our time and resources ministering to the needs of others, then we will leave that work to those who can.

 

Think about it.  If all ministry work were left to church pastors and clergy members, who would help meet the needs of those individuals who have never been to a church or those who are too uncomfortable or embarrassed to express their brokenness to someone that they hardly know?  I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else, but when we take the time to really pay attention to those people who are in our lives and how we can use our resources to meet their needs, we begin to discover fulfillment and purpose in our lives while simultaneously bringing happiness into theirs.

 

Trip Update

 

I am safely home from my visit to Eastern Europe where I taught conversational English with a great group of people.  We had a very good turnout for the school despite some difficulties with advertising.  As you can tell by the picture, the weather was not exactly what we’re used to here in Georgia.  This frozen waterfall was located in a park near the church where we taught our classes.  It snowed for the first three days and, being from the South, all of the teachers felt compelled to have a big snowball fight between classes.  Of course, this brought stern and suspicious looks from the locals, but they tolerated our childish playfulness.  That is one of the things Americans are known for.

 

This trip was an affirmation of the fact that significance is far more rewarding than success.  The students are given evaluation cards at the end of the classes where they have the opportunity to provide feedback on the school and their teachers.  Countless students wrote that the school was one of the best experiences that they have had in their lives.  Those that were returning from previous sessions talked about how much they look forward to the courses each time we visit.  The classes provide an atmosphere that is a welcome respite from the environment to which they are accustomed.

 

In this particular country, people have not yet taken for granted the freedoms that we enjoy every day.  They were tremendously thankful for the school and the teachers and continually made their hospitality apparent with gifts and gratitude.  One of the most rewarding parts of the trip was simply seeing all of the smiling faces during our classes.  In their culture, smiles are hard to come by – particularly in an academic setting.  Just being part of an activity that brought so much happiness to these wonderful people was far more rewarding than the “successes” I achieved during my self-centered corporate life. 

 

I encourage you to do something like this and truly experience significance.  Stop thinking about your desires and how you can get ahead and spend some time fully invested in someone else’s interests.  Given the right motivation, you may find that success isn’t that hard to give up.

 

 

Building a Ramp

My wife and I went to Cirque Du Soleil last weekend.  I think that’s French for “these people are out of their minds”.  You would not believe some of the acrobatics the performers pulled off.  The show was held at Atlantic Station in Atlanta.  If you’ve never been there before, Atlantic Station is sort of its own little city within the city of Atlanta.

 

The show was great.  Dinner after the show was great.  Finding our car and getting home was a nightmare.

 

Before the show, we parked in the massive labyrinth of the underground parking deck.  After being directed through a maze of cars, the parking attendants led us to the completely filled parking area where we were left to find a spot on our own.  It was here that I fully expected we would have to fight off a dragon before proceeding to the show.  We finally found a place to park and I looked up and noted our section. 

 

G-12…  got it. 

 

When we tried to find our car, I realized that there was apparently no reasoning behind how this parking deck was laid out.  We were in section G, looking for G-12, but we were nowhere near our car.

 

We wandered around with all of the other confused people who were repeatedly hitting their keyless remotes like a young child calling for their lost dog – hoping that familiar horn would honk and Lassie would come home.  Did I mention that this place is HUGE!  Oh yeah, and it was dark… and cold… and my wife was in heels.

 

We finally found our car.  Now we just had to find an exit.  We made our way out of the parking area and thought we were home free.  Wrong.  All I needed to do was get on I-85 North and Atlantic station is right next to I-85, so I thought it would be pretty simple.  Wrong again.  In order to get on I-85 north, you first have to go south on connector streets, get on a ferry, cross the Florida state line, click your heals together three times, and say “there’s no place like home”.  Ok, it’s not that bad, but it’s close.

 

Frustrating does not begin to describe my feelings at this point.  Here we were, right next to the road that we needed to get on.  We even drove over it a couple of times, but there was no ramp.  There was no way to get from where we were to where we wanted to be.  We just drove around hoping that we would eventually find an on-ramp.

 

This sort of thing happens to us more than we probably realize.  We know what road we want to be on, we may even be right next to it, but there doesn’t seem to be any on-ramps.  We’re driving along another road in hopes that it will eventually lead us where we need to be.  If you desire to find significance in your work and begin to live your passion, you have to do more that simply discover what road you want to be on.  You have figure out how to get there from here.  You have to build a ramp.

 

What Do You Have To Offer?

A stumbling block that prevents many people from ever trying to live a life in pursuit of any kind of mission is that we are overwhelmed by all of the needs in the world. We see poverty, famine, diseases, and social injustice and feel that we are too insignificant or lack the skills necessary to make any impact. I think the main problem here is that we are focusing on what the world needs when a better approach might be to focus on what we have to offer.

I am preparing to go on a mission trip to a country that was once part of the Soviet Union, where I will teach English classes. Many of the people there already speak English, but their training came from people who learned English as a second (or 3rd… or 4th) language. The students are very eager to converse with people for whom English is their native language.

I made this trip last winter and it was remarkable. Here are few things I noted:

First of all, we have it very good here. The economy may be in bad shape by our standards, but we still have it pretty good.

Secondly, you have no idea how much the students value these classes. I remember, as I was preparing for the trip last year, thinking that the students would be disappointed. I wasn’t a teacher, I wasn’t an English expert, I couldn’t speak Russian, and I knew very little about their country and culture. What I found was that the students were thrilled to have a “teacher” who was born in the United States and spoke English as their native language. They didn’t care what my credentials were, what my teaching style was, or if I slipped in a “ya’ll” periodically.

Finally, I was amazed by the relationships that I built with my students over a very short period of time. I grew up during the Cold War and the realization that I was building friendships with people from a country that was once considered my “enemy” was startling.

This particular country where I am teaching has been named one of the “Outposts of Tyranny” by Condoleezza Rice. Its government is corrupt and its people lack many of the liberties that we take for granted. If I were to only look at all of the social, economic, and political issues that the people of that nation face and then was asked to do something to help them, I would be paralyzed by the overwhelming need. But that is not our approach. We are focusing on what we have to offer – in this case speaking English as our native language. How simple is that?

What do you have to offer?