Jesus Christ died. The son of God was crucified on a cross. We’ve heard the end of the story – He was raised again and lives forever.
But on Good Friday we celebrate His death. “Celebrate” sounds like the wrong word to use. Why should anyone be happy about such a cruel event? The reason we can celebrate is why Jesus died. Because of his death, our sins are forgiven. We don’t have to live under the troubling guilt of the wrongs we have done to others, to ourselves and to God. The consequences of our actions may well remain, but our internal guilt can be totally wiped away. God says in Isaiah 1:18, “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow.”
However, we need to turn away from actions that are keeping us from accepting God’s forgiveness. Acts 3:19 says, “Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away.”
The movie, The Passion of the Christ will stay with me a long time. The scenes of the pain Jesus went through to die perhaps the worst possible death are very haunting. Seeing Jesus suffer truly did bring tears to my eyes. I would recommend that you watch the film, if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s good to ponder the cost that Jesus paid for our gain. Just going through Good Friday like any other day is all too easy to do, with the busyness of our lives. Take at least a few moments to reflect on what Jesus did for you and thank Him for it. Pause your routine and go to a different room or outside and express your feelings to God. Bask in His forgiveness.
In the latest ‘drive-by’ management trend, the deification of Steve Jobs continues…
Mimicking Mr. Jobs’s keynote style and adopting catch phrases like “one more thing”—the words Mr. Jobs often used to introduce products—may make bosses think they’re operating more like the genius himself. But it has provoked plenty of eye-rolling among staffers. “Some employees are teasing me about when I’ll start wearing black turtlenecks,” says Mr. Thammineni, referring to Mr. Jobs’s signature item of clothing.
“It’s not to that point of being annoying yet, but it might get there,” says Dominique Levin, vice president of marketing at Totango Inc., a software company based in Mountain View, Calif., and Tel Aviv. Her boss, CEO Guy Nirpaz, devoured all 656 pages of the book in three days, then bought copies for his employees—including Hebrew translations for employees in Israel—so they could discuss the book at company meetings.
Health enough to make work a pleasure.
Wealth enough to support your needs.
Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them.
Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them.
Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished.
Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor.
Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others.
Faith enough to make real the things of God.
Hope enough to remove all the anxious fears concerning the future.
–Johann von Goethe
In my humble opinion, the story of St. Patrick is a story of a lost opportunity for the modern church. It begins like this…
1 I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, of the settlement [vicus] of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our desserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our priests who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.
In reality we are all storytellers and the story we tell about our lives is what we believe, and then we act on what we believe and those actions create a result that continues to reinforce and backup our story! Crazy cycle right?
Tony [Robbins] asked a funny and also profound question yesterday. We were talking about the movie “Titanic” as a reference. He was joking around and said “If you saw “Titanic” 3 times a day for 10 years, every day, how would you feel?” Obviously, with a sad ending like that, most of us would probably not be jumping up and down for joy. We’d probably be sad, perhaps a little hopeless and feel like we’ve missed out on life and or love.
Tony asked, “Do you wanna go see a shitty movie 10,000 times?” and obviously the answer is no. But – wait a minute – what about the movie, or the “story” that you tell yourself about what your life is like? What is that story like? Is it empowering? Is it awesome? Is it inspiring? Or is it shitty and sad? And how many times a day do we tell ourselves these stories?
ALL THE TIME! So, we are watching and reacting to the story we are telling ourselves about our lives and then producing that result. What story are you telling yourself about your life?
JUST FOR TODAY
I will try to live through this day only
and not tackle my whole life problem at once.
I can do something for twelve hours that would appall me
if I felt that I had to keep it up for a lifetime.
JUST FOR TODAY
I will be happy.
This assumes to be true what Abraham Lincoln said,
that, “most folks are as happy as
they make up their minds to be”.
JUST FOR TODAY
I will adjust myself to what is,
and not try to adjust everything to my own desires.
I will take my “luck” as it comes and fit myself to it.
JUST FOR TODAY
I will try to strengthen my mind.
I will study. I will not be a mental loafer.
I will read something that requires
mental effort and concentration.
JUST FOR TODAY
I will exercise my soul in three ways.
I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out.
If anybody knows of it, it will not count.
I will do at least two things
I do not want to do – just for exercise.
I will not show anyone that my feelings are hurt;
they may be hurt, but today I will not show it.
JUST FOR TODAY
I will be agreeable,
will look as well as I can,
dress becomingly, talk low,
act courteously, criticise not one bit,
not find fault with anything
and not try to improve or regulate
anybody except myself.
JUST FOR TODAY
I will have a programme –
I may not be able to follow it exactly,
but I will have it.
I will save myself from two pests:
hurry and indecision.
JUST FOR TODAY
I will have a quiet half hour
all to myself and relax.
During this half hour, sometime,
I will try to get a better perspective of my life.
JUST FOR TODAY
I will be unafraid,
especially I will not be afraid
to enjoy what is beautiful,
and to believe that as I give to the world,
so the world gives to me.
We lose time when we check our phone every time it beeps and bings, especially if someone we love is sitting beside or across from us. We lose time every time we turn on the glowing box instead of pursue our future visions and goals. We throw away time every time we agree to an hour meeting when 20 minutes will do. We lose time chasing that extra six cents a gallon we heard they were getting for gas across town, not stopping to think that we’re only getting back $1.30 for that effort.
Every time we don’t say sorry first and end the stalemate, we are losing time. Every time we focus on our regrets, we lose time. Whenever you look in the mirror and judge yourself a failure, you are losing time. Strangely, this made me think of golf balls.
There is not one golf ball in the world that judges itself a failure. Sometimes they land in the hole. Other times, they get lost in the woods. But they are still primarily the same object. The same is true for you. Failure is something about a moment. Failure is a great thief of time. Learn. Embrace your learning. Move. Time only goes in one direction, and that’s away from you.
Make that call. Pick up that course of study. Practice that new idea. Experiment with that plan. Accept that you are who you are, and that change isn’t the goal: awareness and adaptation are the goals.
Set your phone to silent. Check it as infrequently as you can stand. Before we all had cell phones, our children all lived. The boss wants you to be responsive. Fine. Be responsive, but not a slave.
Time, friends, is the most difficult of the currencies to leverage, and we all spend it like it’s free.
This doesn’t mean “hurry.” This means “live.” Live in the way that suggests you know what time it is, with or without a watch. Because it’s your time. And that’s what matters while you still breathe.
And for the bonus round? Think about how you can use your time to extend value to people after you have stopped breathing. That’s why the world is thinking so much about Steve Jobs today. For every flaw you want to mention, for every truth about his temper or his choices, he built a legacy, more than once, with the time he had.
Comparisonitis is a chronic disease. From what I can tell in my completely unscientific research, it can go into remission and you can live your life well, if you manage it. (Typical rules apply: get enough laughter, sleep, and perspective of good friends.) But it can always flare back up.
To manage it, we must realize there is no perfection. The person who flies on Netjets probably worries because he doesn’t own a jet. The person who has a job worries about the others who have better title. The person who is seeking work worries because it’s been so long since gainful employment. Across any economic system, there is someone else we can compare ourselves to, and find ourselves wanting. Whether we find ways to look down on others (because we enjoy more talent, intellect, status, good looks, or wealth), or whether look down on ourselves and envy others because we feel we are not as capable, smart, powerful, or rich as they – both of these two sides of the coin buy into a same darkness.
The cost to this darkness is huge. Comparisonities create a separation between people; it is the ultimate in hierarchical thinking that says any one of us are better than the other. It leads to disharmony, not harmony. It leads to hate, not love. It leads to consumption not satisfaction. All of this leads to separation, not connection.
The only thing we need lies within us already. What we most need is our own approval, our own acceptance of our work. Everything outside of that is outside of our control. When we realize that we are already enough, as is, we set ourselves free from this terrible, vile, disfiguring disease. Power cannot come from others. Power comes first from self. When we spend time in doubt and fear of what we are not, we are not spending time on the work before us to do the best and let what comes, come. For me, that is to do the work of shaping concepts, or to make a lunch date with my stepdaughters, or practice the art of speaking and writing on ideas that matter. To do the work, with error and shortcoming, but with enthusiasm and great devotion – that is what is worthy as Theodore Roosevelt once said. That is the way we fight comparisonitis: to put the attention back on the work that needs to get done that are each of us are uniquely called on to do.
It would be so much easier to deny being infected by comparisonitis. But to own it when it happens lets us have more power over it than it over us. Only then can we conquer the disease.
Life is difficult. It’s a given! We’re born, we open our eyes, dad misinterprets our cry, mom puts the diaper on too tight, someone else drops our pacifier – and it begins.
But this is how life works. Challenge is built into the equation; learning requires patience; problem solving is a key element to fulfillment; obstacles come our way every day. World leader Winston Churchill gave a speech at his old school in the darkest days of WW2; he’d had a miserable time there and was considered a failure. He walked to the podium and surveyed the crowd of awe-struck students. “This is the lesson,” he said. “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small – never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense….”
But we also live in this world of entitlement: “’I deserve this.” “I want mine now!” “Children should have everything they want.” “It’s my responsibility to make my kids happy.” “Satisfy me now!”
But, and experience proves this every time, pretty much everything worthwhile comes at the price of investment. It’s not just that the reward is sweeter after the long haul. It turns out that the process of getting from A to B is intrinsically worthwhile – regardless of the payoff at the end. The key to success is perseverance.
However, there are times we and our children should quit something. We do the math and realize the best option is to do something else. But what are the guidelines?
“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
– Calvin Coolidge, was the thirtieth President of the United States (1923-1929).
Prior to the Revolution, British troops were marching toward Fort Duquesne when they were ambushed, July 9, 1755, by the French and Indians. Not accustomed to fighting unless in an open field, the British soldiers were annihilated. 23-year-old Colonel George Washington rode back and forth during the battle delivering orders for General Edward Braddock. Eventually, Braddock was killed and every officer on horseback was shot, except Washington. From Fort Cumberland, George Washington wrote of the Battle of Monongahela to his younger brother, John Augustine Washington, JULY 18, 1755: “As I have heard, since my arrival at this place, a circumstantial account of my death and dying speech, I take this early opportunity of contradicting the first, and of assuring you, that I have not as yet composed the latter. But by the All-Powerful Dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side of me!” An Indian warrior later declared: “Washington was never born to be killed by a bullet! I had seventeen fair fires at him with my rifle and after all could not bring him to the ground!”
The Queen offered her sympathy and regret on Wednesday to all those who had suffered from centuries of conflict between Britain and Ireland in a powerful and personal address to the Irish nation.
“To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy,” the queen said in a televised speech at a banquet in Dublin Castle, once the nerve centre of British rule in Ireland.
Dressed in a floor-length white gown with a diamond harp brooch glittering on her shoulder, the queen floored the assembled dignitaries when she began by addressing Ireland’s President Mary McAleese and the audience in the Irish language.
“Wow,” McAleese exclaimed, and the room burst into a spontaneous round of applause.
In her four-day state visit, the first by a British monarch since Ireland won its independence from London in 1921, the queen has shown a determination to address the bloody past and offer powerful gestures of reconciliation.
Her speech stopped short of an apology for British brutality but its reference to: “being able to bow to the past, but not be bound by it” struck the right note with Irish people, many of whom believe the country needs to leave its troubled relationship with Britain in the past.
The queen, whose cousin was killed by militant Irish nationalists in 1979, also alluded to her own loss in an address which was watched in living rooms across the island.
“These events have touched us all, many of us personally, and are a painful legacy.”
“A common perception is that in the aftermath of the dotcom crash of 2001, the market remains flooded with information technology (IT) workers with skills, but no jobs.
However, the reality is just the opposite. In fact, an IT worker shortage is hitting companies across the nation, including southeastern Wisconsin.
As the baby boom generation drifts off into retirement, the next generation is not as large, and the talent pool is not as deep. That equation recently prompted Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates to declare that North America has a “pretty significant shortage” of IT workers.
The Wisconsin Department of Work Force Development projects that there will be approximately 12,745 IT jobs in Wisconsin by the year 2014, which would be up 12.3 percent since 2004.” Click here to read more…
Interesting perspective on the use of time and intelligence…
“I was recently reminded of some reading I did in college, way back in the last century, by a British historian arguing that the critical technology, for the early phase of the industrial revolution, was gin.
The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation. The stories from that era are amazing– there were gin pushcarts working their way through the streets of London.
And it wasn’t until society woke up from that collective bender that we actually started to get the institutional structures that we associate with the industrial revolution today. Things like public libraries and museums, increasingly broad education for children, elected leaders–a lot of things we like–didn’t happen until having all of those people together stopped seeming like a crisis and started seeming like an asset.” Source: Gin, Television, and Social Surplus – Here Comes Everybody
Television is to us, however, what gin was to the British a few hundred years ago and smart people are beginning to take notice…
“Clay Shirky has noticed the trend of talented people putting five or six hours an evening to work instead of to waste. Add that up across a million or ten million people and the output is astonishing. He calls it cognitive surplus and it’s one of the underappreciated world-changing stories of our time.” Source: Seth’s Blog: But it’s better than TV
Think about it! How much time do YOU spend watching tv? How could you use that time to take over your world?
I had the privilege earlier in my career to work closely with the great Jeff Martin [the guy Steve Jobs credits with the ‘Think Different’ campaign and you know Steve Jobs doesn’t often give credit!]. Jeff’s response to stupid ideas was to say ‘Well, that’s a great going out of business strategy’. My friend Dana VanDen Heuvel outlines some great ‘going out of business strategies’ in this guest column in the Green Bay PressGazette…
Congratulations! Your business made it through 2009, one of the toughest years since the Depression, and now you’re ready to accelerate into the rebound. After all, optimism is one of the hallmark traits of most successful business people. We know that we can’t sell in the past and believe that the best lies ahead of us.
There are a few things that can, if you do them, hinder your progress immeasurably, virtually sealing your demise in the New Year. If you do these things, failure is all but assured. However, if you heed this advice and act positively in the other direction, your success is all but guaranteed. Source: Guest column: How to fail in business in 2010 | greenbaypressgazette.com | Green Bay Press-Gazette
Go to the source to get 6 pointers on creating your own personal ‘going out of business strategy’…
In my humble opinion, the story of St. Patrick is a story of a lost opportunity for the modern church. It begins like this…
My good friend Nilofer writes on her blog…
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I had the privilege earlier in my career to work closely with the great Jeff Martin [the guy Steve Jobs credits with the ‘Think Different’ campaign and you know Steve Jobs doesn’t often give credit!]. Jeff’s response to stupid ideas was to say ‘Well, that’s a great going out of business strategy’. My friend Dana VanDen Heuvel outlines some great ‘going out of business strategies’ in this guest column in the Green Bay PressGazette…![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png)
Bright, shiny objects! 
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