Friday; February 11

One of the things the last two years has allowed me to do is to become lazy. Now, before I get too far into this discussion, I have to admit that I didn’t need much of an excuse to grow idle, but the lack of accountability of the last few months has made it a lot easier to do and to excuse. If I don’t want to do something, I have a readily available excuse – and if someone confronts me about it, I can always blame it (one way or another) on my personal response to COVID. Whether it is not interacting with people (which can be explained away by “social distancing”) or not being as productive as I used to be (everything takes longer to get done these days), I have a built-in excuse for not living up to my potential. While this has become convenient, it isn’t (necessarily) true and it is often a comfortable excuse for laziness. Sure, early on, we might have been able to explain-away certain things, but as we enter our third year of this mess, the newness is wearing off. We need to make the effort to get back on track.

As we finish up our second year of the pandemic, it is probably a good time to do an internal audit to analyze why what we are doing … and why we are doing it. (Maybe another way of putting this is to see what we aren’t doing and explaining why we aren’t doing it.) Is it time to get back to what we should be doing? Is it time to become more involved? I am not saying we shouldn’t be safe, but we do need to be smart!

Is it time to start doing something we stopped doing in 2020? Today just might be day to get going again!

Think About It!

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday; November 29

The biblical story of the Good Samaritan has changed our world. Notice I didn’t say that it had change religion or even Christianity, it has influenced the world. There are very few people who don’t know the moral of Jesus’ parable about the Good Samaritan. In fact, the phrase has become a common description of everyday people doing good to their neighbors. While Jesus’ parable from Luke 10 shares several spiritual lessons, one of the most practical is that good can be done by anyone. You don’t have to be a church official to do good, it is not only possible for each one of us to help, it is required of all of us. If a Samaritan can be good, so can we! After presenting the parable, Jesus asked the man who had originally asked the question about being a good neighbor which character in the story was a good neighbor, “… he said, ‘The one who showed mercy toward him.’” at which point, the discussion from theoretical to personal, “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do the same.’” (Luke
Read more

Thursday; January 12

The other day I was watching a television show that used a rather common term applied to overcoming challenges. When organizations experience unexpected setbacks – especially when they lose key people – they rely upon the concept of “Next Man Up”. In essence, when our starters (or stars) go down, effective organizations rely upon their next levels to step into the vacancy. While this is an effective response, have we given much thought as to how we prepare to be the “next people up”? First, we must know our job. Even when we aren’t the primary players, we need to be preparing ourselves to be ready when we get the opportunity to shine. Second, we must do our best when we get the chance. Knowledge is important but what turns potential into talent is effort. Yet, maybe the most underappreciated aspect of this concept is a willingness avoid excuse-making and whining about the unfairness of our situation. When we complain about the circumstances that caused the need for replacements
Read more

Monday; September 25

When I was a youngster, I remember hearing about this thing called the Generation Gap. I was a little bit too young to be active in the social movements of the 1960s, but I do remember listening to the challenges the generations were experiencing way back then. Interestingly, now that I have been on both sides of the aging process, I have to admit that the Gap of the 1960s was nothing new. With the development of each generation comes conflict. The young people don’t feel like the older people understand them and the older folks tend to believe their input is being underappreciated. Too often trust is the casualty when two generations collide. The sad thing is that it doesn’t have to be this way. When we can capture the innovation and energy of the younger folks and harness the wisdom of those who have been around for a while we can develop a winning combination. No, we won’t always see things eye-to-eye nor will we necessarily speak the same emotional language, but when we app
Read more