Creativity

Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud. Any of us will put out more and better ideas if our efforts are appreciated

- Alexander F. Osborn

Perspective

De-program yourself. The news is not the news. It is the bad news. It is deliberately shocking. The more you accept it as the news, the more you believe that 'that's the way it is,' and the more fearful and cynical you will become

- Steve Chandler

A Key Choice

This may shock you, but I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. It is more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my successes or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me or say about me, my circumstances, or my position. Attitude is that "single string" that keeps me going or cripples my progress. It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitudes are right, there's no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me

- Charles R. Swindoll

What is needed

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Risk and Timing

Many risks fail because they were not taken in time. Too many risks are postponed until unnecessarily elaborate preparations are made. This does not mean that one should say, 'Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!' That is foolish and self-destructive...But don't sit back waiting for the perfect moment. It almost never comes

- David Viscott

The Traps We Make

No lions are ever caught in mousetraps. To catch lions you must think in terms of lions, not in terms of mice. Your mind is always creating traps of one kind or another, and what you catch depends on the thinking you do. It is your thinking that attracts to you what you receive

- Thomas Dreier

Another Step

All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Most Important Thing

The most important thing about a man is what he believes in the depth of his being. This is the thing that makes him what he is, the thing that organises him and feeds him; the thing that keeps him going in the face of untoward circumstances; the thing that gives him resistance and drive

- Hugh Stevenson Tigner

An Incredible Power

Imagination lit every lamp in this country, built every church, performed every act of kindness and progress, created more and better things for more people. It is the priceless ingredient for a better day.

- Henry J. Taylor

Do it well...

If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Traffic Cop Gives Tickets but Avoids Complaints

By the very nature of the business, L.A. County traffic cops receive plenty of complaints about their work. After all, most motorists don't think they deserve a ticket. Each complaint gets documented and placed in the officer's personnel file.
But, surprisingly, over the past 20 years, L.A. Sheriff's Deputy Elton Simmons has made over 25,000 traffic stops and cited thousands of motorists with traffic violations without a single complaint on his record. When his supervisor Captain Pat Maxwell started looking through Simmons' file, he was stunned. Maxwell found plenty of commendations but not a single complaint.
It was such a shocking story that a CBS News crew was assigned to follow Simmons in an attempt to learn his secret. First, they noticed Simmons' "pitch-perfect mix of authority and diplomacy" without a trace of arrogance or self-righteousness. Of course Simmons still hands out plenty of tickets; they just don't come with the standard guilt trip.
Here's how Simmons described his approach: "I'm here with you. I'm not up here" (he motions his arm up towards the sky). One thing I hate is to be looked down on—I can't stand it—so I'm not going to look down at you."
A driver who got a ticket from Simmons agreed. The driver said, "You know what it is, it's his smile. How could you be mad at that guy?"
"Apparently, you can't," concluded the CBS News team. "Time after time, ticket after ticket, we saw Officer Simmons melt away a polar ice cap of preconceptions. And his boss [claims] there's a lesson in there for hard-nosed cops everywhere."

adapted from Steve Hartman, "No complaints about this traffic cop," CBS News (21 September 2012)

Test For Indifference

Are you indifferent to anything but the will of God? Ask God to show you where you might be attached to anything other than God's will. If you are indifferent, thanks be to God. If not, don't judge yourself; just notice it honestly and with compassion. Ask: What needs to die in me for the will of God to find room in my life? What do I need to let go of in order to receive some new gift of God?

adapted from Pursuing God's Will Together, by Ruth Haley Barton, ©2012 IVP

TV Show Breaking Bad on the Dangers of Pride

The critically-acclaimed TV show Breaking Bad centres on the story of Walter White, a bored high school chemistry teacher who discovers that he has stage III lung cancer. Desperate to provide for his family, Walter decides to start manufacturing methamphetamine to create a nest egg. Initially, his goal is to make about $750,000; enough to cover the mortgage, college for both his kids and to cover any other major expenses that might arise over the next 20 years.
But as the series moves forward, the drama focuses on Walter's transformation from a frustrated middle-class American male to a drug kingpin and a cold-blooded killer. The central question of Breaking Bad Becomes this: What makes a person "Bad"? As the story develops we get a clear answer: at some point, Walter decided to become bad.
Specifically, Walter succumbs to the sin of pride. Initially, his pride was submerged under a thin veneer of suburban respectability. But as the show progresses, Walter's pride rises to the surface. In one of the show's most stunning scenes, Walter chillingly explains to his wife Skyler why he's the man in charge when it comes to Mexican cartels and the drug trade. He says,
Who are you talking to right now? Who is it you think you see? Do you know how much I make a year? I mean, even if I told you, you wouldn't believe it. Do you know what would happen if I suddenly decided to stop going in to work? A business big enough that it could be listed on the NASDAQ goes belly up. It disappears. It ceases to exist without me. No, you clearly don't know who you're talking to. So let me clue you in. I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot, and you think that of me? No. I am the one who knocks.
Walter is no longer the frustrated, somewhat bumbling and basically good genius of season one. He's changed, and we're encouraged to look at him the way Diane Keaton looks at Al Pacino at the end of The Godfather: "What's happened to you?" It's a mixture of horror, deep regret, and revulsion. It's a disturbing picture of the evils of pride.

Adapted from Jake Meador, "Evil as Depicted in Breaking Bad Mad Men," Critique (2012, Issue 5)

The Ultimate Victory

The ultimate victory in competition is derived from the inner satisfaction of knowing that you have done your best and that you have gotten the most out of what you had to give.

- Howard Cosell

Pain

When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilise them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope

- Henri Nouwen

Hidden Gems

Sometimes God's best plans are hidden in that inconvenient phone call that interferes with your routine, or in a conversation someone engages you in that makes you late for an appointment. Who knows - it could even be a miracle

- Joni Eareckson Tada

Asking 'Why' in the Wake of Parents' Divorce

Tullian Tchividjian tells the following story about trying to deal with the pain of his parent's unexpected divorce:
I remember going to see [the Christian counselor] Larry Crabb, who was [a colleague of] my father. "How's your mum and dad doing?" Larry asked.
"Larry, I don't know what to do. Seriously. I feel like my whole world has been turned upside down. I don't get this. It's excruciating."
Larry said something remarkable. He could see that I was trapped in the prison of Why, banging my head against the bars. He said,
Tullian, listen to me: The "why" is none of your concern. This is not your burden to fix or figure out. You are not responsible for your parents' relationship or their reputation, or even your own reputation. Those are in God's hands, and his ways are his, not ours. When it comes to God's will, the sooner you can get out of the conjecture business, the better. If you don't go to your grave confused, you don't go to your grave trusting. Painful as it is, this situation gives you an opportunity to show them grace, to love them in their brokenness in a new way. Which is precisely what Jesus has done for you and continues to do for you.
Larry preached the Gospel to me that day, and it made all the difference.

Tullian Tchividjian, Glorious Ruin (David C. Cook, 2012), pp. 122-123; See also the sermon series "The Gospel of Suffering—part one" and "The Gospel of Suffering—part two"

NFL Replacement Refs Show Need for The Judge

For the first three weeks of the 2012 NFL season, replacement referees took the place on the playing field of the regular refs. The team owners had locked out the regular refs because they could not agree on a new contract. The consequence of using college referees to judge pro games was predictable. The replacement refs missed calls, took too long to make the right calls, called too many fouls, and in the process made coaches, players, and fans furious.
The anger came to a head in the third week of the season. An angry Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots, grabbed one of the replacement refs and was fined $50,000 by the league. And on Monday Night Football the game between the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks was decided by a call on the last play of the game that was so clearly wrong the whole country was talking about it the next day. The media pointed out that because of the missed call, $150m changed hands in Las Vegas.
Confidence in the credibility of the game had been marred. Players didn't know what to expect on the field and worried about injuries. Newspapers routinely used the word "outrage" to describe the reaction from millions of fans. ESPN declared, "Let's cut to the chase—the replacement officials have lost control of the game." Even an NPR (National Public Radio) blog chimed in: "It's the talk of the nation today as fans beg for the league and its regular officials to settle their differences so that the 'real' refs can come back."
All because the rules of NFL football were not being correctly applied by the judges on the field. Lots of people care about football, and as a result they care about having judges doing their job correctly on the field.
Apparently, despite decades of ethical relativism, we still long for justice and fairness—even in pro football. There is right and wrong, and the referee's job is to assure that right prevails. If we care that much about judges in sports, giving order to our games, how much more should we realise the importance of having a supreme Judge who makes the correct call on the actions of people in this world. God has given his law to bring order to relationships, to business, to society. Without his moral law, and his judgments that uphold it, life is chaos, and everyone is miserable.

Gregg Easterbrook, "Losing control is refs' big blunder," ESPN Playbook (25 September 2012);
Mark Memmott, "Bring Back the Real NFL Refs!" The Two-Way, NPR's News Blog (25 September 2012)

Man Spends Rare Coins at Face Value

In 2012, a 19-year-old man from Washington state named Dakoda Garren was charged with stealing a rare coin collection worth at least $100,000. After Garren had completed some part-time work for a woman living north of Portland, the woman reported that her family coin collection was missing. Her collection included a variety of rare and valuable coins, including Liberty Head quarters, Morgan dollars, and other coins dating back to the early 1800s.
Initially, Garren denied any involvement, claiming that the police didn't have any evidence against him. But then he started spending the coins at face value, apparently unaware of the coins' worth. He and his girlfriend paid for movie tickets using quarters worth between $5 and $68. Later on the same day, they bought some local pizza with rare coins, including a Liberty quarter that may be worth up to $18,500. The news article reported, "Garren has been charged with first-degree theft and is being held in jail on $40,000 bond. Which, technically, is an amount he could easily afford if the valuable coin collection were actually his."

Eric Pfeiffer, "Man allegedly steals $100 coin collection, then spends at face value on pizza and a movie,' Yahoo! News (21 September 2012)

Anger

I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power that can move the world

- Mahatma Gandhi

Problems?

There is only one group of people who don't have problems and they're all dead. Problems are a sign of life. So the more problems you have, the more alive you are

- Norman Vincent Peale

Good Communication

You cannot speak that which you do not know. You cannot share that which you do not feel. You cannot translate that which you do not have. And you cannot give that which you do not possess. To give it and to share it, and for it to be effective, you first need to have it. Good communication starts with good preparation

- Jim Rohn

Success

Inspiration and passion usually go together. If you are going to try to persuade others to go with you, it certainly doesn't hurt that you've got very strong convictions about where you are going. Like Columbus did, for instance, to discover the New World. And, if you've got passion and conviction, you're more likely to be inspiring. If you're inspired yourself and you're passionate about something, you're more likely to succeed at it, and you're more likely to get others to come with you

- Ted Turner

Planning

I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change

- Jim Rohn

Joy

Joy has nothing to do with material things, or with a man's outward circumstance...A man living in the lap of luxury can be wretched, and a man in the depths of poverty can overflow with joy

- William Barclay

Wars

All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born

- Francois Fenelon

A Marathon... or a Sprint?

Life is often compared to a marathon, but I think it is more like being a sprinter; long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best.

- Michael Johnson

It's about to...

There are those of us who are always about to live. We are waiting until things change, until there is more time, until we are less tired, until we get a promotion, until we settle down - until, until, until. It always seems as if there is some major event that must occur in our lives before we begin living

- George Sheehan

Re-kindled

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light

- Albert Schweitzer

Life

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Into his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

- Emily Dickinson, from "The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson" (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company)