Tag: God

Simple Midlife Simplicity

As Simple As Common Clover
As Simple As Common Clover

Do you often feel overwhelmed?  Me too.

And if you don’t, you’re either brilliant or clueless – I’m guessing anyway.

Human tendency is to complicate things. More is better.  Keeping up with what others have or do.  Newer.  Bigger.

Here’s how I alleviate, not eliminate, the stress of our daily burdens:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Simple. Wise. Powerful.

But there is a complexity we must break through in order to get to simplicity.

And it may take us a lifetime.

People Were Thankful

The Families we visited yesterday were very thankful for the Food donations that were delivered:

We visited an upscale home for the first time in ten years.  My son and I received warm and grateful greetings at every stop. One man even gave me a big hug.

I reminded our son (9) why we started this “three-times-a-year Food For Families tradition” ten years ago.

“If two boys are standing next to an adult, and one uses his manners and the other doesn’t which one do you think the adult will trust more?”

“If two adults say serving others is important, but one actually does and the other only hopes to one day, which one do you think God will say, well done?”

In telling our son why we do this, even though it may seem small, we are actually preparing ourselves to do more. By putting others first every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter morning, we are developing a habit similar to using manners.

We are cultivating good habits.  That’s all we can really ask of ourselves, isn’t it?

Inspiration Nightmare In Mid Life

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours”. — Henry David Thoreau

Pretty good, to a point. Sort of saying I’m not buying it completely.

It seems Thoreau’s message is a bit misleading. We all know that life isn’t fair, and therefore, expecting the life we imagine will happen, is doomed.

What I hear is, “Go after your dreams.  Expect and be prepared for awful things to happen. But don’t let that stop you from living an extraordinary life”.

If you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans. But don’t let that stop you.

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What Mid-Life Gift Has Providence?

“What gift has providence on man that is so dear to him as his children”. — Cicero

Mid-life Wow!  Providence.  Had to look it up.  It means –a manifestation of God’s foresightful care for his creatures.

God’s foresightful care.

At Mid-Life, we should be starting to harvest some of the mid-life fruit that was planted for us, before we were even born.

Whether you believe in this sort of thing or not, I hope you have a GREAT Monday.

It’s a funny coincidence, I always wanted to be a farmer.  Carpe diem!

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Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture. In ten days, one year will have passed since Randy left our earthly world for his next journey, perhaps a heavenly world.

We will probably start to see news media marking this anniversary. In advance of this, I’d like to share his original You Tube Last Lecture.

Randy Pausch’s story inspired me, and I’m an already inspired kind of guy. And not only me, but millions of others, to recapture some excitement, and commitment, to our childhood dreams.

What did it for me was his attitude towards awful news – “You have three to six months to live”.

Whether you are unfamiliar with his story, or know it well, I challenge you to view The Last Lecture this weekend.

We can all be thankful he gave such an inspiring Last Lecture, although I’m sorry he had to.

Living with regret must be a painful exit from this world.  Do something, now, while you still can.  Follow a childhood dream to completion.  Carpe diem, jeff noel 🙂

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