Sunday, December 25, 2016
Monday, December 19, 2016
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Saturday, December 10, 2016
Testing your own boundaries and facing fear of failure as a test
Screwing Up
On Purpose- Testing Boundaries
Everyone is afraid of failure and equally so, everybody is afraid of
being embarrassed. Sometimes, without doing it on purpose, we set ourselves up
for such assumptions of failure and embarrassment through poor planning or the
lack of testing boundaries. What this translates to is that we all make or set
a standard or level of assumptions. Most will agree that assumptions are risky
and dictate our future as well as our own actions.
We may sabotage ourselves before we ever take the first step towards
success. For many, that is just too high of a risk to take and makes them
believe they aren’t good enough to try it so they don’t. It is that simple. They
don’t even try it. Thus, when faced with a difficult challenge or task, we must
test these boundaries set up to help us become better and learn from our
mistakes.
The late Robert Gunther in the Harvard
Business Review in 2006 said that: True deliberate mistakes are expected, on
the basis of current assumptions, to fail and not be worth the cost of the
experiment…. But if such a mistake unexpectedly succeeds… [it] creates
opportunities for profitable learning. In other words: if we fail, we learn
something. If we succeed, our long-shot risk actually paid off. By reframing
tough tasks as “deliberate mistakes” we can help remove all of the pressure
that can keep us frozen, all while learning something along the way.
Most deliberate mistakes, as expected,
don’t work out. your instinct, therefore, should be to avoid them or to minimize
the impact of such approach. On the other hand, you may be missing a great
opportunity and miss out on what you may learn from such actions. When
fundamental assumptions are wrong, people can achieve success more quickly by
deliberately making errors than by considering only data that support the
assumptions. It’s a hands-on approach that can be controlled to a large degree
and because it was an intentional mistake, the investment was low and less
costly as well as risky.
The downside of failure wasn’t that bad. Even if you took
into consideration all the dynamics involved in the failure, would have banked
crucial knowledge of what caused it or what the gaps were. Here are some hints
to make safer mistakes.
Scrutinize your assumptions
– Our innermost assumptions are the fuel for deliberate mistakes. What
are the rules you follow without thinking? Do you avoid public speaking
opportunities or leadership roles? Pick one out and think about something you
could do to put it to the test – in which the downside is low and what you will
learn is potentially very valuable. For example, if you tend to avoid
public speaking, you could volunteer to do a talk on a favorite subject at your
local library or coffee shop, and invite a friendly audience, as opposed to
trying a TED talk. This is a process we commonly call ‘breaking the ice’ and it
works well.
Be prepared to fail — Don’t
put too much stake in the outcome. You probably won’t succeed. But as long as
the cost is low and you are prepared, it won’t hurt a bit.
Do your best – This is the hard part. When you
don’t expect to succeed at something, your self-protective instincts can affect
your effort. If you don’t do your best, you effectively guarantee that you
won’t succeed – and you give yourself a flawed data set to measure against.
But, more importantly, you reduce the lessons you learn even if you fail. So,
you must, must, must do your very best to succeed.
Compare reality to assumptions
– If you fail, if the mistake proceeds as expected, you will have a list of
lessons that you gained from the experience. Which of your assumptions were
correct, and which didn’t hold up? What surprised you? Use this list to
plan your next development steps, so that the next time you venture into this
experience, you will have a much better chance to succeed.
Deliberate mistakes are an underutilized tool in our
personal growth. They are not natural and don’t arise by default. But, if
approached the right way, they can propel us forward and provide us crucial
information to guide our future development. To paraphrase Henry Ford, if you
believe you can’t do something, you’re always right.
Saturday, December 3, 2016
We all Suffer - the Power of Forgiveness
There are people, good and upstanding ‘help-your-neighbor-kind-of-people’
who go to church where the pastor thinks homosexual behavior is a sin and
accept that as a fact but don’t go out of their way to repeat what was said. They
are not ignoring that fact, they just chose not to negatively act on that fact.
Instead, they sought the positivity in such situations and brought with them
peace, compassion and kindness showing everyone the kind of love Jesus showed
when he walked amongst us.
As a writer, I respect those views and accept the fact that
homosexuality is a sin. However, no sin is worse than the other and we all sin.
Who are we to choose which sin is worse than the other?
Hence, we acknowledge two things: God is love and love is God.
How or who we love comes from our heart and soul. That is another fact. We are
not living in a perfect world and the way we choose to live our livestyle is
based on our ability to make choices. God gave us the free will to make
choices.
As a writer, I have no idea what your personal views are about
the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender communities. As a Christian, I know
the power of forgiveness and love – that is something we don’t exercise often
enough and we need to do more of it so we know that God is listening to us and
shows His presence inside our hearts.
Whether the topic is same-sex marriage or just about the
general issues related to the LGBT relationships, I cannot speak for anyone but
myself but feel compelled to write about those relationships that I have
personally seen and witness with family and close friends exercising their
free-will and choosing partners or spouses of the same sex.
I do not condemn them, I have no reason to resent or be
offended by them as their choices appear to be based on their own love and
needs in life. These people, young and old, do not frustrate me or make me
angry – they have done nothing to me to fear them or be against them like some
act with their hate-crimes.
I have personally seen
how happy they are and give them the benefit of the doubt and reserve my own
judgment on their choices. I think God would want me to do that. We sometimes
underestimate the power of love and who are we to choose what is wrong or right
for someone else? More importantly, what about the power of forgiveness?
This kind of talk should not be on the news but it is. Perhaps
it is mainstream media’s way to indict people for choices not in line with
their own morality or lifestyles.
However, I take this as another step that shows how much the
media is out of touch with current events related to relationships. In other
words, I believe the media is trying to wrongfully influence us or persuade us
to twist our thoughts towards their opinions and standards. We all know how
reliable the news is on the power of persuasion.
I don’t think that LGBT bashing is called for and that leads
me to write about the suffering caused by such harassment or bullying by those
who don’t take the time to learn more about the LGBT communities and their
lifestyle as well as contributions to society.
As a person, I have found love in every person who has ties to
the LGBT lifestyle. I have witnessed same-sex marriages making two people happy
and relationships that show that two people of the same gender can live in
harmony and love each other just like the rest of us. There is no differential
there – they are all people who love each other.
If you’re a conservative in America, you’re pretty used to
knowing that your favorite celebrities will regularly disagree with you on
everything from abortion to LGBT matters to climate change and that is okay as
long as you are not persuaded to follow their ideology without freely doing so
by investing the time to learn more about the matter.
Everybody gets offended over everything today – it is time to
let go of their beliefs and focus on our own. Per independent research studies
by the Pew
Research Center, as of 2016, 37 percent of adults in this country still
oppose same-sex marriage, while 55 percent approve. That means over a third of
Americans are still against same-sex marriage.
Meanwhile, among Christians, 54 percent thought that
homosexuality should be accepted in society, per a 2014 Pew study—which means
that up to 46 percent thought it shouldn’t be. Among Protestants, 44 percent
believe that homosexuality should be discouraged in society.
A Gallup pointed out in 2015, fewer than 4 percent of
Americans identify as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender). In
contrast, Americans tend to think a whopping 23 percent of the population is
LGBT.
That’s not shocking, given how much media and entertainment go
out of their way to highlight such couples. Ultimately, same-sex marriage is legal,
until everyone in America agrees that same-sex marriage is OK—or at least is
afraid to say otherwise.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Monday, November 21, 2016
My Vanishing Point
My Vanishing Point
Today, God’s covenants were never broken. He kept his part of
the promise to give me life to the fullest if I accepted Him and His Son, Jesus
Christ into my life. Two covenants made decades ago when I starred the fate of death right into the face
of darkness as evil surrounded me and no exit to the light was shown except the
path of accepting God as my Lord and Savior.
At that moment, I saw a vision of God or His Angels. Out of
the deep of death, came life and hope. The star above guided me to the ways of
going to heaven. Thinking of my parents,
who passed away beyond the human vanishing points in life, I began to realize
the reality they are still alive but in another form of life as promised by our
Father, our God, and Lord.
At a split moment, the thoughts of death vanished into the air
as my heart was filled with of living and bringing my soul back to where it
could be in tune with my mind as the
stare of death was flushed from my eyes and the touch of the light warmed my
flesh.
Trying to wrap my head around the concept of the hell and
horrors of war around me, I grabbed onto the fact that God is love and love is God. This by itself brought to me the love
for life and the passion for living longer with his spiritual guidance by my
side.
No longer was this a futile endeavor to survive the horror
around me and as I promised my eternal word to serve the Lord, the concept of
eternity began to shape inside my head. Suddenly, the thoughts of death vanished
as the fruits of hope gathered strength to bring the past to an end and start a
new beginning.
Thus in my own experience, I went from a vanishing point to
another vanishing point in a flash of a second when God and His Angels saved me
from certain death. Without dwelling into my Vietnam War experiences, I can
honestly say I saw visions of death and of life – both very excruciating to watch.
Reflecting those moments almost constantly throughout my life,
I know that God is always by my side and never once left me alone. Put into
words that make more sense, the moment I made my promise to God, I knew that my
life would be everlasting taking me from the vanishing point of the past to the
vanishing point of the future.
Of course, the vanishing points refer to manmade vanishing
points, not God’s. We know that God’s time and space are eternal and our time is limited on Earth unlike it is in
Heaven. This made me think that God was eternal. It made me realize that God
had eternity in His heart.
I knew as long as I kept my promise to serve Him, my pledge
and His covenant to bring me eternal life would remain intact and bring me the ultimate
blessings sought for in my life.
There were no thoughts of my cheated continuous existence here on Earth before vanishing beforehand in my
time and space as I was being faithful
to Him and that my mortality lasted only as long as I lived but that it would
be revitalized with eternally lasting existence after my time on Earth is done.
Without having a panicking moment, I knew that God lasted well
beyond the end of my life and that my eternal life depended upon a God who is from
everlasting to everlasting just like the good book teaches us it to be. This is
where my vanishing point comes into play – thinking about eternity today.
If the vanishing point in life is manmade then there is no
vanishing point for God then all evidence points to the fact that He is eternal.
His time and space are defined by infinity and if you multiply infinity by
infinity you still get infinity. For a person, infinity is the largest number
there is except for infinity plus one.
Thinking about eternity is a lot to deal with. For my whole
life, I was made a creature of time and space. I only thought of time and space
as the environment and the surrounding elements dictated to me. There was no
wiggle room as science had mandated we live in time zones and by the clock. In other
words, I can only think in terms of time.
Trying to grasp that God is up above and beyond time while at
the same time in the middle of time is hard to imagine or accept. If I didn’t
have the faith I have in God, I just
can’t do it! But then, I don’t really need to understand what this is all
about as I let my faith carry me through the difficult moments and logical thinking.
All I need to know is that my time and my times and my
eternity is linked up to the God who is eternal. This translated that all of
the time from Genesis 1:1 to the last page
of Revelations is what the world is all about and then gone as human time vanishes
but God’s time is everlasting. Eternal means Everlasting, forever, unto
perpetuity, the world without end.
I am eternal because my immortality is linked to the eternal
of Jesus Christ. Because He is eternal, I too am eternal in Him.Thus
my vanishing point only exists in my home, and my future as I exist in the mortal
world of time and space. With His covenant of eternal life, I can rest in the assurance that my eternalness has no end no matter
how I may feel as a human when my time to die comes. I have my home in Him. My
future is safe with Him. I can rest in the assurance that my
eternalness never has an end because
God’s eternalness never has an end.
So as I found God in my youth days, the vanishing point of my
life has been a little concern for me as I
knew as long as I kept my promise to Him, He would keep His promise to me – that being that I will live
eternally and dwell in His home. Needless to say, this gave me quite a bit of confidence
in my mortality and gave me the energy and spirit to take chances in life. I remember
the pleasure I received from knowing my Creator is watching over me and that
all is set for me to pass on without any obstacles and freedoms to join those
who passed away before me.
Now, the years draw near and the vanishing point of time and
space are closing in on me. Causing me some anxiety to the degree of not
wanting to burden my loved one with all the care and arrangements needed to take
care of me when I die, I can find comfort in the fact that it will all be done
right and that the eternal flame of life is waiting for me.
Rightfully so, I spend more time watching the moon, the stars, and the universe
up above me. I rightfully feel that I will
be up there soon and as I draw nearer to that vanishing point moment, I do not
tremble with fear. I know that soon, the light of the sun will darken, the stars
will shine brightly and the silence will come with joyous sounds of heaven. This
is my eternal journey that I am waiting for – this is beyond any vanishing
point man can make in time or space.
But I am also certain that this will not come before God’s
plan for me is finished. I know that every step of His plan is dynamic and
moving into the right direction. Therefore I know the sun will not darken
before the time of eternity is here. Even after the clouds darken and the rain
and thunder come near, I know that until
the right time comes, I will not vanish from here or anywhere else until it is
time to go.
As I walk down the streets of life, I see strong men bow to others
with humility and honor. I see them show compassion and love to those less
fortunate than them and offer them the warmth of their spirits of hope. I pray
that their homes are not made of doors and windows that shut closed forever. That
their hearts remain open and their fears remain small as the birds come up to
them closely and eat the bread crumbs right out of their hands trusting them with their lives and well-being.
As the final days of my
promised blissful human life passes slowly, a stare of death brings the
realization of a vanishing loneliness as harsh as the
coldest most bitter winter is it flushes my eyes with the tears of aging beyond
the light of the most solitary star in the universe. To feel alone in a sea
filled with other creatures is depressing and gloomy as my spirits had sunk as
low as the bottom of the sea. Lying there, below the third layer of my wrinkled
skin is the bountiful hope of eternal bliss awaiting the end. Although it would
be a lie to say I fear no fear, it is true that the fear I have is not what
will happen to be but what I leave behind.
We all want to leave a legacy of love, hope and charity behind
for those who follow us into the promised land. We all pray of dreams coming
true and giving our loved ones the bliss they rightfully deserve and pray for. So
as I find my vanishing point coming nearer and nearer, I am preparing my soul for my life
that God has promised me. For the eternal life is coming and the blessings
received are well worth the waiting. Amen.
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