Getting things done

The key to getting things done is to consistently get things done. It is about building a new habit and making it so much a part of you that you don’t have to think about how you’re going to get it done and what you’re going to do to psych yourself up for it; you just sit down and complete it.

Motivation is important, but I’d contend that it’s not a big part of how much you complete. It can certainly affect you on an off day, but if your problem is repeated, regular procrastination, your problem isn’t motivation. It’s bad habits...

...Discipline, which is at the core of building new habits until the associated actions don’t require discipline in order to be executed, is like a muscle.

Joel Falconer (Lifehack, October 27th 2008)

Praying violins

James Boice said learning to pray is a little like learning to play the violin with the virtuosos. No instrument sounds worse in the beginning stages of learning; it's all screech and scratch. But if the student is determined to play well, he checks the program guide for the classical music station and notes when the violin concertos will be aired. He buys the score for each concerto and does his best to play along. At first he sounds terrible. As time passes, however, he begins little by little to sound more and more like the virtuosos. But all along, as he groans on his instrument, the orchestra plays the music beautifully—his poor performance is caught up and completed in the music of the masters.

Ben Patterson (on praying through the psalms), CT Direct, 24th October 2008

If only! (simplicity)

Simplicity in life...is evidenced by the ability to live an uncluttered life with focus, creating margins in life by learning the principles of effectiveness, Learning to say no by having bigger yeses is the key to simplicity in life. Instead of doing a lot of things efficiently, it is important to do the right things for effectiveness.

Harry Reeder, From Embers to a Flame, p.86

Tripp: disappointment

...we find midlife hard because it is hard! We struggle with the plan because it is not our plan. We are disappointed because we age. We are dissatisfied because our dreams slipped out of our hands. We are discouraged that, in our sin, we failed many, many times. We are disappointed that good things come to an end and people move on. Midlife exposes how much we struggle with the fact that God completes his work of redemption in us by keeping us in the middle of all the harsh realities of the fall.

Lost in the Middle, p62.

The Happiness Paradox

"the more directly one aims to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, the more likely one is to produce a life bereft of depth, meaning, and community."

quoted Ortberg (see previous post)

...which sounds a lot like CS Lewis view of joy:

Only when your whole attention is fixed on something else...does the "thrill" arise...It's very existence presupposes that you desire not it but something other and outer.

Suprised by Joy, p.136

Knowing your following

In our day, I think, we are seeing more accurate ways of understanding the gospel. But we need clarion calls of directness to help people respond today.

When Jesus walked the earth, the call "Follow me" was easily understood. People would actually, physically, bodily, walk with Jesus. People knew if they were following.

When the church formed, the call to follow Jesus was easily understood. There was an alternative community that met daily, that radically transformed people's financial lives, social lives, time, learning, allegiances, and hope. People knew if they were following.

In our day, that experience has become so diluted and enculturated that people have a hard time knowing.

The availability of life, with God, in his favor and power, as a gift of grace we receive by repentance and trust, through the death and resurrection of Jesus—that's the gospel with power. What needs still to be done is to find ways to express this with great clarity and simplicity, ways to help ordinary people know for sure they have made the great decision, the great commitment of their lives.

John Ortberg, Leadership online, October 20th 2008

Herbert: The Size

Inspired a bit by Doug's current series of posts on poetry, and following on from yesterday's post on midlife...well, it seems to me that when the frailty of life is very present, then the strength comes from heaven. Herbert wants us to let the blessings from above pour into the here and now, when our present experience of life is insufficient for us:

Content thee, greedy heart.
Modest and moderate joys to those, that have
Title to more hereafter when they part,
                                 Are passing brave.
Let th’ upper springs into the low
Descend and fall, and thou dost flow.

A principle to live by

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Robert J Hanlon

Tripp: what we live for

Midlife exposes what a person has really been living for and where a person has tried to find meaning and purpose. It has the power to reveal the significant gap between a person's confessional theology and their functional theology. What we say we are living for on Sunday may not, in fact, be the thing that has taken daily rulership over our hearts. And when these things which rule us are taken out of our hands, we tend to become angry, fearful, bitter or discouraged. We will experience a loss of identity and a flagging of meaning and purpose.

p.51

(I find this a facinating insight: from a Christian perspective then, the range of emotions that might come to us in midlife can actually be caused by the limitations of aging compromising the things we were really living for. It's showing us what was really at the centre, instead of Christ (because aging does not effect our ability to have a fulfilling life with Him; but it does, for example, stop us from feeling physically invincible, when our knees start to give out! So, to some degree our hope was actually just a teeny weeny bit, in being physically strong, in being a bloke (if you are a bloke that is). So my knees are helping to tear down idols, which means I can be stronger in the inner man even though the outer man perishes! This certainly, for me, adds another layer of meaning to 2 COR.4:16ff. It's just that "I'm being saved by my knees!" doesn't sound as cool as I hoped).

Tripp: life living us

There is a way in which we don't live our life, but our life lives us. We just get carried along by its locations, relationships, situations, responsibilities, opportunities and activities without stopping very long to look, listen, and consider. Huge chunks of time can pass virtually unnoticed.

p.49

Tripp: exposure

The struggles of midlife expose the true health and character of the relationships to which God has called me...

...everything we do is somehow shaped by who we think we are and what we have been called to do...

...midlife crisis is a struggle of identity and responsibility, and it exposes weaknesses in these area that have existed for a long time but are aid bare during this passage of life...

p.37