Attitude

Friday, eight thirty in the morning. 2 mile run for my diagnostic physical fitness test with the OU Army ROTC. My normal time is 12:20. My time that morning? 14:25. 13 minutes is the max. As you might figure out, I was very displeased and dissatisfied. Running post-dawn is one of my least favorite activities. Heat and humidity are not my friends.

It was at this that I remembered a lesson I learned several months ago while reading the book "How to Win and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. (Which on a side note I highly recommend for every individual, it is an indispensable read.) What is this lesson you might ask? It is simply the idea that,

Attitude creates action, but when attitude is inadequate, forced action will create attitude.

Simply put, my attitude was that running in humidity and heat is a pain. As a result, my action suffered. So I forced the action by running a mile every hour on the hour from nine in the morning till 2 in the afternoon. I have been enjoying the weather more and am finding running in the heat is easier now.

This idea of attitude is applicable in many circumstances. For instance, if an individual is having a difficulty with complaining or depression, turn on some worship music and just begin thanking God and praising Him for all that He has done. Continue until your attitude reflects your actions.

On a side note, when was the last time we as individuals have thanked our Heavenly Father or even our parents for what they've done for us? Just last year I recall thanking my dad for my bike. I use it on a continual basis and it has brought me great joy. It was given to me over 8 years ago...

Stop

Look around right now at everything you have, your family, friends, possessions, capabilities, do you still appreciate them? As cliche as it may be, your situation could always be worse, look around to our surrounding nations, look at Haiti, look at the slums in India, look at the persecution in China, we have it made. Let's show some appreciation for anything and everything shall we?

Renewal

So, after a hiatus of a couple of years I have decided to revive the 'ol blog. It's been quite some time with many new lessons learned and situations dealt with but I believe I've come out ahead.

Mostly likely I will use this forum as a means to convey what's currently occurring in my live as well as what I might be learning or have figured out. I would like to encourage feedback as well as meaningful discussion. As I've looked back at past posts from high school I've found many comments and posts to be mainly mindless chatter and quips of silliness.

So to begin this renewal as something fresh here is something that I was musing over earlier.

I was thinking discussing some ideas with a close mentor of mine and found myself in a conversation which requested prayer. As the day continued the topic of discussion persisted in my mind and I started praying. But as I began praying I wasn't broaching the topic that required prayer, instead I was just generally praying. Now please don't misunderstand, I do believe that prayer should not jump directly to what we want but should always begin with humbling ourselves before the Lord and thanking and praising Him for all that He's done. A grateful heart no matter the circumstance always sets the tone well. However, I found myself with a mindset that I needed to spend several days praying and speaking with God before I even brought the topic of discussion up. In my mind I had somehow justified the idea of performance. The notion that I had to "get closer" before He would answer a prayer of greater "depth". Aka, I had to spend X amount of time and umpty ump amount of non-topic specific prayer before I could approach the idea. As soon as I recognized this I laughed at the concept that my prayer was supposedly merit based.

So in this light I would encourage all of you to not tarry in whatever thing you need answered as God is always and immediately ready to listen and respond to you. You are, after all, a beloved child of His which He sacrificed his own son for. If that doesn't reflect the gravity of His feeling towards you then you may want to spend some time pondering on the idea.