You are complete in Christ. So stop trying to please others. Stop doing things to get attention. To make yourself look good and feel good. Gratuitous self adulation. You don’t need that. That’s ego….edging God out. Stay focused on who God is and how he sees you. Why he made you the way your are. Ask Him what He wants to do with your life. That’s the big picture. Stay with it. Don’t let you life become consumed by trivial thoughts and desires. In fact every time a thought comes to mind, catagorize it. Its either trivial or meaningful. Dont blindly accept what comes into your head. Question it. If it is not of God, discard it. You know better.
Getting Married? Get Real!
Posted in Marriage with tags Children, InLaws, Marriage, Money, Sex on May 21, 2009 by 2nd Hand AdviceMy wife and I have been happily married 29 years and the advice my parents gave us before marriage rings loud and true to this day. It may not work for everybody, but it sure worked for us.
My parents gave me these 5 gems of wisdom, and admonished me to get aligned with my fiancé on them BEFORE marriage:
- Religion – two religious faiths or practices that contradict each other cannot co-exist over the long run, especially if one or the other partner holds deep convictions.
- Money – the issues are making money and spending money. Get comfortable enough with each other that it doesn’t matter who is the breadwinner. Yes guys, can you accept that your wife is the breadwinner or makes more money than you? Spending….if you’re not comfortable with your partner’s spending habits, your marriage will suffer.
- Sex – lots of angles to this topic, but the essence was… never use sex as a weapon. Never withhold sexual pleasure from your partner as a means to manipulate or achievment of some selfish end. – Checkout the bible on this one: 1 Corinth 7:5. I interpret that passage to mean withholding sexual gratification from your spouse opens the marriage to the temptation to pursue that gratification somewhere else.
- Children. How many, when, discipline philosophy etc. Plan now and keep your covenant regarding children. This one seems kind of obvious, but when young couples find themselves dealing with a pregnancy, it always seems to be a surprise.
- In Laws – get as far away as possble from all in laws early in the marriage. My wife and I actually moved away from all relatives…from New York to California right after we married. We needed to make it as difficult as possible for our families to come between us. Also it challenged us to work through our problems together and alone. AND (get this one guys) made it tough for her to leave the house and run home to mom when things got rough.
- Bonus Commentary – a young couple needs to grow together, to experience the ups and downs, and work it out. We have an Overcomers Ministry in our church, dealing with drug addiction and substance abuse. We find that one of the biggest obstacles an addicted person faces is the misplaced intrusion of family members in the healing process. The wrong kind of love actually enables the addiction.Same in marriage. The natural thing for a mother (or father) to do is provide an outlet for a child to escape challenges and difficult circumstances. One of those misplaced acts of love is for a mother to encourage a daughter to come home if its not working out. If the situation is not life threatening, that’s the wrong advice in my opinion. I can tell you first hand, moving 3000 miles from everyone, with God’s hand on our marriage, immeasurably strengthened our bond because we forced ourselves to work it out. And because we did, there’s nothing, no problem, no situation we can’t handle today.
Mind Your Business
Posted in Fullfilment, Life Management, Uncategorized with tags Focus, Goals, Life, Worry on May 20, 2009 by 2nd Hand AdviceAre you plagued with thoughts that nobody likes you, people don’t give you your props, you don’t get the respect you think you deserve?
The late great psychiatrist, Dr. David Viscot, inventor of short term thearapy, once said if your consumed by what others think about you, you don’t have much going for yourself or much going on in life.
Some of us spend way too much time thinking about what others think about us. Am I making the right impression? Do they like me? Why do they do things to intentionally annoy me?
Well, the right question to ask is, who cares? The truth is most people are really only worried about what’s going on in their own lives. Every single person has their own cross to bear. We all have enough to deal with, to face our own problems, burdens, worries, concerns and issues.
Nobody has the time to worry about you too! Besides, really, you’re not so important that you command that kind of attention and focus from others. Get off you high horse!
Live your life. Get a focus on things you need to accomplish to stay on the upswing. Mind you own business. Set some goals, and take action to move those goals forward. Don’t worry about what others think or say about you. When you focus on you, and do the things you need to do, it won’t matter what others think about you. That’s minding YOUR business.
My Bottomline About Health
Posted in Health with tags Diet, Exercise, Health, Rest, Sleep, Stress on May 19, 2009 by 2nd Hand AdviceSome of my thoughts on health, summarized into 8 points, in no particular order. These are the essential things I’ve learned in my life from personal experience, observation and study.
None of this is rocket science. Some things just bear repeating. Just things we should pay attention to.
- Diet – you are what you eat. If you consume bad stuff, your body becomes a human trash can. High fat, low fiber, high carb diets are bad, period.
- Exercise – low exercise and sedentary lifestyles accelerate all the other maladies.
- Sleep/Rest – a time of healing. When the body gets no rest, it’s like running a motor at high RPMs for a long time. Eventually, it shuts down.
- Checkups – most things are designed to run a long time. Even our bodies. However, an illness or hidden medical condition sitting in the body for a long time without detection and corrective action, has a rotting effect.We all know what its like to leave food in the frig and bread in the bread box. Eventually, it molds and rots. That’s what happens when you fail to get checkups. Go to the doctor. The single most important thing is to get blood work. The blood reveals just about anything and everything that’s wrong with you.
- Stress Management – high stress is difficult to detect. Most people don’t know when their bodies are under high stress and mistake a condition of high stress as normal. I am so curious about our seniors who have lived long lives and what they do to stay around so long. Most I’ve heard speak on longevity say they have little or no stress in their lives.
- Awareness – low awareness means ignorance to your condition, or worse, denial about it. Lack of awareness is as dangerous as any of the other risk factors. Most people operate with the “lights” half on, at half strength. They don’t realize life could be enjoyed with the “lights” all the way up at full strength. Low awareness is like trying to find a pin you dropped in a room with the lights way down.
- Commitment – low commitment means you accept a condition of weakness and vulnerability. With no commitment, you keep digging a whole and it gets deeper and deeper. You practice bad habits and not only become very good at it, but you accelerate the already negative downward spiral in your health.You’re in an extreme danger zone if you don’t want to be healed or are neither motivated nor committed to understanding your risk factors and taking remedial steps.
- Action – it’s now obvious if you practice bad, risky habits and have low awareness and commitment to positive change, you will take no action. If you know these things, yet take no action, why bother. Get up right now and take action.
A Few Ways To Bring Order To Your Life
Posted in Life Management with tags Accomplishments, Anger, Comfort Zone, Guilt, Lessons on May 19, 2009 by 2nd Hand Advice1. Take Inventory – do a list and reflect on it regularly, especially your accomplishments and lessons learned. Be specific to you. Update as often as you learn something new about yourself.
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- Things you like
- Things you don’t like
- Accomplishments
- Lessons learned
2. Do a Daily Journal – take 15 minutes at the end of each day and think about what happened. Recount your morning, afternoon, people you interacted with, things you did.
- Write down three things you learned today
- Write down one or more significant things that happened to you today
- Write down how your handled something successfully
- If you got angry, write down what at and why
- If you felt really good about something, write down what and why
3. Step outside of yourself and outside your comfort zone, and do or say something nice to/for someone else. God designed us to be happy when we give or do something for someone. We all want to be recognized, loved and we should give it to others. The smallest gesture or word, can be the biggest boost for someone.
- Say something nice or encouraging to:
– someone you don’t know
– someone you don’t come in contact with regularly
– someone you don’t normally interact with at work or at school
– Example: at work, someone who would least expect you to speak to them, cashier at a supermarket checkout stand, at the gas station if you see a nice looking car, compliment the owner. If someone (like a cashier or waitress) has on a name tag, call them by their first name. Compliment when there’s good service. - Examples
– That’s a great looking shirt…where did you did you get that
– You look happy today, how can I get some of that (say if its natural)
– Your doing a great job or keep up the good work. I know management doesn’t tell you, but I thought I should
4. Do something for yourselfand by yourself once a week. Incr. frequency overtime.
- Do something you enjoy
- Spend time with yourself
- If you like cars, pick out some cars and go to the car dealership and sit in one
- If you like gadgets, go spend half a day in Frys looking at the latest stuff. Find events and trade shows that may be coming to the area that focus on your area of interest.
5. Always look at the glass as being half full, instead of half empty. Stay positive and try to find the bright side of every situation. Even a bad situation can have a bright side and can result in something good. Sometimes the best advice is the criticism that hurts the most. Everyday you get up, you can spend your time on the negative, or on the positive. Every moment your thinking something negative or are angry, is a moment you could be thinking something positive and learning from a situation.
6. Get rid of guilt and anger. These emotions cause mental confusion, tie up your consciousness, occupy and waste your time. Say your sorry if you did or said something wrong or hurtful, whether to a friend or stranger.
Admit when you make a mistake. Don’t be afraid to say: “my bad”, “my mistake”, “that was my fault”. Learn from the incident. The learning makes you the better and stronger than if it’d never happened. If you carry the mistake, you’ll probably do it again, then begin to justify in your mind why your right, when your heart is telling you your wrong. You’ll feel both angry and guilty you didn’t do the right thing when you know you should have. Also, remember mistakes cause confusion and dysfunction, even if for a moment. So your mistakes actually can have a negative impact on people and that can create guilt if you don’t admit the mistake and/or apologize.
Don’t carry things people did to you. A lot of anger can be conjured up from things people do to us. If someone did or said something that was uncalled for, ignore them. Don’t let it in. Don’t be drawn into their confused, unhappy, angry world.
When you run into a negative person, someone you don’t know, don’t engage them. Again ignore them or say something positive. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t defend yourself in certain situations and stand up for what you believe. The idea is, your time and energy are valuable and you decide how your going to use them……on frivolous emotions, people and things……. or on the things you really care about.
2nd Hand Advice 