Don't Stay Down

Today let's talk a minute about life.  Frank Sinatra sang a song called, "The Good Life" and I think that life is very good most days.  But have you ever faced days when life wasn't so good?  I know I have.  Those aren't fun right.

Sometimes we face those days because we have created a bad situation on our own.  Maybe we forgot to turn in our homework and got a 0 or maybe someone drove a car while they were drunk and got arrested.  There is a large spectrum of things that can happen along these lines.  But sometimes bad things happen that we didn't create.

Maybe you caught your boyfriend or girlfriend cheating on you.  You didn't cause it but that doesn't change how bad it hurts right.  I know that there are times in my life when it feels like things are going great and then something happens and life just knocks you down.  That's never a fun place.  I know that when I have been in the most difficult parts of my life, it would have been easy just stop right there.  After all, somethings just knock the wind out of your sails.

Well, there is a country singer and I don't remember the name of the song but he says, "If you're going through hell, keep on going."  See the only person that can truly ruin your life is you!  You might agree with me.  Maybe you think that a drug problem or a failed marriage is what ruined your life.  Now don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying that any of these things are good for you but they aren't what ruins your life.  Your life is only permanently harmed when you quit living it.  When you decide to stay down, then life gets hard.  So what should you do when you get knocked down?  The answer is surprisingly simple.  Get up!!!

Pretty sophisticated answer huh.  "But I'm hurt.  You don't know what I've been through, " you say.  That's absolutely true.  I don't.  But God does.  I am not all that old yet but I hear people tell me stories about their lives.  Some of them say things like, "I could have been a this or that but some even in my life stopped me from achieving my dream."  They got knocked down and didn't get back up.

Some of you may know that I am a lawyer (or barrister in some parts of the world).  Guess what - I'm not a very good one.  Why?  Because I don't practice law.  But I'm a lawyer anyway.  Do you know how I made it through school and passed the bar.  I refused to quit.  When something knocked me down, I got back up.  I had people tell me that I couldn't do it.  My own family didn't have faith in me and that knocked me down but I refused to stay down.  I just got back up and went at it again.

I cannot tell you how many times I tried a diet and failed.  Normally when I failed at one, I would gain all the weight I lost back plus some.  So not only was the diet a failure but I was worse off after the diet that before.  But I kept coming.  Every time I got knocked down, I got up and tried again.  Eventually I lost 160 pounds and I have kept the vast majority of it off since.

So what am I really trying to say - DON'T QUIT.  Not now, not ever.  If something happens that knocks you down, get back up and try again.  Remember the old saying.  If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

Well, I have blogged myself happy again and that's another Opinion of the Minion.

Emotions

OK boys lets talk about something we don't typically have and something we think women have way too much - emotions.

Someone asked me to write about emotions.  Let me start with the way I feel.  Well, as I write this, I am in a strange mood.  I feel great.  I have dealt with a couple of very stressful situations lately and I still feel great.  Why, you ask?  Good question and I don't have a great answer.  I just feel good!

See that's the thing with emotions.  They just are.  Sometimes there are things that happen in our lives that trigger certain emotions.  Take last Sunday morning for example.  We are on our way to church when my daughter says to me, "Dad, I want to cut my hair short for two reasons.  First of all, it's almost summer and it gets hot in Texas.  Second, I want to give my hair to make wigs for kids who don't have any hair."  Well, something happened to me emotionally and I thought that the buttons were going to pop right off my shirt.  I felt very proud of her for her unselfish thought.  It was great.

There have been other times when I have felt emotionally down for no real reason.  Have you ever just had a case of the blues and you couldn't figure out why?  Now let me say that when it comes to emotions I really don't know much about them.  Until about a year ago, I tried to pretend that I didn't have them.  That is definitely not a good place!  I can tell you this.  The reason I shut down emotionally for a large part of my life was because I got hurt.  We all have places and people in our lives that cause us pain.  Unfortunately, that just comes with being a human.  The only real question is how are we going to handle that pain when it comes.  Now because pain is such a strong emotion I could write about it for a while but I am going to stop here.

Let's talk about positive emotions.  Have you ever been in love before?  If you have, you know it feels great.  Have you ever succeeded at doing something you really tried hard at?  That sense of accomplishment feels really good and it should.  I think we will do ourselves a lot of good if we spend more time focusing on the good emotions than the bad ones.  Unfortunately, I think many times we do just the opposite.  This isn't helpful to anyone especially you/me!

Now while I don't know much about emotions, there are a couple of things that I have learned about them.  First of all, they can change very quickly.  Some people get very emotional and react to every little thing.  One day they are so happy nothing in their world can be wrong but two minutes later, someone says something they don't like and the whole world is going down the drain.  Have you ever been around someone like that?  They can really wear you out.  So what am I saying, try to stay emotionally balanced. You should feel all the emotions but try not to let them throw you too far out good or bad.

Second, if you are someone who is lead by your emotions all the time, you are in deep trouble.  Now for those of you who have known me for a long time, many of you would say that I was a pretty unemotional guy.  Many people might say that I made every decision based on analysis and not much emotion.  That would probably be true and that extreme is not a good way to live.  But the other extreme is equally as dangerous.  If you run around with your emotional heart on your sleeve, it won't take long for someone to bump into you and hurt you.  When that happens you can make emotional decisions that are not sound ones.  For example, if you are married and your spouse says something that hurts your feelings you might be triggered to say something very ugly and hurtful back because of the emotions you felt.  If this pattern continues, it can cost you a marriage.  I can think of many other places where this is true as well but for the sake of time, I think I am going to wrap it up right here.

I guess that's about all I have on this topic for now.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Friendship

OK today I want to talk about friends and I don't mean the TV show.  If you don't have them, you should really try and make some.  I know an amazing woman named D.  She has lots of great friends and I have truly enjoyed meeting them.  I have met some that were very old friends and some that were relatively recent.  A friend of my dad once asked me if I had any old golf balls.  "No," I replied.  "Well then I bet you are not a very good golfer," he said.

Let me ask this question.  If you are an adult, do you have any old friends?  If not, ask yourself this question, "Am I a good friend?"  You might be surprised at the answer.  See my dad's friend was telling me that if I did not play golf for a long period of time and keep the same golf balls around then I was hitting them very badly and losing many of them.  I think it's the same way with our friends.  If we don't have any old ones, we must be treating them badly and losing them.

So I think old friends are important.  I recently had the opportunity to go visit with a friend of mine named A.  A and I became friends in 7th grade.  That was thirty years ago and we are still friends to this day.  When we went to visit him, I went with another friend of mine named, B.  B and I met in 7th grade as well.  It was fun retelling the stories of our childhood growing up in Saginaw, Texas.  I can say these people know stuff about me that I hope doesn't find it's way to the internet!

But what about making new friends?  As I said, D has a lot of friends.  One of them is a great lady named K.  I have only been around K a few times but I really respect her.  She's a great mom and a good friend.  She and D met within the last few years and have been fast friends since.  So let me turn the tables a little on our earlier discussion.  When was the last time you made a new friend?  If it has been several years, maybe it's time to think about making a new one.

How do we do that you ask?  The answer is much simpler than you think.  We make new friends by being friendly.  That's really pretty simple stuff right.  Well for me, I am a little bit of an introvert so showing myself friendly can definitely be work.  Now when I write this blog, I share a lot of personal stuff so you might think I am an open book and in many respects that is true.  But sometimes it can be hard for me to reach out to people and make friends when I don't know them. 

So let me close with this.  Friendships are so very important.  Our true friends are always there for us and it is great because unlike family we get to chose our friends.  I will try to post something about chosing your friends wisely but for now, let me just close by asking you this.  If you did a personal inventory of all your friends, how many would you have?  Is that enough?  Only you can answer that.

And that's another Opinion of the Minion.

Rig for Silent Running

Hello everyone,

It has been almost a month since I posted anything and I think it is time for me to start again.  Today I want to talk to you about a conversation I had with my cousin several months ago and the impact it had on my life recently.  My cousin was going through a time in her life that had her searching for answers.  We were talking and she kept telling me that she was trying very much to hear from God.  She said she felt like she needed to do what they do on submarines but couldn't remember exactly what it's called.  I told her I thought it was called rigging for silent running.

Now I am certainly no expert on submarines but here is what I have been told about this subject.  When a submarine thinks it's going into battle, it's biggest strength is the element of surprise.  For a submarine to keep the element of surprise, it has to be totally quite when it heads into battle.  So the captain tells the crew to rig for silent running which means to stop making noise.  The submarine has to be totally quiet.  The sound of one clanking pot can resonate through the water and give away the location of the submarine.  That could get them killed.

The reason that this concept resonated so strongly in my life was because I was faced with a situation and I didn't know what to do or who's word to trust.  Now let me say that just like the old gospel song says, "this battlefield was of my own making."  Meaning I was seeing a problem that didn't really exist but I sure thought it did.  I was looking at circumstances and making judgments unfairly.  Ultimately I decided to block out all of the noises that were influencing my mind.  I purposed to rig my heart for silent running.  I didn't talk about the problem to anyone because I determined to hear from God about the situation and not let other people influence what I was hearing from him.

Now don't get me wrong, I think it is very good to get other people's input into certain decisions you make.  The bible says that there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors and I believe in getting good sound counsel when making decisions.  But this particular time, I purposed to hear what the Lord would have me do.  Do you know what he said, "Stop and wait."  It wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear but it was exactly what I needed to hear.

So let me ask you, what voices are you listening to that you should not?  Maybe one of the voices you need to tune out is your own.  I know it was that way for me.  Whatever they are, let me encourage you to examine the voices you are listening to.  If they are full of fear then they are not from God.  Tune those out and listen to what the Lord has to say to you.  You will be glad you did.

That's another Opinion of the Minion