Thanksgiving

For most of this month leading up to Thanksgiving, I will try to write something that relates to me giving thanks.

I think this subject is very often overlooked and even though I have written on it before, let's take a look at thanksgiving from a little different angle.

Today I am thankful for - Resistance.

OK, you say, this topic already makes no sense.  Hold on, I will try to explain.  When I was in high school, I liked to lift weights.  In fact, I still work out quite a bit today but I am not near as strong as I was back then. 

Let's look a little closer at weight lifting for a minute.  One of the most important exercises for us in high school athletics was the bench press.  I had a pretty good bench press but was by no means the best.

For those of you who don't know the bench press works like this.  You lay flat on your back on a narrow bench (hence the bench press).  There are stands on either side of that bench that hold up a metal bar.  The ends of the bar were slightly larger than the middle it that's where you put the additional weight.  So while laying on your back, you extend your arms until both are gripping the bar and you move the weight off the stands.  Now the bar is above you.  You lower the bar until it touches your chest and then you push the bar until your arms are straight.  Back then I could max at about 300 pounds.  But as you can imagine, if I had dropped that weight on my chest it would have done substantial damage. 

Also, every time I did a repetition, it would break down my muscles slightly.  This doesn't make much sense right?  Well, you have to throw in one more element to see the benefit - time.  It would take some time but my muscles would heal and when they did, I would be stronger than before.  The total amount I could lift would actually increase.

Most of you can probably see where I am headed right.  Many times in life there are things we come up against that don't want to move or worse yet we come up against things that would do us substantial damage like the bench press bar would have done to me.  However, don't get so upset with the setbacks in life because many times they will help you grow stronger.  I am not saying that any of them are fun but sometimes we have to be torn down a little to grow beyond our current limitations.

Now I want you to notice one more thing and it is one of the hardest things for me to deal with.  After my muscles were torn down, what did it take for them to grow stronger?  Time.  Don't be upset if your growth or what you need to overcome a situation doesn't happen over night.  Just know that you will grow stronger.

And that's another Opinion of the Minion

Where Am I?

Today's blog will discuss three things.  Where do I want to be?  Where am I?  Where was I?

So let's get started with the first question.  Where do I want to be?  I think we should all have clear goals in life.  It's very important to have direction.  After all, if you don't know where you are going, you won't know when you get there.  So if you don't have direction in life, that's definitely something to work on.  However, I think many of us know are goals.  How about losing weight?  I want to lose about 30 pounds.  Many of you know my story and know that I lost a lot of weight once upon a time.  Unfortunately, I have found a few of those pounds in the last year and I need to lose them again.  Our how about getting better grades in school?  Many of you are still in school and I will bet many of you would like to bring your grades up right?  Where you want to be can cover such a wide range of topics from grades to money to relationships and just about anything else.

Now the problem with where I want to be is that it can really screw up where I am.  How?  Let me explain.    Most of us have some area of life that isn't the way we want it.  That's why we have goals of where we want to be.  If we had already achieved that goal, it would be where I am, not where I want to go.  Confused?  Let me illustrate.  My goal is to lose 30 pounds.  I am not where I want to be in that area.  I want to weigh a little less.  Where I am is 30 pounds heaver than where I want to be.  So here's where the problem comes in.  If I am not getting to my goal fast enough or if I am having struggles making progress, it can cause me to feel defeated.  It can cause me to feel like I am never going to reach my goals in life.  It might even be the driving force that causes me to give up altogether.  That's a very bad place to be.  Don't let your present circumstances discourage you from accomplishing your goals.

Let's look for a minute at the last place, where we were.  Now many times we feel that where we are and where we were are the same place meaning sometimes it seems like we struggle a lot and don't make much progress getting to where we want to go.  Sometimes that's true.  Sometimes we can even look at all our past failures and that can be discouraging.  But I want you to take a closer look in your past for a minute.  Find someplace where your life is better than it was.  Are you in the 8th grade instead of the 7th?  Are you living in a nicer house or driving a nicer car than you once did?  Maybe you have a better job than you used to have.  For me, I used to weigh 350 pounds.  I have definitely come a long way in that area of my life.  Use the successful area of your life for a minute.  You succeeded in moving forward in that area.  Now if you can succeed there, you can succeed in your next goal right?  Come on now, don't give me excuses.  If you did it once, you can do it again.  You can achieve your next goal.

Now that we have looked at where we want to be, where we are and where we were, I want to leave you with one thought by one of my favorite preachers.  I'm not where I want to be but thank God I'm not where I used to be.

And thats' another Opinion of the Minion.