Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. – Jonathan Kozol.
Uncaptured, unclarified, and therefore unmanaged things that you have agreed to do own a piece of you and give you no rest.
Complaining is a sign that someone isn’t willing to risk moving on a changeable situation, or won’t consider the immutable circumstance in his or her plans.
Getting things done, and feeling good about it, means being willing to recognize, acknowledge, and appropriately manage all the things that have your consciousness engaged. Mastering the art of stress-free productivity requires it.
Healthy skepticism is often the best way to glean the value of what’s being presented – challenge it; prove it wrong, if you can. That creates engagement, which is the key to understanding.
This would be a Zen-like state of productivity, in which you deal with what’s present from a perspective that is both detached and fully engaged.
The world itself is never overwhelmed or confused – only we are, due to how we are engaged with it. An.
But sometimes I have to get out of my comfort zone to stay motivated to do excellent work over the long term.
I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. – Oliver Wendell Holmes.
I have learned over the years that the most important thing to deal with is whatever is most on your mind. The fact that you think it shouldn’t be on your mind is irrelevant. It’s there, and it’s there for a reason.
Invalidating someone else is not merely disagreeing with something that the other person said. It is a process in which individuals communicate to another that the opinions and emotions of the target are invalid, irrational, selfish, uncaring, stupid, most likely insane, and wrong, wrong, wrong. Invalidators let it be known directly or indirectly that their targets views and feelings do not count for anything to anybody at any time or in any way.
There is usually an inverse relationship between how much something is on your mind and how much it’s getting done.
Lots of people have been making lists for years but have never found the procedure to be particularly effective.
Nothing is certain but the truth.
Ultimately, injustice isn’t a social problem. It is a moral problem. Injustice exists because we are all fallen, sinful, selfish people. The only solution is a personal, heart-level transformation, not just for a particular group of so-called “oppressors,” but for everyone.
Followers of Jesus Christ must never be complicit in an ideology that encourages the dehumanization of our neighbors, particularly when the dehumanization is based on an immutable characteristic such as skin color.
Even as social justice ideology elevates “micro” injustices beyond all sense of proportion, it ignores or downplays major injustices. Abortion, the most serious injustice of our generation, has legally eliminated more than 60 million unborn human beings since 1973. Yet it is widely held to be a positive moral good.
In an appalling irony, this moral reasoning has made abortion the leading cause of death for black lives in America. Every year, well in excess of a quarter of a million unborn black children are lost through abortion. In New York City, more black babies are aborted than are born alive. This is justice?
In reaction, the temptation for opponents is to write-off Christian efforts to “engage the culture” or “transform the culture” as an unbiblical distraction from our spiritual purpose and mission – to save souls for heaven. This world is going to hell, so why bother trying to reform or change it for the better? Again, this attitude is antisocial justice. It is not probiblical worldview.
Ideological social justice actually values uniformity, paradoxically, in the name of diversity. There is no unity-diversity balance in this worldview. The affirmation and value of “diversity” is actually strictly limited to only a few select categories. Beyond these, there is stifling pressure to conform. The diversity that is affirmed is group difference, not individual difference, and even among groups, not all group differences are equally celebrated – or even tolerated.
Darrow Miller is fond of saying, “If the church fails to disciple the nation, the nation will disciple the church.” Someone is always actively impacting culture. If it isn’t the followers of Jesus, it will be, by default, those who adhere to another worldview.