Archive for the ‘choosing’ Category

Whose Discipline?

September 19, 2025

Far too many publicists have my email addresses. Some for my technology blog and some for this blog.

One publication publicist sent notice of a book on disciplines. Something like, Be Disciplined…Whose Disciplines? 

It’s as if someone is forcing you to be disciplined. Or to follow disciplines.

The foundation of this writing builds from Spiritual Disciplines, or sometimes I say Spiritual Practices, because the word discipline can have a negative connotation. Like that book title.

We don’t talk about being forced to practice the Spiritual Disciplines. Now, if you decide to enter a monastic order, you have decided to follow the disciplines of that order.

But for you and me, it’s a choice. We get up in the morning and decide to sit in meditation and read from spiritual writing—or we decide to roll over and go back to sleep—or have a coffee and donut at the local donut shop and waste the morning.

The monastic example aside, you decide on your daily disciplines. Good night’s sleep, rise and meditate and read, exercise, eat a healthy breakfast, and so on. If someone tries to force you, it won’t work. If it’s your work or organization or church, leave. But listen to mentors and coaches who have your best interests in mind.

I encourage you to find your inner discipline. Don’t feel like a slave. Feel like someone who chooses to be healthy in spirit and mind and body.

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Choose Community Wisely

May 21, 2025

Parents know to observe carefully the friends their adolescents hang out with. Their friends have greater impact on the youth than parents at this stage.

The online community we hang out in, if we so choose to spend time in “social media,” impacts our thoughts and, indeed, our life. 

Belief is born when we combine community with emotion.

Choose your community online or in person wisely. You can be sucked into a vortex of conspiracy theories and negativity. Or you can find generous people who relate with kindness and build each other up.

We think we have free will and will make up our own minds. But often we get drawn a bit at a time into a life we would not have chosen.

Develop the power of reflection and awareness. Choose your friends and direction with intention not by osmosis.

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Choose Not Doing In Order To Do Better

February 13, 2025

Did you know that you can choose what media fills your attention? And affects your emotional state?

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote philosophy mainly in the early 19th Century. I’ve found much of his writing a chore to parse. This thought gets right to the point, “The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.”

Compare this observation of the 1820s to our plight today where thousands of very smart engineers and managers work extraordinary hours to capture our attention with emotion-laden messages. We choose an application on the internet. Something served to us by the anonymous “algorithm” provokes an emotional response. We read more becoming increasingly incensed as we read.

Finally breaking away, we struggle to concentrate on family, work, study, even relaxation.

Remember our first premise?

It was your choice.

The old Crusader told Indiana Jones (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) regarding the villain, “He chose poorly” as he died a hideous death. Then, “Choose wisely.”

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Choose This or That

August 14, 2024

Seth Godin writes, ““None of the above” is often the best option. We’re regularly confronted with multiple-choice questions. The foundation is already established, the options are already limited, do you want this or that? But the real questions lie in the assumptions that happened before you were even asked.”

When confronted with the choice of this or that I often look for a third alternative. Or a fourth.

Often when confronted with a spiritual question or Biblical “truth” it pays to ask for an alternative. What about this? Why is that? (Five Whys is a most powerful tool.)

Looking for growth in your spiritual formation? Try looking for what the book’s author leaves out. Try asking what or why? The author may be right. But you’ll feel better having explored the idea.

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Metanoia

February 22, 2024

Sorry for the Greek word as the title of this meditation. I have been thinking on this word since I heard it on a podcast recently.

I shun as much as possible to use traditional Christian words due to the historical and emotional baggage that often accompanies those words.

What is the first picture or thought that comes to mind when I say

Repentance!

I immediately think of the preacher who comes to No Name City in the play and movie Paint Your Wagon. He hopes to convert all the heathen to Christianity by shouting at them.

In your Bible, you may see the word Repent or Repentance. Translators often render metanoia that way for principally historical reasons.

Perhaps a better rendering of the meaning involves the concept of changing the direction of one’s heart. Or changing the direction of one’s life. 

Another concept would be transforming. This might mean becoming aware that our heart will not accept new things, new people, new ideas. It is “hardened.” Then it somehow becomes transformed into a generous, loving, peaceful heart. 

Metanoia. I was once that way; now I am this way. And I, as well as all those around me, am better for it.

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What They Thought I Wanted To See

January 26, 2024

Facebook leaders were concerned people were only looking at posts from friends and not spending enough time on the app looking at ads. They told engineers to develop rules that would search the entire database and present people with posts that Facebook thought you want to see.

Twitter executives faced a similar problem. They wrote similar rules, called algorithms, to keep you on the app longer. 

So, I wondered about our spiritual reading—the Bible and other writers. Do we allow someone to determine what parts we read and spoon-feed us just their point of view?

I have spent little time on social media for several years. What they thought I wanted to see was not congruent with what I really wanted to see.

Fortunately, there is no app filtering what I should see in the Bible or in my other spiritual reading. I read out of curiosity and out of desire to refresh my poor memory.

Things like the thought I just heard, “He’s God. I’m not.”

Things like, “The first is to love the Lord your God… and the second likewise is to love your neighbor…”

I need those reminders to keep me on the right path and likewise to guide my reading.

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Managing Projects and Attention

September 7, 2023

My day began poorly. The time management gurus tell you not to check email until late morning. I have had a project that runs first of August until mid-October for 35 years. I assign referees to high school soccer matches. The job is getting harder and harder.

This morning I opened email at 5:45 AM. Dale says, “I am still injured and cannot do tonight’s game.” First thing to do is send an email to my entire list of referees hoping someone will see and respond. Then I leave for my workout, which I miss only in extreme situations. After no one responds by 9:00, I go through my list and cull five people who might possibly be open and send them direct messages. I contact the school’s Athletic Director to alert him. I alert the other official. Meanwhile, I’m trying to finish three games on Saturday.

By 3:00 PM I’ve done all I can and all the kids are going to get to play their games.

Amongst that mental work, I found time out to practice Spanish and German on my Duolingo app. Different sort of mental stress.

Now at 5:00 PM I had taken a walk and a 15-minute power nap. My mind is now focused to write a couple of short essays.

Yesterday I wrote about a to do list as a menu. Some days your time is like choosing from a menu. I have a pretty scripted routine of reading, working out, writing, taking breaks to work on soccer, and so forth.

Some days everything gets turned around. I just have to solve the emergency. Go to the meeting. Whatever the situation may be. Then pause, breathe, and choose from the menu of things to tackle next.

Too many days like this, and the chances of living in chaos increase. But, not to worry. Routine, if established long enough, will return. It’s called resilience. Flexibility. Keys to sanity.

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What Am I Doing Here?

March 17, 2023

Have you ever found yourself somewhere only to ask yourself, “What am I doing here? How did I get here?”

We can think geographically or socially or emotionally.

I immediately had flashbacks of being somewhere between 17 and 19 riding in a car on back country roads with a crazy guy going 100 miles-per-hour (160 kmh). What am I doing here?

Perhaps you were at a dive bar or other place where only trouble happens.

It could be a relationship. Or a job. Or a church. Or lack of any of those.

Now is the part of a normal religious writing especially for the Web where we offer 10 things you can do to improve your life or 7 sure steps to leave the rut. Or, if I were a fundamentalist, I’d just say “Find Jesus and all will be well.”

To quote George Costanza from Seinfeld, “I got nothin’.”

I wish I had a formula about how awareness grew within me. I became aware of where I was. Then I became aware of something better. And aware of someone or something that was trying to help.

Sometimes awareness follows a significant event. Sometimes awareness is like a small seed that grows within until the mature plant blooms within. “Ah ha,” we say to ourselves (or to a significant other person). “How could I have been so blind?”

I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind but now I see.

What did I realize? I made choice that led me there. I could make other choices to lead me out. Maybe I just needed to recognize the pointers to help me with those choices.

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You Can’t Do It On Your Own

February 21, 2023

Jesus began his ministry with this message–change the direction of your life (repent). Why? Because the kingdom of heaven is here (actually here, there, everywhere).

We just have one response–part of it is awareness that we are not on the right path, the one pleasing to God. The other part is to choose to follow the right path.

Later, Jesus added a bit to this. Or he clarified. He said our response it to love God completely and to love our neighbor. When asked about who the neighbor was, he told a story where the neighbor was the most despised person his audience would think of.

Think of the person you would most despise–someone of a different race, someone of a different gender identity, someone from another country speaking a different language. That person you must love.

Later, again, Jesus told a story about a camel going through an eye of the needle. I’m not going to delve into different explanations of what that physical image was. What he was trying to explain is that it is almost impossible to be part of the kingdom of heaven through your own effort.

Loving doesn’t come easy.

But, God’s grace helps us. By living each moment with-God, we will be helped into that state of being in the kingdom where we can love those that we think are beyond love. We change our attitude (which means direction) and start walking along God’s path alongside God.

Part of that repentance thing is to realize we can make a choice but we can’t earn entry through our own efforts. But when we let God be God then we get that extra boost into the kingdom.

Then we truly find that capacity to love even our enemies and those we despise.

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We Forgot To Choose

October 19, 2022

Viktor Frankl writing in Man’s Search for Meaning solidified the idea of our power to choose in my mind. The idea became one of my core beliefs. Ancient people knew that truth, the truth of choosing your attitude, your response, your life.

Seth Godin writes, “We are leaving the age of information and entering the age of choice. Not just choosing what we’ll consume, but who we will become. Who will we connect with, lead, trust, honor, dignify, isolate or believe? And how will we choose to walk through the world and what will we leave behind…”

Long-time technology pundit Steve Gillmor early on predicted companies on the Internet were all about capturing our attention. Now we read about the many psychological tricks companies such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and others use to capture and retain our attention. 

To whom do you choose to give your attention? And all the other choices Seth suggests?

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