The Decision Point: Peter v. Judas

In everyone's life, there are crucial points of decision. For me, this especially has happened when I was stuck in repeatedly making mistakes. At that point I had the option of acknowledging these mistakes and changing or surrendering to the mistakes and giving up.

To illustrate this point, I was just reading an excerpt from a spiritual book that was discussing the denying of Jesus by Peter. For some reason one of the things that I thought of immediately was Judas Iscariot. Interestingly, both of them denied Jesus to a huge degree. Peter denied Jesus to the point of cursing people who accused them of knowing each other. Judas betrayed Jesus and handed him over to his death. Ultimately at the time of Jesus's death, both Judas and Peter had deserted Jesus. Jesus was dead thanks in part to both of them. They had hit a point of decision. Peter and Judas had the decision. Do they own up to their mistakes and turn to Jesus or give up? If you know the story, they made completely different decisions.

Why Succeeding in Anything is Hard

I was reflecting yesterday about the process of succeeding in developing a new skill or habit. This can be in developing the ability to connect with new people, master a move in a sport, learn a new subject in school, or something else. Immediately, I was reminded of a talk I heard in January from author and successful businessman Chris Brady called "LifeSaver" and the subsequent CD recording. He clearly articulated this process in a way I want to relate now. He taught the reason why succeeding in anything is hard via the 3 phases in developing mastery in a new endeavor.

I'll start with a question. Have you ever seen someone demonstrate great skill in a field? For example, a profession sports athlete, an accomplished musician, a great dancer, a brilliant mind in an academic setting, person share a message of spiritual significance, etc. Have you ever thought, "I bet I can do that!" or, "That looks like so much fun!" without having any real experience in that field? Or maybe, we are exposed to a great teacher and they make us feel like anything is possible and help us develop some initial abilities. At that point we decide at age 10, "I want to be a theoretical physicist or a doctor or the president of the United States or something else."In this period, we assume that we have what it takes and will probably be easy to accomplish the thing that we see. This is called the Ignorance Phase. 

After we are in that phase,

New Day (again)

You know what I love about life? At any moment you have the opportunity to take steps to change it. :) It REALLY doesn't matter where you've been or what you've done. All that matters is that you have a desire to change and make changes. If you feel like you can't make changes, there are people out there (I know of a handful in my life) that genuinely love to help people create life change. If nothing else, contact me! I would love to help. :) Simply by expressing your deep desire to change, they will go out of their way to help and serve you.

I'm so grateful for this knowledge. I kinda knew this for most of my life. For me personally, it is enhanced with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Knowing that He is covering my weaknesses is VERY freeing. He believes in me and has given me the power to change my life to become closer aligned with His will through his atoning sacrifice. I learned yesterday that I don't really understand it at all. However, I know that I have felt the joy knowing it is real.

I say all these things today because... I'M ON TRACK AGAIN! Man it feels good! Have you ever woken up with... 30-60 extra minutes before you have to prepare for the day? Have you ever spent time in purposeful silence to get in touch with yourself? Or visualizing/pre-playing your day? Or expressing gratitude for everything great in your life? Or reading a good improving book? Doing any and all of these things BEFORE the day starts is SOOOO much easier than adding them in later! I have managed to do a couple of those with descent consistency for the last couple weeks. However, right now going through them before the day is so much freeing. It relives my mind from having to find time in my busy schedule later. -- I learned about those actions and how to do it from a book, The Miracle Morning.

To share one last thing, this is my favorite alarm song. It's called New Day! It is quite empowering. I love it. I love to listen to it in the beginning of the day and ponder on the message of the lyrics. AND it's upbeat and lively. Just what I need to start the day!!

Jeff :)

Obscure Gratitude

Sooooo I definitely had my daily routine fall flat recently. haha. BUT I have a few minutes and wanted to share an idea really quick...

I am REALLY grateful for our well developed society. Have you ever spent any time thinking about the modern conveniences that make life FREAKING GREAT on a daily basis?

For example, how great is it to have access to a washing machine and dryer!??! I can just pop it in and take out clean clothes within a couple hours. How much more convenient is that than hand washing and air drying (what if it was raining?!!?)? What about an oven, stove, and refrigerator? How cool is it that we can can foods, freeze dry foods, or have other slow to perish foods? How much more convenient is it to have stores where we can shop for food?!?!

What about our modern infrastructure? Specifically, I'm WAYYY grateful for our potable (drinking) water and sewer system. How cool is it to have drinking fountains and sinks to get water from? How great is it to not have to worry about where our next water comes from? There are societies in the world today that have to spend most of their waking hours simply trying to acquire water for themselves! Also, what the heck would we do with all of our poop? I'm so grateful for toilets!!! That makes life so much easier to deal with!

What about phones, texting, and internet?!?! Texting and calling people close to me is so great! And with a headset, I can even call them while on the move! Texting... it's great. Internet... SOOOO many great things at our fingertips! My online banking went down today; I was frustrated. But then I remembered how great it is that I have freakin mobile banking!

And... I wouldn't be able to find many places without gps. They make life so much simpler and awesome. AND I remember when I was in Paris over the summer, I was able to show a new friend what the house I grew up in looked like! Google Maps is so cool!

Moral... for all the haters of modern convenience, there are WAYYY more pros than cons. For sure there are cons. I dislike a number of things that have happened, but I am grateful that today while reflecting in the bathroom I remembered of all the great things they have enabled. I look forward to that day in the relatively soon future (within 10 years) that I will have the opportunity to travel around the world and visit other places without these conveniences. It will make me appreciate it far more than I do right now. I can't really imagine what life would be like without these.

Ever been somewhat depressed?

Occasionally, I become disheartened or depressed. Nothing serious. But, I was wondering WHY that happens to me. What is it that causes frustration, depression, etc. --> Side note, this is only why I feel this way. I've read enough about personality types to know that my situation may be typical for 25% of people out there, but not everyone. However, it could possibly contain insight for you. Hopefully it does. :)

For example, earlier today I felt this way. In this case, I was up early in the morning (at 6 ish) only to fall asleep from 8am-noon. I was like... NOOOO!!! I WASTED ANOTHER FREAKIN DAY! Another example, I planned to wake up at 7am or 9am last week. But I woke up at 10am or 12pm. Again, I was like... I WASTED ANOTHER DAY! What am I doing with myself?!?! There are all these things to do and I'm just sleeping! Sheesh.

The other common examples are when I come up to some significant deadline, but don't feel like I can finish in time. For example... last week I had a quiz and lab report due on Wednesday. I get back home late Tuesday and haven't started any yet. I was so scared that I couldn't do all of them in time that I never even started. I ended up just sitting on the computer and doing... I don't even remember. Ended up falling asleep and waking up still unprepared. Instead of studying or working on my lab for 1-2 hours when I had the chance before my quiz, I STILL was overwhelmed to the point of analysis paralysis (can't do anything, overwhelmed). It didn't get any better and I honestly didn't really do either and will/have suffered the consequences.

Have you ever had either of those happen to you? Seeing that these have happened to me more than once already in 2013, I feel like you might have had something like this happen at least once in your life... Ever wanted to know how you might be able to limit those from happening? I'm honestly getting VERY sick of this. These are my personal conclusions as to WHY this is happening and how I can change it to limit/eliminate it.

Enthusiastically Agreeing with Others

Super funny. I was getting ready to go out at night with a friend and it hit me. I noticed why I really enjoy spending time with her. She has a knack for making me feel good. It is a very specific way too. She enthusiastically agrees with almost everything I say. IT IS SO AMAZING! :) I don't remember the specific words that she was saying, all I really remember was how she made me feel. I felt affirmed. I felt smart. I felt valued. I felt AWESOME. There are a number of lessons (3+) to take away from this experience.

You Get What You Focus On

I attended classes at the Institute (religious church classes) this week and was reminded a few times by the teacher, Brother Edmonds, about searching for the principle. He told us that merely reading a story in the Old Testament or one of Jesus's parables in the New Testament is nice. However, it has been recorded for scripture because of the principle - not the story. We're not meant to chastise the Pharisees or anyone else; it is written for us to use for our benefit.

With that in mind, I met up today with my mentor Chris Mattis. His favorite quote is at the top of his blog page: "You never get what you want out of life, you only get what you focus on." I think I am finally understanding the principle behind that from the story he recounted. It was about a woman who complained to Zig Ziglar (a motivational speaker, personal development expert, and top salesman) about hating everything & not liking one thing about her work. He asked her if she liked getting paid (yes) and a number of other things. Going through this process with her, they developed a list of 22 things she liked about her job. He promised her that if she focused on them for the next 60 days, she would like her work better. She didn't believe that simply changing her focus could be so powerful, but it worked. She couldn't believe how every coworker, her spouse, her children, and her friends all became better people! In reality, what changed was her and the way she saw all of them. 

Listening to that story, I was prompted to apply it to my life. When I had heard the story before, I quickly passed it off saying "I don't have that problem. My life is great!" WRONG! I was oblivious to the hidden negativity that I had! I don't complain much, but it happens a few times on a daily basis! I realized my mental attitude for school had really been taking a hit. I talked today for more than one hour about not being enthusiastic about it. AHHHHHH!!! Because I am constantly shown the greatness about other things I spend my time doing (Church, TEAM, Fraternity, Housemates, friends, etc), I easily pass over what I like about school. Because I focus on what I'm missing out on that I'd rather be doing, I constantly am thinking about "I don't want to be here." or "This class is not interesting." or "Could I do ANYTHING else?!!?" And I am wondering why I don't enjoy it... I was literally looking for an excuse to be disinterested or frustrated! I even looked up the fee refund schedule for this quarter to drop out... (passed the 90% refund point. Only 50% for the next couple days before it is less. Not financially worth it). I am pretty certain that you do not become more motivated for success by engaging in those habits... haha. 

However, I talked for ~3 minutes today (in the middle of complaining) about what I liked about Civil Engineering and the role it could potentially have in my future. I am SUPER SUPER passionate about building communities. I love people. I love helping them learn about themselves and get what they want out of life. I also have learned how pivotal space and environment plays in assisting the gathering of people. People cannot come together very easily if the forum doesn't exist! Therefore, I became enthusiastic about designing spaces for people to come together. The next step for me is to make a list of all the things that I love about school so that I can focus on that. By changing what I focus on, believing it will happen, and taking action towards it... positive changes will occur!! :) Whoot!

Intriguing Questions

So much for every day... lol. The day after I am fired up about writing in my blog everyday, I forget. And it wasn't intentional as I made it sound the day before. It just... kinda happened. I was preoccupied with a lot of other thoughts. Just a lot of good things about today... I will just have to write two today! :)

Probably the most personal powerful thoughts today were from Institute class. Two simple questions... "Why did you fall away?" (i.e. live unrighteously in the past) and "Am I giving Him everything?" I was planning on illustrating how we got to the questions, but that would be less fun than discussing my thoughts about them specifically.

First question: I fell away because I was influenced by people not following the Gospel. At the time in my life I fell away most significantly, I did not have a firm foundation. I was easily tempted and swayed by convenience, other people, and opinions. More recently than that, I occasionally lapse and fall away when I begin to go through the motions. I need to REALLY communicate with Heavenly Father on a regular basis. Sometimes, my prayers are so mundane and inauthentic that I could have just said "ditto." The only way God hears me is if I'm ACTUALLY making the effort to talk to Him!! Obviously. Like the parable of the prodigal son, God takes LOTS of steps forward to be excited to have us with Him again. However, that only happened because the prodigal son recognized his bad ways and was on his way back home. So too in my life, God can only offer his almighty hand to help me IF I make the effort to seek Him out! He is always there and waiting to help. He doesn't typically give unwarranted help; it must be genuinely sought. Additionally, I fall away right now when I lose my eternal perspective and fall prey to seek instant gratification. That happens on the daily for sure unless I consciously make the effort to keep focused on the Savior.

Second question: No I haven't given Him everything. I have remained fairly self-centered. I think about myself, my problems, my growth, my life, etc. ALL the time. I'm involved in many things that could serve/help others, but I don't think of it that way enough. I give off the vibe that I'm trying to "get them" instead of serve them. Because of that, I lose a tremendous opportunity to give. It is really frustrating for sure. My pride and desires are not yet where I want them to be. I heard the other day that your happiness is proportional to the amount your desires are aligned with what is right. Having righteous desires... AWESOME. :) The amount of my righteous desires has definitely been on the upswing. More work is still needed.

I'm so grateful for where I am in my life right now. I'm developing the capacity to give Him everything. I make an effort on a daily basis to learn more about Him. I know that associating with people who are giving and spending time with God on a regular basis, my desires will become more righteous. I will never forget a lesson/principle I learned over a year ago at church: IT IS POSSIBLE to not have the desire for sin. The atonement has the power to change me on a deep level where this desire has been taken away. It'll definitely be a long journey, but it is definitely worth it. I CAN'T WAIT! :)

Developing New Habits is HARD!!

Developing and maintaining a good habit is HARD TO DO! For instance, right now. I have this streak going of posting a new blog every day for the last 10 days. But... I don't feel like writing it! That is probably due to the fact that right around day ten, the brick wall hits. At least that is true for me. This is when the distractions come in. This is when the doubt comes in.

"Is it really worth it to post one everyday?"
"What about church? Reading? School? Work? You don't have time for this!"
"What if you back it down to every other day? Wouldn't that make your posts better?"
"Is anyone going to know whether or not you did?"
"You haven't told anyone that you started writing again. No one will care."
"Waking up early and sticking to a routine is inconvenient."

Valid points. Maybe this is irrelevant. Maybe I should do it less often. Yes it is inconvenient. Yes it takes time. Nobody is watching. But this is exactly why I NEED to keep this up. In all likelihood, I have posted this quote before. It ranks in the top 10 of my all time favorite quotes:

"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
Calvin Coolidge

I know that this is the truth. Commitment, hunger, and persistence. These interrelated things are the key.  With them, you can overcome any negativity, any ailment, any initial disadvantage. So here I am, day 11, persisting. It is definitely been getting harder when I lost focus on the goal. You stay up late one night, don't wake up on time the next day, miss your morning routine, don't study scripture/read/blog, struggle through the day, don't feel like doing it at night, stay up extra for no reason, miss waking up again... etc. It is SOOOO easy to revert back to old ways.

I know I can do this! If nothing else, writing this helps me. And that is why I blog. It is a way to record my thought process in a different way than my journal. It is a way for me to store ideas and potentially share them. It is helping me write more effectively. It is good. Creating something from the inputs of the day is a valuable skill!

Until tomorrow,
Jeff :)

--> I think that one person might read this page. If that person is you,  feel free to post anything in the comments. Even a simple. "Cool" or "I like you" or "Thank you" or "You suck" or "Try again" or "I read this, (insert name here)." would be appreciated. :)

Nothing's a big deal

"Don't sweat the small stuff... and it's all small stuff" - Richard Carlson

Stream of conscious writing never really flows as I expect it will. I thought I had a clear idea of what I was writing until all these unrelated ideas came into my head. I just felt called to blog really quickly about this idea. That nothing is THAT big of a deal. Having frustration that drives you to work harder and produce more positive results for the world is great. However, being stressed about exams, papers, friendships, and more is less great. It is good if you can manage the stress to help you produce great results in a short amount of time, but worrying/stressing in general is quite unhealthy.

This one lesson has been repeated over and over in my life. I remember the first time I learned this. I was in high school and realized that I stressed so much over grades throughout my elementary and middle school. I couldn't believe that the primary purpose of all the sacrifice and effort was acceptance into a good high school. So much was my disbelief, my first instinct was to share this good news with the world! :) Within the next year, I realized the same thing with high school! That is wasn't THAT big of a deal. I don't remember how much I acted on it, but I distinctly remember having this urge to share the "good news" with people about the truth that I had discovered about life. My conclusions felt confirmed when I met an obscure service desk guy while visiting Harvey Mudd. He talked about losing so much sleep and severely damaging his health for his first year or two. Then he realized that he really just needed to do the best he could while still taking care of himself. He still did well in school (B's or better), but actually enjoyed his life. 

Every one of these last sentences could be a blog post in of themselves... What I do instead is relax, change perspective, and focus on what I can control. I accept the lot I've been given and do the best I can with it. I know that all things are for my benefit in my life. Nothing is the end of the world. "The world keeps spinning, the world keeps spinning around." - Jay Sean from his song '2012'. :)

5 Ways to Create a Good First Impression

Have you ever caught yourself analyzing the actions of another person in order to figure out what to do next? Have you ever tried to read between the lines of another person to figure out what they are thinking or feeling? Well, they do that to you too!!! Everybody in the world is literally waiting for you to tell them what to do. 

Have you (as a parent) or your parents ever said something to the effect of, "I wish you would stop watching TV and go to bed now. I don't see how you stay up so late watching TV." or "Why do you always stay out so late?" How often does that work? Probably not often because hidden in these statements are the assumption that they will not be followed.

What follows are 5 ways to create a good first impression achieve your desired results. 

Step One is always Belief

I listened to a couple stories today about limiting belief and success. The first one was from Orrin Woodward. He talked about his freshman teammate passing him in the high school county cross country race. Orrin was mentally defeating himself for the first two miles rationalizing a poor performance on his legs being tight and lungs hurting. He believed that he was destined to run a terrible race; he was succeeding at it! However, he also believed that he always beat his freshman teammate. His teammate called him out, "I'm going to beat you today Orrin! You're just jogging!" Nothing really changed in Orrin except for his belief. His belief that he beats the freshman every time outweighed his limiting belief. It led him to his fastest mile time of the season (5:02) and first-team all-county in cross country. 

Secondly, I was eating a burrito today with some friends. One of them talked about an eating contest she was going to do in the future. She planned to eat a giant sandwich (looked nearly two feet long and 4 inches high when she gestured its size). Although she has never done it before, she talked with immense confidence. "I know that I can do it... If I believe I can do it, I'll find a way." It is to be determined what actually happens for that contest, but I could see her belief in her eyes. 

In the Magic of Thinking Big (described by Orrin Woodward, who has read 1000s of books, as having THE MOST NUMBER OF TRUE principles of a manmade book) Schwartz says, "When you believe something is impossible, your mind goes to work for you to prove why. But, when you believe, really believe, something can be done, your mind goes to work for you and helps you to find the ways to do it... Believing something can be done paves the way for creative solutions."

In my life, I have seen that true as well. I related my favorite personal story yesterday. Because I was believed in, I developed the belief in myself. I made it happen. The other stories yesterday speak to this idea too. 

Ultimately, the main thing that truly determines success is an unwavering commitment on a daily basis to do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to make it happen. Having the belief that, "Today, I am doing everything in my power to make it happen. Eventually, it will happen" will change everything. :)

Set High Expectations

Did you know that you have the power to essentially control the actions and attitudes of others? Not only do you have the power, but did you know you ALREADY exercise that power influence for good or for bad? Did you know that most of the time when you are treated unfairly, you were asking to be treated in that way? How crazy is that? It's true.

To break it down, have you ever had someone expect great things from you (even when you didn't think you were capable) and then you succeeded? That happened to me one time that I will never forget. In my speech class as a senior in high school, we had an assignment to prepare a speech to sell. We had to come up with a unique and creative product or service idea and then create two minutes speech to sell in to the class. While brainstorming the first day the assignment was given, I came up with a couple really great ideas. Because of my enthusiasm and everything I had written on my scratch paper, the teacher assumed that I had essentially written out my entire speech that first day. I proceeded to not prepare or work on the speech at all for the subsequent weeks until the week I had to actually present the speech. My teacher gave a side comment to me stating how he expected me to have the best speech in the class because I had written it already on the first day. I thought to myself that I now had no choice but to create the best speech of the class. I worked harder than I thought I could. I practiced so much that I could practically recite the whole speech right now four years later. It ended up being one of the best speeches he had ever heard because my classmates legitimately wanted to purchase my product immediately after finishing the speech. They forgot that I had merely made up an idea for a product that does not exist.

We all have an unconscious urge to live up to the opinions of others seem to have for us, or to live down to them. When you expect somebody to react in a negative way you unconsciously are giving them signals to react that way. There is a psychological law that says to adopt the attitude and action you want the other fellow to express. When you are already sold yourself on an idea, it is apparent to the other person. Additionally, if you also sell yourself on the idea that they are going to believe in, agree with, and act upon your idea, they are almost forced to do just that.

A historical examples: Conrad Hilton, the entrepreneur a who created the Hilton Hotel chain, Had more confidence than money. Basically all he had in way of assets was a reputation for keeping his word, and the ability to inspire in others the same confidence in his plans that he felt himself. The first really first class hotel Hilton ever owned was begun with less than $50,000 of his own money. The hotel architects estimated that it would cost at least $1 million. At that time he had only raised half-a-million. However because he believed in himself and made it apparent that he was going to make it happen, people invested their money in him. The story of Henry Ford and John D Rockefeller is essentially the same. Both of them had Far more belief and confidence and then any real assets when they first began. However because of their confidence and belief that it would happen, other people believe them and invested in them.

Lastly, yesterday I watched a talk given by the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He talked about times when he was visiting different new branch congregations throughout Northern America who did not have a local presider over the service. He felt prompted by God to call one of the locals to preside over the congregation. Because of his confidence in this person and God's confidence in them, he ended up living up to these expectations and changing his life so that he would be capable of leading the church service. The conclusion given was that people essentially live up to the responsibilities and expectations that they are given. If not much is expected of them, then they will probably succeed in doing not very much. It is so important to give people the opportunity to raise their game up to the expectations that you give them.

We can start implementing this idea today. It can help your children or housemates wash their dishes. It can help your friends or your children to do better in school. It can help your self or your friend get a job. Just by speaking confidence into people, they unconsciously will strive to hit them.

Waking up late

Never give up. Have you ever woken up at a time that was substantially later than you had originally planned to? Guess what! That happened to me today! One of the things that has gotten to me in the past is to mentally give up on the day if it doesn't start the way I want. How bad would it be to do that as your first action of the day? I still have the rest of the 12 to 16 hours that I am awake during the day. Clearly it's not very effective to give up before doing your best for 12 to 16 hours. That's quite a lot of time to make up for 30 minutes 60 minutes however many minutes that you don't follow through with the commitment.

This idea can relate to a lot of other areas of life because sometimes I have become so focused on one thing going perfectly that i check out of the rest of my life when i mess up. The biggest problem is Missing out on all the other things my life has to offer!

One quick insight before I close:
Love yourself where you are. I admittedly messed up today. Instead of getting up at 730 am, I got up at 10am. This post is a result of that; it is at 1140 pm, not 8 or 9 am! But I didn't give up. I will be finishing my post and my daily reading before bed. I accept that I'm not regularly waking up yet. But I know with persistence I will make it happen. I can only be thankful for being here now and make the decision to make tomorrow the best day ever!

Let's do it. Next post in about 9 hrs. Whoot! :)

Luke 10

I was just doing my morning scripture study looking for some inspiration to remember in my daily life. One of the things that I read in Luke chapter 10 was the story of the good Samaritan. One of the things that is so often glossed over in this story is the money the Samaritan uses. He gives twopence or two denarii depending on where you read it. According to another piece of Scripture in Matthew, the worth of one of them is a full days wages. This Samaritan willingly gave at least two days wages to a man who he saw injured on the side of the road while traveling. He took him to an in and promised and keeper that if he stays longer and this is not enough to take care of them, I will pay you all that is needed.
Some people that I know overemphasize the scripture that talks about him and Richmand cannot enter the kingdom of heaven similarly that a camel cannot to go through an eye on a needle. However the emphasis in by Jesus in the Scriptures is not having money is the problem. For if there was nobody with money then Jesus would not have been able to eat or stay somewhere inside. He needed it other people to go out of their way to take care of him take care of other people in order to continue his ministry. Instead it's a love of money. If you don't spend time on a regular basis remembering who gave you your wealth, then you will certainly fall into that category. In our society we need more good God-fearing people who are independently wealthy. There are far too many wealthy people who forget who gave them all they have.
One other thing that I really like about Luke chapter 10 was that Jesus said to his disciples and the 70 that he set apart that the harvest is great, but the laborers are few. He needs more people serving Him.
I say these things because I am striving to serve Him everyday. I am striving to develop an income that allows me to do good everyday and facilitates my service of The Lord. For if I spent most of my waking life working (avg person spends 100,000 hrs at their job), I will not be able to serve Him and spend time with my family as well as if that was my entire focus.

Productivity Spaces pt 2

A while back I wrote a post talking about productivity spaces and specifically designing different locations that you spend time for specific purposes. Today, I am reminded once again of that post. I woke up at a reasonable solid time in the morning, but for some reason had the brilliant idea to read in my bed lying down underneath the covers because it was cold. I'm not one of those people that wake up in the middle of the night and then cannot fall back asleep. So I bet you can imagine what ended up happening! I did end up reading some, but three pages in two hours is not a very good pace of reading! And it was not because I wasn't deeply pondering the hidden meanings behind the words. I told myself I was but I definitely was lying. Haha. I'll need to go back and look at that previous post about having a space to do specific tasks... And actually use that. Tomorrow I will do better.

Is ironic that within the last couple days I wrote an entry about one of the verses in the Bible that I really liked about loving those who love you does not profit you. For even sinners and publicans or whatever Jesus calls them do the same thing. The true mark of someone who has grown and developed themselves to work with people is that they get along with people no matter how those people act. I can't believe I literally read something about that yesterday morning. But putting that into practice is a lot harder than I remember it was. It's amazing how I blame other people for making me act a certain way. For I know that we as humans are unique because between stimulus and response there is a decision. We get to decide how we will respond to a given situation. But man! It is so much easier to blame somebody else for getting angry and yelling!

Good morning

This post will perhaps be this shortest post I've ever done. I just wrote for 15 minutes on my iPhone and is then accidentally selected the whole thing and deleted it. Unfortunately I do not see an undo button. So here we go!

Essentially, the post was about my walk this morning. Originally I had planned to go on a run but my ankle started hurting and I ended up only being a will to go for a walk. I passed a number of people that were going to UC Davis for their early-morning class this quarter. Instead of simply walking by them as I am accustomed to, I decided to wave and smile to a couple people and wish people good morning.

It's always amazing how awkward it feels to go out of your way in talk to somebody that you don't know if only to say hi or wish them good morning or even offer a smile. It's even more interesting when you see the responses from those people who are completely shocked and confused that anybody would smile, wave, or say anything to them in the morning.

I definitely plan to make this a habit because... I don't see why not! I also finished reading some more of the New Testament in Luke chapter 8 today. One of the things that Jesus is such a great example of is loving people and reaching out to them all the time. The most important thing to remember about Jesus is how much he was rejected or disapproved of by people out there. However, that did not deter him from continuing to reach out and offer love, peace, and acceptance to everyone he met. In the parable of the Sower he mentioned how some times the message just falls on people who are prepared for it or don't want it. Those people should not deter you and hopefully don't deter myself from containing to reach out and offer a simple smile or good morning to the people who do want it. You never know who your enemy on a regular basis and I'm so excited that I went out of my way on this day to do that.

I'm fired up. My first school day preparation has gone very well. Waking up at 7 AM is very positive. And I look forward to writing some more tomorrow.

- P.S. writing talk to text is really cool!

Love the Scripture: Luke 5-7

You know, these scriptures are amazing. Growing up Catholic, every week at mass there is a Gospel passage read consisting of anywhere between a few versus to a few chapters at Easter. I never realized how dense the four Gospels are with epic awesomeness. In the chapters I read last night and this morning (Luke 5-7), there are so many parts of them that have been used as the whole Gospel reading on a given Sunday.

Two of my favorite parts (there are sooooo many awesome other parts in these couple chapters it is ridiculous) were the last 5-10 versus in chapter 6 and the last 5-10 versus of chapter 7. I could literally write SOOOOO much on both of them. There are so many nuggets in each. Literally, you could pull more than 5 readings in just these two small parts of Luke! --> AND after writing, I ended up adding more epically awesome scripture too!! :)

It's a new day! :)

A good friend of mine started a blog a few days ago and wrote some powerful stuff. It reminded me of how much I grew while I was writing blog posts a year ago. Time will tell how well I do with this commitment... I am committing to writing in my blog a few lines every morning. It'll be used to reflect on scriptures (I'm reading the New Testament right now) and on books that I'm reading. I plan to read the scriptures and books early in the morning. Then, I will write a quick post (hopefully not requiring too much time) on what I learned, what I'm implementing, or how I'm doing.

I am working on becoming more transparent and honest. It is quite a bit more challenging than I thought it would be. Because of this struggle, I now have deep respect for my Institute teacher and those I work with because I KNOW they are real. They are truly living the Gospel. They are who they say they are. They aren't hiding anything. They have a spotless private life. That's who I'm going to become. I just have some work to do on that! I can't wait. :) 

--> I'm curious how many people will find this because I'm not planning on telling people I'm writing again. AND you (whoever you are) will know of my progress by looking at the times of day I make my posts (if it gives both time and date). I'm supposed to be doing it in the morning (not at nearly 2pm like today. haha).

I am not sure how I'll be signing off these posts. But I like these two ideas that I'll leave with. Maybe I'll even talk about them later! Time will tell.

"The brick walls are there to stop the other people and reveal our dedication."
"If you have no critics, that means you aren’t a threat."