Finishing up the single best book I have ever read! (outside of the scriptures) It's called L.I.F.E. Living Intentionally For Excellence by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady.
It is designed to make you think and man is it ever working! I've been reading it for several weeks now and literally every day, it gets me looking at my life from another direction and asking myself some significant questions.
Today it's got me thinking about how adverse we are sometimes to wanting to know and learn to apply truth in our lives!
I don't think that's even what I was specifically reading about but you know how one thought leads to another...
Why is it that we are so unwilling to listen to truth at times?
Usually because it upsets our carefully constructed little "comfort zone". Or as Orrin and Chris say, it's not really a "comfort" zone as much as it is a "familiar" zone because it usually isn't really all that comfortable, just familiar!
It really has more to do with our innate resistance to the principle of change than almost anything else!
That, for most people is probably the need to feel "right" about what we think in our own little inner sphere of who we are.
We are attacked so often from the outside world telling us that we are making mistakes or beating us down for one reason or another that we feel compelled to jealously guard our own little inner self image of who we are. That image is largely created out of our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us.
After all, how many of us just naturally think that everything we believe is wrong? Naahh...I don't think so!
So how does that play into the search for truth? Why can't we just operate from our current perception of things and be just fine?
The glaringly simple answer to that is...because there is truth in this world in all it's many different facets.
Isn't this obsession we have with "victim-hood" (and complaining about everything under the sun) in our world today a classic example of being unwilling to accept truth and adjust our actions to deal with it properly?
How many of us are looking around us and listening to the news and deploring the current state of affairs but are doing nothing but talking about it?
Isn't that exactly the same thing as any other form of "victim-hood" that we see in the world today?
Another example; here in Idaho (and many other places too) one of our favorite pastimes is complaining about the weather! Isn't that another form of "victim-hood"?
If we would really embrace a full picture of the truth...Don't like the weather? Then quit being a victim and...move to somewhere you do like it!!!
I know, I'm as guilty as the next person! I think I'll work on that one!
Let's explore another example. Suppose I was born with the genes to become 7'10" tall. Remember that the standard door height all across America is 6'8". So all of my life I would be required to duck my head every time I walked through a door or walk around with a permanent bruise on it!
At this point I can either accept the truth and learn to use it to propel myself forward and upward with my unique gift or I can continually proclaim my "victim-hood" and spend the rest of my life complaining about the unfairness and mistreatment I am required to endure because millions of thoughtless people refuse to change their doorways to accommodate me.
I can become a martyr to my cause by refusing to accept the truth of the situation around me . I can proudly refuse to duck my head when attempting to negotiate conventional doorways. I can proclaim my bruised forehead as a symbol of the injustices of the rest of the human race against me. I can seek to legally make the entire rest of the world conform to my particular set of circumstances.
OR...
I can accept truth! I was blessed with my own unique set of talents, abilities and circumstances from which to build my life. I can use my uniqueness to bless the rest of the world by my contributions to it. I can build on the truths I've been given and make my life a continual search for more and more truth to build upon!
When we learn to build with building blocks of truth, our walls will never crumble because of the cracks of imperfections in them.
The quality of our lives has a direct correlation to our willingness to seek out, recognize and act upon complete truths in the world around us.
Our lives and the world around us are full of partial truths that hamper our ability to excel in every important area of our lives.
Many of our problems arise from partial truths or even outright untruths in our view of the world around us.
Many of those mistaken ideas come from some of the most seemingly benign places. Our peers, our education, our family or ethnic or cultural traditions, our political or even our religious backgrounds can all be sources of some partial truths that are maybe even almost right...but not quite.
If you build an entire castle of belief and action on a foundation that has an occasional faulty block in it, can you begin to see how the integrity of the entire structure can be at risk of failure?
I challenge each of us to become avid seekers after real truth.
Learn to apply the same standard across the board to all of your beliefs. Often we hold different beliefs about different subjects that if we were to stack them up side by side we would find that we were applying an entirely different and sometimes even opposite set of standards to come to our conclusions!
Those are the hidden places that cause us problems in our lives!
You've got a left foot and a right foot that are similar yet different. It's like trying to run a marathon with a nice comfortable running shoe (truth) on the one foot and a fancy, 4 inch, spiked heeled, formal, dress shoe (partial truth, it's still a shoe) on the other!
It's going to cause you a lot of pain and discomfort because of the lack of wisdom in applying complete truth in both cases!
So here's the reality! Until we begin pulling the weeds of untruth out of our own lives and begin banding together as a community of people all dedicated to the pursuit of truth and right, we will never be able to fix our society today!
As long as the forces of untruth can keep us divided and grumbling among ourselves while they shout their untruths in organized unison long enough, they will win. It's that simple.
We need to be united in our pursuit of personal excellence based on truth.
Striving for excellence in every area of our lives is what allows us to begin avoiding the pain that comes from taking action on a faulty assumption.
Excellence in ourselves builds excellence in our families, which builds excellence in our communities, which builds excellence in our states, which leads to excellence in our country, which...I think you get the picture!
Learn more about the LIFE book by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady on our Products page!
Have an awesome day!
It is designed to make you think and man is it ever working! I've been reading it for several weeks now and literally every day, it gets me looking at my life from another direction and asking myself some significant questions.
Today it's got me thinking about how adverse we are sometimes to wanting to know and learn to apply truth in our lives!
I don't think that's even what I was specifically reading about but you know how one thought leads to another...
Why is it that we are so unwilling to listen to truth at times?
Usually because it upsets our carefully constructed little "comfort zone". Or as Orrin and Chris say, it's not really a "comfort" zone as much as it is a "familiar" zone because it usually isn't really all that comfortable, just familiar!
It really has more to do with our innate resistance to the principle of change than almost anything else!
That, for most people is probably the need to feel "right" about what we think in our own little inner sphere of who we are.
We are attacked so often from the outside world telling us that we are making mistakes or beating us down for one reason or another that we feel compelled to jealously guard our own little inner self image of who we are. That image is largely created out of our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us.
After all, how many of us just naturally think that everything we believe is wrong? Naahh...I don't think so!
So how does that play into the search for truth? Why can't we just operate from our current perception of things and be just fine?
The glaringly simple answer to that is...because there is truth in this world in all it's many different facets.
Isn't this obsession we have with "victim-hood" (and complaining about everything under the sun) in our world today a classic example of being unwilling to accept truth and adjust our actions to deal with it properly?
How many of us are looking around us and listening to the news and deploring the current state of affairs but are doing nothing but talking about it?
Isn't that exactly the same thing as any other form of "victim-hood" that we see in the world today?
Another example; here in Idaho (and many other places too) one of our favorite pastimes is complaining about the weather! Isn't that another form of "victim-hood"?
If we would really embrace a full picture of the truth...Don't like the weather? Then quit being a victim and...move to somewhere you do like it!!!
I know, I'm as guilty as the next person! I think I'll work on that one!
Let's explore another example. Suppose I was born with the genes to become 7'10" tall. Remember that the standard door height all across America is 6'8". So all of my life I would be required to duck my head every time I walked through a door or walk around with a permanent bruise on it!
At this point I can either accept the truth and learn to use it to propel myself forward and upward with my unique gift or I can continually proclaim my "victim-hood" and spend the rest of my life complaining about the unfairness and mistreatment I am required to endure because millions of thoughtless people refuse to change their doorways to accommodate me.
I can become a martyr to my cause by refusing to accept the truth of the situation around me . I can proudly refuse to duck my head when attempting to negotiate conventional doorways. I can proclaim my bruised forehead as a symbol of the injustices of the rest of the human race against me. I can seek to legally make the entire rest of the world conform to my particular set of circumstances.
OR...
I can accept truth! I was blessed with my own unique set of talents, abilities and circumstances from which to build my life. I can use my uniqueness to bless the rest of the world by my contributions to it. I can build on the truths I've been given and make my life a continual search for more and more truth to build upon!
When we learn to build with building blocks of truth, our walls will never crumble because of the cracks of imperfections in them.
The quality of our lives has a direct correlation to our willingness to seek out, recognize and act upon complete truths in the world around us.
Our lives and the world around us are full of partial truths that hamper our ability to excel in every important area of our lives.
Many of our problems arise from partial truths or even outright untruths in our view of the world around us.
Many of those mistaken ideas come from some of the most seemingly benign places. Our peers, our education, our family or ethnic or cultural traditions, our political or even our religious backgrounds can all be sources of some partial truths that are maybe even almost right...but not quite.
If you build an entire castle of belief and action on a foundation that has an occasional faulty block in it, can you begin to see how the integrity of the entire structure can be at risk of failure?
I challenge each of us to become avid seekers after real truth.
Learn to apply the same standard across the board to all of your beliefs. Often we hold different beliefs about different subjects that if we were to stack them up side by side we would find that we were applying an entirely different and sometimes even opposite set of standards to come to our conclusions!
Those are the hidden places that cause us problems in our lives!
You've got a left foot and a right foot that are similar yet different. It's like trying to run a marathon with a nice comfortable running shoe (truth) on the one foot and a fancy, 4 inch, spiked heeled, formal, dress shoe (partial truth, it's still a shoe) on the other!
It's going to cause you a lot of pain and discomfort because of the lack of wisdom in applying complete truth in both cases!
So here's the reality! Until we begin pulling the weeds of untruth out of our own lives and begin banding together as a community of people all dedicated to the pursuit of truth and right, we will never be able to fix our society today!
As long as the forces of untruth can keep us divided and grumbling among ourselves while they shout their untruths in organized unison long enough, they will win. It's that simple.
We need to be united in our pursuit of personal excellence based on truth.
Striving for excellence in every area of our lives is what allows us to begin avoiding the pain that comes from taking action on a faulty assumption.
Excellence in ourselves builds excellence in our families, which builds excellence in our communities, which builds excellence in our states, which leads to excellence in our country, which...I think you get the picture!
Learn more about the LIFE book by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady on our Products page!
Have an awesome day!
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