Category: Uncategorized

Instilling Lasting Truths in Our Children: Write to your kids!

Ryan@educationandfaith.com

One of my biggest fears is that my son might place his value in the flawed messages of this world. I can’t stop or even filter everything the world tells my son. That is scary!

It’s even scarier if I sheltered him from the ways of the world and we avoided any encounter with them. This leaving my child to navigate an unknown world with no experience.

This is probably why parents write their children notes in their lunchboxes. I remember stealthily checking my lunchbox in middle school to make sure I could intercept any embarrassing messages my parents may have hid inside. I’d always skip away to my locker or the bathroom to read that loving note!

More parents should write to their children! (Thanks Mom and Dad)

How Do We Protect Our Children?

My little family is trying to instill lasting truths in ourselves. This foundation allows us to interact and sift through this world without becoming its victim.

What We’re Trying

My family has two main times to connect with each other and prepare for the world.

  1. Breakfast: My wife does a brief devotional with our son and I leave a little note or poem for them a couple days a week.
    1. I’m usually off to work before they awake so leaving them with a message of encouragement or love is a way for me to still speak into their days.
  2. After school homework and dinnertime: We’re lucky to all be home from work and school pretty early so a quick debrief with everyone is possible.
    1. If we’re really overachieving we’ll connect the morning devotional or note with the experiences we had throughout our day.

 

Here are a couple of the notes I’ve left for my family:

If there’s an interest, feel free to use these in your home. I can email these files for easy download and/or printing capabilities.

 

I usually get ideas and inspiration from the needs our family is currently encountering or ideas that spring from my personal devotions.

Speak into your children’s lives based on who they are. We are a pretty emotional, and empathetic family. These notes have been a fun way for us to combat the misguiding messages and emotions that our son receives in the world.

I love the idea of focusing on a theme each week attached to a biblical truth.

I plan to share more of these here, I may create another page on my website to put these up for download as I come up with more.

 

How does your family encourage and support one another?

Another parenting post you might check out:

“Great Job” and Other Phrases Crippling Our Kids

May you find peace in the process

 

We’re More Ignorant than Ever and Here’s Why

Ryan@educationandfaith.com

We have access to more information than ever, yet we remain uninformed.

“The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.”  

-Nathaniel Branden

 

Reality. We have the exhausting task of dredging through the sludge of information.

It’s also why we’re able to connect so well to Lewis Carroll’s “rabbit hole” in Alice in Wonderland. In today’s culture we, like Alice, free fall down this deep complex hole of information overload.

This is why the industry of minimalism exists. This is why minimalism is so attractive yet so difficult to achieve.

Too Much Information = Ignorance

How?

Somehow as we have acquired access to unlimited information, we have also acquired greater ignorance. This is counterintuitive. How can we now have the ability to know everything instantly, but it still doesn’t dispel ignorance?

Responsiveness is the key. I recently read that there are three requirements to being responsive. They are caring, validation, and understanding. I think I could summarize those three into one act. Listening. If you’re truly listening, you are caring about what you hear. You are validating or confirming the information. Through your validation you come to a place of understanding. So why must it be so hard to listen?

Like minimalism, a whole industry for listening can be found in the self-help sector.

 

Awareness

Both minimalism and active listening preach awareness. I love that in biblical times the people would name places and landmarks based on the experience they had there. What an exclamation of awareness! In Genesis 34 Jacob labels the place El Bethel because it was where God revealed himself to him. Even their given names were changed based on their experiences. After wrestling with God, don’t you think Jacob’s eyes were opened when his name was changed to Israel, because he struggled with God and humans and he overcame (Genesis 32). His identity was built on that awareness.

We can take it a step further to see God even identified with numerous different names depending on the characteristics he was exhibiting. I’m jealous of the clarity these biblical people portrayed. This clarity requires a humble awareness in recognizing the circumstances one is facing and their response to that experience.

When I’m consumed with every piece from every informational feed I grow tired. When I’m tired in this world I lose my awareness. When I lose my awareness I grow self-serving and greedy. After falling down this rabbit-hole I find myself ignorant and unresponsive.

 

Name Your Experience

Reflect on your current circumstance, what would you name it? Name it, accept it, and trust God to lead you through it. In what area have you lost awareness? It’s a constant struggle and we need guidance.

We’re a kinder, more thoughtful people when we take time to reflect on our experiences.

May we be more self-aware, relationally-aware, and culturally-aware.

 

Yearning: One Emotion Every Student Brings To School

Ryan@educationandfaith.com

This post is a follow up to “The Three Emotions Every Student Brings to School”

 

What do kids yearn for? Answers. Same as adults, although we that are grown aren’t as persistent.

The Conflict

Yearning is a conflict in contradictions. We want to be honest yet hidden. We want to make others laugh yet we don’t want to be laughed at. We wan

t to be taken seriously, yet not too seriously. We want to be loved, yet from a distance. We want to be known, yet remain private.

Each is a battle and they’re all rooted in one fact. We are created in God’s image and likeness, yet we carry our human nature in a fallen world of sin.

No wonder why each carries a seed of strong yearning.

Giving Answers and Stealing Wonder

I want to know the best answer and I want to trust it. I see children aching with the same desire. They want to know the best answer and they want to trust it.

So what do we do? We let them find their answers when they are curious. Let them find their answers. As adults, we tend to chip away at the inquisitiveness of our kids. We provide sharp, concrete answers way to often. The child takes those answers, trusts them, and finds no room to discover their own conclusions. When framed answers are delivered and the learner trusts those answers completely, the magic of inquiry fades.

I don’t want to steal our children’s curiosity and wonder. It’s one of the most beautiful traits of the young. It’s hard to tread lightly this way. I steal their questions and squash them with a rote, mundane response. The child will usually give me numerous chances, asking the same question many times. Offering no room for discovery I simplify my answer even more, every time. Finally the student either trusts my answer or loses a desire to explore and know themselves. I steal their curiosity and wonder. With this I hinder their growth and development. The only thing that is grown in the student is ignorance. The last thing this world needs is another ignorant generation. Look at today’s headlines to see what ignorance breeds.

 

Keep Them Yearning

If you know anything about me from my blog or ebook you know that I value the learner’s curiosity and inquiry. With these a child’s yearning should be met. Not with my sorry excuse for an answer.

How do we foster curiosity and inquiry? If you’d like to explore deeper, I’ve linked a prior post related to each strategy.

  1. Create a safe environment through relationship.
  2. Invite inquiry and promote exploration.
  3. Do not spit simple finite answers but allow the student to draw their own conclusions.

May you find purpose in your yearning.

 

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

–Matthew 5:6

Grief: One Emotion Every Student Brings to School

Ryan@educationandfaith.com

This post is a follow up to “The Three Emotions Every Student Brings to School”

 

Grief is not an easy concept to understand. It confounding presence frustrates me. But it’s visible in every being, so we must approach it.

Grief is simply loss. Loss of anything, from the loss of my favorite Pilot G2 pens that my students keep snagging, to the loss of a loved one’s life.

Why Children Are Grieving

More than anything, I notice my middle school students grieving the loss of themselves. They are unable to be true and genuine. This is due to a variety of factors: homelife, puberty, insecurities, fractured friendships, etc. Really the source of this loss of self doesn’t matter. Social worker and researcher Brene Brown put it this way, “The absence of love, belonging, and connection always leads to suffering.”

Our kids are suffering and grieving. Every student, at some point in her day, questions her belonging. As this continues the child formulates her reasoning. She concludes, “because I’m lacking in love, belonging, and connection, I must lack value and worth.”

Oh, and in addition to losing their authenticity and losing their self-worth, our children have another reason to grieve. Childhood is the continuous process of losing innocence. With every birthday marking a year has passed, so does it mark the innocence that has slipped away. This can go on for decades, like the tide slowly receding back into the hungry ocean, only innocence isn’t returning as the high tide, it’s been swallowed and digested by the sin in our world.

Anne Lamott describes this change in Hallelujah Anyway:

We developed knowledge of our defects, our self-centeredness, our disagreeable ways, what some might call original sin, and it yapped at us–God forbid, people would find out who we were. We were going to fall or be pushed off the ledge, and our underpants were going to show. Some of us thought about jumping. As babies, we staggered and fell on padded bottoms, giggled, drooled, and grinned, and everyone was charmed and laughed. Boy, not anymore. Hormones kicked in with dark desires.

In the book she later sums up the idea, “Anything that leaves you more fearful, more isolated, more disconnected from other people, more full of judgment or self-hatred, is not of God, does not follow the Rule of Love—and you should stop doing it.”  

 

So, it appears our children have reason to grieve.

Teaching Kids to Grieve Well

I would guess that almost all elementary kids and a good portion of middle school children are not familiar with the word “Grief”. I only began truly processing loss as a man in my mid-thirties.

Recognize Loss

As adults and parents we do everything we can to protect and shelter our kids from loss. I’m as guilty as anyone in this case. I’ll do whatever I can to prevent my son’s cheaply made toys from breaking, just so he doesn’t suffer the loss of one of them. I’ve also hidden the topic of sickness and disease in order to avoid tough questions and difficult conversation.

When maybe we should let them be a part of the conversation and experience. Maybe we can model grieving well by simply communicating our own losses. Let’s help our child by recognizing the losses they’re facing.

Affirm their feelings

This technique I’ve only acquired due to repeated informal training from my wife, a social worker. In any situation, but especially grief, we must show kids that what they’re feeling is okay. We must tell them,

“I would feel very angry too if my good friend moved away.”

“Son, I understand why you’re frustrated that I packed you a healthy lunch and many of your friends had delicious, sugar-filled foods.”

“I can see why you’re sad and upset, that you’re running errands with my while all your neighbor friends are playing outside together.”

 

I’ve learned that affirming their emotions doesn’t fix the problem, and it is not a fun, and it doesn’t make the feelings go away. That’s not the purpose. But, it does develop an individual who is self-aware and empathetic.

If you’re unsure about the necessity of this, read anything by social worker and researcher Brene Brown. I’ve learned a lot from her work.

Show Compassion

We can only play the long game when responding to the social-emotional needs of our children. When we attempt to take shortcuts, our kids get confused. Because our society has not recognized the loss and affirmed the feelings in our children, today’s youth equate any emotion to depression. These same kids make irrational, and illogical decisions because they can’t make sense of their emotions.

We must show them compassion. If we look at the etymology of the word, it’s made up of parts meaning, “together” and “with great force”. Respond to our kids this way and we’ll raise emotionally healthy individuals.

This is one of the four traits I focus on in my brief ebook for parents and teachers. Get it here.

Brene Brown puts it this way in Daring Greatly, “The absence of love, belonging, and connection always leads to suffering.”

 

Read about the emotion of Fear in our children here.

Fear: One Emotion Every Child Brings to School

Ryan@educationandfaith.com

This post is a follow up to “The Three Emotions Every Student Brings to School”

Which Fear is for You?

There are two forces we can choose to fear.

The first choice is the disappointments and devastations of the sinful world. The nature of our flesh magnifies every uncertainty, the not knowing breeds fear.

The second option we can choose to fear is the almighty goodness and 

power of God. 1 Samuel 12:24 says, “Only fear the LORD and

 serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you.”

The tricky thing about fear is that we have to constantly choose between these two forces. Fear is a continued tactic of the enemy. It simply locates one’s weaknesses an

d insecurities and latches on with the squeeze of a vice. Even now, as I consider the debilitating affect fear presses on us, I experience an honest worry for the future path our students face.

Helping Our Children Overcome Fear

1. Help the student know their worth.

What are the truths we show the students about themselves? Do they hear that they are valued and worthy of love?

This takes constant effort in removing judgement and inserting grace. I know there are days I’ve failed my students in this. I’ve acted out of frustration and irritation causing the children to view themselves as a nuisance rather than a person of great worth.

In his book The Heroic Path John Sowers wrote, “The enemy knows if he can separate us from our true name, our identity, and our place, we will derail. Often times his work is finished after that, we destroy ourselves.” We must help our students identify their identity and hold t

hem accountable to that. Are they being the best version of themselves?

2. Help the student know they’re not alone.

Are we fostering a community that supports and comforts every member? Not one should feel isolated, not one should journey alone. We were created to journey life together. The community should bring joy to the experience.

 

Fear can either be found in the horror of this world or one can fear the almighty power of the creator of this world. The latter being a much healthier option.

3 Emotions Every Student Brings to School

Ryan@educationandfaith.com

Prepare to be uplifted and encouraged for I am about to reveal the three emotions every student is feeling at any given moment! Just think how this information will allow you to support and connect with your kids!

And the three emotions every child feels every day are: (drumroll…)

fear, grief, and yearning.

What? Not what you were hoping for? I know, it’s a real knee to the nuts! How encouraged are we feeling now?

On the surface these three appear to be paralyzing, debilitating. When actually fear, grief, and yearning are our formula for moving forward and growing. Let’s take a moment to recognize the truth in this.

I’m no psychologist, so I’ll first allow you to validate the three emotions in yourselves.

Find These Three In You

Fear: Simply think of your goals. Now reflect on the reasons they haven’t been met. You’ll probably find fear being a major culprit. Fear’s job is to protect us from any suffering, pain, or distress. Too often Fear works overtime and pummels us into a submission of worry.

Grief: Reflect on your personal well of loss. You can dig up the heavy sludge of deep sorrow related to family brokenness or death. Yet still, you can find grief in the day-to-day annoyances or troubles where a personal privilege or joy has been taken away.

Yearning: I hope you can find a longing for something inside you because this is the only emotion of the three with a touch of positive connotation. How is your yearnings connected to the grief and fear you’ve experienced? Closely, I’d guess.

We first must recognize fear, grief, and yearning in ourselves and others before we suddenly have a moment like this:

-Is this similar to exchanges you’ve had with students?

What’s a Teacher to Do?

  1. Recognize the emotion and develop an awareness of the overwhelming sources for their emotions. Compassion will ensue. You will like your students so much more when you identify the three roots of their behaviors.
  2. Offer mercy and grace because the child is experiencing fear, grief, and yearning.

Teaching’s a daunting task, breathing intimidation in every moment. But when we recognize the fears, griefs, and yearnings in every child the intimidation is suffocated. You have great reason to be compassionate, merciful, and a giver of grace. It’s not easy, but it is worth it!

 

Stay tuned or subscribe because there’ll be posts to come focused on each of these three emotions!

– Fear: One Emotion Every Child Brings to School

Mystery: Our Chance to Grow

Ryan@educationandfaith.com

Today I’m really just asking questions and exploring as I’m facing some mystery in my life. We’re repeatedly handed incomprehensible situations, both intellectually and emotionally and I don’t get it. How are we supposed to respond? Are we to tirelessly seek answers and dive head first into informational research? Or, are we to “Be still” and hope understanding is revealed? Evenmore, are we to put on a gritty smile and be alright without full understanding? Mystery can only be brewed with an intricate complexity. Through mystery we gather perspective. Through mystery we clarify the truths of this world. As a result, a long term result, a refined belief system is gained. I hope.

Talk about a practice of critical thinking! Talk about developing a state of mindfulness!

More Feelings, Ugh

I do know that we’re given emotion and it shows up in times of mystery. So when we’re talking about learning through inquiry and wonder, there emotion will be. Usually it’s not a gentle, calm peace that shows up either. I’m not feeling a quiet peace when I struggle to find answers and can’t even determine a purpose in a situation. Instead rushing in unannounced is betrayal, anger, frustration, and resentment. We must not judge the emotional response of the learners around us. Honest emotion is always legitimate. For me judgement is a real temptation that I try to fend off daily. How appealing does learning through conflict appear now?

Treasure the struggle, for we’re sifting the clutter while revealing truths. While sifting, emotional intelligence is developing, at least I hope it is. How uncomfortable it is to be in the sifter. The coarseness of each gritty grain chafes. A new fresh foundation of skin is revealed through the soreness. Those humans who have chosen to grow from the deconstruction in their lives are the beautiful ones. Mysterious circumstances can blow over our house of cards in a moment. That same house we spent years constructing. The best learners have found their foundational truths through conflict and continue to lay bricks upon it. Bricks are not made out of the question “Why?”. We judiciously mold our bricks by selfless listening and claiming a lack of understanding.

Sitting In Struggle

The progressive student maintains the same solid approach to learning. Humility and reverence for the sovereign creator is our path forward. Whether trudging through a murky swamp of fog or basking in a sunrise with 25 miles of visibility. Here lies the beauty of a community of learners, being exposed to a variety of terrains in a moment. I’m also realizing we don’t have to be ready to move forward on the path. It doesn’t mean we’re stagnant. At certain points on our journey it’s necessary to stop and take in everything around us, to listen and respond to the perspective and feelings of others. This is the humility that allows God to determine our path. I’ve tried to bushwhack a path of my choice using only my dull machete. After clearing a narrow trail for my own selfish desires, I found it leads to an impassible dead end filled with isolation and offering no available resources nearby. Humility offers the trail of insight, connections, and resources.
Attempt to embrace the struggle and the emotions of others in love, for we are mercifully loved!

Human Growth: A Simple Process

Ryan@educationandfaith.com

Since the fall of man, God has used mystery to draw people to himself. Every conflict or failure is a chance to either move toward him, or away. I think few find this to be a fun way to learn, though I I learn the most when my curiosity is piqued with wonder. These are the times when the easy answer is the wrong answer. When faced with uncomfortable circumstances the progressive learner didn’t ask why. Instead he looked around, reflected, and considered the path of humble inquiry. Socrates had this figured out a long time ago when he said something like, the more I know the more I don’t know.

Eureka! The power of knowing how we learn   

We’ve been designed to learn, develop, and grow in every way: socially, physically, emotionally, and intellectually. I feel like our culture is beginning to grasp how we learn. Smart people are revealing ideas like “The Growth Mindset” and “Event + Response = Outcome”. The growth mindset is the idea that dedication and working through struggles is critical to growth, and talent is just a starting point. It’s obvious to me now that it wasn’t Carol Dweck who came up with this mindset theory, but this is the perspective God has intended for our life ever since the existence of sin. I mean, he does tell us to consider it pure joy when facing trials because he is developing perseverance and maturity in us through circumstances (James 1:2-4). Could he be more clear about the perspective we are to have when given the chance to learn? Don’t avoidingly sidestep anything because anxiety, worry, and fear cripple our ability to learn.

Our time on Earth has been designed to be filled with purposeful conflicts and problems so I suppose we should teach our children how to deal with those problems. After all we’re to “Train up a child in the way he should go,” (Proverbs 22:6).  Our response to those issues determines how we grow. In this place there is a growing sense of entitlement. Many hold the perspective that the events that happen to them are controllable. The myth of “Because of who I am, bad things can’t happen to me” is a very dangerous stance. Look at the story of Job and imagine if his response to problems was from a point of entitlement!

Entitlement is just our Earthly desires on display. One of the most unattractive attributes is a puffed out chest filled with pompous disposition. This is grown from a complete misunderstanding of the truths and reality of our life. Thank God for his pure plan, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 8:28

It’s a battle we all fight, everyday.

Tools for Learning

Sorry to break it to you, but please consider this news with pure joy! When we need to develop in an area, we are given conflict. Yes, we are asked to embrace the struggle, hurt, grief, and frustration that comes with conflict. I think a great example of this is marriage. The first couple years of my marriage was littered with purposed conflict. We worked in it and responded to it and it made all the different. I must say, I tried to avoid it but thankfully my wife is much smarter than me and she helped me realize the process of growth takes effort and intention. Or if you’d prefer a much different example, let’s look at Lebron. The greatest basketball player on the earth has conflict too. Other teams got smart and decided to double team him or punish him with fouls every time he got close to the basket. So Lebron didn’t just continue to practice. He knew if he wanted to enjoy a long successful career he had to work on an alternative to going to the basket and getting beat up. He developed his outside shot and is now even more difficult to guard. (I love sports analogies and have a baseball one that applies as well, but I’ll spare you the boredom).

So you see you will not go through life unscathed, if you claim to, you’re an infant in every way.

I find Isaiah 43:19 very encouraging. “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

The path of development is filled with challenging elements. Each element has been divinely designed.

 

May you take joy in your wilderness or desert.

 

Why Routine and Boring Stuff Matters

Ryan@educationandfaith.com

The Flu Revelation

I didn’t realize the importance of routines until I came down with the flu and was out of commission for about a week. I had lost all momentum. While sick I had a difficult time even reading. Now feeling better all I had to do was hop back in the routine. Problem was I didn’t have a strong routine established. I didn’t have a solid personal morning routine, I’m realizing more that I didn’t have a good classroom routine established. Now here I am navigating a sea storm with a battered ship and torn sails. No reference points and limited controls.

Don’t completely blame me yet, I had thought I had routines, but they had never been tested. After laying around and following only the schedule of my nausea for a week and was now expecting to hop back on the productivity train without a hiccup. For some, this might be a simple task, but without setting strong routines my train had stalled to a stop. It takes a lot to get a locomotive going from a still position.

I had so much I wanted to get done but I didn’t have a starting point. Missing school a few days, my students had forgotten any idea of expectations that had been set for the class. I see what was lacking. When I was there, I kept it together, but it wasn’t set-up to keep moving without my input. The same was true for my mornings. Did I feel like getting up early today? Oh well, I’ll just hit snooze six times. I’ve allowed excuses to creep in and feelings to manipulate.

I don’t get giddy when shown a schedule and I’ve never found calendars to be particularly sexy. These have more of my attention now.

Establishing Routine

We’re rhythmic beings. Our Sabbath should be just like our heartbeat, consistent and reliable. We must have a rhythm if we’re expected to weave together a career, personal interests, family engagement, and spiritual growth. I’ve begun to have set times of the week for these but I didn’t have it instilled prior to getting sick.

Having specific times for writing and personal hobbies makes me more reliable to my family, no longer sporadically saying, “Hey, I have an idea I want to write about, is it alright if I go write for a bit?”

The same is true for my teaching. I think I apply effective strategies for learning in my classroom. Although I’ve yet to instill them in an organized manner. To the students, these different strategies show up unexpected.

I’ve been given a needed opportunity to reevaluate the organization of my classroom and my life. This time of year is always busy for me. It seems like requirements and obligations keep coming at me in the spring, but I now have specific places to put them.

Instilling My Routine

5:30am: Devotion and then write

Work: Get in early and get out on time

4-8pm: Commit to family

8-10pm: Personal commitments (read, woodworking, the occasional tv show with my wife). My readings and activities I do at night often relate to my teaching and writing.

This is not written in stone but I have specific places to put certain obligations. I feel more in control and reliable for my family and students and there is still room for occasional spontaneity.

 

Where is your life on the tidy to chaos spectrum?

I’m far from a productivity guru but my last post was also on this topic.

Finding Productivity in Serving Others, Not a To-Do List

Find Productivity in Serving Others, Not a To-Do List

Ryan@educationandfaith.com

As you well know, for me writing is my process of discernment. Here is the current battle.

How do I knock away at my to-do list while still giving others the attention and service God calls me to?

I’m a Slow Learner

I first wrote this question down a few weeks ago. Now I see the answer lies in the question. If my to-do list revolves around me and doesn’t exist to serve others, then I am not being productive. Lately I’ve been struggling to find the time to fulfill my hobbies. The problem is that each of my hobbies are self-serving and done in isolation. I believe these hobbies do contribute to my happiness and well being but I’m realizing they may be carrying too much priority.

My first awareness to this whole productivity vs. service issue came in the classroom. Am I existing as a teacher to work through a set curriculum or am I conscientiously serving the students in attention to their individualized needs? I’ve been searching for a clear cut answer but I’ve only discovered more questions. (This is another testament to why I believe there’s power in inquiry-based learning).

Questions like: Do I sit here and continue refining my lesson or go assist a coworker who I know is in need? Should I stop to talk to the student in obvious frustration or push through with my whole class instruction.    

The questions don’t stop there, it appears that every single situation and decision could become a conflict between productivity and service. I’ve finally discovered this doesn’t have to be the case. The two can smoothly meld together!

See Service in Every Task

I have written down on a notecard, “How is this serving others?” I’ll be keeping that card in my pocket daily until it disintegrates into a lint ball or to the point when I don’t remember why there is a notecard in my pocket. This card will give me a tangible reminder in my daily actions to intentionally spend my time fulfilling tasks that serve. It will also give purpose to the tasks that might be mundane but at the root serve.  

In the posture of service I give students valuable feedback when I’m grading instead of simply putting a grade. In this posture I’m motivated to pack my son’s lunch instead of leaving it for my wife. I’m a better person to converse with. Instead of numbering my to-do list in my mind while you talk at me, I’m engaged and invested in the exchange. When I do need that me-time hobby, I’m trying to do it in time that doesn’t take away from others. Like writing this blogpost at 5:00am the last two days. Moreover, my wife and son are pleased that I chose the quiet hobby of writing instead of using power tools for woodworking in the basement at 5:00am. So you could say I’m even serving my family while they sleep!

I can’t believe it took me several weeks for me to begin to attack my issue of productivity versus service. This also proves the importance of journaling and coming back to previous ideas. But that is another post for another day.

 

If you are serving someone you are being productive!

 

“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.” -Henry David Thoreau

 

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