My Daughter Was Inducted Into
The National Honor Society
And
That Makes Me A Proud Father
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Risk! (part 1 of 3)
042709
Risk! (part 1 of 3)
One thing I could never be accused of is being afraid to take risks. Risk has been so interwoven in my life it is akin to an old comfortable pair of shoes.
Watching those around me, I am constantly amazed at the fear of risk most people exhibit. Now I am not talking about stupid risks like walking on the edge of a tall building. I am talking about the fear of failure that causes life-paralysis in so many people. They stop truly living and surrender their dreams to the reality of an ordinary run of the mill life.
Not trying to realize your dreams, in order to remain comfortable, seems almost criminal. Someone once said, and it is my life-quote, “it is never too late to be what you might have been.”
Thinking about this subject has resulted in some interesting revelations about why some people try to avoid risk.
1. Embarrassment – Nobody wants to look bad. And if you take a risk and fall flat on your face, you might embarrass yourself. So what? Get over it. The only way to get better at anything is to take steps forward. That includes missteps that can cause you to fall down. Making small steps is even better than standing still. Success is not one step; it is a series of steps. If you stumble once in a while, shake it off, and let it go.
2. Rationalization – This is the “second guessing” trap. Second guessing everything they do to the point of procrastination. A great quote goes something like this, “Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.” If you take risks and fail, you will have fewer regrets than if you do nothing and fail.
"Timendi causa est nescire"
The cause of fear is ignorance
*
Risk! (part 1 of 3)
One thing I could never be accused of is being afraid to take risks. Risk has been so interwoven in my life it is akin to an old comfortable pair of shoes.
Watching those around me, I am constantly amazed at the fear of risk most people exhibit. Now I am not talking about stupid risks like walking on the edge of a tall building. I am talking about the fear of failure that causes life-paralysis in so many people. They stop truly living and surrender their dreams to the reality of an ordinary run of the mill life.
Not trying to realize your dreams, in order to remain comfortable, seems almost criminal. Someone once said, and it is my life-quote, “it is never too late to be what you might have been.”
Thinking about this subject has resulted in some interesting revelations about why some people try to avoid risk.
1. Embarrassment – Nobody wants to look bad. And if you take a risk and fall flat on your face, you might embarrass yourself. So what? Get over it. The only way to get better at anything is to take steps forward. That includes missteps that can cause you to fall down. Making small steps is even better than standing still. Success is not one step; it is a series of steps. If you stumble once in a while, shake it off, and let it go.
2. Rationalization – This is the “second guessing” trap. Second guessing everything they do to the point of procrastination. A great quote goes something like this, “Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.” If you take risks and fail, you will have fewer regrets than if you do nothing and fail.
"Timendi causa est nescire"
The cause of fear is ignorance
*
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Right and Wrong
Think about this.
A smart person is smart enough to know he’s smart.
A dumb person is often too dumb to know he’s dumb, so he thinks he’s smart, but he’s not.
So both of them think they’re smart, but only one is really smart and the other is dumb.
So here’s my question:
Do you think you’re smart?
If you do, is it because you are smart and you know it, or because you’re actually too dumb to know how dumb you are?
How do you answer that question?
There’s only one way to solve this problem.
You take a test.
That is, you need an outside, objective standard to resolve the issue.
This illustrates the problem of psychological confidence.
Most people feel they’re right about what they believe.
But everyone’s obviously not right.
Some people are right and some are wrong.
So how do you know the difference when each feels just as certain he’s correct as the other does?
The answer:
You need more than internal psychological confidence.
You need outside evidence.
That’s why careful Christians don’t just have “faith.” They have convictions.
They have beliefs that are anchored to objective evidence because they know the dangers of putting too much faith in mere psychological confidence.
Fortes fortuna iuvat
"Fortune favors the strong"
*
A smart person is smart enough to know he’s smart.
A dumb person is often too dumb to know he’s dumb, so he thinks he’s smart, but he’s not.
So both of them think they’re smart, but only one is really smart and the other is dumb.
So here’s my question:
Do you think you’re smart?
If you do, is it because you are smart and you know it, or because you’re actually too dumb to know how dumb you are?
How do you answer that question?
There’s only one way to solve this problem.
You take a test.
That is, you need an outside, objective standard to resolve the issue.
This illustrates the problem of psychological confidence.
Most people feel they’re right about what they believe.
But everyone’s obviously not right.
Some people are right and some are wrong.
So how do you know the difference when each feels just as certain he’s correct as the other does?
The answer:
You need more than internal psychological confidence.
You need outside evidence.
That’s why careful Christians don’t just have “faith.” They have convictions.
They have beliefs that are anchored to objective evidence because they know the dangers of putting too much faith in mere psychological confidence.
Fortes fortuna iuvat
"Fortune favors the strong"
*
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