It's New Years Eve and I am home alone. I guess I'm not alone if you count the dogs. The girls are at parties and Nancie is stuck working at the hospital. So it's just me this time.
How was your year?
We all have an opinion about the year 2010. My opinion may mean nothing to you but I have reflected a lot about the past year and, although there have been some storms and rocky roads, 2010 goes into the record books as a positive game changer for me. Hopefully because I have changed in 2010 for the better.
I just finished my Year of Status Updates on Facebook. It reads more like a list of quotes than anything else. I guess I should have saved the blogging for this site instead of thinking outloud on a Facebook Status. Oh well, here were some of my favorite Facebook Status Updates.
It is going to be a different summer this year. After 24 years of marching band, I won't be doing any shows this year. 17 years of a really great adventure! Can' wait to see what the rest of eternity will be like! I just cannot thank God enough for my traveling companion!!! To Karl: Thanks for pushing my thinking and setting a standard for me to reach for. Glad I can call you Dad! Bye Grandma You will always be remembered and loved. Family funerals are emotional wake up calls. Wag more, bark less! Tucking the girls in bed after getting them spiritually ready for school. Very thankful for the little things and the little ones. Friendliness is a form of generosity. Choose to be friendly! We want what we want until what we want is what we have. You get out of life what you put into it. Knowledge isn't power it's empowering and it is only empowering when it is used. " If you treat [an individual] as he is he will stay as he is, but if you treat him as if he were what he. . . could be [and might be], he will [become what he ought to be]" Goethe. "Dreams come a size too big so you can grow into them." Josie Bissett. Next time you suppose your life has taken a wrong turn ask yourself this question: How do I know it is a bad thing? And when it appears that things are turning out for the better ask yourself: How do I know that it is a good thing? Lasting relationships succeed because they continue to grow. No one can do the job that you were meant to do. More often than not, a mighty change of heart is subtle not sudden. A person becomes like the company which he chooses to keep. The real power of agency is that we make life happen instead of letting life happen. We act on something instead of being acted upon. We become proactive instead of reactive. Life becomes chess instead of checkers. Faith is the fuel that keeps me moving forward. Covenants are powerful motivators. Happy Birthday to my beautiful little Makall. Love you sweetie!! To a most beautiful and very talented 15 year old: Happy Birthday McKenna!!! As I get gifts ready for my children, I realize that my children are the real gifts! True gifts first begin in the heart. Sometimes it takes a death to bring us back to life. To me, the true gift of Christmas is a gift that cannot be held, it can only be felt. To my family and friends this Christmas Eve: Have a Merry Christmas!! Of all the great discoveries in the world, perhaps the greatest are just the little ones we discover for ourselves about how to live, how to love, how to act and how to treat others. We may not discover a new invention or a new medicine, but we may just find the missing pieces that can fix our own lives.
If you read this on Facebook, sorry for the repeat.
Goodnight and goodbye 2010. In fact, goodnight and goodbye to an entire decade. 10 years in the making: full of moments and memories that will last an eternity.
At the end of the day, at the end of it all, when all is said and done, this year, this decade, and my entire life, so far, have been so full of so many wonderful gifts and blessings. I have no room to complain.
Happy New Year!! Happy New Decade!!
Friday, December 31, 2010
Saturday, December 25, 2010
365 Days until Christmas
The house is almost quiet. The day has been a full one. The girls are getting to bed and I'm writing a few final words about the day.
It was a wonderful Christmas day. Full of the true spirit of Christmas.
This Christmas day was so wonderful to me that it will probably go down in my history books as one worth remembering. Perhaps this day will be memorable for me because, unlike so many in the past, I was not overwhelmed by places to go, people to see, meals to prepare, and the gathering of gifts.
We had a Bob Cratchit kind of Christmas this year. You remember Bob, the Dickens character in the Dickens Classic, A Christmas Carol, who was the poor clerk of Ebenezer Scrooge. It wasn't that we were poor, overworked or underpaid, but that because of scarcity of funds, our Christmas was a simple one. We spent less this year on Christmas.
Our Children knew going into the season that this would be a lean Christmas.
My wife and I decided not to give each other gifts. With Santa's help, we did all that we could to find gifts for our girls. But the piles were small, and I worried that there would be repercussions.
Yet with less focus on material things we had more time for family things. On Christmas Eve my girls exchanged the one or two gifts they had purchased from the dollar store. They showed a wonderful kind of gratitude and love for each gift and each other. Once the presents were opened we watched videos of our girls, when they were younger, singing and dancing at Christmas time. And then my three beautiful girls climbed into bed.
When Christmas morning came, suprisingly, we slept in. Eventually, the girls woke us up with smiles on their faces. And, here is a first, I didn't ruin the mood. I didn't raise my voice once as the girls opened the few gifts each had received. I was astonished at how sweet and happy they were with the few items they received.
We then visited both sides of our family and had wonderful and delicious meals. It was wonderful spending time with family. And, the generosity of our parents, through the gifts they gave, was also greatly appreciated.
I felt the wonderful whisperings of the spirit throughout the day. Celebrating the birth of the Son of God, the Messiah, the King of kings was as it should be and as I hoped it would be. This day was full of peace, joy, and love. We did as Elder Uchtdorf recommended, we "took a step back, slowed down a little, and reconsidered what matters most."
Today I renewed my determination to take upon the Savior's name, reassess my life, my thoughts, feelings, and actions. It was a day of renewal and recommitment to live by the word of God and to obey His commandments.
Today I saw Christmas through new eyes. Today I saw Christmas through the eyes of a child. I saw the good in the simple, and relished in it.
Maybe I didn't see the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Christmas yet to come. Maybe my heart didn't grow three sizes to large, but I saw Christmas with a new heart. My eyes were opened to the miracles and the blessings in my life. Oh how much I love my wife and my girls!!
And what about tomorrow? What will tomorrow bring? Will it be just another day after Christmas?
Fortuately tomorrow is Sunday and I will be able to attend church and remember the Savior again.
And if I try hard enough, I can keep the momentum up on Monday too!
And, just think, there are only 365 more days until Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
It was a wonderful Christmas day. Full of the true spirit of Christmas.
This Christmas day was so wonderful to me that it will probably go down in my history books as one worth remembering. Perhaps this day will be memorable for me because, unlike so many in the past, I was not overwhelmed by places to go, people to see, meals to prepare, and the gathering of gifts.
We had a Bob Cratchit kind of Christmas this year. You remember Bob, the Dickens character in the Dickens Classic, A Christmas Carol, who was the poor clerk of Ebenezer Scrooge. It wasn't that we were poor, overworked or underpaid, but that because of scarcity of funds, our Christmas was a simple one. We spent less this year on Christmas.
Our Children knew going into the season that this would be a lean Christmas.
My wife and I decided not to give each other gifts. With Santa's help, we did all that we could to find gifts for our girls. But the piles were small, and I worried that there would be repercussions.
Yet with less focus on material things we had more time for family things. On Christmas Eve my girls exchanged the one or two gifts they had purchased from the dollar store. They showed a wonderful kind of gratitude and love for each gift and each other. Once the presents were opened we watched videos of our girls, when they were younger, singing and dancing at Christmas time. And then my three beautiful girls climbed into bed.
When Christmas morning came, suprisingly, we slept in. Eventually, the girls woke us up with smiles on their faces. And, here is a first, I didn't ruin the mood. I didn't raise my voice once as the girls opened the few gifts each had received. I was astonished at how sweet and happy they were with the few items they received.
We then visited both sides of our family and had wonderful and delicious meals. It was wonderful spending time with family. And, the generosity of our parents, through the gifts they gave, was also greatly appreciated.
I felt the wonderful whisperings of the spirit throughout the day. Celebrating the birth of the Son of God, the Messiah, the King of kings was as it should be and as I hoped it would be. This day was full of peace, joy, and love. We did as Elder Uchtdorf recommended, we "took a step back, slowed down a little, and reconsidered what matters most."
Today I renewed my determination to take upon the Savior's name, reassess my life, my thoughts, feelings, and actions. It was a day of renewal and recommitment to live by the word of God and to obey His commandments.
Today I saw Christmas through new eyes. Today I saw Christmas through the eyes of a child. I saw the good in the simple, and relished in it.
Maybe I didn't see the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Christmas yet to come. Maybe my heart didn't grow three sizes to large, but I saw Christmas with a new heart. My eyes were opened to the miracles and the blessings in my life. Oh how much I love my wife and my girls!!
And what about tomorrow? What will tomorrow bring? Will it be just another day after Christmas?
Fortuately tomorrow is Sunday and I will be able to attend church and remember the Savior again.
And if I try hard enough, I can keep the momentum up on Monday too!
And, just think, there are only 365 more days until Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Your Own Lighting Display
Going to see the lights on Temple Square was one of my favorite high school dating activities. I have gone back, since that time, on a number of occasions, to see the lights with my wife and kids. This year my oldest daughter went with the youth from our ward to Temple Square to see the lights. She returned and informed me that new and brighter LCD lights were used, this year, to decorate the trees on the temple grounds.
I also like driving around looking for great light displays. Driving around the neighborhood, looking at holiday lights has become a wonderful activity, especially with the advent of elaborate computerized Christmas lights set to music. I love to listen and watch these great choreographed masterpieces.
Now compare these various outdoor Christmas light displays with something a little different. Compare these lights with your own thoughts and ideas. Each of you have your own mental light display. You have collected these lights over the entire period of your life. Like the choreographed flashing lights you see on display, your thinking is an interactive process, you construct your thinking with new concepts you learn and concepts you already know. You give meaning to new information you receive from the old information and experiences you already have in your repertoire.
Your lights are unique to you. Although you may learn the same information as others, you use the content and the process of the communication in a different way. You interpret reality based on your own lighting display. You explore, analyze, communicate, create, ponder and reflect, based on past experiences, personal beliefs, and impressions from prior learning.
Truth, however, is not subjective, no matter what lights you use in your display. Truth is like the electricity (or lack thereof) in your holiday light display. Light and truth are as real as the power of electricity. And that light and truth doesn’t obtain it’s meaning from the interpretations of man. Light and truth come from a source that is empirical: light and truth come from God.
Truth doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Truth is discovered and meaning is discovered from both the new information we receive and the previous information and experiences we have based on our unique perceptions, thoughts and feelings. More information doesn’t necessarily meaning more truth. The scriptures declare that there will be those who are “Ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.”
Like the strands and strands of Christmas lights, we link new knowledge to existing information. We add to our intelligence “line upon line, preceipt upon preceipt, here a little there a little”
We use sensory input in our thinking and learning. We plant and absorb information, ultimately giving meaning to it, but we have to first plant it.
Our thinking is layered. It occurs in our mind but can include our physical bodies and our feelings. Thinking, however, primarily involves language and visual images. They are intermeshed.
Personality influences our perspective and our learning. We have varying degrees of self-confidence. We have varying degrees of desire to think and to learn.
Motivation is an important and necessary component to planting , because motivation helps activate our sensory apparatus. People are motivated by external factors. People are also motivated, from within, by intrinsic motivations.
Thinking also occurs in context. We rarely isolate facts from the relevant situations and environments we discover them in. Thinking takes varying degrees of time to go over information, ponder, use, practice, and experiment with it.
Our collective thoughts, feelings, actions and experiences become our knowledge base. Knowledge is necessary for additional learning. Our knowledge base is the basis of our thought structure and meaning-making. The more we know, the more we can learn.
Our knowledge base becomes our mindset. We create a script and map based on what we know. Our point of view and perspective are based on that map or paradigm. Our paradigm becomes our information playlist, the filter we use to send and receive information and interpret our world around us.
New knowledge can be remembered more successfully when it can be tied to existing knowledge.
Growth and progression require continuous information upgrading. Our current mindset is a world view that acts as a filter to all incoming observations. Upgrading a world view takes willingness and work.
We can learn independently but we can also learn from others and by modeling behavior.
We upgrade by learning what we don’t already know. We learn from doing. Learning is especially powerful when we prepare something for others to see or hear. Visuals such as models, graphics, slides, or other activities which include participation, are very effective in changing our current mindset.
So next time your are looking at the Christmas lights on your Christmas Tree or driving by a wonderful light display, remember that each light represents an idea, and your collection of ideas are at the center of your own intelligence. You are what you think. You are like the strands of lights: the sum total of your thoughts, feelings, actions and experiences.
I also like driving around looking for great light displays. Driving around the neighborhood, looking at holiday lights has become a wonderful activity, especially with the advent of elaborate computerized Christmas lights set to music. I love to listen and watch these great choreographed masterpieces.
Now compare these various outdoor Christmas light displays with something a little different. Compare these lights with your own thoughts and ideas. Each of you have your own mental light display. You have collected these lights over the entire period of your life. Like the choreographed flashing lights you see on display, your thinking is an interactive process, you construct your thinking with new concepts you learn and concepts you already know. You give meaning to new information you receive from the old information and experiences you already have in your repertoire.
Your lights are unique to you. Although you may learn the same information as others, you use the content and the process of the communication in a different way. You interpret reality based on your own lighting display. You explore, analyze, communicate, create, ponder and reflect, based on past experiences, personal beliefs, and impressions from prior learning.
Truth, however, is not subjective, no matter what lights you use in your display. Truth is like the electricity (or lack thereof) in your holiday light display. Light and truth are as real as the power of electricity. And that light and truth doesn’t obtain it’s meaning from the interpretations of man. Light and truth come from a source that is empirical: light and truth come from God.
Truth doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Truth is discovered and meaning is discovered from both the new information we receive and the previous information and experiences we have based on our unique perceptions, thoughts and feelings. More information doesn’t necessarily meaning more truth. The scriptures declare that there will be those who are “Ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.”
Like the strands and strands of Christmas lights, we link new knowledge to existing information. We add to our intelligence “line upon line, preceipt upon preceipt, here a little there a little”
We use sensory input in our thinking and learning. We plant and absorb information, ultimately giving meaning to it, but we have to first plant it.
Our thinking is layered. It occurs in our mind but can include our physical bodies and our feelings. Thinking, however, primarily involves language and visual images. They are intermeshed.
Personality influences our perspective and our learning. We have varying degrees of self-confidence. We have varying degrees of desire to think and to learn.
Motivation is an important and necessary component to planting , because motivation helps activate our sensory apparatus. People are motivated by external factors. People are also motivated, from within, by intrinsic motivations.
Thinking also occurs in context. We rarely isolate facts from the relevant situations and environments we discover them in. Thinking takes varying degrees of time to go over information, ponder, use, practice, and experiment with it.
Our collective thoughts, feelings, actions and experiences become our knowledge base. Knowledge is necessary for additional learning. Our knowledge base is the basis of our thought structure and meaning-making. The more we know, the more we can learn.
Our knowledge base becomes our mindset. We create a script and map based on what we know. Our point of view and perspective are based on that map or paradigm. Our paradigm becomes our information playlist, the filter we use to send and receive information and interpret our world around us.
New knowledge can be remembered more successfully when it can be tied to existing knowledge.
Growth and progression require continuous information upgrading. Our current mindset is a world view that acts as a filter to all incoming observations. Upgrading a world view takes willingness and work.
We can learn independently but we can also learn from others and by modeling behavior.
We upgrade by learning what we don’t already know. We learn from doing. Learning is especially powerful when we prepare something for others to see or hear. Visuals such as models, graphics, slides, or other activities which include participation, are very effective in changing our current mindset.
So next time your are looking at the Christmas lights on your Christmas Tree or driving by a wonderful light display, remember that each light represents an idea, and your collection of ideas are at the center of your own intelligence. You are what you think. You are like the strands of lights: the sum total of your thoughts, feelings, actions and experiences.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
What Ebenezer Saw
Last year, during the holidays, I took my daughter Makall to see Disney's A Christmas Carol in 3D( the Jim Carrey version). It followed the typical Dicken's story line: Ebenezer Scrooge, rich & selfish miser, is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits, three of whom take him on a journey of reflection, revealing to him a vision of his past and the opportunities he wasted, his current cruel and selfish state, and the dire fate of his future if he does not change his ways. Scrooge wakes up to his situation as he awakens on Christmas day a changed man.
So this year I went to another Disney 3D movie with two of my daughters, McKenna & Makall, and without giving the story away, I saw a remarkable similarity to the journey of reflection I watched last year in 3D and the one unfolding last weekend in the Disney 3D Movie "Tangled".
My favorite song from the movie says it best:
I SEE THE LIGHT
All those days
Watching from the windows
All those years
Outside looking in
All that time
Never even knowing
Just how blind I've been
Now I'm here
Blinking in the starlight
Now I'm here
Suddenly I see
Standing here
It's oh, so clear
I'm where I'm meant to be
And at last, I see the light
And it's like the fog has lifted
And at last, I see the light
And it's like the sky is new
And it's warm and real and bright
And the world has somehow shifted
All at once
Everything looks different
Now that I see you
Flynn:
All those days
Chasing down a daydream
All those years
Living in a blur
All that time
Never truly seeing
Things the way they were
Now she's here
Shining in the starlight
Now she's here
Suddenly I know
If she's here
It's crystal clear
I'm where I'm meant to go
Flynn/Rapunzel:
And at last, I see the light
Flynn:
And it's like the fog has lifted
Flynn/Rapunzel:
And at last, I see the light
Rapunzel:
And it's like the sky is new
Flynn/Rapunzel:
And it's warm and real and bright
And the world has somehow shifted
All at once
Everything is different
Now that I see you
Now that I see you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw6q5189kpc
May you see the Light this Christmas season and always,
Merry Christmas!
So this year I went to another Disney 3D movie with two of my daughters, McKenna & Makall, and without giving the story away, I saw a remarkable similarity to the journey of reflection I watched last year in 3D and the one unfolding last weekend in the Disney 3D Movie "Tangled".
My favorite song from the movie says it best:
I SEE THE LIGHT
All those days
Watching from the windows
All those years
Outside looking in
All that time
Never even knowing
Just how blind I've been
Now I'm here
Blinking in the starlight
Now I'm here
Suddenly I see
Standing here
It's oh, so clear
I'm where I'm meant to be
And at last, I see the light
And it's like the fog has lifted
And at last, I see the light
And it's like the sky is new
And it's warm and real and bright
And the world has somehow shifted
All at once
Everything looks different
Now that I see you
Flynn:
All those days
Chasing down a daydream
All those years
Living in a blur
All that time
Never truly seeing
Things the way they were
Now she's here
Shining in the starlight
Now she's here
Suddenly I know
If she's here
It's crystal clear
I'm where I'm meant to go
Flynn/Rapunzel:
And at last, I see the light
Flynn:
And it's like the fog has lifted
Flynn/Rapunzel:
And at last, I see the light
Rapunzel:
And it's like the sky is new
Flynn/Rapunzel:
And it's warm and real and bright
And the world has somehow shifted
All at once
Everything is different
Now that I see you
Now that I see you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw6q5189kpc
May you see the Light this Christmas season and always,
Merry Christmas!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)