April 2024 – Paul's Blog

Information Is Not Scarce

Information is not scarce. If you are curious about a topic, the internet will have you drowning in information.

What is scarce, though, is taking the initiative… acting generously on the information that we do have.

Remote Control

Our boys enjoy the occasional “what if” game. The other day our older son asked, “what if you could *only* move when someone told you to move?!”

His brother then began to “control” his movements with his speech. And if his brother didn’t tell him to move, then he was stuck.

If we are attached to the approval of others, our actions are bound in a similar way. We are subject to either manipulation or paralysis.

Far better to root in something real.

Majoring in the Minor

It is possible to not realize that we spend a disproportionate amount of our energy on things of little consequence. When we do, we major in the minor.

We do this with our health when we obsess about a dietary detail, but don’t exercise much or give ourselves the chance to sleep well.

At work this can happen when we clamp down on a problem the resolution of which will not actually move us forward.

And then, with limited time left, we minor in the major.

The tricky part is that majoring in the minor feels like we are doing something productive. We are not.

Let’s major in the major.

The Path

This is the walkway from the street to our house.

A few weeks ago, four workers took up about a third of the bricks (the part that is darker on the left side), dug a trench, laid some wiring, filled in the trench, and placed each brick evenly back in place.

Brick by brick is the only way to do this job.

Many valuable tasks in life are like this. Showing up consistently to a routine of prayer. Working an hour a day on a generous project. Attending to the individuals in our life with active love.

Each daily instance of these virtues may feel inconsequential and, if we overanalyze it, it is possible to become disheartened.

But, if we don’t stop, it is remarkable what we can build and where we can arrive.

Attention Intention

Every day, our children notice what captures our attention. They take outstanding inventory of our focus and so come to know what we value.

Realizing just how much they understand helps me become better than I might otherwise be. Principally, this entails decreasing the number of things that I try to pay attention to.