August 9
"My dental hygienist is cute. Every time I visit, I eat a whole package of Oreo cookies while I'm in the waiting room. Sometimes she has to cancel the rest of the afternoon's appointments." - Steven Wright
Nobel novelist, Mahfouz Naguib says: “You can tell if a man is clever by his answers. You can tell if a man is wise by his questions.”
Nap Time
According to a Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey, on a typical day, a third of the adults (34%) in the United States take a nap. When respondents were asked if they had taken a nap in the past 24 hours, more men than women report that they had (34% vs. 31%). This gender gap occurs mostly among older adults. More than four-in-ten (41%) men ages 50 and older say they had napped compared with just 28 percent of women of the same age. Below the age of 50, men and women are about equal (35% vs. 34%). Click here to view the report. [PewResearch.org]
"Self discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not." -- Brian Tracy
"You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving." -- Anonymous
"You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair." -- Chinese Proverb
"An attitude of gratitude creates blessings." -- Sir John Templeton
"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens." -- Lewis L. Dunnington
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." --Mark Twain
JOY 9
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." -- Calvin Coolidge
Annual Ranking of Occupations
Every year since 1977, The Harris Poll® has been asking Americans their opinions about various occupations. In July of this year, 1,010 adults (aged 18 and over) were read a list of 23 occupations, and asked to say if they felt each occupation had very great prestige, considerable prestige, some prestige or hardly any prestige at all. The top six occupations which were seen as having "very great prestige" were:
* Firefighter (62%)
* Scientist (57%)
* Doctor (56%)
* Nurse (54%)
* Teacher (51%)
* Military Officer (51%)
The occupations that were on the top of the list for having "hardly any prestige at all" were union leader, actor, stock broker and real estate agent. The occupation of priest/minister/clergy came eighth on the list of the occupations with very high prestige, with 41 percent saying that clergy have "very high prestige." Another 21 percent said that clergy have "considerable prestige" and 28 percent said that the occupation of clergy has "some prestige." In 1977, only the occupations of scientist and doctor were seen as having higher prestige than the occupation of priest/minister/clergy. For the complete report, visit www.harrisinteractive.com.
• The Best Husbands Are American Men
A British study found that Australian men make the worst husbands and hate helping out around the house. U.S. and British men don't mind lending a hand when it comes to housework. More than 13,000 men and women from 12 developed countries were studied. American men were considered the best husbands, along with men from other "egalitarian" countries, such as Norway, Sweden, England and Northern Ireland. Click here to read more from the Australian Associated Press report.
School days are the happiest days of your life--provided, of course, your kids are old enough to go.
"Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition once did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on Earth."--Will Rogers
Jesus Comes to Us in the Poor
What finally counts is not whether we know Jesus and his words but whether we live our lives in the Spirit of Jesus. The Spirit of Jesus is the Spirit of Love. Jesus himself makes this clear when he speaks about the last judgment. There people will ask: "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?" and Jesus will answer: "In so far as you did this to one of the least ... of mine, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:37, 40).
This is our great challenge and consolation. Jesus comes to us in the poor, the sick, the dying, the prisoners, the lonely, the disabled, the rejected. There we meet him, and there the door to God's house is opened for us.
Human Knowledge
Listen to this statistic: Knowledge is exploding at such a rate--more than 2000 pages a minute--that even Einstein couldn't keep up. In fact, if you read 24 hours a day, from age 21 to 70, and retained all you read, you would be one and a half million years behind when you finished (Campus Life)
An amazing statistic. Now tell me when do you suppose this information was compiled? It will alarm you that these statistics do not take into account the Internet. They do not even take into account the personal computer. And, why not? It is because the statistics are from 1979.
It is crucial that we learn not the glut of information that is screaming down towards us on the information super highway, but that we learn something that will sustain us for the days to come. The Prophets from of old proclaimed: They will all be taught by God. Are we listening?
Scholars have concluded that a peasant in tenth century Europe was exposed to roughly the same volume of information in his lifetime as is published in one daily edition of the New York Times.
Recall the paragraph in the story of The Ugly Duckling when the ugly duck realizes who he really is. "He saw below him his own image, but he was no longer a clumsy dark gray bird, ugly and ungainly, he was himself a swan! It does not matter in the least having been born in a duck yard, if only you come out of a swan's egg!" Jesus was explaining to the gathered people that it was the same with them. It does not matter in the least having been from Nazareth and born in Bethlehem, if only you are born of God.
Orson Welles once said, "My doctor has advised me to give up those intimate little dinners for 4, unless, of course, there are 3 other people eating with me."
In one of his sermons, John Baillie affirmed the absolute priority of this fellowship with Jesus, this attention to His saving Word and to the receiving of His life. He told the story of a man on the northwest frontier of India leading a fine horse with elaborate harness. There came the day when a band of robbers seized the horse, but let the man go. There came another day when a group of thieves robed him of a gold chain concealed in his turban. Eventually, the man reached his destination wearing only a ragged loincloth. But to his master’s son he presented the real gift he had been assigned to convey: a great pearl that he had hidden in his armpit. “So let us, if need be,” said John Baillie, “surrender all other things, but hold to the one thing needful.” Perhaps better: to the One Person needful!
Why, Why, Why...
Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are almost dead?
Why do banks charge a fee on 'insufficient funds' when they already know there is not enough money?
Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars; but have to check when you say the paint is still wet?
Whose idea was it to put an 'S' in the word 'lisp'?
If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?
Why is it that no matter what color bubble bath you use, the bubbles are always white?
Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale?
Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?
Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give the vacuum one more chance?
Why is it that no plastic bag will open from the end on your first try?
Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that's falling off the table, you always manage to knock something else over?
In winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat?
Two Norwegians from Wisconsin are sittin' in a boat on Dead Lake, fishing and suckin' down beer, when all of a sudden Sven says, "I think I'm going to divorce my wife. She hasn't spoken to me in over six months." Ole sips his beer and says, "You better think it over. Women like that are hard to find."
Nostalgic Fishermen
Someone suggested that we imagine this fishing club where the members merely sat around swapping fish stories about the big one they landed, the whopper that broke away, but they never stepped into a boat or cast their line in the water. What kind of a fishing club would it be whose members were content to admire the trophies on the wall, but never go out and actually go fishing?
A lot of churches are like that. They sit around bragging about the days when their boat was full of fresh fish. They look nostalgically to the days when the main purpose of their church was to go fishing, to reach others for Christ. But they never actually go fishing; they merely talk about going fishing. That's not what we're about as a church.
Appreciating Appreciation By Michael Josephson of Character Counts (603.1)
The song "Thank God for Dirty Dishes" makes the point that if you're lucky to have enough food to make dirty dishes, you should be grateful. Instead of grousing about property taxes, be thankful you own property. When you wait in line at the bank or are stuck in traffic, be grateful you have money and a car to drive. Easier said than done!
For me, appreciation doesn't come naturally. I'm not sure how, but somewhere along the way I came to associate gratitude with settling for whatever you get and not pushing harder to get more. Gratitude seemed like a form of surrender and a poor life strategy. If you're satisfied with the way things are, you'll never feel the urge to make them better.
What a pity I had to reach my 50s before I began to appreciate appreciation and realize it's rewarding to feel good about something--and there's always something to feel good about.
Although I don't do it enough, I've come to understand the profound wisdom in clichés like "stop and smell the roses" and "count your blessings." They remind us how easy it is to overlook things we could enjoy now while we look for what we think will make us happy later.
I'm still a novice at this, but I can tell you the more I appreciate, the happier I am. And the more appreciative my children learn to be, the happier they'll be.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
Nobel novelist, Mahfouz Naguib says: “You can tell if a man is clever by his answers. You can tell if a man is wise by his questions.”
Nap Time
According to a Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey, on a typical day, a third of the adults (34%) in the United States take a nap. When respondents were asked if they had taken a nap in the past 24 hours, more men than women report that they had (34% vs. 31%). This gender gap occurs mostly among older adults. More than four-in-ten (41%) men ages 50 and older say they had napped compared with just 28 percent of women of the same age. Below the age of 50, men and women are about equal (35% vs. 34%). Click here to view the report. [PewResearch.org]
"Self discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not." -- Brian Tracy
"You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving." -- Anonymous
"You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair." -- Chinese Proverb
"An attitude of gratitude creates blessings." -- Sir John Templeton
"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens." -- Lewis L. Dunnington
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." --Mark Twain
JOY 9
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." -- Calvin Coolidge
Annual Ranking of Occupations
Every year since 1977, The Harris Poll® has been asking Americans their opinions about various occupations. In July of this year, 1,010 adults (aged 18 and over) were read a list of 23 occupations, and asked to say if they felt each occupation had very great prestige, considerable prestige, some prestige or hardly any prestige at all. The top six occupations which were seen as having "very great prestige" were:
* Firefighter (62%)
* Scientist (57%)
* Doctor (56%)
* Nurse (54%)
* Teacher (51%)
* Military Officer (51%)
The occupations that were on the top of the list for having "hardly any prestige at all" were union leader, actor, stock broker and real estate agent. The occupation of priest/minister/clergy came eighth on the list of the occupations with very high prestige, with 41 percent saying that clergy have "very high prestige." Another 21 percent said that clergy have "considerable prestige" and 28 percent said that the occupation of clergy has "some prestige." In 1977, only the occupations of scientist and doctor were seen as having higher prestige than the occupation of priest/minister/clergy. For the complete report, visit www.harrisinteractive.com.
• The Best Husbands Are American Men
A British study found that Australian men make the worst husbands and hate helping out around the house. U.S. and British men don't mind lending a hand when it comes to housework. More than 13,000 men and women from 12 developed countries were studied. American men were considered the best husbands, along with men from other "egalitarian" countries, such as Norway, Sweden, England and Northern Ireland. Click here to read more from the Australian Associated Press report.
School days are the happiest days of your life--provided, of course, your kids are old enough to go.
"Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition once did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on Earth."--Will Rogers
Jesus Comes to Us in the Poor
What finally counts is not whether we know Jesus and his words but whether we live our lives in the Spirit of Jesus. The Spirit of Jesus is the Spirit of Love. Jesus himself makes this clear when he speaks about the last judgment. There people will ask: "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?" and Jesus will answer: "In so far as you did this to one of the least ... of mine, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:37, 40).
This is our great challenge and consolation. Jesus comes to us in the poor, the sick, the dying, the prisoners, the lonely, the disabled, the rejected. There we meet him, and there the door to God's house is opened for us.
Human Knowledge
Listen to this statistic: Knowledge is exploding at such a rate--more than 2000 pages a minute--that even Einstein couldn't keep up. In fact, if you read 24 hours a day, from age 21 to 70, and retained all you read, you would be one and a half million years behind when you finished (Campus Life)
An amazing statistic. Now tell me when do you suppose this information was compiled? It will alarm you that these statistics do not take into account the Internet. They do not even take into account the personal computer. And, why not? It is because the statistics are from 1979.
It is crucial that we learn not the glut of information that is screaming down towards us on the information super highway, but that we learn something that will sustain us for the days to come. The Prophets from of old proclaimed: They will all be taught by God. Are we listening?
Scholars have concluded that a peasant in tenth century Europe was exposed to roughly the same volume of information in his lifetime as is published in one daily edition of the New York Times.
Recall the paragraph in the story of The Ugly Duckling when the ugly duck realizes who he really is. "He saw below him his own image, but he was no longer a clumsy dark gray bird, ugly and ungainly, he was himself a swan! It does not matter in the least having been born in a duck yard, if only you come out of a swan's egg!" Jesus was explaining to the gathered people that it was the same with them. It does not matter in the least having been from Nazareth and born in Bethlehem, if only you are born of God.
Orson Welles once said, "My doctor has advised me to give up those intimate little dinners for 4, unless, of course, there are 3 other people eating with me."
In one of his sermons, John Baillie affirmed the absolute priority of this fellowship with Jesus, this attention to His saving Word and to the receiving of His life. He told the story of a man on the northwest frontier of India leading a fine horse with elaborate harness. There came the day when a band of robbers seized the horse, but let the man go. There came another day when a group of thieves robed him of a gold chain concealed in his turban. Eventually, the man reached his destination wearing only a ragged loincloth. But to his master’s son he presented the real gift he had been assigned to convey: a great pearl that he had hidden in his armpit. “So let us, if need be,” said John Baillie, “surrender all other things, but hold to the one thing needful.” Perhaps better: to the One Person needful!
Why, Why, Why...
Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are almost dead?
Why do banks charge a fee on 'insufficient funds' when they already know there is not enough money?
Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars; but have to check when you say the paint is still wet?
Whose idea was it to put an 'S' in the word 'lisp'?
If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?
Why is it that no matter what color bubble bath you use, the bubbles are always white?
Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale?
Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?
Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give the vacuum one more chance?
Why is it that no plastic bag will open from the end on your first try?
Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that's falling off the table, you always manage to knock something else over?
In winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat?
Two Norwegians from Wisconsin are sittin' in a boat on Dead Lake, fishing and suckin' down beer, when all of a sudden Sven says, "I think I'm going to divorce my wife. She hasn't spoken to me in over six months." Ole sips his beer and says, "You better think it over. Women like that are hard to find."
Nostalgic Fishermen
Someone suggested that we imagine this fishing club where the members merely sat around swapping fish stories about the big one they landed, the whopper that broke away, but they never stepped into a boat or cast their line in the water. What kind of a fishing club would it be whose members were content to admire the trophies on the wall, but never go out and actually go fishing?
A lot of churches are like that. They sit around bragging about the days when their boat was full of fresh fish. They look nostalgically to the days when the main purpose of their church was to go fishing, to reach others for Christ. But they never actually go fishing; they merely talk about going fishing. That's not what we're about as a church.
Appreciating Appreciation By Michael Josephson of Character Counts (603.1)
The song "Thank God for Dirty Dishes" makes the point that if you're lucky to have enough food to make dirty dishes, you should be grateful. Instead of grousing about property taxes, be thankful you own property. When you wait in line at the bank or are stuck in traffic, be grateful you have money and a car to drive. Easier said than done!
For me, appreciation doesn't come naturally. I'm not sure how, but somewhere along the way I came to associate gratitude with settling for whatever you get and not pushing harder to get more. Gratitude seemed like a form of surrender and a poor life strategy. If you're satisfied with the way things are, you'll never feel the urge to make them better.
What a pity I had to reach my 50s before I began to appreciate appreciation and realize it's rewarding to feel good about something--and there's always something to feel good about.
Although I don't do it enough, I've come to understand the profound wisdom in clichés like "stop and smell the roses" and "count your blessings." They remind us how easy it is to overlook things we could enjoy now while we look for what we think will make us happy later.
I'm still a novice at this, but I can tell you the more I appreciate, the happier I am. And the more appreciative my children learn to be, the happier they'll be.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
posted by joypastordon at 7:46 PM
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