Remembering the truths of yesterday to show why they matter for all of our tomorrows
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Changes part 2
So as I was reviewing my last post, I realized I didn't put my weight on here. I started Monday weighing in at 321.2 lbs. as of this post I'm at 317.6. I figure if I'm going to ask people to answer questions and post comments then I better step up and commit to this process myself.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Changes
Well. I know I haven't posted in a while. I have had a lot going on so I'm going to budget my time better to get 2 posts a week in every week.
Today I am going to talk about changes and changing ourselves. The hardest thing we have to admit to ourselves isn't that we are perfect. We all know that we are not perfect and can easily admit that to everyone. The hardest part is that we do have control over most areas of our lives that we aren't perfect in and we just don't want to spend the time to fix it. The reasons we come up with are many, such as, it takes too much time, I can't afford it, there is no point in starting now, I'm too old, or I can do it later, just to name a few excuses. I can give you an example from my life. Currently I'm overweight. For years, I have said that I didn't have time to do it, I had to work or sleep or spend time with the kids or my wife, or any one of hundreds of excuses to justify to myself not making the time. Well not making the time earlier in my life means I have to spend more time on it now. So each week I am going to post my weight on here as a motivator to lose the weight and get back in shape.
We have to make changes
We need to make changes in our lives so we can change the world around us. It is the only way to move the needle. Changing is not easy. It requires a focus on a long term goal with several smaller shorter goals along the way. So set a big goal yourself and find ways to break it down smaller goals so you can keep the big goal in your sights. My big goal is to lose 70 pounds by December. So my smaller goals is to lose about 15 pounds a month or 3-4 each week.
I am now going to poses a couple of questions for you to post about. The first is what changes would you like to make in your life? The second is, how can the people reading this blog help you to achieve a goal and make that change?
Today I am going to talk about changes and changing ourselves. The hardest thing we have to admit to ourselves isn't that we are perfect. We all know that we are not perfect and can easily admit that to everyone. The hardest part is that we do have control over most areas of our lives that we aren't perfect in and we just don't want to spend the time to fix it. The reasons we come up with are many, such as, it takes too much time, I can't afford it, there is no point in starting now, I'm too old, or I can do it later, just to name a few excuses. I can give you an example from my life. Currently I'm overweight. For years, I have said that I didn't have time to do it, I had to work or sleep or spend time with the kids or my wife, or any one of hundreds of excuses to justify to myself not making the time. Well not making the time earlier in my life means I have to spend more time on it now. So each week I am going to post my weight on here as a motivator to lose the weight and get back in shape.
We have to make changes
We need to make changes in our lives so we can change the world around us. It is the only way to move the needle. Changing is not easy. It requires a focus on a long term goal with several smaller shorter goals along the way. So set a big goal yourself and find ways to break it down smaller goals so you can keep the big goal in your sights. My big goal is to lose 70 pounds by December. So my smaller goals is to lose about 15 pounds a month or 3-4 each week.
I am now going to poses a couple of questions for you to post about. The first is what changes would you like to make in your life? The second is, how can the people reading this blog help you to achieve a goal and make that change?
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Purpose Driven Life
Ok, well here comes post three for all those who are reading this blog. Last time I talked about having a purpose in life, and my friend, Matt Riggins, posted a comment about when he goes to work, he has a sign saying, "All it takes for evil to succeed, is for good men to do nothing." That is so true. When we walk the path of apathy, we allow evil to succeed by not standing up and stopping it in its tracks. So how do we stop evil from happening, we lead a purpose driven life.
A purpose driven life is not easy and is not always fun, but it is rich, fulfilling, and you can change, not only your life, but life of your children and your grandchildren, by treating them to live life doing what you do best and how to best benefit all people everywhere. Just because you are in your 20s and 30s, and you aren't doing what you feel is a purpose driven life, doesn't mean you are a failure or that its too late to change your stars. Abraham Lincoln was a failure at business, law, and had a failed run for senator, before he was elected President. Dr. Albert Schweitzer was still helping in Africa with diseases well into his 80s. Albert Einstein failed 8th grade, and yet was able to express the theory of relativity. Michael Jordan was cut from his sophomore basketball team, yet is one of the most prolific players in NBA history.
This purpose of those examples is to show that setbacks aren't the end of a journey, but the thing to make you push and want it more. I'm not advocating quitting your job, and pursuing your dream because it will probably lead to disaster. You must be prepared to achieve your dream. First, you must find out what it is that makes you jump up and happy to do for everyday forever, and something that you would do for free. The reason I say that, is because if you are willing to give your time away to do something, just for the joy of doing it, then you are on the right track to chasing your dream into a career that you will want to do forever and love doing. The average worker will have over 20 jobs and each job will last only about 2.1 years. That doesn't sound like the average person is living a purpose driven life. In fact, it sounds like the average worker is lost and is aimlessly searching for some meaning in life. So you must find what you love to do, and what you would do for free. This is how you start to find the purpose that drives your life.
So start with things that bring joy to your life and start to form a plan of how to get to a career on that line of work. Start small, and do it on your terms. Don't compromise or make little of your dream. Try things out and take it step by step. If you don't like something, or the outcome is not what you were expecting, change your dream little by little, until you achieve the vision and goal that brings you true happiness. As you dream grows, it turns into a vision, then a goal. Don't get overwhelmed by this. State to yourself what you want, and how you want to achieve your goal, and what it will look like when you have reached that goal, and stick to it. While it was ideal to start this 5, 10, or even 20 years ago, don't let another day go by without making it mean something. Start today. As Chaucer said in a Knight's Tale, " Days like these are for to rare to cheapen with heavy handed words." So go out find your dream, form a plan, chase it, and live a purpose driven life. Don't let setbacks stop you and don't let average people bring you down. Raise above and change your stars.
A purpose driven life is not easy and is not always fun, but it is rich, fulfilling, and you can change, not only your life, but life of your children and your grandchildren, by treating them to live life doing what you do best and how to best benefit all people everywhere. Just because you are in your 20s and 30s, and you aren't doing what you feel is a purpose driven life, doesn't mean you are a failure or that its too late to change your stars. Abraham Lincoln was a failure at business, law, and had a failed run for senator, before he was elected President. Dr. Albert Schweitzer was still helping in Africa with diseases well into his 80s. Albert Einstein failed 8th grade, and yet was able to express the theory of relativity. Michael Jordan was cut from his sophomore basketball team, yet is one of the most prolific players in NBA history.
This purpose of those examples is to show that setbacks aren't the end of a journey, but the thing to make you push and want it more. I'm not advocating quitting your job, and pursuing your dream because it will probably lead to disaster. You must be prepared to achieve your dream. First, you must find out what it is that makes you jump up and happy to do for everyday forever, and something that you would do for free. The reason I say that, is because if you are willing to give your time away to do something, just for the joy of doing it, then you are on the right track to chasing your dream into a career that you will want to do forever and love doing. The average worker will have over 20 jobs and each job will last only about 2.1 years. That doesn't sound like the average person is living a purpose driven life. In fact, it sounds like the average worker is lost and is aimlessly searching for some meaning in life. So you must find what you love to do, and what you would do for free. This is how you start to find the purpose that drives your life.
So start with things that bring joy to your life and start to form a plan of how to get to a career on that line of work. Start small, and do it on your terms. Don't compromise or make little of your dream. Try things out and take it step by step. If you don't like something, or the outcome is not what you were expecting, change your dream little by little, until you achieve the vision and goal that brings you true happiness. As you dream grows, it turns into a vision, then a goal. Don't get overwhelmed by this. State to yourself what you want, and how you want to achieve your goal, and what it will look like when you have reached that goal, and stick to it. While it was ideal to start this 5, 10, or even 20 years ago, don't let another day go by without making it mean something. Start today. As Chaucer said in a Knight's Tale, " Days like these are for to rare to cheapen with heavy handed words." So go out find your dream, form a plan, chase it, and live a purpose driven life. Don't let setbacks stop you and don't let average people bring you down. Raise above and change your stars.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Purpose
Well folks. Here is post number 2. I am hoping to do a couple of these a week. Please feel free to leave a comment or email me to let me know what you think.
So next, let me explain the purpose of my blog. I'm not an expert in anything, but these are just my observations of life and where we were as a society and a people versus where I believe we are heading in our future. Now some people will not agree with me altogether, and others may agree on some points and not on others, and that is perfectly fine. My goal to not to change minds, but change the way we act on things we disagree on and stop blaming each other for things not being accomplished. I would rather compromise on our disagreements in order to solve the problems we face as a society, than just blame the other people who disagree with me for not changing their minds to my view and my view alone. That is one of the main problems we face a society and as citizens of the world. We have the ability to solve most of the problems in our world, (i.e. hunger, pollution, lack of water to those less fortunate) we simply lack the leadership to agree on how to best achieve these goals. If our leaders could compromise, rather than cast doubt and worry about their own legacies and future elections, we could have taken care of these problems years ago.
To best explain how I see us as a society are moving, I see 3 paths in front of us. One path is the path of justice, freedom, and goodness. It is a very narrow road to walk, one that our forefathers walked, not without some stumbles, but always with their heads focus on the distance goal ahead them. The last path is the one of tyranny, oppression, and hate. This is the path of dictators, bigots, and the scum of society. It is a dark path that those who wish to only further their own goals and agendas walk, and the trample others on their path to what they view as ultimate power over others. The third path is by far the widest and easiest to walk. It is the path of apathy, uncaring, and the "if it doesn't concern/effect me, leave me alone". It is easy to walk this path, because if it doesn't personally affect you or those to love and care about, then you don't care to help solve the problem. The main problem with walking this path is that while you are a good person, who does good sometimes, the times you don't, the people on the evil path grow strong, and we weaken those on the good path. We don't want to report abuse, cause its not our problem. We don't stop to help people on the side of the road cause we don't have the time. We stare at people going through disasters all over the world, and switch channels to something less troubling or that we enjoy more. The problem with this path is that it has no view of a future and it is the easiest path to walk. We, as a society, have to get off this path and change the world for the better, not react to it when it suits us best, or we are forced to do something by a grave act of evil.
We have to change ourselves, and have the patience of allowing change to happen slowly, instead of trying to force it, or getting discouraged when it doesn't happen instantly. Time and effort by others and keeping our eyes on that goal in the distance will allow us to change for the better and no longer walk the path of apathy. Knowing that evil will always exist in a world of free choice shouldn't be discouraging, but rather a calling to stand up and be ready to face it when it comes to fight, not letting it take root and ignoring the problem until it affects us personally.
Well thats all for today. Let me know what you think.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Welcome to my blog
Hello everyone,
Welcome to my blog. Let me introduce myself. My name is John Hopper, and I am 29 years old. I am married to a wonderful woman, who has given me 3 beautiful and extraordinary children. They amaze me daily with their ability to adapt, to learn, and to overcome obstacles in their way. I am writing this blog as a testament to the truths that they teach and remind me daily and the lessons I have learned or am in the process of learning as my life goes on. This blog will serve as a written record of the events and lessons in order to help others discover lessons I learned the hard way or how I paid attention to those who went before me down those winding and troublesome paths and how they showed to how to best navigate my way through those dark and troubling times. I am not a perfect person, and most of the time I have made mistakes. I own those mistakes, for they taught me lessons that I wish to pass on to others. I am going to try and post at least 2 times a week and introduce to the wonderful people who have made up my life.
Welcome to my blog. Let me introduce myself. My name is John Hopper, and I am 29 years old. I am married to a wonderful woman, who has given me 3 beautiful and extraordinary children. They amaze me daily with their ability to adapt, to learn, and to overcome obstacles in their way. I am writing this blog as a testament to the truths that they teach and remind me daily and the lessons I have learned or am in the process of learning as my life goes on. This blog will serve as a written record of the events and lessons in order to help others discover lessons I learned the hard way or how I paid attention to those who went before me down those winding and troublesome paths and how they showed to how to best navigate my way through those dark and troubling times. I am not a perfect person, and most of the time I have made mistakes. I own those mistakes, for they taught me lessons that I wish to pass on to others. I am going to try and post at least 2 times a week and introduce to the wonderful people who have made up my life.
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