Perseverance

It is hard to persevere sometimes. We all have bad days that make it hard to stay true to our goals and can make us lose our focus in what is important to our future. When we persevere, when we keep our focus on the future goals, we achieve amazing things. When FDR said that Americans in the 40s would build 50,000 planes by the end of the year, everyone told him he was out of his mind. No way could Americans do that. And they were right. We built 100,000 planes and gave the Army an air armada that would block out the sun. We stayed focused and achieve more than what was asked of us and did it with people telling us it couldn't be done. We persevered. When Michael Jordan got cut from the basketball team his sophomore year, he didn't quit. He went home and practiced hard and continued to practice that hard up until he retired. He persevered. You can too. You have to stay focused and have people around you to cheer you on honestly and give up constructive criticism when it's need to go beyond and above.

Evil and why it's here

Evil is a choice. People aren't born evil. They learn it through a lack of comfort, love, and understanding. Those feelings and needs are replaced with a feeling of suffering, anger, and hate. We want to blame others, make others feel like we do inside, and project our pain on those we feel are weaker them us. Evil exists only so long as we allow these feelings to occur and fester. Evil will also exist if we do nothing about it. If we stand by and allow it to occur with no resistance. We must take a stand and change those that would do evil. By starting early with understanding, love, and genuine caring for others, but by also enforcing tough, just consequences for breaking those rules and be stern and firm about following through with those consequences. Evil is a choice and we can change the world by stopping one evil act and unifying together to not allow evil to take root in our community, city, and country.

Joy

Joy cometh in the morning. Think about that statement. No matter what happens today, when you wake up tomorrow all of that will be behind and you have a new day that you can choose to fill with joy. It is a choice. You can choose to dwell on something you can't change because it's in the past or focus on something that hasn't happened because it's in the future or you can choose to fill your day with joy by spreading joy to others in your life. You can yell at your kids or fill their day with joy so they have an amazing day. You can be grumpy at work and have a miserable day or choose to smile and be glad you get paid to be at work and thank people for being there with you. You can get mad at your significant other for something small that you won't remember in a year or let them know how much they mean to you. It's all a choice. So I say to you remember. Joy cometh in the morning.

Patience

This is the hardest thing for me to have and yet teach my children.  It is patience.  Patience is the ability to wait for something you are working towards but don't have immediate access to yet.  Patience is the ability to work and work towards a goal by taking it slow and building towards it, while not always having success in every battle, keeping your eyes on winning the war in front of you.  I think that patience is something that we, as a society, are losing in our everyday values.  With online streaming of videos instantly, news traveling around the world in a matter of seconds, social media allowing you to keep up with friends and others half the globe away, our world has gotten smaller and more impatient.  We crave satisfaction now and we demand it now.  Fast food restaurants, delivery everything, and video games give us instant satisfaction while we have to wait for the next thing to distract us from our long term goals and our ability to teach patience to our children.  We can distract them with TV or video or computer games, while we are on our tablets or cell phones.  Gone are the days when we tell our children stories and show them that constant hard work towards a goal will benefit them more in the long run and that patience is learning to delay satisfaction in the moment to reap greater rewards later on in life.  Teaching our kids that playing outside and using their imagination, and learning to be patient at times, can give them more blessings and a deeper meaning in life than a life of instant gratification and a longing loneliness that eats at their very being and soul.  A life that is going from one instant satisfaction to another is just shallow and ultimately boring and wasted.  Make your life mean something and remind yourself that patience is a virtue that we all need and should make sure children must possess.

Honesty- How hard is it?

Well folks, I know I haven't posted in a while, and for that I am sorry. I was struggling with fitting posting into my schedule, because I wasn't scheduling my time properly and I have been fighting to overcome years of doing absolutely no planning ahead and spending more time watching television then I was doing things that can truly matter and hopefully change lives.  In my few weeks away, I have done some soul searching and re-evaluating what really matters and deciding to set some personal goals for myself and figuring a personal mission statement for me and my family.  I will tell you about my personal goals.  I have set 7 different goals for myself so that my life is in balance and them by setting these goals, I have had to figure out what obstacles are in my way and what changes need to be made in my life to overcome those obstacles.  I based my 7 goals off of the teachings of Zig Zigler, and if you listen to his podcast, he does have an inspiring podcast and advice.  While I don't see eye to eye with everything Zig has to say, I respect his opinion and he does make some wonderful and life changing points.  If you haven't heard of Zig before, he has a podcast called Inspiring Words of Encouragement.  It is something good to listen on the work, to the store, or a walk around the block.  So here are my goals and I will also put which part of my life they pertain

John's Goals
1) Financial- Be debt free by 2014
2) Social- Take Brandi out with a new couple each month
3) Physical- You should know this but get my weight down to 240
4) Intellectual- Read one non fiction book each month
5) Spiritual- Read one chapter of the bible each night and prayer more
6) Family- Spend 3 more hours outside together and reduce TV by 5 hours per week
7) Career- Write my book by next year while being the best GM for CNW

My Personal Mission Statement- With the love of my family, friends, and God, I will inspire hope in others to help change the world for the betterment of all

Hopper Family Mission Statement-  Thru love, understanding, and genuine care for others, we will change the world one person at a time.


Now while this may seem silly or pointless to some people out there, I believe in changing myself for the better and by writing down my goals and the statement that I and my family live by, I can always refer to it when I make a decision about anything that would reflect on myself or my family.  I have found that it is the first step to being honest with yourself, which leads to be honest with others.  Now I understand that telling "white" lies to spare someones feelings can seem like a good thing, it never is at all. I have told my share, actually more than my share of white, black, little and Huge lies in my life trying to spare feelings or to do my best to keep my own butt out of trouble.  The problem with the lie is that you have remember the lie, remember every detail and prayer that no one ever looks into the lie.  If they do, then you have to  lie to cover up that lie.  Your stress level goes up and your health goes down quickly.  Stress will drag your health to the gutter faster than eating fast food will because it causes sleeplessness, binge eating, and just poor decisions overall.  Trust me, it is not worth it.  By being honest and truthful up front, you never have to stress about being discovered, don't have to remember the details, and you won't lose sleep, because the truth is just that freeing. You tell the truth and you can just relax

Honesty is not only telling the truth, but also respecting others for their opinions and having an agree to disagree mentality.  You can't change what others change, they can only change for themselves.  While some people are so far out there with their belief systems and values, we do live in the land of the free where the brave fight and, if called upon, die to protect our freedoms and our lives.  That is the truly beautiful and awe inspiring thing about our country.  We don't believe just one thing.  We accept many different beliefs and use those that we agree with to form our own, truly individual belief system and our own values.  We can also change our values and beliefs as our lives change and we adapt to new situations.  Now tell me, what other country can you live in with this kind of freedom to live your life?

So in being honest with you, my readers, I can tell you that I find inspiration as I am writing this, and I have figured out how to write my blog 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday), write 2 pages a night on my book, and exercise.  I can walk and do my cardio workout before typing my blog and then use my weight lifting time to focus on my book.  While it may not be the world's greatest book, I find the writing of it liberating and I hope it will help me start to lift people up.

So tell me honestly, Do you find this blog help to you and what other topics would you like to see me help search the lost truths for you in your life?