Category Archives: Life

Doing what is right

Career, Life

You can take a person from any walk of life, any job, any income level, nationality, race, religion and ask them in almost every situation, do they know the right thing to do. If we are all honest, we almost always know how it should be done and what the right way is to handle it.

Just about in any situation of an ethic or moral nature, we know what we ought to do. We may not always do it but we know the right way to handle things. Something happens to us on the inside when we begin doing the right thing. Take your job for instance. When you don’t follow the crowd and take part in gossip and just walk away, it begins to build your self-esteem. In your job, when you begin to do the best you can as compared to just enough to stay employed, it builds your self-esteem. When you stay a little longer than you are paid for to make sure that shipment gets sent or you take an extra minute with a customer to make sure they are taken care of or you go the extra step to think good of people versus being cynical, it all begins to build you up on the inside.

One of the most beautiful people you will ever meet is the person that has the quiet confidence of having spent a life doing what is right. You can see in their eyes and you don’t even have to ask. It is a countenance that can only come from honesty.

Take the next week and tell yourself I am not going to watch the time clock, rather I am just going to do my best and do what is right and respond to everyone in the manner I would want to be treated and see how you feel at the end of the week.

Doing what is right is really an easy thing to do because we all know what it is. KT

Peace is love at rest

Life

Peace is the result of love at work in our life. Peace is rest when love is involved. When love is at rest, peace is now.

All that sounds pretty churchy doesn’t it? The real answer is it has nothing to do with church or faith or Christianity. We all know there are people that have never darkened the door of a church but they show love and are givers and a certain level of peace follows those actions. In that situation the only missing component is Joy. I believe the only way you can have true deep joy is to know God and show love.

The fruit of the spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23 list all the attributes of a life that is in step with God. The first three listed are Love, Joy and Peace. I am not a bible scholar but it seems to me that they come in that order. You cannot jump to peace without first passing love and joy. Joy is the deep sense of belonging that you get when you act in love. That deep sense of belonging manifests itself in a peace that passes all understanding. This peace I speak of is that quiet settling and comfortable pause that can only come from love and joy. It says that all is right in the world at this moment. It doesn’t say everything is perfect without problems, rather it does say that for this moment, I am at rest.

This Christmas if you want to test this theory without anyone knowing, carry a few extra 20’s in your pocket and when you see someone in need, go up to them and whisper that you were lead to give them the money and then walk away. As you are walking away, take an inventory of your joy level and I suspect you will recognize what I am talking about in this blog post.

I have done this on many occasions and I can tell you that the quickest way to get rid of stress and rebalance your life is to start giving. When you give to others something that is from God begins to melt your heart and loosen the ties of stress, anxiety, jealousy and anger in your life. Give it a try and then come back and comment on this blog post. Happy holidays. KT

Handicap hotel rooms

Life

This past week I did something I have done thousands of times over the last 25 years. I was showing a hotel and walking with the buyer and seller through the property. As with all showings, the buyers want to see the room mix and conditions and as part of that, they want to see the handicap rooms.

I was standing in the door of the handicap room listening to the buyer and seller discuss various aspects of the room’s condition and compliance issues and the usual conversation. For some reason, that day I zoned out the chatter and really focused on the room. It has a much larger bathroom and shower to accommodate the wheelchair access. The clothes hangers are at waist high level as well as the curtain rods have extenders so someone can reach them from the sitting position. There are mounted lift bars in various places throughout the room and the bath vanity was a special design to allow the wheelchair to roll up under it so the occupant would have accessibility to the facilities.

All of this is fairly standard with handicap accessible hotel rooms but what was not standard that day, was my reaction to it. Standing in the door way I was both humbled and grateful. I was aware of the statement of John Bradford in the 16th century when he said the famous words “there but for the grace of God, go I.”

I did a quick personal inventory standing in that hotel room and realized how very very humbled, blessed and thankful I am. Joy and peace can be an elusive thing but the quickest way to cut out all the noise, is to take a personal inventory of our own lives and thank God for what he has already done for us. KT

The word Moment, is a powerful word

Family, Life

The word moment is a powerful word because your life and my life are made up of them. A life is an accumulation of moments. At the end of your life I believe your memory plays the picture slides of your life. These moments define who you are.

I thought the other day about what is most important in our lives. If your house caught on fire, what you take with you? Think about that question a little bit. What would you take with you? In most situations like this, people make sure and get the family safely from the house. If time permits, the second thing they would take are the pictures and memories of the family.

What you don’t see are people running back into the burning house to save the trophies they have won in sales or sports. They also don’t go get the furniture, dishes from the china cabinet, clothes, shoes, TVs and cars. They get the important things.

With that in mind, I believe what you would go get from a burning house should tell you what is most important in your life. Moments are just that, a moment. A snapshot in time that stays with you for the rest of your life. A memory of a simple time that brought you perhaps joy, love and peace. These are the things that we cling to because they mean the most to us.

As this Christmas season comes upon us, remember the ones that mean the most to you and do your best to be in the moment when you are hugging your children, kissing your spouse, loving on your grandchildren. Don’t be thinking about something else you need to do and miss that moment because you may never have that snapshot of time again. KT

Setting a goal too big

Life

One of the main criteria for a goal or objective is to make sure it is achievable. If it is not achievable, the goal is worthless.

Let’s say my physical goal was to be 175 lbs., wear a size 32 waist, be able to bench twice my body weight and do 50 pullups from the hanging position.

That would be a great goal to paste on my mirror but it would be meaningless to me because it is unachievable. Now if my goal was to weigh 190, be able to run a 10k under an hour and bike a century (100 miles.) Now that may actually be achievable at my age. Certainly does not describe the current state of conditioning (ha) but it would be achievable. Now if I was going to win a 67 Shelby Mustang upon accomplishment of those goals, I would probably be driving the Shelby within 3 months. Why, because that would really motivate me.

Goals or objectives apply to health, family, career, finances, education, relationships and many other areas of life. My point is, for a goal or objective to be worth striving for, the goal or objective must be definable and achievable. If you cannot define it, you will never achieve it, because you will never know if you reached it.

As we go into the end of the year when many people are thinking about changes in 2016, my philosophy is to keep it simple, be able to define it and make it achievable. Happy holidays. KT