Shooting for Tomorrow
Let’s talk…
Conversation is important. Words are important… but wait a minute. I know people who can talk for a long time, they use a lot of words and actually say nothing.
It does remind me of Young Fuzzy’s last piano teacher’s admonition. “Perfect practice makes perfect.” You can practice something over and over again, but unless you practice it correctly it has only been an act of futility.
Today I’ve watched the news and notes. I came across two items that caught my fancy. One of the first was a speaker who had nine tips on life that he wanted to share. Some of them I found worth passing on, or a form of them.
His first tip is do not pursue a dream, or your dream unless you are passionate about that dream. In some instances, young people think they know what they want to do only to discover once they set their feet on that path that maybe it wasn’t what they wanted after all. Or, don’t get so caught up in following a dream that you lose sight of other things.
A person I knew was very sure she wanted to pursue an accounting degree because she thought that was where the money was. After a short time, she changed her mind because being shut up with books and finances wasn’t something she wanted to sell her soul for the rest of her life. She became a teacher.
I knew another young woman who set out to be a teacher but found she did have a propensity for books and numbers. She became an accountant. Yet in both of these instances, neither person found the end of their dream in a career.
Number two tip? Don’t seek for happiness. Finding joy isn’t something you will have a formula for. Happiness isn’t in something you eat or something you wear. It isn’t found in a vacation spot or another person. Without inner peace, you won’t find happiness.
Other things mentioned were, take care of yourself, eat healthy and exercise. Examine your opinions/beliefs, and be true and truthful. Define yourself by what you love. And lastly, how you treat someone less than yourself shows people who you are.
The overall tenure of the speech lacked inspiration due to the underlying theology. The speaker in the above piece referred to life as “long, hard, and tough.” He called it “an exceptionally, meaningless life.”
Without God, a person could look at life hopelessly. And if a person believes there isn’t any real point to existence here—within the eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die people—well, you could fall into that trench.
When people I know view a beautiful sunrise or a sunset, we praise God. We thank the Creator for the beauty and blessings of this life. We thank God for the good that comes our way, and sometimes we are thankful even for the less-than-good that comes our way.
However, there was another piece that caught my eye. It concerned itself with a WWII vet that was 103 years old. As he dressed up to celebrate Veterans’ Day the interviewer asked about his background.
He had been through many trials such as the dust bowl, the Depression, and he had been a pilot and a prisoner of war. After the war he suffered from depression for a time when he was in the hospital enduring painful back problems. A small gift from a nurse, an origami bird of paradise figure saved his life.
That gift caused a shift in his attitude from pessimistic to optimistic. After some surgery and recovery, he married, lived his life, and carried on. In summarizing his life he said there were three sections. The first goal was getting used to life. After you pass that hurdle a person had to learn to enjoy life and the third stage was to celebrate life.
So, there you have it. When this distinguished older man was asked at the end of the interview, “What are you shooting for, Art?” He laughed and answered, “Tomorrow.”
Ecclesiastes “8:11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
12 Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him:”
Ecclesiastes “12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”
