Jonathots Daily Blog
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Thoughtful is not the opposite of thoughtless.
G-Pop wants his children to understand that.
There is an in-between world. It is lodged somewhere between being absent thought and being filled to the brim. Shall we refer to it as thought-parts?
It’s the quicksand human beings often find themselves in when deliberating the best way to be generous without really giving up anything. It revolves around two questions:
1. Why don’t they…?
2. And why isn’t it…?
For some reason, we get stymied by the fact that life is not working out exactly the way we envisioned it. Even when we pretend to be flexible and resilient, there is a hidden animosity lurking within us, causing us to be grouchy or overly careful.
On our way to thoughtful, to escape thoughtless, we get bogged down in thought-parts.
Because we certainly want to avoid thoughtless, characterized by staring down at the phone with buds in the ears and a grimace on the face, as a pair of texts arrive, ruining the day by reporting that the tickets desired for the concert were not available and the favorite department store no longer sells skinny-leg jeans.
People don’t want to be thoughtless, where they throw up a wall of insecurity and frustration which basically makes them believe that life sucks and they deserve better.
They attempt to avoid pessimism, but still find themselves unwilling reach the status of “thoughtful,” sliding down into thought-parts.
They don’t want to make decisions, therefore they become a target of every pesky hassle that comes along.
So how do you get from thought-parts to thoughtful? Thoughtful is pretty simple–or shall we say, simply stated?
Thoughtful is two realizations:
They don’t have to.
And I can use it.
This pair brings about the holy realization that no human owes us anything, and rather than complaining about what we have, we find a trail in the direction of success.
Since one of the more common questions in life is, “What do you think?” we probably should develop an astute answer.
- Thoughtless is always cynical.
- Thoughtful is always prepared.
- And thought-parts wants to do something positive, but finds it hard to get over being offended.
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Jonathots Daily Blog 
G-Poppers … August 17th, 2018
Today G-Pop wants to talk to his children about slippage.
In olden times they referred to it as “backsliding”–allowing oneself to retreat from principles once held dear–because the temptation of the times changes the atmosphere and weakens the faith.
In the past ten years, because we’ve allowed a streak of meanness to become acceptable behavior, there has been a slippage in the attitudes of the populace toward one another and in the passion for life.
It’s really quite simple.
Those who were once merciful have slipped into being merely open-minded, leaving mercy practically abandoned.
The open-minded people have slipped to being generous–and that normally only to people they know well or who are related to them.
The generous folks have backslidden to kind–hoping that flashing a smile and expressing a willingness to be helpful will be enough without having to commit to action.
And kind people, who used to think up ways to be contributors, have slipped to nice. If at all possible they will offer a pleasant countenance to the world around them–that is, unless something odd happens. At that point, nice people become careful. They will swear that the reason they become careful is because the world is screwed up and “you can’t trust anybody.”
And of course, careful people drop down a degree into suspicious. This is where you start to hear about folks loving their dogs more than people.
And those who were naturally suspicious before degrade to downright grouchy. They don’t even pretend to lead with a sweetness of spirit. It’s too risky.
Of course, there were people who were grouchy to begin with. They have become edgy–ready for a fight, and the edgy people usually find that fight, and end up being bullies.
Bullies have become fighters; fighters are more violent. Much of the violence has led to murder, and now murder has deteriorated to mass killing.
The political parties will blame each other for the problem, but long before there was a President Donald Trump, there was a President Obama, with all of the fussing, arguing and struggling that occurred during his two terms of administration.
G-Pop realizes that you may consider it a “conservative” problem, or perhaps an outgrowth of the liberal media. Since you can’t do anything to change either one of those organizations, G-Pop thinks it might be a good idea for his children to just work on themselves.
Where have you slipped to?
Where have you fallen?
If even 10% of the population would raise their human effort up one notch, to the position they occupied before 2008, there would be such an improvement in the climate of this country that the other 90% would have to take note.
G-Pop wants to tell his children that it’s time to stop backsliding.
There are no signs that the leadership in government, business, education or the church is going to lead a resurgence in civil behavior.
No–it’ll be up to us.
It’ll be up to G-Pop…and all his children.
The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this inspirational opportunity
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on August 17, 2018 at 3:38 pm Leave a CommentTags: backsliding, business, careful, church, civil behavior, conservative, edgy, education, G-Poppers, generous, government, grouchy, kind, liberal, mercy, murder, nice, open-minded, President Donald Trump, President Obama, slippage, suspicious, violent