Things I Learned from R. B.

Jonathots Daily Blog

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Episode 1

Flops, failures and flunk-outs.

I learned more from these than from any blessing that ever came my way.

I shall be candid and tell you that I’ve garnered practically nothing from success—except that it tends to make me over-rate my ability.

I knew a fellow.

We were acquainted with each other for twenty-seven years. Sometimes we were friends; other occasions, enemies. It was always spicy.

He died thirteen years ago.

Yesterday he came to my memory, and I realized that for all intents and purposes, nobody knows about R. B. I think even his family may have allowed his image to slip from their minds.

I learned a lot from him. (Mostly through those aforementioned flops, failures and flunk-outs.)

But there were times that were rich with emotion.

And all the encounters were chocked full of experience.

I’d like to take a while to tell you about that twenty-seven-year journey, one story at a time. They won’t be long—and I certainly hope, not tedious.

If they end up being boring, it’s only because I failed to tell them well.

But at the end of our journey—whenever that happens—I hope we will share the value of learning instead of just assuming.

For the sake of his privacy, we shall refer to him as R. B.

The first time I encountered him was right after I finished writing a musical…

1 Thing You Can Do This Week (To Begin the New Year Right)

 

UNTANGLE

You must be honest with yourself and realize that you’ve taken this whole year to tangle yourself up in relationships, causes, theologies, politics and negativity that has every intention of bumbling its way into the month of January.

We do not engage. We tangle. And the reason we tangle is that we lack the confidence to believe we have the ability to do things with our own talent, and we cautiously collaborate with those who have less ability and we end up achieving only as much as they are able to accomplish.

• We become sentimental when we actually need to be revolutionary.
• We become revolutionary when what is required is wisdom.
• And we try to act wise and often end up with arrogance.

Untangle:

1. Your relationships

Get a piece of paper and write down the names of your friends. Then consider the number of times they were friendly to you as opposed to the number of times you were friendly to them. Don’t offend them but adjust your contact with them based upon this ratio.

If you were friendly five times and they were friendly three, then include them in your life accordingly. Your time is valuable. You don’t want to hurt anyone, but you don’t help anyone by letting them hurt you.

2. Your goals.

Are they realistic? Have you ever achieved them? Has there ever been a hint that progress has been made? Don’t be stubborn. If you made no progress on your goals this year, then the problem is probably your goals, not your progress.

3. Your clothes.

Go in your closet and inventory your wardrobe. If you have garments you haven’t worn for six months which aren’t seasonal, take them down and find homes for them. There are people out there who will rejoice over your rejects.

And finally,

4. Untangle yourself from your failures.

If you have found the root cause of what precipitated your defeats and you’ve made adjustments, then don’t nervously wonder if the same things will happen again. They can’t because you’ve changed the playing field.

Untangle.

Because situations in our lives which are not useful or helpful will eventually wrap around our throats and strangle our life force.

 

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly donation for this inspirational opportunity

 

1 Thing You Can Do This Week (To See Things Done)

1 Thing You Can Do This Week …

(To See Things Done)

How much preparation is necessary to begin a task and how much energy is required to complete it?

Most aspirations, goals, projects and dreams find their graveyard in that cemetery of contemplation.

Because we are frightened of beginning something and looking foolish, or running out of money, or failing to complete it, we decide that hesitating, delaying and avoiding is often the more mature choice.

I am not sure that the airplane could ever have been invented if there were not thousands of legitimate attempts to make one which failed–but in the process, gave a valued piece of information for going forward.

So the one thing you can do this week is:

Find what needs to be done and learn how to do it.

In the process of that education, you may well discover that the conclusion is far beyond your ability, or maybe even grasp.

But you will become informed. Therefore, you will progress the cause and you will possess greater understanding of yourself and your world with this noble attempt.

There are two great responsibilities given to the human race

1. Tell the truth

Nothing goes forward when we’re constantly trying to do damage control and lying.

2. Try something

Stop discussing, plotting, criticizing or undermining the efforts you see around you and get behind an idea, having first prepared yourself by learning how to be a good contributor.

That is your goal for this week–the one thing.

When you find what needs to be done, sit down and learn if there’s any way that you can lend a helping hand.

P. S. (This is actually a double P. S.):

My heart and soul are crushed this morning over the loss of Gilda York, a friend of mine who followed today’s principle as a champion. She took the young people around her and gave them direction, purpose and a little bit of beauty that they wouldn’t otherwise have experienced. She was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver

And also, today is my anniversary. The secret to marriage is actually to have the stamina and intelligence not to keep too many secrets.

 

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly donation for this inspirational opportunity

 

Jesonian… January 28th, 2017

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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Jesus knows us because He was us. (What a great title for a praise band song).

He didn’t come to Earth to stand afar and consider our befuddled actions from his undergirded, divine nature. He was human.

He learned, he grew and he found favor through trial and error. I didn’t make that up. That’s what the Gospel of Luke says.

So by the time he reached his thirty-first birthday and was sharing the Sermon on the Mount, he had a firm comprehension of the human reaction to life.

It is in four phases:

1. We feel
2. We muse
3. We think
4. We do

There are folks who reject their feelings, muse over their failures and go to their brain–only to find it a library chock-full of old information, and therefore end up doing things repetitively, wondering why they can’t change.

Our emotions exist to tell us what we feel. They are not definitive, they are not final–they are sensors.

Our spirit is there to muse–to add that gentle balance that “all things will work together to the good.” Muse is the root word of music. The spirit should be the soundtrack to our solution. Sometimes it takes an hour; sometimes it takes a year. I suppose there are even things that take a lifetime.

But when we enter the third phase, we must be careful. We think.

Contrary to popular opinion, the mind is dangerous. Why? Because it is already programmed. It has our culture, our bigotry, our training, our prejudices and our false statistics. It’s the reason Jesus told his disciples, “Don’t think so much.”

Because if you come across a problem, feeling it may be a difficult one, and you muse over it in your spirit, but then decide to seek an answer in your brain, you’ll consider data that is often only worthy of the trash bin.

But do we put it in the garbage? No.

So when we start thinking, we start worrying, which negates our spirit and frustrates our emotions. We literally do the first thing that comes into our head–and it’s often wrong.

So what did Jesus suggest? What is the Jesonian?

Take your feelings to your spirit and muse over them until you get the music of wisdom–either from God, your own fresh experience, or even the counsel of others. Then move on that tuneful wisdom and do what’s right. At this point you can come back and renew your mind. It’s like putting another book in the library.

Your brain starts gaining flexibility.

The Sermon on the Mount is not a wish list by a religious boy who came from God, possessing an advantage. It is the observation of a man who lived in a household with at least six other brothers and sisters, worked as a carpenter, flushed out some bad demons in the wilderness, and was prepared to look at life as it really was … instead of trying to think he could handle everything.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunityty

ProbThree: “It’s not my fault” … November 3, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

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Fingers.

They perform two obvious functions: touch and point.

Touching is good. It’s a way of expressing our tenderness by putting our emotion into our fingertips. Pointing is when we try to place the blame on someone or something other than ourselves. We do this in three ways:

1. Pointing up.

Sometimes we feel so inadequate, inferior, ill-prepared and ignorant that we place all of our life concerns and journey needs on God in the sky, hoping for divine intervention. We use prayer to pass the buck to our heavenly Father. So we either procure our miracle or we get to act persecuted for the lack of attention.

Belief in God should build our character, not diminish it. It should make us more willing to serve ourselves and others instead of turning us into lazy supplicaters who feel that God has a responsibility to support us–since He fathered us.

2. Pointing down.

Some people, when they discover they don’t want to blame God anymore, decide to finger Satan, Lucifer or evil, which they can point down toward as the source of their failures. It is the ultimate superstition. Not only does it unrighteously free us of our own task and involvement, but it places good and evil on an equal footing and gives darkness too much light.

3. Pointing out.

This is very popular. When in doubt, accuse someone else. When confronted with deficiency, explain your indebtedness by insisting that another person has caused you to be a debtor. It is vindictive for two reasons: (a) it takes away the joy of achieving for ourselves, and (b) it often targets people we don’t like as adversaries, when those who really ARE against us are given a free pass because we like them better.

The three approaches of fingering–up, down and out–turn human beings into inferior, superstitious, vindictive souls.

The key to ProbThree–“it’s not my fault”–is to use your finger to point IN–not to create fault, but rather, to find your own definition of responsibility.

Here is my rendition of responsibility:

A. I have ability

B. I have problems

I will never be happy if I focus on one of those more than the other. If I only tout my abilities, I look like a jerk when it becomes obvious that I’m lugging baggage around. And if I only lament my problems, I become the buzz kill that turns every party into a departure gate at an airport.

It’s the blending of the two that creates responsibility. And responsibility allows me to point at myself without feeling the need to be guilty and faulty. Here’s how it works: I use my ability to help my problems and I use my problems to enhance my abilities.

Without abilities I wouldn’t have any way of addressing the problems that come up or possess the confidence to conquer. But I have to understand that if I never have a problem, I have no need to grow and increase my talents.

So every time I put the blame on God, Satan or others, I lose the capacity to become the beneficiary of a great life lesson. I also am admitting that I’m at the mercy of whatever I’ve fingered.

So ProbThree, “it’s not my fault,” is solved by the decision to point inward, taking responsibility and using my ability to solve my problems, knowing that my problems only enhance my abilities.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about personal appearances or scheduling an event