Jesonian: Reasonable (Part 10) Resilience … February 7th, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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Your personal resilience is truly a great gift you can impart to yourself, and even a greater blessing to bestow upon others.

Walking through life believing that you’re going to overcome all difficulty through perseverance or prayer is a cruel and unusual punishment.

Life never intended to please you. This is reasonable. Life actually offers a blank canvas which occasionally arrives already marred.

There are five tribulations which are common in the human experience. Failure to realize this causes us to develop a childish mentality. It begins this way:

I plan something.

Reaction 1:  Inconvenience. In other words, something came up.

I’m sure you know people who become exasperated over inconvenience, when it is actually the least pernicious of the five tribulations. If I am going to be a reasonable human being, possessing resilience, I must be prepared to evolve.

Because often, after inconvenience comes obstacle. Something is in the way.

I’ve never had a plan that didn’t require some adjustment. It is inevitable.

And obstacles often lead to resistance. Someone is disagreeing.

Truthfully, I can’t think of any statement you could make without having someone disagree with it. This is why each and every one of us must make sure that we actually believe in what we’re doing and we’re ready to reason with our adversaries instead of attacking them.

And I’m sure you are fully aware that resistance can lead to criticism. That’s when those who disagree with you decide to take a stand against you.

Butting one’s head against the wall is what produces headaches. When I run across people who are against what I’m doing and reasoning has failed to reach them, I know it is time to relocate. A plan that fails to work in Location 1 might work better in Location 2, where you don’t have to struggle with your enemies.

And finally, you can run across downright refusal. Progress is blocked.

This is when you must count the cost and have a Plan B ready, which honors Plan A, but separates itself enough from the original idea that those who have blocked your “A game” plan are ill-prepared to prohibit the new idea.

For instance, I’m not so sure that Jesus was supposed to die on a cross, but when human beings became hypocritical and religious, God had a Plan B to grant us salvation.

Resilience is knowing that inconvenience, obstacles, resistance, criticism and even refusal loom on the horizon.

Those who are reasonable in the Spirit have prepared for such eventualities by evolving, adjusting, reasoning, relocating or if necessary, even implementing Plan B.

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Mountain to Mahomet … June 19, 2013

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I am the mountain.

I am the obstacle in my own way.

I am the big, fat pile of dirt, poking up, protruding on my own path, forbidding passage.

I am the mole-hill which has become so overblown that my tiny mustard seed of faith needs to move it every single day.

We do a disservice to everything true and holy when we believe that our problems lie outside ourselves. Government is not my problem. Religion is not my dilemma. Family is not my stumbling block. My problem is me and I am my own mountain.

So as I head off to Mahomet, Illinois, tonight,  bringing my mountain, I am going to take three things into consideration. I refer to them as the basic ABC’s of human decency:

1. Act right. In other words, DON’T “be yourself.” When we bring our moods, we muddy the situation instead of finding a mode to mold our possibilities toward success. We all know how to act right–we just get bratty and refuse to participate. If you’ve forgotten how to act right, let me give you some quick suggestions:
A. Be nice. It won’t kill you.
B. Listen more than you talk.
C. Be prepared to be wrong
D. Go slow–speed kills.
There you go. And if you don’t feel it–then pretend you do. No one cares if you’re faking it, as long as you’re making it easier. Believe me–everyone prefers your better nature.

2. Be honest. Honesty is not only the best policy, but really, the only “insurance” of being taken seriously. Once you’re caught in a lie, people assume you’re a liar. It could take years to change that perception. I will be in Mahomet, Illinois, for about four hours. As you can see, I don’t have years. Tell the truth and then you don’t have to struggle to remember your fabrication. It is not a gift to the human race, it is a demand.

3. Caresome. It should be a word–caresome. Since we have “careful,” which is annoying, and “careless,” which is lazy, there SHOULD be a term to represent the value of human interaction. Caresome. You don’t have to be phony, pretending that everything is special, but you don’t want to doze through people’s conversations, waiting for the opportunity to share YOUR story. Care some. Stay involved. Listen for a question before you give an answer–and when you have finally exhausted your interest level, do people a favor. Excuse yourself and walk away.

I guarantee you fine pilgrims that if you pursue this A, B, C philosophy you will find yourself more relaxed, more valuable and more productive than if you try to “be yourself,” ultimately finding out that “yourself” does not apply.
     Act right.
     Be honest.
     Caresome.

It is the mustard seed of faith which moves the massive mountain of our huge ego.

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

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 Jonathots, Jr.!

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