Holes … February 18, 2013

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Complicating life doesn’t make you smarter.

Coming up with intricate ways of conducting your business certainly does not make you more efficient. And merely saying you live a “simple life” doesn’t work either, if you end up ignoring what needs to be done.

What works is making a plan, fully aware that life, circumstances, people and even God will reveal holes in your goals. What you do with the holes determines whether you will be considered a problem-solver, clever and on-point, or an avoider, a liar and a cheat.

That’s really how easy it is. If this were taught in our schools and churches, within one generation we would solve at least half of our problems–because we would be able to identify them as bobbles before they became disasters.

Allow yourself one fear–a fear of a lack of repentance.

Failure is inevitable because we are all learning. Set-backs are necessary because they instruct us in better ways to accomplish our goals. And without inadequacy, none of us would ever desire to learn more precise procedures to improve our lives.

While the church is concerned about sin, politics about flip-flopping, corporations frightened of whistle-blowers and the average Joe and Jane on the street terrified of embarrassment, we have developed a society which spends most of its time “spinning” our flops into accidents–or even worse, consequences beyond our control.

Here’s the system: I make a plan. In the process of doing that, I study what is set before me, evaluate what I have, and set in motion ideas which appear to be my best selections and which also don’t seem to harm anyone else. As soon as I rev that engine on my new invention, I will discover there are holes.

If I am the first one to notice them,  am prepared to repair them and I am willing to make the adjustments to them I will always appear to be a forward-thinking genius. If I insist that my original prototype is perfect and just misunderstood, or hasn’t had a chance to work out its bugs, or should be accepted despite its lack of quality, I will end up looking like a first-class jerk.

That’s it. Life is about making plans, knowing there will be holes, but that if we’re willing to patch them without bad attitudes or denial, we will make progress.

Do you want to grow up a little today? Make a plan, look for the holes, repair them–and laugh because you didn’t have to humiliate yourself by being exposed as a fool.

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