Strengthen Your Family - It matters!

“Our society is a result of families failure to teach, train, educate and civilize.”
—DCF

Civial Conversations - Can You Have One?

I've been thinking and discussing the breakdown of conversation in our society. All you have to do is look at politic and you know, we can't discuss things like human beings.

The other night I was at a social media club meeting and the topic of civility came up. I wanted to stop the discussion there and pursue the conversation but I knew the answer and didn't think they did.

We are trained to find the one right answer! But in life there is not always only one right answer.

Without the ability to look at all sides of a problem we will never be able to have such dialogue. To be able to have a clearer mind and an objective perspective we must gain a broader understanding of the thing that make up life.

For thousands of years, in the pursuit of excellence, mankind yearned for and worked hard to get a liberal arts education. Until we can restore such a noble perspective I fear civil dialogue will be hard to find.

Ideals are Selective

Ideals are selective. We must select lofty ideals to stand out in a crowd. To become a true individual you have to have inner-strength to stand strong through life. To live a noble life, a life of Christ, one must select ideals that not only influence our actions but also influence those around us.

If you've ever read Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre you've see a character who chose her ideals and stood by them, even when she didn't want to stand by them.

Can you stand strong in a society that's singularly focused on getting us to conform to their ideals? It requires a lot of us to withstand such pressure and be ourselves.

Truth, virtue, honesty, integrity, initiative, ingenuity, allegiance, commitment, passion, entrepreneurship and others are needed to make an impact!

In short, people with sensus plenior are needed to help our society. Be the individual you were meant to be.

"Our lives depend on the decisions we make, for decisions determine destiny."
- Thomas Mason

Assignment:
Shun the training you've been given to look at everything around you in a singular, literal light. Flock to people who don't fit the mold. Ask questions of them. Endless questions. Find out what makes them tick. Try to find out why they do what they do. Be curious and inquisitive.

We are in a fourth turning - a time of crisis. To find security in such a time a focus on home, community and entrepreneurship are needed. You can learn a lot from a maverick.

Producer Wanted

Wanted: People capable of producing products the people need. Requires hard work, thinking, studying, pondering, sweat and toil, even heartache at time. The ability to do things you've never done before and to be innovative to survive. Early hours. Late hours. Little time off.

Reward: Self-sufficiency - no reliance on others to support you and your family. Not a slave to corporate America or the state. Happiness. A simpler life.

Being embolden to other is slavery. Without a broad knowledge base (as apposed to a specialty or expertise) or what was once known as Liberal Arts training we have become slaves to our society - no more free to pursue our purpose.

What Can You Do?
Produce things that can make you independent from the forces that bind you. By that I mean, when you've learned to separate your value from your time, only then can you conceive to become independent.

Produce some of your own food. End your dependence (download mp3) on national and multi-nation businesses.

Produce a product that others want and need. Then look for different ways to get your product to those who need it.

We need independent thinker in our society to rescue it from those who are controlling it! Will you stand up?

Raise Up and Make a Change

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

A PSALM OF LIFE Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

This excerpt for Longfellow's poem, A Psalm of Life, especially the last verse reminds of the loss in our modern society.

Enjoyment was not an American goal, but to self-educate and make oneself better so as to be able to help grow our nation and maintain it freedoms.

Until we remember what it is to be "an American" we will continue to loose our freedoms and our status as a "beacon on a hill" for the world.

Assignment:
Read the United State Constitution and the Deceleration of Independence to remember why this land was created. Then work to become "an American," not as the slaves of Rome - too distracted by entertainment to raise up and make a change.

Colloquium - The Missing Key to Our Education

"But the last pare drops."

Molly instantly exacted particulars.

"The soldier should not have told the general he was killed," stated the cow-puncher.

"What should he have told him, I'd like to know?" said Molly.

"Why, just nothing. If the soldier could ride out of the battle all shot up, and tell his general about their takin' the town — that was being gritty, yu' see. But that truck at the finish —please say it again?"

So Molly read: — " 'You're wounded!' 'Nay,' the soldier's pride Touched to the quick, he said, 'I'm killed, sire!' And, his chief beside, Smiling, the boy fell dead."

"'Nay, I'm killed, sire,'" drawled the Virginian, amiably; for (symptom of convalescence) his freakish irony was revived in him. "Now a man who was man enough to act like he did, yu' see, would fall dead without mentioning it."

None of Molly's sweet girl friends had ever thus challenged Mr. Browning. They had been wont to cluster over him with a joyous awe that deepened proportionally with their misunderstanding. Molly paused to consider this novelty of view about the soldier.

"He was a Frenchman, you know," she said, under inspiration.

"A Frenchman," murmured the grave cow-puncher. "I never knowed a Frenchman, but I reckon they might perform that class of foolish?"

"But why was it foolish?" she cried. "His soldier's pride—don't you see?

"No." Molly now burst into a luxury of discussion. She leaned toward her cow-puncher with bright eyes searching his; with elbow on knee and hand propping chin, her lap became a slant, and from it Browning the poet slid and toppled, and lay unrescued. For the slow cow-puncher unfolded his notions of masculine courage and modesty (though he did not deal in such high-sounding names), and Molly forgot everything to listen to him, as he forgot himself and his inveterate shyness and grew talkative to her. "I would never have supposed that!" she would exclaim as she heard him; or, presently again, "I never had such an idea!" And her mind opened with delight to these new things which come from the man's mind so simple and direct.
—The Virginian, p551-2, by Owen Wister

For three hundred years this was the norm of our societies learning. Colloquium as it was called.
col·lo·qui·um (kə-lō'kwē-əm)

1. An informal meeting for the exchange of views.
2. An academic seminar on a broad field of study, usually led by a different lecturer at each meeting.

To be prepared for the 21st century this style of learning must return. I've really enjoyed, as of late, the opportunity to experience colloquium from the sidelines.

Assignment
Visit this link at George Whyth University and experience a colloquium for yourself. I'm betting you will enjoy it as much as I have.

Dream Job - Can You Get One?

Top 30 Skills needed to secure the job of your dreams!

To secure the job you want there are a number of minimum criteria that wise businesses look for. If you are not prepared you will not be hired. What are you doing to be prepared to get the job of your dreams?

Following are lists of needed skills to prepare for the 21st century.

Harvard School of Law’s Required Skills
1. The ability to define problems without a guide.
2. The ability to ask hard questions which challenge prevailing assumptions.
3. The ability to quickly assimilate needed data from masses of irrelevant information.
4. The ability to work in teams without guidance.
5. The ability to work absolutely alone.
6. The ability to persuade others that your course is the right one.
7. The ability to conceptualize and reorganization information into new patterns.
8. The ability to discuss ideas with an eye toward application.
9-10. The ability to think inductively, deductively and dialectically.

Princeton’s Required Skills
1. The ability to think, speak, and write clearly.
2. The ability to reason critically and systematically.
3. The ability to conceptualize and solve problems.
4. The ability to think independently.
5. The ability to take initiative and work independently.
6. The ability to work in cooperation with others and learn collaboratively.
7. The ability to judge what it means to understand something thoroughly.
8. The ability to distinguish the important from the trivial, the enduring from the ephemeral.
9. Familiar with different modes of thought (including quantitative, historical, scientific, and aesthetic).
10. Depth of knowledge in a particular field.
11. The ability to see connections among disciplines, ideas and cultures.
12. The ability to pursue life lone learning.

George Wythe’s Required Skills
1. The ability to understand human nature and lead accordingly.
2. The ability to identify needed personal traits and turn them into habits.
3. The ability to establish, maintain and improve lasting relationships.
4. The ability to keep one’s life in proper balance.
5. The ability to discern truth and error regardless of the source, or the delivery.
6. The ability to discern true from right.
7. The ability and discipline to do right.
8. The ability and discipline to constantly improve.

Taken from A Thomas Jefferson Education, George Wythe College Press, 2000, p124-130

These skills are not currently taught en mass in our public schools. Fortunately for us, there are people with these skills who forward such thinking. It is imperative that we seek out these skills and add them to our skill set.

Is Too Much Too Much?

Is it true that when you lavish your children with things you steal their ability to imagine as they play thus hampering their abilities as an adult?

I am fearful that it is. I've pondered this scenario much lately. I was raised in a modest family. My brothers and sisters and I had little but the things we could find and our imaginations. With so little we ran the worlds we visited.

It has shaped me and what I do. As my children grow, I want the best for them. As the toys gather dust in their rooms I wonder... Is it too much. "Yes," I say to myself. But I don't always win this conversation.

As I look around, I see how we use our wealth. More of us need to use it to help other not shower ourselves with things. This is not why we are here on earth! We, each of us has a specific mission to help other. When we are selfish and self-absorbed we are distracted from our true purpose.

Assignment
1. Learn why you are here on earth. What were you born to accomplish?
2. Spend more time helping other.
3. Listen more than you speak.

Taxes Are A Problem

I found this video interesting. How do you deal with the politicians in your life? As for me, I give them one vote, one vote only.

Thomas Jefferson said it best when he said, "Anyone who seeks public office should be denied it on principal." He meant that anyone who wanted to run should not be aloud to run. We need people who feel compelled to serve not get the suspect perks that come to politicians.

"One vote. One time." is my mantra. I hope you can apply it to your dealings with politicians.

Mentoring

Mentoring is only the willingness to help others succeed. For many months I've contemplated the meaning of mentoring in my life... And it comes down to this: A willingness to share, a desire to ask the questions that will lead those you mentor in the right direction.

There is a need for those who are willing to stand up and mentor. Do you see the need around you? I see it in the workplace, in the neighborhoods, in the family and perhaps mostly in government.

Assignment:
Seek out and help mentor someone. They may not even be asking for the help they need. But, if you see the need, step up and offer the friendly advice only you can offer to help make those around you better!