Years ago, I mentored a young man who told he we needed to lose weight. I agreed to help him with that, and we came up with a strategy to help him reach his goal. For weeks afterwards, each time we met, he explained why he had not started doing the things we agreed would be useful to help him with his goal.
A few months later, I finally said something to him like, "You really don't want to lose weight. You just want the benefits of having lost weight. You only wish you wanted to lose weight"
As I thought about myself, I realized that his attitude toward weight loss was just like my attitude toward physical fitness. I wanted the benefits, but really didn't want to go through the steps to reap them. Even when I was in several seasons of my life where I was running twenty to thirty miles a week, it was never something I enjoyed. Weight training has never seemed like something I could bring myself to do consistently. I reached an epiphany talking to this young man about it.
I confessed, "I understand how you feel. I wish I wanted to work out, but I just really don't…"
I realized at that moment that wishing to want to do something was common. Some people wish that they wanted to study. Others wish that they wanted to do volunteer work. Some wish that they wanted to—as that young man did—lose weight. People wish they wanted to find a new job. Wishing to want to is everywhere, in every aspect of life.
How people respond to those things they know the should or ought-to do often marks the difference between if they continue to advance in an area or if they stagnate. If passing a course of study is needed to get a promotion… If losing weight is needed to be an active member of a friend group… If cutting back spending is needed…
The difference between thriving and getting by is often realized by facing the undesirable aspects of life head on. Pushing past only wishing to want to and simply doing what needs to be done is, in many cases, the difference between success and failure.
As we mature and develop, we learn to do many things that we need to do, whether we want to or not. Realizing that you only wish you wanted to do something is the first step in resigning yourself to actually doing it. When you finally realize that you will never happily take on a task, it becomes easier to simply decide to, enjoyable or not, do it. Mature people will simple decide to do it and take the necessary steps. They will give in to the ought-tos and shoulds that they decide are worth pursuing and make incorporate them into their lives.
Friday, October 21, 2016
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Finding a Middle Ground: Gun Control
Yeah, I am going there. Politics is not a normal topic for me, but I have witnessed so many irrational, unhelpful comments and arguments on this topic, I feel like I need to weigh in. Enough fear mongering! Enough inflammatory rhetoric! My hope is to present some sensible observations.
But, since I am going for sensible and not sensational, I am fairly sure no one will take notice.
To begin with, the end goal of gun regulation is to protect society. This requires that guns stay out of the hands of people who would use them to violate the rights of others and out of the hands of those mentally unfit to have them.
It also requires that people who are sensible, responsible, and inclined to own them have access to weapons and ammunition. Every house on the block is partly protected by the possibility that the owner inside has home protection weapons. A home need not have guns. Just the potential that it does is a deterrent.
So, how does society achieve this? It will not be easy, and no one will be fully satisfied.
First up, hunters and shooters are going to have to bear the brunt of the pain in making this happen. While they have legitimate rights to engage in their sport of choice, they, as the prime users of guns and ammunition, are going to have to "buck up" and take one for the "team" (the team being the society in which we all live). Fishermen, because they fish, have to bear the brunt of fishing regulations. Radio operators, because they operate radios, have to bear the brunt of radio regulations. People who use guns the most are going to, de facto, be the ones most inconvenienced by regulations related to firearms.
There is just no way around it. Keeping guns in the hands of hunters, shooters, and home protectors, but out of the hands of those not deserving them will, inevitably, mean that it is more complicated to get guns and ammunition. However, if something is worth having, it is worth planning ahead and working for.
Look, hunters plan for hunting season months in advance. Long before they go hunting, they have put hours and hours into planning their hunt. Part of that plan can be jumping through gun and ammo control hoops. Getting through the red tape needs to just be part of the process.
Similarly, shooters need also to suck it up and accept that they need to plan ahead and be ready to go through an annoying, but necessary process.
What kind of red tape do I imagine?
I cannot count the number of violent gun acts that have, in the last five years, been carried out by people who were mentally ill. Yet, mental illness in the USA is under-identified, over-stigmatized, and under-treated. Depression and other illnesses lead people to a place of hopelessness and despair, and sometimes to acts of violence–violence that is often expressed with firearms. Bolstering the mental health system in the USA and making it less restricted by insurance companies is a much-needed step in creating a mentally healthier society at large.
While discussing the relationship to mental wellness and guns, I would suggest that part of the permitting/licensing process would be a simple form on which a doctor, a general practitioner, could check boxes to say that nothing emerged during an annual check-up that would preclude the person from safely owning and using a firearm. Yeah, I just got way out there! Now, the doctors are mad at me, too. Look, I see it like this–if my doctor can tell me that, following such and such a procedure I should not drive a car or operate heavy machinery for some number of days/weeks, they can also weigh in on the appropriateness of giving someone a 9mm handgun or deer rifle. Yearly renewal of the gun permit/license should require a doctor saying that s/he saw no reason to deny issuing the permit/license.
Social interventions need also to be put in place. Decreasing unemployment, improving education, dialing down the influence of gang culture, and generally creating a more positive social context in our neighborhoods would have a sweeping impact on violence. I have heard this claim championed by more than one mayor of more than one large metro area.
As I now turn to closing out this blog, I reprise my expectation that nearly no one will ever read this. My failure to be inflammatory or to sensationalize the issue probably makes my ideas very uninteresting.
Nevertheless, my belief in finding a middle ground sums thusly:
The middle ground, when we find it, will allow hunters, shooters, and those wishing to have a firearm for home protection to have the weapons and ammo that they desire, tied by license and permit to the purposes they have expressed and connected to their history with weapons. People with a history of violence and those deemed mentally unsuitable for a firearm will be precluded for possessing them. The end result is that healthy, deserving, well-intended people will have guns and those that would use them to harm society will not.
I believe this is a middle ground in which we can live.
But, since I am going for sensible and not sensational, I am fairly sure no one will take notice.
To begin with, the end goal of gun regulation is to protect society. This requires that guns stay out of the hands of people who would use them to violate the rights of others and out of the hands of those mentally unfit to have them.
It also requires that people who are sensible, responsible, and inclined to own them have access to weapons and ammunition. Every house on the block is partly protected by the possibility that the owner inside has home protection weapons. A home need not have guns. Just the potential that it does is a deterrent.So, how does society achieve this? It will not be easy, and no one will be fully satisfied.
First up, hunters and shooters are going to have to bear the brunt of the pain in making this happen. While they have legitimate rights to engage in their sport of choice, they, as the prime users of guns and ammunition, are going to have to "buck up" and take one for the "team" (the team being the society in which we all live). Fishermen, because they fish, have to bear the brunt of fishing regulations. Radio operators, because they operate radios, have to bear the brunt of radio regulations. People who use guns the most are going to, de facto, be the ones most inconvenienced by regulations related to firearms.
There is just no way around it. Keeping guns in the hands of hunters, shooters, and home protectors, but out of the hands of those not deserving them will, inevitably, mean that it is more complicated to get guns and ammunition. However, if something is worth having, it is worth planning ahead and working for.
Look, hunters plan for hunting season months in advance. Long before they go hunting, they have put hours and hours into planning their hunt. Part of that plan can be jumping through gun and ammo control hoops. Getting through the red tape needs to just be part of the process.
Similarly, shooters need also to suck it up and accept that they need to plan ahead and be ready to go through an annoying, but necessary process.
What kind of red tape do I imagine?
Graduated permits/licenses connected to the hunter's/shooter's purposes. Require hunters and shooters to demonstrate responsible behavior with simple firearms before allowing them to purchase more efficient killing devices. Guns should be permitted/licensed with mission-intent. That is to say, a permit to have a deer rifle would be different and cover different weapons than a permit to have a bird gun or a permit to have a handgun. The end result is that a track-record of responsible use would be needed before "assault style" weapons could be purchased. Just because I have a license to drive an F-150 does not mean I am allowed to drive commercial trucks or semis hauling harzardous materials. I have to, in order to drive different trucks, qualify and demonstrate proficiency to do so. Pattern gun rights after this, and we are making headway.
Severe penalties for possessing a weapon that is unpermmited or not in line with the hunter/shooter license/permit. The arguement that, if you take guns away from law abiding people, then only criminals would have guns is, though used irrationally and in inflamatory ways, more or less accurate. Creating a strict path for hunters and shooters to obtain weapons begs for harsh penalties handed out to anyone who does not follow that path. Again, the goal is to keep guns available to hunters and shooters, and to those wanting a weapon for home protection, but out of the hands for those who would use them to the detriment of society. If we make the laws that allow guns to be had complex, then the penalty for not following them MUST be severe.
Mandatory, un-appealable, harsh prison time for crimes committed while in possession of a weapon. This hardly needs explanation. Make the penalty statutory, bypassing the judge's ability to set it asside and lawyer's capacity to delay or mediate it with appeals. Of course, committing a crime while in possession of a gun would revoke the convicted person's right to have guns in the future–at least for a LONG time.
Limiting amuntion sales (including sales of primers) to mission-related purposes. Do you really need 500 rounds to go deer hunting? Not unless you are the luckiest deer hunter ever! Do you need 500 rounds to go target shooting? Maybe, if you can afford it. If you have a gun solely for home protection, you really probably only shoot a couple of rounds every now and then. A minimal stock of ammo is all you need. Linking the ammo sales to a specific purpose creates headaches for hunters and shooters, but makes sense in light of the number of guns already in existance. A system could be–albeit not easily–established where ammunition is available as NEEDED to support hunting and recreational shooting, while still making it difficult for the un-permitted, unlicensed to obtain it. I would envision that a shooter who has an advanced permit/license could obtain the ammo s/he wants for an outing. Akin to credit card companies setting and raising credit limits, the permitting/licensing system could establish ammo limits based on shooting history and patterns. Certainly, this is NOT easy, and yes, it taps into some level of privacy concerns. But so does shopping with a credit card, searching on Google, watching Netflix, and even looking up things for on-line shopping. A smilar approach could be connected to gun permits/licenses stipulating how much (if any) ammo a person could obtain at a given time. Remember, the goal is to keep a minority of people who would misuse guns from being able to ruin it for everyone else!Besides making it harder on hunters and shooters and establishing harsh penalties for those who violate regulatory rules, the other side of the situation also needs attention. Social and mental health interventions need to be established and enacted to change the context out of which much violent gun crime emerges. Society is the incubator out of which all people grow, and where society is maladaptive, some people emerge who are predisposed to act in harmful ways. Working at the root of the problem is vital.
I cannot count the number of violent gun acts that have, in the last five years, been carried out by people who were mentally ill. Yet, mental illness in the USA is under-identified, over-stigmatized, and under-treated. Depression and other illnesses lead people to a place of hopelessness and despair, and sometimes to acts of violence–violence that is often expressed with firearms. Bolstering the mental health system in the USA and making it less restricted by insurance companies is a much-needed step in creating a mentally healthier society at large.
While discussing the relationship to mental wellness and guns, I would suggest that part of the permitting/licensing process would be a simple form on which a doctor, a general practitioner, could check boxes to say that nothing emerged during an annual check-up that would preclude the person from safely owning and using a firearm. Yeah, I just got way out there! Now, the doctors are mad at me, too. Look, I see it like this–if my doctor can tell me that, following such and such a procedure I should not drive a car or operate heavy machinery for some number of days/weeks, they can also weigh in on the appropriateness of giving someone a 9mm handgun or deer rifle. Yearly renewal of the gun permit/license should require a doctor saying that s/he saw no reason to deny issuing the permit/license.
Social interventions need also to be put in place. Decreasing unemployment, improving education, dialing down the influence of gang culture, and generally creating a more positive social context in our neighborhoods would have a sweeping impact on violence. I have heard this claim championed by more than one mayor of more than one large metro area.
As I now turn to closing out this blog, I reprise my expectation that nearly no one will ever read this. My failure to be inflammatory or to sensationalize the issue probably makes my ideas very uninteresting.
Nevertheless, my belief in finding a middle ground sums thusly:
- Hunters and shooters have to buck up and accept complicated regulations with regard to gun and ammunition acquisition.
- Penalties for violating the regulations have to be harsh and unalterable.
- Penalties for possessing a weapon while committing a crime must be severe and also unalterable.
- Mental health systems need to be made accessible, destigmatized, and fully covered by insurance.
- Society must change so that neighborhoods enjoy better, safer, more fulfilling climates including access to education and employment.
The middle ground, when we find it, will allow hunters, shooters, and those wishing to have a firearm for home protection to have the weapons and ammo that they desire, tied by license and permit to the purposes they have expressed and connected to their history with weapons. People with a history of violence and those deemed mentally unsuitable for a firearm will be precluded for possessing them. The end result is that healthy, deserving, well-intended people will have guns and those that would use them to harm society will not.
I believe this is a middle ground in which we can live.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Hitting the Spots: Control is the Key
Control type things... Stick with me on this one...
I was driving between places earlier today, and paused to take a picture of a gas meter and a fire valve on the back of a building. I liked the image and wanted to caption it with something potentially inspiring for Instagram, and I came up with the idea of control.
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Success in life is, in many ways, dependent on control. Controlling your finances. Controlling your thoughts. Your feelings. Controlling your words. Controlling your diet. Controlling your prejudices. A life lacking self-discipline is risky!
While Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana are experiencing weather such that temperatures hitting a high near 30° Fahrenheit means a warm-up of over 40°--weather that naturally makes one think of hockey, the idea of control reminded me of baseball. Of pitching, to be more precise.
In pitching, control is everything. It doesn't matter how hard you can throw or how much your breaking ball moves, if you can't control it, you won't be successful. If you don't throw strikes--if you can't "hit the spots," your pitches won't matter. Life is like this, too.
Living recklessly, without discipline, without mature decision making--living out of control makes being successful (however defined) highly unlikely. No matter "how hard you can throw," if your life is out of control, then the results of your efforts will be uncertain. Control is as important in life as it is in pitching.
Your talents and skills need to be used in ways that line up with your values and goals. Your actions need to be kept in line with your moral compass. Spending needs to be guided by controlled decisions. Your thoughts need to be deliberately focused on reality and the things that move you in the direction of success, however you define it. Diet and exercise need to be engaged thoughtfully and healthfully. You need to find balance in all things and discipline yourself to stay in control.
Your talents and skills need to be used in ways that line up with your values and goals. Your actions need to be kept in line with your moral compass. Spending needs to be guided by controlled decisions. Your thoughts need to be deliberately focused on reality and the things that move you in the direction of success, however you define it. Diet and exercise need to be engaged thoughtfully and healthfully. You need to find balance in all things and discipline yourself to stay in control.
My oldest son played baseball as a youth at a fairly competitive level. For a while, he took pitching lessons, and one fall and winter, his instructor was a soon-to-be major league pitcher. In one of his lessons, he was told that pitchers spend hours and hours in spring training just raising their leg and finding a balance point. Striking balance at the beginning of the wind-up starts the process of being in control of the whole body throughout the pitching motion, and that control ultimately leads to being able to control the pitch.
Balance is vital to life. Finding that starting point and maintaining control is vital to success.
Your life is the pitch and you are the pitcher. Crazy, no?
Control can be achieved, but a lot of times it is great to have help. Spring training prepares pitchers and gives them the physical skills and techniques so that they can maximize the use of their talents. In life, we have people who can come along side us and share life with us to help us maximize the use of our talents as well. Developing control is
Put into your life the control type things (habits, practices, friends, accountability partners, etc.) that will help you manage your life!
Sunday, July 27, 2014
The Bible and Some "R" Words
Not long ago, I saw a pastor holding a leather-bound copy of the New Testament. It was, if one pays attention to such things, a great book. It was nicely sized, well bound, and looked like it was a very comfortable book to use.
As lovely as it was, I could not help remind myself that, without the Old Testament, the New Testament offers only a part of God's message to humanity. Indeed, a nice study version of the New Testament is a great tool! But to overlook the text of the Old Testament is like reading the last book of a series without reading the ones that come before it.
Over-simplified and taken as a whole, the Bible represents God's plan for being in relationship with humanity and how humanity, in response to a right relationship with God, might be in relationship with each other. Beginning with Adam and Eve, we can see repeated cycles of "R" words that represent God's relentless pursuit of a relationship with humanity.
For this discussion, we'll jump into the cycle at Right Living. There are places in the Bible where we see humanity doing well and living rightly. This is what God hopes for and for what humanity was created to do. We are meant to enjoy our relationship with God and let that relationship lead us to Right Living.
Inevitably, however, we will see that Right Living is followed by humanity's Rejection and Rebellion. From Adam and Eve and onward, the Bible demonstrates that the people God created will turn away and pursue those things outside God's will.
The consequences of this always lead to less than ideal circumstances for the one who rebels. Consider as an example the "Prodigal Son" whose rejection and rebellion led to his demise. The nation of Israel shows us repeated examples of the consequences of falling away from God's will.
Humanity's hope lies in the truth that, even in rebellion, God continues to pursue relationship. God seeks out humanity, waiting on us to turn back. At the lowest of lows, Repentance (humanity's action) and Redemption (God's action) converge to put humanity back on the path toward Right Living.
Following Repentance and Redemption, God and humanity join in the process of Restoration. The people of God return to living in accordance to God's best plans for them. In time--sometimes slowly, sometimes suddenly--the people of God resume Right Living.
Thus, we see the cycle repeated:
Right Living
Rejection/Rebellion
Repentance/Redemption
Restoration
Right Living
God, seeing humanity fail over and over again, ultimately took action to establish a final process of redemption, and we see that in the closing chapters of the Gospels with the crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Then, from the first chapter of Acts and through the rest of the New Testament, we are shown how humanity should, therefore, live rightly in response to that once-and-for-all act of redemption.
We see this cycle repeated in various New Testament writings. For instance, Romans can be roughly (and over-simply) broken down into six chapters about humanity's rejection of God and the consequences, six chapters of God's act of redemption, and from chapter 12 onward, how humanity should rightly live in response to relationship with God.
There are many ways to apply what we see in the Bible, but the most direct application is to us as individuals. Our aim is to reside in Right Living--to live in relationship with God and let that reflect in our relationship with others.
Locate yourself on the cycle and do what you must to get back to Right Living.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
His Fan
Not long ago, some work was being done at Visible Music College--Chicago, where I serve on the staff. One day, some workers came by to load up about a half ton of old metal desks to be salvaged as scrap.
As they started the loading process, one of the two men carefully lifted a box fan out of the truck and placed it tenderly on the ground by a shovel they use in their work.
"I'm going to fix it," he said.
I don't know what was wrong with it, but $20.00 would have replaced it.
He didn't want a new fan.
"This is all I have left," he explained. He went on to describe how hard luck had fallen on him, and he was, with his work partner, trying to get by. The old fan was all he had left from his former situation. But he wasn't bitter. He accepted his part in his demise and was resigned to start anew.
His words moved me as I slipped my $700.00 (if I didn't have a contract) phone out of my pocket to take a picture.
I live in such a way that I am comfortable by ANY standards. I push my income to the limits and need nothing. I have some luxury items, of course, and justify having things like a DSLR, up-to-date tablet, and fancy screens for my computers. Yeah, that last word is plural. In contrast to the owner of the fan, I live like royalty. Most of us do. I am sure I am not the only one to be mostly blind to conditions of others around me.
Yet, despite being in a hard way, the fan's owner had not give up. He was doing what he could to start over.
His work partner's word's moved me more: "I'm trying to help him get back on his feet. It's been a hard time for him."
"Yeah, [Name Omitted] takes care of me," said the fan's owner.
But [Name Omitted] is far from living the high life. Yet, he is doing what he can to help his work partner. At $50.00 for a half-ton load, the going is slow.
Long after they left, I was haunted by my interaction with these two men. I shared this anecdote with my son, who happens to work at a salvage yard in another city.
"Dad, I see stuff like this every day. Guys coming in with $8.00 loads three times a day trying to feed their families."
But hearing my story, he added, "I won't look at customers the same after this."
These two guys--indeed, with troubles and problems, some resulting from their choices--have been on my mind in in my prayers for a few weeks. My words here come so short in painting the full picture, but I don't think blog readers would attend to many more.
I am going to take a chance and call them ([Name Omitted] has a phone for their salvage services.) and invite them to lunch, my treat. I don't know if they will accept, but I am going to ask.
As they started the loading process, one of the two men carefully lifted a box fan out of the truck and placed it tenderly on the ground by a shovel they use in their work.
I don't know what was wrong with it, but $20.00 would have replaced it.
He didn't want a new fan.
"This is all I have left," he explained. He went on to describe how hard luck had fallen on him, and he was, with his work partner, trying to get by. The old fan was all he had left from his former situation. But he wasn't bitter. He accepted his part in his demise and was resigned to start anew.
His words moved me as I slipped my $700.00 (if I didn't have a contract) phone out of my pocket to take a picture.
I live in such a way that I am comfortable by ANY standards. I push my income to the limits and need nothing. I have some luxury items, of course, and justify having things like a DSLR, up-to-date tablet, and fancy screens for my computers. Yeah, that last word is plural. In contrast to the owner of the fan, I live like royalty. Most of us do. I am sure I am not the only one to be mostly blind to conditions of others around me.
Yet, despite being in a hard way, the fan's owner had not give up. He was doing what he could to start over.
His work partner's word's moved me more: "I'm trying to help him get back on his feet. It's been a hard time for him."
"Yeah, [Name Omitted] takes care of me," said the fan's owner.
But [Name Omitted] is far from living the high life. Yet, he is doing what he can to help his work partner. At $50.00 for a half-ton load, the going is slow.
Long after they left, I was haunted by my interaction with these two men. I shared this anecdote with my son, who happens to work at a salvage yard in another city.
"Dad, I see stuff like this every day. Guys coming in with $8.00 loads three times a day trying to feed their families."
But hearing my story, he added, "I won't look at customers the same after this."
These two guys--indeed, with troubles and problems, some resulting from their choices--have been on my mind in in my prayers for a few weeks. My words here come so short in painting the full picture, but I don't think blog readers would attend to many more.
I am going to take a chance and call them ([Name Omitted] has a phone for their salvage services.) and invite them to lunch, my treat. I don't know if they will accept, but I am going to ask.
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