Shownotes
Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 454 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
What’s the Rush
Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 454 of our trek, and today is Motivation Monday. Every Monday we hike the trails of life that will encourage and motivate you to live a rich and satisfying life this week. Today let us slow down a bit and ponder, “What’s the Rush?”
We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. As I am writing today’s journal, 2 momma and 3 baby deer are sauntering past our house munching on grass and acorns. Our vantage point from the 2nd story window allows us to watch unnoticed. The view of our lawn with its large trees and changing leaves is extra beautiful this time of year.
Last week was quite an exciting and busy week. After unloading a large truck of our furnishings from Charlotte on Monday, we began slowly working through the boxes unpacking and determining where we will place what we keep and what we will be giving away. The exciting news is that our Charlotte home was placed under contract two days after listing it. God has been gracious to us.
I am recording this before the weekend, but my plan for the weekend is to make a first pass of the lawn and pick up the few leaves that have fallen so far. We also have the blessing of celebrating our grandson Gideon’s birthday Saturday afternoon. On Monday, when this episode originally airs, my brother Jack, Paula, and I will be making a day trip to Charlotte and back to pick up the remaining furnishings that we were not able to fit in the truck on our first load. That should wrap up our home selling details until the closing of the deal in November.
These past three weeks have been even more rushed and hectic than normal for us. It is our hope that we are able to slow down and settle in a bit as fall moves into winter. This brings to my mind how rushed we are in today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world. So the title of our trek for today is…
What’s the Rush?
As a Star Trek fan, the phrase warp speed is in reference to traveling at a speed that is faster than light. Do you ever feel like you’re living life at warp speed? If you do, you’re not alone. There are many of us who feel like we’re doing more than ever before but failing to enjoy the fruits of our labor. What’s the rush? We’re depriving ourselves of sleep to buy a few extra minutes and communicating in sound bites and bullet points, while riffling through volumes of information like never before. We all need to just stop, at least for a moment, and take a breath.
We exploit every millisecond in order to fit an additional activity into our day and then try to manage it all by what we think is multitasking. It is more like the proverbial plate spinners in the circus rushing from one plate to another hoping that they all don’t come crashing down at once. In the process, we have become a society with the attention span of a gnat. So please remind me again…why are we doing this?
Oh yes, we want to be more productive, to get ahead, to stay connected…Or is it simply out of fear that the other guy will pass us by, or the fear of missing out on something “important”? Regardless of the motivation, the risk is that what we gain in speed and quantity, we lose with shallow thinking, superficial relationships, and living only “for the moment.”
What do you consider the true meaning or purpose of life? Well, in John 10:10 Jesus gave us at least a glimpse of what it may be when He said, “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”
How rich and satisfying is your life? What are we missing? — Let’s explore six areas that may help us to regain a proper perspective.
1. Meaningful Conversations
Today, we define a “meaningful” conversation as texting a business associate at a traffic light, IMing a colleague while we’re waiting for someone to pick up the phone, and tweeting another while we’re in line to place our food order. We call it multitasking. These rapid-fire “conversations” are limited to a few hundred character Facebook status updates and 140-character tweets. This gives new meaning to the term “short and sweet,” never mind that our new definition of “friends” are our Facebook friends. While there are many positives to being able to keep connected with family and friends through social media, how do these “conversations” impact our ability to form meaningful relationships? Resolve conflicts? Create true empathy? Shape our children’s values? The answer? Not very well.
2. Quality Time
In the world in which we live, everything has to be done right away. Today, a take-out dinner or a quick stop at the drive-through window has replaced the home-cooked meal that we once enjoyed. Family meals around the kitchen table have been reduced to grabbing a bite with anyone who happens to be around. That’s the new definition of “quality time.”
Do you consider quality time with your family a priority? Are you achieving the integrated life that you desire? Do you consciously determine how to invest your personal time? Do you make time to determine your personal priorities? Do you prioritize your to-do list or merely check off items? Do you feel you’re so busy running around that you’re losing perspective? You’d think we’d learn something from watching a hamster run around on its wheel…but many of us fail to see we are doing the same. What happened to the “quality” in quality time? The answer? It’s been relegated to the free time available before the microwave beeps.
3. Staying Informed
though information touches every area of our lives, we opt for speed and simplicity over depth and understanding.
Unfortunately, because of our capitulation to time pressures, we place a premium on shortcuts, such as sensational headlines, captivating subheads, brief body copy, and executive summaries that spoon-feed us the bottom line. The principal medium of exchange in business has become the PowerPoint slide deck made up of a series of bullet points that masquerade for substance.
Rather than taking the time to think through issues in a discerning fashion, we often rush to judgment, make decisions emotionally, and view issues in polar extremes.
Where did we lose our way? The answer? When we traded in critical thinking for “winging it.” We try to correct our focus on our Wisdom-Trek because we have an overload of information today, but very little wisdom on how to best apply it to our lives.
4. Sound Decisions
Being under the gun of so many time pressures affects the entire decision-making process. It impacts our ability to identify quality sources, test assumptions, create a compelling line of reasoning, and generate practical solutions. Today’s rapid-response culture pushes us to favor simplistic answers to problems, rather than opting for wisdom, which includes holistic thinking and deep analysis.
Although every answer need not be overly complex, we lose something very precious when we train our brains to search for quick answers rather than the “best” solution. We forget how important it is to view a situation “in context,” considering how each component relates to the total. When we fail to do this, we risk optimizing one area at the expense of the whole.
What’s wrong with the quick way around? The answer? If you don’t have the time to do it correctly the first time, what makes you think you will have the time to redo it?
5. Thinking Beyond Today
Living by the stopwatch encourages short-term thinking; we don’t have the time or the energy to think about today, much less plan for tomorrow. This too has implications.
In business, people maximize individual sales transactions rather than taking the time to build long-term customer relationships. People charge ahead with day-to-day activities rather than developing contingency plans as backup strategies, and employees are incentivized to hit quarterly performance targets to the exclusion of a strategy that supports long-term growth.
How can this be bad? The answer? When is the last time you checked the value of your stock portfolio or your 401k? Most individual investors are losing money on their investments. Maybe it’s time to press “Pause” and just stop…and think.
6. It’s Time to Wake Up and Smell the Coffee
We lose something very special in our mad dash through life. Although we logically understand that living via a stopwatch doesn’t make sense, we fail to take the time to ask ourselves why we live this way.
Are we passing our values on to our children or letting someone else fill the void? Are we creating meaningful relationships or settling for lots of acquaintances? Are we tackling key priorities or checking off to-do items? Are we solving root causes of problems or employing Band-Aid solutions? Are we achieving our goals in life or running on a treadmill to nowhere?
The first thing we have to do is establish priorities. When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. When we try to take on too much, we end up doing everything equally poorly. Do you really think that everything on your plate requires equal emphasis? Do what matters most.
Downtime is also critical. Learn how to take a planned vacation every day. Try starting at 10 minutes and raising it to 30 by increasing your vacation time a minute each day. In the space of a month, you’ll emerge with a fresh new perspective. It’ll give you renewed confidence in your ability to succeed even though you’re not on call all of the time. It’ll help you reflect on your priorities, learn from past actions, connect some random dots, break out of a rut, ask “what if,” try something new, question the obvious, see the big picture, make a difference in someone’s life, or just RELAX.
Life is short enough to begin with. You’re limited in what you can do to lengthen your life, but there are no limits to what you can do to deepen it. What’s the rush? Jesus taught us in Matthew 11:28-30, “Then Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.'”
As we end our trek for today, think about the areas of your life where you need to make changes. Learn to focus on what is truly a priority and start letting go of that which is not. Learn to relax and create a rich and satisfying life.
Tomorrow’s short trek is part of our Wisdom Unplugged series that we are now hiking on Tuesdays and Thursdays. These 3-minute wisdom supplements will assist you in becoming healthy, wealthy, and wise throughout the entire week. So encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.
That will finish our trek for today. Just as you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person and inviting them to come along with us each day. I would challenge you today to take just one precept that we learn today in Proverbs and commit yourself to applying it to your life.
Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.
As we take this trek together, let us always:
- Live Abundantly (Fully)
- Love Unconditionally
- Listen Intentionally
- Learn Continuously
- Lend to others Generously
- Lead with Integrity
- Leave a Living Legacy Each Day
This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!