Living at warp speed.

     I'm not talking about burning the candle at both ends. But I am talking about living at 100%. They've done studies. You can have massive amounts of exertion but you need sufficient periods of time to recover. But that's here nor there for this post. This post is about entering a new dimension, a new realm, via your own effort.

An Aristotelian conundrum

     Okay, a fancy title, but it's still me with your "regular Joe" life-changing stuff. Anyway, here's Aristotle:

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them. (from Nicomachean Ethics , bk II, ch I)

But really that's almost like a haiku, isn't it? The things we have to learn BEFORE we can do them, we learn by doing them. So what the heck is that all about?

Life without God just isn't fun.

     It's certainly possible to live your life without God, but that's just such a dull way to live. (I mean, obviously there's other considerations besides that, but that's a mighty big one.) Plod along with reason. Like the Supertramp song says: "Grab onto what you can scramble for." What a grind. No fun at all.
     God's exciting.

Are you a good person?

     No you're not. You may do good things now and then, but no one is totally good all the time. No one is "a good person." We're good. We're bad. We're kind. We're mean-spirited sometimes.
     In other words—we're human.

The tiniest little thing can turn a life around.

     You know, if you don't think your life is going to work out, you're right. You've got to believe that things can turn around on a dime. If you're like, 'Oh, that'll never happen for me' then stop reading right now because this post isn't going to do you any good.
     One tiny thing happens and the world changes.

Encourage somebody today

We live by encouragement and die without it—slowly, sadly and angrily. —Celeste Holm

Encourage somebody today. And that doesn't mean you have to give them a pep talk or a pat on the back. A simple smile might do the trick or just showing up for something important to them. Sometimes just your attention can be a life saver. And as always, as you give, so you get.

I'm living proof of needing encouragement. There's nothing earth shattering going on in my life right now, but I am working very hard with nothing to show for it. It's okay. I enjoy what I'm doing. But today I just got bogged down in this scary zone, where it seemed nothing I was doing was working, and what little I was doing could be disastrous. I got pretty low.

Then from out of the blue I received a couple of emails. Man, I'm telling you they just  turned my whole day, my whole life around. People need to know that other people care about them. And not just close family members. We all need each other. So say hi to the mailman. Look for the opportunity to encourage somebody and you'll find it, as there are a lot of hurting people in the world. (Like the saying: Be kind to everyone you meet today because everyone you meet has a great big problem.)
     So encourage somebody today and hopefully somebody will encourage you too.

Can a person be too enthusiastic?

In baseball if a player is trying to stretch a double into a triple, and he is busting his butt, running hard, and he slides, but he over-slides the base and gets tagged out, well, chances are that third base coach is just going to pat that player on the back. But he made an out, you might be thinking, the coach should be disappointed, so why would he pat him on the back? He'd pat him on the back because the player made "an error of enthusiasm." If the player had been lazy running the bases and got tagged out, then the coach would've been angry.

But is enthusiasm always a good thing?

Ralph Waldo Emerson said:

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Well, we've all known the Katie Couric or Richard Simmons sort of perky people. The kind of people that are naturally disposed to being enthusiastic. But for the rest of us...

I think for the rest of us, to have enthusiasm is work. I mean that in a good sense. Just like to have hospitality is work. If people come to your house and find it clean and welcoming, if they find food and beverages in the fridge, well, that doesn't just happen. It takes work.

It's the same with enthusiasm. Most people don't wake up bursting with a zest for life. They have to work at it. Oh, I'm sure over the course of time, enthusiasm builds and develops a momentum of its own, but in general it is self-called-up.

But can you have too much enthusiasm? Well, if you've ever seen a Richard Simmons exercise video you would say, "Undoubtedly, yes." But I don't think you can be too enthusiastic. If it's genuine, that is.

Many people resent other people's enthusiasm. They do so because it reminds them of what they lack. Or perhaps of what they've abandoned years ago. And the flip side of the coin is people who work at being enthusiastic often feed off of other's enthusiasm.

So no, you can't be too enthusiastic.