Written by I like to start out my days/weeks/months with lists, and I’m sure you’ll see many more of these things from me on this blog. Back to the point, here’s what I had to do today to at least “feel” productive
- Get my annual credit report (majorly depressing, but motivating at the same time)
- Write a letter to my dad explaining the wisdom of buying rental property in town right now
- Catch up with my Bible reading plan
- Find a client’s email (something I’d been putting off)
- Hook up my printer
I did manage to get them all done, and then some. Of course, given how oddly focused and unfocused I can be sometimes, I completely forgot to bathe earlier.
My parents are the sorts that see getting out of bed after 9 as a sign of laziness, and showering in the afternoon as indicative of sloth. Now, as far as I can tell, it’s merely the act that one is rising after 9 or bathing after 12, not any of the attitudes that could be energizing those actions. But I guess that’s a failure of the human condition.
We’re always taught to look on the outside, and with good reason, ones external actions have the most effect on others, that we sometimes just toss away any sort of effort to examine a person’s motivations and attitudes, to try to get to the heart of their own story.
Jesus did say that out of a person’s heart comes everything that defiles, and that you can tell a tree by its fruit, so there is a rationale for being so keen on what we see and experience directly. But he also was known to his contemporaries as a “friend of sinners,” a drunk and a glutton as well; observations that came only with looking at the outside without bothering to see His story.
That is a constant frustration being here with my parents again. But I guess it’s more impetus for me to get going and make the most of these opportunities I’ve been scouting out as well.