January 30, 2010
Tex’s Thought Provokers 010
Question The What Not The Who
Did you ever wonder why we feel so let down and helpless when it comes to getting our thoughts heard? Be it a boss, politician, spouse, child, Doctor, or any number of other people who do not seem to want to be bothered. It seems like what we have to say and think does not seem to matter. No one really wants to hear. They almost view it as complaining. When perhaps, it is not just complaining, it just might be they feel they can help. Or they may need help.
After a long period of time of hearing the same answers to our questions or ideas, the same thing over and over and not getting any results, a person becomes used to the idea of no one caring, and nothing we have to say matters.
Think of it this way, if you have a dog and every time you walk by him you slap his ears. Very quickly, the dog will come to expect a slap every time he sees you.
In other words, again, what you live with you learn.
As I see it, we are all in the same boat, and we seem to be paddling against the current with every facet of our lives. We don’t seem to be making much headway. If we get to a point where we start to gain a bit, the current gets stronger and shoves us back down river even further than when we started.
For especially the last twenty five years, we have been witness to a constant barrage of do more with less. Cut back here, cut back there, and no one at the top seems to listen to any of the things we are saying, nor do we see any cuts at the top, and we just round up and take it. It seems to me that is what the very rich want us to do.
I feel as though everyone counts, and everyone should have a say and feel as though they are being heard, and further, contributing.
We are like the slapped dog at this point; we just come to expect more and more of the same.
In this country right now, we have the very rich and the poor. The rich are getting richer so they do not want it to change. Thus they make fun, put down, give lip service to any and all that might want to see some positive change. The poor keep getting the same answers, nothing in big bunches, and the harder they try the worse things seem to get. So they don’t change because they have given up hope on expecting anything different. So they grumble away, and round up and take it, saying there is nothing that I can do, or no one cares and why bother if this is the case. Or one of the key indicators to hopelessness, vote for who? Why? They are all the same, there is no difference.
Picture a judge in a court room. Day after day he sees the same thing. The dregs of society marching in and out of his court. He gets used to this. He is limited to the decisions he can make because of regulations. So after a while, it becomes the same old thing to him. He gives out the same fines and sentences over and over according to regulation and all the time he knows he will likely see the same individual again in the future. And usually he is right.
As much as he is first frustrated, then numb to the situation, think of how police officers feel when they get caught up in the system, especially after spending a lot of time and effort corralling the culprit.
They can get frustrated fairly quick too.
To me the system is just not working and there does not seem to be anyone who is offering anything better. We spend millions on gun registration, which is designed to stop crime. It does nothing of the sort. Criminals don’t registrar their weapons. It does nothing to take weapons off the street. We have had to register hand guns in Canada for many years. If I had the money, I could make a quick trip to Saint John and fill a half ton truck full of hand guns, none that are registered. That is if I had the connections.
A young RCMP officer told me once that we needed gun control. I asked him why. He told me that when he is going to a domestic dispute, he wanted to know if there were any guns there ahead of time. I simply said, young feller, whenever I went into any kind of situation where there was a potential for violence, I always expected the worst and hoped for the best. I always expected a weapon of some kind. That way I was always ready. He just looked at me like a dog hearing a funny noise. I know he had no idea what I meant. He never said anything else, yet I could tell he thought I was crazier than horse fly caught between a window and the screen.
So on it goes from one day to the next, unchanging with very little hope of anything getting better. Every where we go we hear the same things; it is only going to get worse.
But I for one do not buy into this. This can change, and each of has the power to control what we do. This is one of the benefits of living in a free society. It is just a matter of starting with ourselves, with an attitude of; I will not compromise my beliefs. I will say my piece, and I will not fear what others think of me. Because really, when it all comes down to the bare bones of it all, we do care and sometimes fear what others think of us. Oh, we can appear big and tough and what not, saying I don’t care, but inside you do. Some folks can hide it better than others, but it is there.
2 Don’t change yourselves to be like the people of this world, but let God change you inside with a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to understand and accept what God wants for you. You will be able to know what is good and pleasing to him and what is perfect.
Romans 12:2
So the system is not working. No one seems to have the answers to make things better. To me the answer is crystal clear. Jesus!
So this is what I am going to try to do. I will try my best to do the things I say I am going to do, and I will try my best to do what the Lord leads me to do.
· I will put the Lord first in all the things I do in my life.
· I will Love the Lord with all my heart and soul and mind as best as I possibly can. And Love others as best as I possibly can. 37 Jesus answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and most important command. 39 And the second command is like the first: ‘Love your neighbour the same as you love yourself.’ 40 All the law and the writings of the prophets* take their meaning from these two commands.” Matthew 22:37-40.
· This one will be very hard, but I will do my best. I will not judge others. For who am I to think that I can say what others think and say and do is right or wrong. 1“Don’t judge others, and God will not judge you. 2 If you judge others, you will be judged the same way you judge them. God will treat you the same way you treat others. Matthew 7:1-2.
· I will try with all that is in me to be forgiving. 22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, you must forgive them more than seven times. You must continue to forgive them even if they do wrong to you seventy-seven times.” Matthew 18:22
· I will try my best to show mercy. 36 Give love and mercy the same as your Father gives love and mercy. Luke 6:36
· I will give of myself as much as I can. 38 Give to others, and you will receive. You will be given much. It will be poured into your hands—more than you can hold. You will be given so much that it will spill into your lap. The way you give to others is the way God will give to you.” Luke 6:38
· I will try my best to think of others first and not be selfish and prideful trying all the time to be humble. 3 In whatever you do, don’t let selfishness or pride be your guide. Be humble, and honour others more than yourselves. Philippians 2:3
· I am going to do my best to eliminate from my vocabulary and thoughts; “You Should, You Must, You Are, If You Don’t, If You Are, or any other thought, or thing I say, that could be seen as telling others what they should or shouldn’t do with regard to their beliefs.
· I am going to do my best to fill my heart with love. 34 “I give you a new command: Love each other. You must love each other just as I loved you. 35 All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other.” John 13:34-35. 4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, and it is not proud. 5 Love is not rude, it is not selfish, and it cannot be made angry easily. Love does not remember wrongs done against it. 6 Love is never happy when others do wrong, but it is always happy with the truth. 7 Love never gives up on people. It never stops trusting, never loses hope, and never quits. 1Corinthians 13: 4-7.
I ask myself if I should just fall into the mould and not say or do anything that might upset the norm? Should I be willing to just accept everything? Am I not condoning things if I say nothing?
I think it is very possible to be all the things that the Lord wants us to be without judging.
On fires we often have after action reviews to determine what went well, and what can be improved in the future. We do this as a vital part of the learning process. We have one very important rule when we do this. We question the what not the who.
So I will always likely question the what. What is working well I will embrace. What is not working well I will try to change.
Perhaps I am stubborn; perhaps I will be labelled a boat rocker. I am not saying that I am out to break the law. I am not saying that I think nothing is right. But when I see something that is being done, and I do not understand it, I will first ask why is it this is done this way. I will not demand anything. If for some reason I feel this thing could be done better, then I will say so. Again, I will not question the who, but rather, I will question the what.
Am I saying that I am the be all end all? Am I saying that I know all there is to know and that I am the only one that is right? No, I am merely saying that it is ok to question things. It is ok to speak up about the things, not the people, but the things that I believe are not right.
Those that are in the many different positions of power are banking on the fact that no one will question them. And I for one will not question them either. But I will question “the what” or “the what is not” that is being or not being done.
As an example, you will notice that I did not question the people who enacted gun control. I questioned gun control.
The Lord gave us all a mind to think with, and I for one think it is not right if I let others always do the thinking for me.There are a lot of unjust things in this world today. Yet, it is not really any different today than it ever has been. The media we have at our disposal makes information more accessible.
Perhaps I am a Pipe Dreamer, but if we could just learn to stick together we have the power to change many unjust things. For example, if everyone in North America were to fill their passenger and recreational vehicles with fuel on Monday, and make it last as long as they could without buying more gas, maybe two or three days, hopefully longer, we would see a big change very quickly. I say this because this one thing has the potential to cost millions and millions of dollars. You will hear things like that can’t work, but I say, it is what we have been led to believe. It has been crammed into our heads for so long, we believe it.
So by setting back and just letting others do the thinking, and letting others make all the decisions, “Old Scab Face” doesn’t have to do a thing. In a lot of ways it is being done very well for him without his help.
In closing this writing, I will leave you this time with some words from Henry Ford “Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right."
Until next time, in everything you do, may you be blessed by the Lord.Tex
Tex’s Thought Provokers 010
Question The What Not The Who
Did you ever wonder why we feel so let down and helpless when it comes to getting our thoughts heard? Be it a boss, politician, spouse, child, Doctor, or any number of other people who do not seem to want to be bothered. It seems like what we have to say and think does not seem to matter. No one really wants to hear. They almost view it as complaining. When perhaps, it is not just complaining, it just might be they feel they can help. Or they may need help.
After a long period of time of hearing the same answers to our questions or ideas, the same thing over and over and not getting any results, a person becomes used to the idea of no one caring, and nothing we have to say matters.
Think of it this way, if you have a dog and every time you walk by him you slap his ears. Very quickly, the dog will come to expect a slap every time he sees you.
In other words, again, what you live with you learn.
As I see it, we are all in the same boat, and we seem to be paddling against the current with every facet of our lives. We don’t seem to be making much headway. If we get to a point where we start to gain a bit, the current gets stronger and shoves us back down river even further than when we started.
For especially the last twenty five years, we have been witness to a constant barrage of do more with less. Cut back here, cut back there, and no one at the top seems to listen to any of the things we are saying, nor do we see any cuts at the top, and we just round up and take it. It seems to me that is what the very rich want us to do.
I feel as though everyone counts, and everyone should have a say and feel as though they are being heard, and further, contributing.
We are like the slapped dog at this point; we just come to expect more and more of the same.
In this country right now, we have the very rich and the poor. The rich are getting richer so they do not want it to change. Thus they make fun, put down, give lip service to any and all that might want to see some positive change. The poor keep getting the same answers, nothing in big bunches, and the harder they try the worse things seem to get. So they don’t change because they have given up hope on expecting anything different. So they grumble away, and round up and take it, saying there is nothing that I can do, or no one cares and why bother if this is the case. Or one of the key indicators to hopelessness, vote for who? Why? They are all the same, there is no difference.
Picture a judge in a court room. Day after day he sees the same thing. The dregs of society marching in and out of his court. He gets used to this. He is limited to the decisions he can make because of regulations. So after a while, it becomes the same old thing to him. He gives out the same fines and sentences over and over according to regulation and all the time he knows he will likely see the same individual again in the future. And usually he is right.
As much as he is first frustrated, then numb to the situation, think of how police officers feel when they get caught up in the system, especially after spending a lot of time and effort corralling the culprit.
They can get frustrated fairly quick too.
To me the system is just not working and there does not seem to be anyone who is offering anything better. We spend millions on gun registration, which is designed to stop crime. It does nothing of the sort. Criminals don’t registrar their weapons. It does nothing to take weapons off the street. We have had to register hand guns in Canada for many years. If I had the money, I could make a quick trip to Saint John and fill a half ton truck full of hand guns, none that are registered. That is if I had the connections.
A young RCMP officer told me once that we needed gun control. I asked him why. He told me that when he is going to a domestic dispute, he wanted to know if there were any guns there ahead of time. I simply said, young feller, whenever I went into any kind of situation where there was a potential for violence, I always expected the worst and hoped for the best. I always expected a weapon of some kind. That way I was always ready. He just looked at me like a dog hearing a funny noise. I know he had no idea what I meant. He never said anything else, yet I could tell he thought I was crazier than horse fly caught between a window and the screen.
So on it goes from one day to the next, unchanging with very little hope of anything getting better. Every where we go we hear the same things; it is only going to get worse.
But I for one do not buy into this. This can change, and each of has the power to control what we do. This is one of the benefits of living in a free society. It is just a matter of starting with ourselves, with an attitude of; I will not compromise my beliefs. I will say my piece, and I will not fear what others think of me. Because really, when it all comes down to the bare bones of it all, we do care and sometimes fear what others think of us. Oh, we can appear big and tough and what not, saying I don’t care, but inside you do. Some folks can hide it better than others, but it is there.
2 Don’t change yourselves to be like the people of this world, but let God change you inside with a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to understand and accept what God wants for you. You will be able to know what is good and pleasing to him and what is perfect.
Romans 12:2
So the system is not working. No one seems to have the answers to make things better. To me the answer is crystal clear. Jesus!
So this is what I am going to try to do. I will try my best to do the things I say I am going to do, and I will try my best to do what the Lord leads me to do.
· I will put the Lord first in all the things I do in my life.
· I will Love the Lord with all my heart and soul and mind as best as I possibly can. And Love others as best as I possibly can. 37 Jesus answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and most important command. 39 And the second command is like the first: ‘Love your neighbour the same as you love yourself.’ 40 All the law and the writings of the prophets* take their meaning from these two commands.” Matthew 22:37-40.
· This one will be very hard, but I will do my best. I will not judge others. For who am I to think that I can say what others think and say and do is right or wrong. 1“Don’t judge others, and God will not judge you. 2 If you judge others, you will be judged the same way you judge them. God will treat you the same way you treat others. Matthew 7:1-2.
· I will try with all that is in me to be forgiving. 22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, you must forgive them more than seven times. You must continue to forgive them even if they do wrong to you seventy-seven times.” Matthew 18:22
· I will try my best to show mercy. 36 Give love and mercy the same as your Father gives love and mercy. Luke 6:36
· I will give of myself as much as I can. 38 Give to others, and you will receive. You will be given much. It will be poured into your hands—more than you can hold. You will be given so much that it will spill into your lap. The way you give to others is the way God will give to you.” Luke 6:38
· I will try my best to think of others first and not be selfish and prideful trying all the time to be humble. 3 In whatever you do, don’t let selfishness or pride be your guide. Be humble, and honour others more than yourselves. Philippians 2:3
· I am going to do my best to eliminate from my vocabulary and thoughts; “You Should, You Must, You Are, If You Don’t, If You Are, or any other thought, or thing I say, that could be seen as telling others what they should or shouldn’t do with regard to their beliefs.
· I am going to do my best to fill my heart with love. 34 “I give you a new command: Love each other. You must love each other just as I loved you. 35 All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other.” John 13:34-35. 4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, and it is not proud. 5 Love is not rude, it is not selfish, and it cannot be made angry easily. Love does not remember wrongs done against it. 6 Love is never happy when others do wrong, but it is always happy with the truth. 7 Love never gives up on people. It never stops trusting, never loses hope, and never quits. 1Corinthians 13: 4-7.
I ask myself if I should just fall into the mould and not say or do anything that might upset the norm? Should I be willing to just accept everything? Am I not condoning things if I say nothing?
I think it is very possible to be all the things that the Lord wants us to be without judging.
On fires we often have after action reviews to determine what went well, and what can be improved in the future. We do this as a vital part of the learning process. We have one very important rule when we do this. We question the what not the who.
So I will always likely question the what. What is working well I will embrace. What is not working well I will try to change.
Perhaps I am stubborn; perhaps I will be labelled a boat rocker. I am not saying that I am out to break the law. I am not saying that I think nothing is right. But when I see something that is being done, and I do not understand it, I will first ask why is it this is done this way. I will not demand anything. If for some reason I feel this thing could be done better, then I will say so. Again, I will not question the who, but rather, I will question the what.
Am I saying that I am the be all end all? Am I saying that I know all there is to know and that I am the only one that is right? No, I am merely saying that it is ok to question things. It is ok to speak up about the things, not the people, but the things that I believe are not right.
Those that are in the many different positions of power are banking on the fact that no one will question them. And I for one will not question them either. But I will question “the what” or “the what is not” that is being or not being done.
As an example, you will notice that I did not question the people who enacted gun control. I questioned gun control.
The Lord gave us all a mind to think with, and I for one think it is not right if I let others always do the thinking for me.There are a lot of unjust things in this world today. Yet, it is not really any different today than it ever has been. The media we have at our disposal makes information more accessible.
Perhaps I am a Pipe Dreamer, but if we could just learn to stick together we have the power to change many unjust things. For example, if everyone in North America were to fill their passenger and recreational vehicles with fuel on Monday, and make it last as long as they could without buying more gas, maybe two or three days, hopefully longer, we would see a big change very quickly. I say this because this one thing has the potential to cost millions and millions of dollars. You will hear things like that can’t work, but I say, it is what we have been led to believe. It has been crammed into our heads for so long, we believe it.
So by setting back and just letting others do the thinking, and letting others make all the decisions, “Old Scab Face” doesn’t have to do a thing. In a lot of ways it is being done very well for him without his help.
In closing this writing, I will leave you this time with some words from Henry Ford “Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right."
Until next time, in everything you do, may you be blessed by the Lord.Tex
