It Happened :(

Well, I knew it was likely, but I was doing my best to avid it. I missed yesterday's post. I forgot so thoroughly that I didn't remember until this afternoon. I can make all sorts of excuses like I was driving all day, I had just finished a long series and wasn't feeling inspired, or I wanted a nap, but in the end I missed it.

And that's ok. I am back today and I am writing anyway. 119 straight posts isn't bad. I hope I am able to manage that failure rate going forward (if not better of course). Writing this blog is a system. I expect to become a better writer, I know that my ideas have been richer and more thought out as a result of this. I am succeeding. Missing a day is disappointing of course, but it doesn't make my system any less effective.

Time to get back up on my horse and keep going.

Learning Centered Schooling - Part 6 (Final)

The past few days I've talked about a framework for education that puts a larger focus on making a system that focuses more on student learning and providing flexibility for teachers, students, and parents. It is a bad system. There are huge issues with implementing it.

The cost of developing the software and lesson systems.

Issues with discipline and consistency for the students with a potentially rotating staff of teachers even in a day.

Having a centralized top down lesson plan structure that might not accommodate different learning styles. 

Having a system that wouldn't allow much room for content flexibility.

The loss of consistent lessons between students at a given time.

Difficulties surrounding taking trips or class projects that fit the current topic.

I'm sure I'm missing some big ones.

So all in all it is a bad plan. However, sticking with the current plan is not a real option. Our public schooling system is largely failing and a few tweaks here and there will never be enough. It needs a bottom up overhaul. My plan probably shouldn't be implemented, but I am not hearing any real discussion about complete overhaul and it needs to be discussed. If we are not willing to go back to a clean slate and start over we are not serious about finding a system that really works.

Learning Centered Schooingl - Part 5

Okay, since we have upended everything else, why not traditional year/grade structures?

Before I get into that though I need to describe the lesson system I am envisioning so you can better understand how this all works. Every student would have an tablet with the school app on it. The school app would have sections for all the students school subjects. They could watch all the class lectures through the app whenever they wanted to and as much as they wanted to. The app would also have a lot of their homework on it so that they had it all in one place and so it could be graded quickly and automatically. Any projects or homework that couldn't be completed in the app would send notifications to a teacher who would help them get whatever materials were needed to do the assignment.

The app would allow kids to get feedback on their work faster than any teacher could manage. I am imagining something very much like Khan Academy. It would free teachers up from writing or grading most assignments.

The way this affects the traditional year/grade system is that with the app managing the kids' entire lesson plan keeping them all synced together no longer becomes important. So kids could be allowed to advance on their own pace in every single subject. You could have a 10 year old child at a "third grade" level in English and an "eighth grade" level in math.

Every student would be able to advance as quickly and/or slowly as needed. Teachers would get automatic notifications if a child was having issues and getting overly behind. But just because one student was slow on one subject wouldn't make keep them from advancing in other subjects or their classmates.

In the end students who were not performing well wouldn't get rushed along to stay with their class and exceptional students wouldn't get frustrated by their classmates.

Also, having a mixed skill set of students in a class would allow lots of opportunities, if encouraged, for students to tutor each other. This would help both the tutoring student and the helped student advance in their understanding and lower the load on the teachers.

Learning Centered Schooling - Part 4

To quickly recap, we now have teachers helping students to overcome academic hurdles instead of merely delivering information. We have year round school with parents being able to choose when to take breaks that fit the families schedule. And now, I want to suggest changing the daily structure of the classroom.

Since the teachers and students have now been freed from the standard lesson plan/lecture based system the overall school structure can be opened up and made significantly less rigid.

Students don't need to move from lecture session to lecture session. Their is really no inherent framework that must be ascribed to. Some structure would still need to be enforced since kids work the best in a structured environment, but what that structure should look like can be explored anew to find the best fit for learning in this new age.

Additionally, school hours could be expanded to make drop off and pickup times flexible. Say the school opens at 7AM for drop offs and doesn't close until 6PM? Parents could drop off and pick up their kids based on what works for them and their schedule thus avoiding before and after school daycare expenses.

Now, of course this begs the question, what about the teachers? Do I expect them to work 12 hour days to allow this system to work? The answer here is not at all. This would give teachers the same level of flexibility it offers studens and their parents.

To explain here is another disruption to the class dynamic. Since each student has their own digitized learning path the teachers are there to guide and assist not to deliver the content. So instead of having one teacher with 20 some odd kids you could have 50 kids with several teachers or any other structure you wanted. This takes away the central focus of learning from the teachers.

Therefore to fulfill their 40 hours for the week the teachers would only need to work 8 hours a day. But since they are not playing the same top down administrative role that they are now they could leave part way through the day without significantly disrupting the students and be replaced by another teacher. This would also allow for part time teachers who could come in to tutor kids for a few hours a day.

With this kind of schedule teachers could adjust their schedules more to their liking and no longer be chained to the standard school day.

I realize that there are a lot of issues regarding discipline and classroom behavior that I am largely ignorant of. Changing all this would affect that. Possibly in a negative way. However, I strongly believe that with the increased flexibility this system provides solutions could be found that adequately resolve these issues.

Tomorrow I will talk about eliminating age ranges and the larger grade year system.

Learning Centered Schooling - Part 3

Once you change the role of the teacher and the function of class time it leads to an obvious change in the school year and daily schedule.

If the lessons are no longer tied to class time it means that student attendance every day is no longer critical. Obviously students need regular class attendance, but the digital lesson plan allows for individually paced learning.

This is where the big school year change comes in. Have a year round school year. Where "school year" really doesn't mean a lot. So the idea is that the school operates like any other business. It is open five or six days a week all year round.

Students have vacation days like employees have and can take them whenever they want. So if a kid's family decides that they want to be gone the whole month of November that's just fine. There isn't any reason kids need to be off from the end of May to the beginning of August. Let the family decide when they want to have the kid gone.

It would also be a benefit for teachers. Since they aren't delivering lesson plans it would be a lot easier for them to take leave and be gone since their role would be less structured.

So school would operate year round with kids taking off when it was best for them and their family. There would not be inconvenient breaks  where the parents had to figure out how to have their kids watched because of arbitrary school breaks.

The flexibility would benefit working parents and make everyone's lives simpler and more straight forward. It's a nice day and you want to go to the beach? That's fine, use a vacation day and go. No guilt or lying or not going.

Learning Centered Schooling - Part 2

Yesterday was mostly a rant about how I do not feel like the public education system at large is doing an adequate job. Particularly given the amount of money being spent. However, throwing stones is easy so I want to offer a suggestion for how it could be done better.

I propose turning basically every single aspect of the traditional education system on its head.

Teachers Become Tutors and Lectures  Become Homework Sessions
The first thing I want to address is the role of the teacher. In the digitally connected world we live in having a real live person stand at the front of a room and present information is archaic. We should record the best teachers in the world giving lessons and presentations. Then we can make those lessons available to students to watch when and as much as they want.


Then class time would be decentralized. Where instead of being taught en mass the students are tutored on their homework as needed. Students could help each other making the entire learning process more collaborative. It would give teachers the flexibility to spend more time with students who are struggling as well as those who are excelling.

Doing this capitalizes on the new digital economy. It takes the lecture, which is normally repeated thousands, perhaps millions of times a year and reduces the workload to a few video shoots and some editing. The cost of the lecture drops and the quality increases.

It allows school to not be a one size fits all concept. Students can get the added attention they need without added cost.

It makes teachers jobs more specialized since they can focus on one-on-one interaction instead of lesson plans and presentation ability.

Tomorrow it will be all about schedule.

Learning Centered Schooling - Part 1

This is not about homeschooling despite yesterday's post. Despite their appearance public schools in the US are not primarily focused on education. They are primarily focused on providing free child care. I'm not sure anybody in the school system would say that. However, what is the focus when it comes to consequences? If a kid graduates school without learning much it's... unfortunately normal. However, if I don't take my kid to school too much I will get in trouble. So no matter how much they say public schools are all about learning it comes down to who gets in trouble for what.

The structure and rules of our public education system are archaic. They concept of a school year, the structure of teachers dictating information to pupils, the physical format of desks facing the front, the fixed schedule, the monolithic hours. All developed with good reason the better part of a century or more ago. All these rules do not inherently make sense for us today. Continuing simply because the inertia of time and tradition is unwise and potentially significantly counterproductive.

Growing up in a homeschool environment it was not uncommon to hear very negative opinions about the public education system. It was frequently demonized and homeschooling was set up on this grand pedestal of perfection. The idea that homeschooling should be the primary choice of everyone was common.

I agree that the public education system has its troubles. I mean, given the general failure of the public education system despite spending more than any other country I think it is appropriate to question the wisdom of continuing on with our current system. However, it is naive to assume that everyone or even most people can or are willing to homeschool their kids. Public education plays an important role in our society. So instead of poking it full of holes, laughing and walking away I want to propose something a little more constructive.

I want to propose a system for education to replace our current paradigm of public education. It is based on my experience working in industry, my homeschooling background as well as my broader life experiences. I want to add something a bit more productive to the conversation beyond casting stones and poking holes. The US public education system has enough troubles that it doesn't need another critic.

Homeschooling - Part 1?

Debra and I were both homeschooled growing up. Because of that we are obviously a bit predisposed to be interested in homeschooling our kids now that we have collected a few. However, up until now we haven't really talked about what we want that to look like or what our goals are.

We have said we wanted to give them a "good" and "christian" education, but that isn't very helpful for making a lesson plan. So today as we drove we discussed some of our broader goals for what we want to achieve before they run off on us.

• The old readin', ritin' and rithmatic (they are the three R's right?) are obvious so I put them here, but that wasn't really the point of our discussion.
• Communication: The most talented people in the world can do amazing things, but if they aren't very good at writing or talking about what they do they aren't going to get nearly as far. We want our kids to know how to present themselves and their ideas well through writing as well as speaking.
• Money sense: Good money management is a under taught skill and is one of the biggest single contributors (when lacking) to people failing to achieve their goals. I want our kids to start out life with a solid understanding of what is dumb and how to manage their money shrewdly.
• A broad understanding of the world around them: This is kind of hard to say simply, but we want them to have a mile wide inch deep (at least) understanding of the world. A good foundation so that in most contexts they at least a passingly familiar with what is going on.
• The freedom to pursue their strengths and interests. Once they have the above information and skills it really comes down to guiding them into what they want to do and helping them learn and grow into that. Even now when they are young I want them to have the ability to guide their educational focus in the directions that interest them. I want this educational journey to be an adventure for them. Not just the fulfillment of some school attendance mandate or the quest to check off all the prescribed check boxes.

Obviously it is just a matter of finishing off lesson plans at this point... or not. But it's a start. We have a better idea of our end goal so we can begin to define how this all can actually be accomplished.

Driving Dates

Well, we just got in after driving for seven hours. Yay... I actually like driving pretty well. Doing it with kids can be a bit dicey though at times.

Anyway, some wisdom that we have picked up in the years we have been married is that driving is actually a really great opportunity to bond and connect. The kids nod off or are otherwise entertained and we have extended time where we are effectively each other's captive audience. We have had some of the best discussions of our marriage on long car rides.

When we have been short on cash for a babysitter or otherwise don't have one we occasionally put the kids in the car and drive around in a big loop in the evening. The kids fall asleep and we have 30-45 minutes of time to talk and just be together. All for the cost of a couple gallons of gas. It's not especially romantic, but hey, what works right?

Bell Curve

I wrote this a while ago at a point where I was feeling this a lot. It is somewhat crude, but was a reflection of my emotions a the time and I think it is appropriate to leave it in.

Ok, so this is you. You are smart, talented, gifted, or in some other way exceptional. You don’t tell anyone because you don’t want to sound pretentious, and chances are they wouldn’t believe you or care anyway. But you look at the people around you and you know in your heart of hearts that you are different. Better. But not in a conceited prideful way. In a “I happened to get born on the good skinny end of the bell curve” way. You don’t think you are better than other people, you just know you are capable of doing more than they can. Even reading this makes you uncomfortable because you hate thinking it, but deep down you know with the right environment, resources, mentoring, or whatever you could be a damn good writer, dancer, coder, engineer, cook, mechanic, mathematician, or whatever. Life dealt you a off-suit 7-2 though, and you don’t have the rich parents, live in a good neighborhood, or have anyone who gives a shit. Even if you are lucky enough to have people who care enough to listen to your dreams, they don’t really understand, and they certainly can’t help you realize those dreams and ideas pestering you at the back of your mind.

And that… that is the foundation of your own personal hell. You go through life like a little cog. Doing the stuff that the people around you do. Always knowing though, that you can never be content. Never being happy in the world you are in. It’s hard to enjoy life because the idea of settling for a “normal” life, a life being “average”, will never be enough, and your dreams seem impossibly far away. You look at older people around you. The idea of their very existence is scary. The idea that you could become like them. That you could miss out on the potential that you know you have. Knowing that if you don’t do anything about this super power inside you it will eat you up and turn you into a bitter depressed old crust of a human. It is terrifying.

I understand, and you are not alone.

Reactions

I usually have a pretty solid idea of how I think I will react to a situation before it happens. Being that I am not the most emotionally expressive person it isn't too hard to guess most of the time. I usually am at least close.

However, when it comes to major events my response is less predictable than usual. The list of events that would qualify as "major" is rather short, so I don't have a large enough data set to really get a good fit on it, but I do know that it has skewed both ways. Sometimes I react more negatively and sometimes more positively than expected.

My grandmother has been in poor health for a while, and I mentioned a few days ago that she had taken a turn for the worse. At that time I would have said that I was going to be glad when she died. Not because I didn't want to have a grandma anymore, but because she was not in a good place and it was better for her to be beyond the pain she was in. I would have also said that her passing would not be a major issue. Largely because we were not very close so the connection that was lost would not be significant.

Well, today my grandmother died.

So now I can look at the experience from a different perspective and see how my reaction lined up with expectations. Now, admittedly, this is not exactly a long time to process or come to mourn her passing so the fullness of the situation is not here. However, I can give a first pass.

I am more upset than I expected. Looking back I do not think I overestimated the relationship we had or underestimated my relief that she is no longer in pain. What I missed, and what I am not sure that I could have foreseen, was the unhinging that her death signifies.

Let me explain that. My extended family has had a tradition over the past years of getting together and spending time with each other. That coming together has largely revolved around my grandmother. On that side of the family she was the last of her generation. So now that she is gone I feel like that entire family grouping has become unpegged. It has lost the strongest anchor that it had to the past. The strongest connection that existed to our families history.

I have felt that my life has been somewhat defined by a lack of belonging, a lack of long term perspective. Here, the loss of my grandmother has particularly poked that feeling. Signifying the severing of the strongest tie that I have had, not just of the anchor of our family gatherings, but of our family's place in the world.

Synergy!

So remember back when I was complaining about the lack of community and how I had all these great reason for why it was a good idea? Well, a funny thing happened. And by a funny thing I mean that we found community and I was right. Not in every way and detail, but certainly along the lines of, and in the spirit of the thought.

It goes back to the whole family friends thing. It turns out when you are friends with people it often turns into a situation where you help each other with stuff and that produces a lot of economic and social synergy... sorry for using that word.
 

 It still blows my mind, which is why I guess why I'm writing about it more. First it blows my mind because this took so long to happen. I still don't understand why. And secondly, it blows my mind because it is pretty stinkin awesome. I mean, friends are cool.

I guess I don't have a deep point today, but I am thankful for friends and I am quite tickled at how good and plentiful they are here. For all its faults Maryland seems to have a decent collection of people.

Theory vs Reality

I am sure we all have said "I'll never do _____" and when put in a particular situation have then proceeded to do it. It is easy to have a belief when it doesn't matter. It is easy to have an opinion when no one is going to act on it.

Inevitably that day comes though. The day that brings all your theories and opinions to a point and forces you to come to terms with the reality of the situation. It forces you to make a decision about how you will react. How you will respond. It forces you to decide if you really believe what you said you did or if the glaring light of reality causes to much pain or discomfort for you to hold onto it.

My grandmother is not doing well. She is 90 and has been in declining health for the past few years. Over the past year she has fallen a couple times and most recently cracked a few ribs. She is not a happy person at the moment and has not felt very useful for a long time. She is in a really bad place and in a lot of pain.

I really feel for her. I don't want her pain to continue. I don't want her to continue on with no real hope for a future other than one of pain. It would be easy and even make sense to end her life and let her have freedom from her painful existence.

This goes against my theory though. The theory that life is sacred and that it is G-d's place and His alone to determine our times. It is easy to believe that when you don't have any reason to want someone's time to be shorter than it might be otherwise.

When your grandmother is suffering and there is no real hope of her recovering to the point of living a meaningful life it really forces a closer look. It requires a deepening of conviction or an abandonment of it. There is no intellectually honest middle ground. It is the tragically beautiful reality of the situation.

It further sharpened by the fact that there is a decent chance that I will eventually end up in a similar situation myself. I might be able to callously ignore her situation and stick to my principles just because I don't want to reevaluate them, but knowing that I very well might be in the same place in 60 years forces me to take a more personal look at the question. I can't just brush it off.

My conclusion, which comes from a lot of the learning I have gone through in the past months is this. G-d is sovereign. That is non-negotiable. His knowledge and power are on a level completely beyond us. His reasons for allowing this are His own and I am not privy to them. I can and am asking what they are, but it is His ballgame not mine. It is part of my grandmother's path that I do not understand the context of. I will probably never be able to.

Ultimately it doesn't matter if I ever can make reason out of it. That isn't the point. I am not responsible for my grandmother. G-d and my grandmother are. So as much as it hurts me to know what she is going through the only real responsibility I have in the situation is my own reaction. Do I allow a painful situation to deter me from embracing what I know to be true or do I lean in and deepen my connection with G-d recognizing that He is eternally guiding us all along the path of deeper intimacy with Him if we are willing.

Family Friends

You will probably laugh at this because most of the world has figured this out already. However, it is new to me, which at almost 30 is pretty sad I guess, but everyone has their own pace.

I've had friends, Debra has had friends, the kids have had friends. Those are things that I have understood. One-on-one friendships. Growing up neither of my parents had many friends and I didn't either so again it was pretty much exclusively one-on-one friendships.

Today I realized that my family now has several friend families. Families that up and down the line are my family's friends. I hadn't really thought about it much, but I guess I had assumed it would be basically just like individual friends. But nope, it is a lot different. It really brings the benefits of friendship onto a whole new level. Compound interest I guess if you will.

Everyone is able to connect with someone like them, guys, wives, kids. And no one is left out so there aren't any additional logistics. It doesn't count as a night I'm out and we don't have to find babysitting.

Plus it opens up activities that we never have really done. We have had couples and families over for dinner and game nights, and that is great, but when you have a family as a friend it makes bigger trips and activities a real thing. It probably sounds weird, but we have never gone to the zoo or camping or anything like that with another family. It just hasn't been a thing.

So regardless of our lateness to the party, I am glad we have arrived and it is looking good.

How I do My Job

From the first job that I had out of college I have been using a technique that I have found to be very beneficial in helping me to succeed. It all started when I asked my lead how to do something for the third time and realized that I shouldn't have to do that. It was wasting both our times.

It's a pretty simple technique, but I haven't found many people who do it. I call it writing down what I do. Catchy name huh? Basically I just start documenting each task.

Things I focus on:

1. Step by step instructions. I get as specific as I can for each task. Even down to specific button presses. I add pictures and diagrams as needed to make sure that every step is clear.
2. Explanations where needed. Sometimes certain parts of a process don't make a lot of sense, so I add notes to explain why it needs to be done that way.
3. Solutions to problems. Any process has problems that pop up due to mistakes or because things just don't always work right. I add notes outlining how to identify the problems and what needs to be done to fix it.
4. User friendly formatting. This is a document made to be referenced so I try to make it as pretty and visually simple as possible. 
5. References to any related documentation or policies etc. This is especially important in a more corporate environment. But any kind of reference materials that might come in useful are helpful to list.

It takes a good deal of time to build up a document like this. It will slow you down at doing your job. However, once you have it you will have learned your job well, you will avoid having to re-ask questions, and it makes training a new person a ton easier.

At my last job I was able to give the new guy my "how to do my job" document and he was able to pick the tasks up with minimal follow up from me in a very short period of time. It was so nice.

A Story About Me

When I was a kid and all the way through high school I was not an outgoing person. I can count the total number of friends I had before I went to college on my fingers. On top of that I was shy and would get embarrassed easily. Overall I was a quiet and moderately socially awkward kid.

Today, while not the life of the party, I am outgoing and am able to make friends easily. I have more friends today than I can count on my fingers (I haven't run out of toes yet though).

So how did I get here? Well, long story short I decided to. I realized that being shy wasn't helping me or protecting me from anything. I decided to not be shy anymore. Of course, it wasn't as simple as that, but that was the start.

A significant point in this transition was when I decided to jump onto a table and yell. That may sound odd, and I don't remember what I was yelling about. I was at a camp I volunteered at occasionally and a group of people were hanging out in the mess hall. Something came up and the thought crossed my mind that jumping on the table and yelling was a good idea in the moment. Now, as a shy person that would be the last thing in the world I would want to do. I had actively avoided attention for the most part up to that point. But in that moment I realized that there was no good reason not to jump up there and yell. So I did. I jumped up and hollered and stomped and made a big commotion. And my face turned. bright. crimson. red. People laughed and teased me for getting embarrassed, but I did it. I didn't die. Nothing bad happened.

I have thought back to that point ever since then. The time when my body and emotions fought me tooth and nail and I won and nothing bad happened. So every time I feel uneasy or embarrassed I remember that it's just a feeling. I can push through and do the thing.

As a result I have made friends, gotten jobs, and even gotten married. I have made it a habit to push things to the point where I am slightly uncomfortable  (or a lot on occasion). While sometimes it does result in a slightly awkward conversation or foot-in-mouth syndrome I have gained so much more than I have lost.

I share this because, first it's funny, and second I truly believe there are not many things that we can't change and grow out of if we try.

You can do it. You can change.

My Job Description

There is a job description for my job. It was probably originally written by someone years ago and generations of managers have tweaked it into the form it is in today. I doubt any of them really understood what the job really entailed. Not because they didn't care, but because they just didn't do the job.

I suspect most jobs are like that. Despite what your official job description says though you are the one that defines what your job description really is. The work we do or don't do comes down to us. Not just what we do but how we do it. We write our own job descriptions with our actions.

Does your unwritten job description say things like this?
"surf the internet all but two hours a day"
"grumpily respond to customer requests"
"avoid any work except work that is explicitly defined in your official job description"

Alternatively does your job description say things like this?
"look for ways to delight your customers"
"be quick to help when people need help"
"find things to do when you have down time even if it isn't your job"

The decision is up to you. You write your own job descriptions. You can choose to step up, be excellent, perform above expectations or you can sit back, get by, and do the bare minimum.

The choice is up to you every day.

Reputation

I have never really thought about my reputation as a thing very much. When I have though, it has mostly been in the context of doing big huge bad things that make people not like me. Which, while part of it is not a frequent issue. I guess that's part of why I didn't think about it much.

Also, I usually have thought of it in the context of people who don't know me well. Basically, if they are my friend then reputation isn't a thing and I don't have to worry about it.

I had some experiences recently that brought the whole idea of reputation to the front of my mind, and really recast it in a different way.

The details aren't the important part, but the result is. Everyone, even my friends are paying attention to what I do. How I behave affects their view of me, and while I usually behave myself well enough so that my behavior isn't a make or break friendship issue there are affects.

The real affects come in the depth of the relationship. Am I someone who can be relied on? Can I be trusted? Do I show myself to be a real friend?

The kicker here, and this is the biggest thing I realized, is that the things that really move the needle on reputation are usually really small. Like, texting someone a smiley face, or asking a question or two.

The specifics aren't what matter so much as being attentive and showing genuine care. So be attentive and intentional of the small things and you will become a better friend.

Political Prediction

I was reading the news, because that is something I do occasionally, and came upon this article. It outlines how despite the groundswell and success of both Trump and Sanders their respective parties are doing their darndest to send them packing in favor of the establishment's preferred candidate.

As I read a thought popped into my head. Here is the groundwork:

1. Both Bernie and Trump are only loosely connected to their parties. They chose the main line parties to run for president because third party candidates really are a no go historically. However, neither is really a member except to run for president.
2. Both candidates are being actively and in many cases unabashedly persecuted by their host parties.
3. Trump does NOT play by any traditional rule book.

So based on those things here is the thought, and my prediction: Trump will run third party in the general with Bernie Sanders as his VP.

This sounds crazy, but this election has ultimately been about the establishment vs the little guy. A Trump/Sanders ticket would unify the anti-establishment crowd and the extreme wings from both parties as well as a lot of moderates who would see a mixed ticket like that as the ultimate moderation. This would result in leaving the mainline party candidates with only the core of their parties which in both cases is too small to be able to beat the powerhouse that would be Bernald Trunders.

Given the amount of corruption and disenfranchisement that is going in both parties the only legitimate candidacy would be Trump and Sanders. It would be framed as the corrupt politically inbred establishment vs the people and democracy. It would be the plot twist to end all plot twists, and it would work.

Planning Ahead

I am trying to improve my ability of prioritizing one tool I have come across that I find particularly helpful is the importance/urgency matrix. It is a really simple concept. There are four quadrants based on importance and urgency. Every to-do item falls in one of the four baskets.

1. Important and Urgent: This is a category that you should try to eliminate as much as possible. There with proper planning and forethought you should be able to avoid a lot of issues ever getting to this point. 
2. Important not Urgent: Ideally most of your time will be spent here. Focusing on important things well before there is any urgency so you can take your time and really be able to do a good job.
3. Urgent not Important: Sometimes things come up that need to be taken care of, but aren't critical to your long term plans. A phone call would be a good example. You kind of need to answer it quickly, but it probably isn't massively important.
4. Not Important and Not Urgent: If it isn't important or urgent you should probably seriously consider not doing it at all. There isn't any real value here.

I did this kinda this week. I am just getting back from a weekend trip and I wrote this post and the last three before I left. I waited a little longer than I probably should have, but I was able to plan ahead and get it done and mostly stay in quadrant 2.

Here is a nice little graph that shows it pretty well.

Dooot do do dooooooooo!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have officially reached the 100 post mark. More than a quarter of the way through the year. Posting every day, and most of them not punt posts either. I am really surprised at myself to be honest. I think I mentioned it before, but consistency is not one of my strong areas. Doing anything (other than sleep) every day has not really been something I've ever done.

I haven't made the progress in all of my goal areas as I would have liked, but that's ok. My core goal was to do this. To post every day rain or shine. While my other goals haven't gone as well as desired they are still limping along and that is a lot better than any other year. So w00t!

With this milestone made I have a growing confidence that I can do this for the rest of the year. My confidence in myself has grown. My writing isn't getting worse at the very least. Also, a lot of ideas and thoughts that I have had have become more tangible to me after going through the process of getting written down.

This has been and continues to be a rewarding experience for me, and I hope at least a little beneficial for you my dear reader.

Here is my favorite song for you to enjoy and celebrate this milestone with me.

Doing Eternal Pragmatism - Part 3

Yesterday I gave a framework for why we should really explore G-d's purpose for us and trust in His willingness and ability to deliver what we need to do it.

Today I want to give an example of someone who did this. It is admittedly pretty dramatic. However, I do not believe it is an unreasonably extreme. It is a good example of what G-d can do.

Enter George Müller. He was an evangelist and founded and ran many schools and orphanages in England in the mid 1800's. He steadfastly held on to the belief that G-d was calling him to not ask for financial or material assistance. Over the course of his life he founded 117 schools educating over 120,000 children, mostly orphans, and cared for over 10,000 orphans in his orphanages.

One particularly famous and well documented example was one morning at his orphanage everyone woke up to find that they were completely out of food. He had everyone prepare for breakfast like normal and everyone was seated at the table in preparation for breakfast which was not there. They prayed to bless the food and just as they finished the local baker knocked on the door with a donation of bread which was enough for everyone. Just then the milkman's cart broke down in front of the orphanage and he gave them plenty of fresh milk since it was going to go to waste anyway.

Müller's life was filled with deliveries of coal just as they ran out, money's needed (to the penny) to finish buildings delivered in at the last minute, food provided just when it was needed. It was a truly lean process. But he never asked for anything. He trusted G-d to deliver and He did. Why did He trust G-d? Because G-d said He would provide and Müller believed that.

I don't think every ministry is called to that, but it show's G-d's ability and willingness to provide as we need it.

A lot of people around him thought he was crazy. They thought he would starve himself and all his orphans to death or freeze them with no heat. But He had a longer perspective. He did what WORKED. George Müller was an eternal pragmatist.

Doing Eternal Pragmatism - Part 2

Let's back up a moment from yesterday's post. As a pragmatist I highly value strategies that work. Even if I have other reasons for not liking them. Occasionally "idealism" wins out for me, but that is not the norm. Based on study and experience I believe that G-d is god and the Bible is His word. Based on that conclusion I can lay out some base axioms.

Axioms:

1. G-d is all powerful
2. G-d is trustworthy
3. G-d is all knowing
4. G-d unconditionally loves us
5. The Bible is His message to us

Now, before I get into that I want to make an analogy to help set the groundwork for all this.

Bill Gates writes you a letter explaining that he wants to hire you and details your job description. He says he will cover all your expenses as well as providing the resources you need to complete the job. He gives you a detailed background on the job and even gets pretty detailed about how to do it. So you know he's done his homework. All that really needs to be done is for you to execute accept the job and execute on Mr. Gate's plan. And he says at the end of the contract he will give you a really big bonus.

Now, in this analogy, you would probably jump at the offer. You would read his letter thoroughly to make sure you understood all of it. You would promptly respond and you would intrinsically expect that he would actually provide the resources and such that he promised for you to do the job correctly.

Yeah, G-d did that. Except per another analogy He kind of is a bit richer than Mr. Gates. He understands the world better than Mr. Gates to the point that He knows the full scope of history past, present, and future. And to top it all off, as much as Mr. Gates might appreciate you as an employee G-d loves you unconditionally. So while you might get burned out and stressed doing the job for Mr. Gates, and him not care on a deep level, G-d cares about you and gives us freedom from worry, from fear, and from our mistakes.

So we have every reason to carefully read through the Bible so we understand what G-d is asking for. We have every reason to jump into what He is calling us to do with full confidence that He will deliver on his promises of peace, of required resources, and of freedom.

Doing Eternal Pragmatism - Part 1

I will start this post off by saying I am being really really really hypocritical here. I haven't started really laying out my points (this is generally stream of consciousness for the most part), but I know that I do almost none of what I'm going to say we should be doing.

I already discussed eternal pragmatism saying that knowing how the world works we can be better at it. So this is a bit of a continuation of that. Laying out some of the things that G-d promises us and tells us to do. There are a bunch of course, so for today I am going to pick three.

1. The great commission. This is the most famous and presumably the most important so I'll start with it. Jesus says four things here. First, that all authority has been given to him. This is the context for the command. He has ALL authority so when He commands something we should probably do it.

Next he says "make disciples of all nations", baptize them, and teach them do obey what he taught us. I'm not going to go into a deep discussion on any of these. Smarter people then me have. However, answer this. What are you doing to disciple the people around you? What are you doing to disciple "all nations"? Are you baptizing anyone, or at least leading people to be baptized? Are you teaching the people around you to obey Jesus' teachings?

2. "Greater things than these".  Even a quick glance through the gospels will show that Jesus did some pretty crazy miracles during His short tenure here. So when He says we will do greater things than He did that is not a statement to be taken lightly. Now, I haven't healed the sick, made lame people walk, make blind people see or anything let alone "greater things". So what's the deal? It isn't a command, it is a stated fact. So we don't have to feel condemned for not doing it. However, why aren't you? Have you tried? Sure healing is only one gifting of many, but just because you haven't done it doesn't mean you aren't supposed to. He said we would so we should be trying at least until we feel like He is saying stop.

Why on earth would you want to leave that kind of power on the table? "I don't feel like completely transforming this persons life because... I might be uncomfortable." Really?

3. Worry and the birds of the air. He says, don't worry about food, clothes, and housing. He says He will provide those things. We don't have to chase after them or worry. Sooooo... the deep theological truth buried here that you have to practically have a masters in divinity to understand is don't worry about that stuff. We are bad at this. Worry for a lot of people is a full hobby bordering on vocation. It isn't healthy and He says we don't need to chase after it. So STOP.

Thus ends my hypocritical tirade. For today.

Lists are Great

We have someone coming over tomorrow and Debra asked me to get the house clean while she went to her Bible study tonight. We needed to clean the whole house and not just picking up. The floors were dirty and there was laundry, and a lot of dishes. So I tried something I had never done before.

I made a list.

Ok, I have made lists before. I've even posted about it. However, this time I made a list with all the things that the kids and I needed to do. They can't read yet, but I used a marker to mark off all the tasks as we did them. They had a grand time watching the list turn green as things got marked off. We picked up the whole house, vacuumed all the rooms, did the dishes, washed the floors, and folded and put away the laundry.

They would come in and ask me to show them the list periodically so they could see it getting done. It worked really well. They worked more or less non-stop for over two hours. I did a lot of it, but I wouldn't have come close to getting it all done without them. It was a good evening.

Unhinged Religion

When Martin Luther fathered the reformation he brought about a necessary separation between a lot of damaging unbiblical of the Catholic church and the reformed church. However, as any operation of that import and magnitude is difficult there were some things that were thrown out that had real value.

Each new birthing in the Christian Church has brought new life and a broader and deeper understanding of the gospel for the age it was in. However, each time it happened there were some things that really could have been kept for good use.

Today we have a vast understanding of theology catalogued for us in the thousands of books and sermons created over the centuries. Knowledge has never been so abundant. We have access to all the theology that all the past revivals have emphasized. We live in a great time.

However, one part, one aspect that we have largely missed in my experience is the comforting and familiar structure of tradition. Most churches today have a very laid back environment. They sing the newest songs, they wear whatever is common for the time and place they are in. The celebrate and worship however they feel like at the time.

This freedom and adaptability is great, and I never want us to go back to the harsh legalistic structures of the pre-reformation Catholic church. However, having tradition, having a familiar cadence to follow (in the right amounts) is a beautiful thing. Not having a back story, a history, a broader perspective makes life shallow. Even if we are right.

The richness of tradition, the wisdom passed down from passed generations, the depth of knowing that generations before you did something the same way is not something of no value.

I have lived in four states and well over a dozen places in my life. "Home" is not a strong word for me. My family is not large. I have not been very close to any of my grandparents. My career has taken me all over. My life is not one grounded in tradition, let alone anything "static". So when things are tough, as they inevitably are, I don't have much that I can hold on to. G-d is good, but having a solid corporeal handhold would be nice. The church can offer that, and I believe should offer that in this transient world we live in.

Why is Communication So Hard?

I'm married, if you hadn't figured that out by now. That means I have a wife. We live in the same house. We do a lot of the same stuff. We raise the same kids. We like each other most of the time. All of those things go together to make talking both a necessary, and even desirable activity.

However, there are a lot of times where communication doesn't happen. The talking does, mind you, but the communication doesn't. There are also a goodly number of times where the talking doesn't happen at all. This leads to problems. Sometimes they are small, sometimes they are big. But they are never good.

Now, this issue hasn't just sprung up in the past few weeks. In fact it has been well over six months. 3229 days in fact. Ok, since we have known each other. To be fair, I have only been aware of the issue for the past seven and a half years though. So the question is why? The answer is... I'm not sure? There are a number of reasons and I've never sat down to think about it.

Yooooouuu guessed it! That's what I'm going to do for you today! I'm going to list the reasons why I avoid and/or miss communication with my wife. Maybe I'll learn something.

Reasons:

1. She said something to me and I didn't hear what she said. I'm giving myself this one because It isn't always my fault and there are enough ones that are that I'll start off on one that isn't to make myself feel a little better.
2. I don't respond to something she said because I don't like the topic or don't want to do something. Ok, this one is terrible, and it comes from being afraid of confrontation/what she thinks or being lazy. There is no good excuse for it.
3. I don't bring something up that is bothering me. Again, this mostly comes from fear of her reaction or confrontation in general.
4. She thought she said something to me, but had actually only thought about it. I'm feeling a little bad after #2 and #3 so we'll stick this one here. This has only happened a few times, but hey it counts right? I'm not telepathic.
5. I don't bring up an event or other logistical issue that is coming up because it involves money and I don't want to have to have to add it to the budget.
6. I don't bring up events because I don't want to make her spend an evening/Saturday/etc. alone. I usually do, but by then it's last minute and it's a pain. (yay me)
7. I don't engage in conversations about things that are bothering her or me because I process emotions slowly and usually don't even know what I think or how I feel. And then when/if I do I forget or it isn't in the moment anymore and I don't want to bring unpleasantness back up.

There are probably  more, and I might make a part 2 to this at some point. But that gives me something to stew over. Maybe now that I actually have it down I will be a little more able to identify my admittedly terrible reasons and avoid them sometimes.

Capsule Wardrobe Update

Well... I've been doing a bang up job of putting my clothes into a capsule wardrobe. I have been "working on it" since the beginning of the year, but until today I hadn't done much other than budget some money and buy a few shirts. Well today, I took a distinct step and went through all (I think) my work/collared shirts and made a nice pile of all the ones that I didn't like and didn't fit.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is not earth shattering. It is not revolutionary. But it did make my closet a lot neater and now when I go to grab a shirt in the morning the only variable I really need to think about is which one I feel like wearing. Sooo nice.

This post is kinda light on content because I spent just about the whole day building a chicken pen with a friend of mine and I'm tired and sore and haven't had any brilliant thought provoking ideas beyond learning how to quickly bend a wire to hold fencing onto a t-post. But that is what happens sometimes when you write every day.

H.A.L.T

I originally heard this idea from Michael Hyatt's podcast several months ago. As things go it has been sitting at the back of my mind until something happens, like it did today, that really bumped it to the front of the thought queue.

Let me tell you a short story about my day. I was off today from work (yay!) so we all spent a lot of the day out running errands and such that I usually can't do/help with. It was productive, but tiring. When we got home we had to run to the store to get a few things for dinner. The kitchen was a huge mess so that had to be cleaned first. I cleaned enough to cook some eggs for the kids for a quick dinner because it was getting late. The kids goofed off and didn't do get ready for bed quickly and I found the oldest's lunch all over their room. So I was a bit peeved.

I ended up being a bit short with them and they went to bed without a story.

I did not handle everything this evening in the best way. And as I'm writing this I am very much wanting that gump to not stick around so I can enjoy the remainder of my evening with my wife and not grump all over her.

This all leads back to the podcast I mentioned. In it, though it wasn't the main point, he mentioned the acronym H.A.L.T. It stands for HUNGRY, ANGRY, LONELY, TIRED. The idea is that when you are one or more of those things, regardless of why, it is a lot harder to be the best version of you. You are a lot more likely to grump all over your family, which is not good.

The key is to recognize that you are in that state, so at the very least you can warn people you aren't in the best frame of mind, and also it enables you to find a path to fixing what might otherwise be a mysterious bad mood. So eat something, cool off, get a good hug, and get some rest, even if it means going to bed.

So I am going to H.A.L.T before I grump all over Debra and try to be a slightly more cuddly version of myself than I was before.