My Riffs

Life has to be lived to learn. A lot of things you learn by experiencing them. And there’s no shortcut. You have to live it to learn it. 

Some of the best things you can invest in is the future. Specifically in young people. There are far too few good role models today. Young people need good role models. So you can invest in the future by investing in young people today!

You have to catch opportunity when it presents itself. You never know if it will show again. Opportunity can rarely be captured after it passes. So grasp it as it comes to you. 

It's better to err on the side of mercy instead of judgement. It's so easy and natural to judge someone but if we can teach ourselves to err on the side of mercy we will be much better and kinder.

Unsaid things can get us in trouble. But it takes wisdom to know what shouldn’t be said and what should be said. We can’t hold it all in when it’s meant to be let out. But some things don’t need to be said. So wisdom helps us know what to say and how to say it. And holding those things in doesn’t help anything. 

Love looks different all the time. But love is always guided by doing what you can to help someone. Sometimes love looks like sending a text. Sometimes it looks like helping someone move. Other times it may look like correcting something you see as problematic. But whatever the action is, if it’s love, it’s never self-serving. 

Some people are like a vacuum cleaner. They seem to exist to find and intake all the dirt they can. They thrive on gossip and finding out peoples mistakes and failures. But others are like gold panners, they sift out all the dirt and try to find the gold. Finding dirt is easy and is about the easiest lowest form of social interaction. But finding gold takes someone who doesn't want to live in the base human form. Finding the gold takes a higher level of awareness and understanding of how the world and people work. Pan for gold, leave the vacuuming to people who want to be filled with dirt.

There is nothing worth losing your peace over. Protect your peace, at all costs. If you have peace, you have something of extreme, high value. Guard it, watch over it and don't let anyone ever take it.

Nobody has gotten to anywhere good without doing the hard work. You have to be willing to do the tough, hard work to get somewhere. It takes the hard effort to get above the average. 

Sometimes you have to pursue peace. It won’t naturally come so you have to intentionally persue it. 

There's no thriving when you're just surviving. At some point you have to move from survival to thriving. Survival mode can only last so long. Survival mode isn't sustainable indefinitely. Move from surviving to thriving.

The more honest you are, the more powerful you are to overcome your personal weaknesses. It requires radical honesty. The type of honesty that we call ourselves out when we even begin to see ourself walk a destructive path. Radical honesty may often require accountability too. But radical honesty is the way to overcome weaknesses.

You’re gonna find out what you’re made of. In some way, shape or form life is gonna expose what you’re made of. Your foundation will be exposed, if it’s a good foundation you’ll be able to recover quickly. If your foundation isn’t solid you’ll have to rebuild at the foundational level. But know it will happen, get that foundation solid. Build your character, be truly strong (meek, humble, gentle, honest) and be connected to good, healthy people. With these ingredients you’ll survive and not only survive, be better after the storm. 

Don’t waste your pain. Pain always comes with something to gain from it. Make sure your pain leads to gains. This means processing the pain and learning from it. It means introspection. It means communication. It likely means action in applying what you’ve learned from the pain. 

That’s the magic formula to a balanced life. When one of those things are forgotten it throws things off and when we lose our balance we are prone to fall. 

Responsibility is a trait that is becoming less prevalent. So many want to shirk responsibility. On the job, or for problems, or for their behaviour, people don’t want to take responsibility. Owning what we’re responsible for is the path to freedom though. If we don’t own what we’re responsible for, we can never make it better or fix it. So take responsibility for what’s yours. 

If you’ve been given something, use it. Our talents, skill, knowledge and giftings have been given to us to be used. Holding them in ruins the gifts. So use them and the gifts will multiply.  

It’s amazing that our words can bring things into existence. So what we tell people matters. We can speak things to people that makes them better or makes them worse. Sometimes somebody just needs to hear that they can do it and everything will be fine. You can make that difference in someone’s life. So speak like. 

A good thing to remember is your present circumstance, whether good or bad, will pass. So make the most of the moment because another season is coming. It’s easy to get caught up in a moment or season and assume it’s always going to be like the present. But it won’t be. Things will change. 

Either things are happening to us OR for us. And we can decide which it is.  We can take the position of everything is happening to us, and the conclusion is we don't deserve it and life isn't fair. Or we can take the position that everything is happening for us. The conclusion we draw from this position is much different than the first conclusion. We can draw the conclusion here that everything is happening for us to make us a better, stronger person.

Presenting a problem is relatively easy. Most people can see a problem. But what does take a special skill is to present problems with solutions. Identifying a problem is important of course. But without a solution there's little benefit in identifying it. Solutions are next level. So learn to be a solution finder, not a problem finder.

As a kid we played and playing was a primary form of learning. As adults we forget to play but it’s an essential form of life. Play looks different as an adult but it’s just as necessary. No play makes adults dull. 

We lie to ourselves far more than we ever lie to others. We have to get very honest with ourselves in order to live an honest life and be honest with others. Audit all your thoughts, don’t just accept them. Audit them and ensure they’re accurate and honest. That’s a good place to start. 

We get to choose what we’re holding. Many never realize it though. Many go through life holding onto things that were never meant for them or were meant to be let go of. Holding onto stuff weighs us down and makes simple things difficult. So let go of things that you can’t change or things that just aren’t yours. You’ll be lighter and be able to live better. 

Togetherness is the way to do things. There’s moments to be alone, but most of the time most things should be done together.