There are 6 great questions you and I undertake as we wrestle with the development of our lives; Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why.
Last week I opened a new thread entitled; First Things First. In that post I suggested there seems to be an intentional way for you and me to live our lives. An order, if you will, to discover our deliberate design.
Now before you pushback on this working theory of mine, allow me to share several thoughts for our consideration.
The FIRST one is a question. Is life more about WHAT you DO or more about WHO you ARE? Doing vs. Being has been a question every generation has to deal with. And in America, doing usually prevails. Because in America what we have, what we accomplish, and what we desire defines life. While that is true of many Western countries, there is little argument that Americans matriculate summa cum laud!
The SECOND thought I have is that we believe our Being (we’ll define this word shortly) will change as we grow… so in the first half of life, we gotta get all we can. There’s a great book by David Brooks of the New York Times entitled The Second Mountain. I’ll be using some out takes from Brooks in the next couple of posts so stay tuned. You will want to follow this guy’s voice on finding life.
Now, I have to admit that in my twenties I bought into the, “gotta get all you can.” In fact I may have added to that a secondary warning; “before someone else gets it all”. Material STUFF mattered to me just as it mattered to almost everyone I was hanging out with. If you had the STUFF you would make it in life. If you didn’t, you lost at life.
Finally, the THIRD idea is a compilation taken from the FIRST question and the SECOND thought.
WHAT IF we’ve answered the first question wrong and the STUFF we amassed never really brought us LIFE itself.
Is it possible that we can DO a lot of things in life and gather lots of stuff in life while at the same time be empty as a person? From my perspective, the answer is YES!
From the book – The Seasons of Life by Chuck Swindoll :
“DOING is usually connected with a vocation or career – how we make a living. BEING is much deeper. It relates to character – who we are and how we make a life. DOING is tied in closely with activity, accomplishments, and tangible things like salary, prestige, involvements, roles, and trophies. BEING, on the other hand, has more to do with intangibles – the kind of people we become inside, much of which we cannot measure by objective yardsticks and immersive awards. But of the two, BEING will ultimately outdistance DOING every time. It may take half a lifetime to perfect, but ends down, it’s far more valuable. And lasting. And inspiring.”
WHO ARE YOU? You’re a lot more than you probably have imagined. Finding the courage to place First Things First each day will soon begin to change WHO YOU ARE!
Check back in mid week for the third installment along with some wisdom from David Brooks.
And please share your opinion through any and all comments you might have. I look froward to reading them.
MC
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