Category: Improvement

KEEPING TRUE FRIENDSHIPS

Friendships:  The most important “everything” in our lives!

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PATHS WE TAKE and PEOPLE WHO CROSS OUR PATHS

My posts are a little random, but they relate to what I’m passionate about and this one is about friendships.  I drafted a post about career paths last night and as I was writing it, I realized that every career path I took was based on a friendship with someone.  Have you had the same experience?

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BEING INDEPENDENT

I’ve always been one to push my comfort zone and do things to improve, whether it’s fitness, education, personal development,  conquering my fear of heights, career progress, speaking in front of people, overcoming shyness, going places solo not knowing anyone, and so on, there is always something to improve.  Pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone more makes us more independent, self-reliant and builds confidence after we challenge ourselves and complete whatever it is that challenged us.  You never know what you are capable of until you push yourself further!  This is so important to me – and Nike’s slogan sums it up best: “Just Do It!”

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STRANGERS BECOMING FRIENDS

It’s comfortable to be self-reliant and independent, which I believe I am, but I’m definitely not a loner!  I love having friends around.  In fact, when I’ve gone places in the past, I may go solo, but somehow I manage to find a new friend group!  When I was in college, on St. Patrick’s Day one year, I had a class that day but nearby there was this Irish Parade that was happening shortly after my class had ended.  I didn’t have any friends who could go, so I was a little nervous, but I wanted to be there, so I went by myself.  It was a little awkward to be honest, but it didn’t last long.  Nearby was a group of guys and girls my same age and one of the girls asked me if I was there by myself and I replied yes, so she welcomed me to join her group of friends.  We all got to know each other that day and became great friends over that summer: we started meeting on the weekends to roller blade the 7-mile loop around Forest Park, then head out for dinner and drinks.  We ended  ended up celebrating the 4th of July together that year too, taking a trip to Lake of the Ozarks and we had so much together.   Recently, I headed to a concert before my friends showed up and ended up meeting another group of people who welcomed me to join them.  I didn’t this time because I would be meeting up with my friends shortly, but the point is, people are drawn to create friendships, even strangers!

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LIFE TIME LASTING FRIENDSHIPS

My cousin was always the best at this, she always had a huge group of friends and stayed active with her friends from childhood through adulthood, adding to the group as she met more people.  I think one time at a Cardinal’s baseball game, her friend group practically covered an entire section!  As people develop families, it’s easy to get “too busy” to maintain those friendships, and I was guilty of that, but thankfully, I had great friendships that picked up right where we left off.  But, I believe that it’s important to maintain friendships at all times, find the time because it is important, you simply need to find a good balance.

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THE VALUE OF FRIENDSHIPS

Friends are amazing; what we can do for each other:  support each other toward goals, broaden one another’s horizons in careers, encourage each other, enhance other relationships, be each other’s sounding boards for ideas, help out when needed and the best part of all is just to have fun and let loose, be that crazy self that you can only be when you are in your comfort zone!  Friendships are too valuable to ignore and as a group can come up with some amazing adventures!

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Friendships with people having different backgrounds, different age groups, and different cultures simply enhances your life experience.  There is so much we learn from each other and it all makes life more enjoyable!

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PLANNING EVENTS

Recently I was with a friend group who had talked about planning weekend trips where everyone would write down a suggestion for a weekend trip and put it in a bowl then one suggestion would be chosen and that would be the surprise trip! That sounded like a fun idea and one that families could use too!  Everyone gets input and it’s a random selection.  I haven’t tried this yet, but plan to!

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My friends and I also started a closed group on Facebook for “Events and Activities” where we can share stuff we hear about and everyone has the opportunity to go.  It works well when you are trying to coordinate with 25 or more people- just post it and see who’s interested/who can make it and no one is accidentally left off an invite!   And those who can make it, excellent, and those who can’t; there is always next time!

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by Categories: FRIENDSHIP, Improvement, RELATIONSHIPS, TRAVELTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

ACTIONS NOT WORDS

SUNDAY REFLECTIONS

I don’t attend church every Sunday, but when I do, it’s truly because I want to be there and connect with God in a different way, than personally through prayer; it is meaningful to me.  It really seems the discussions are relevant to things happening in my life when I am there too.  So in my thoughts, this is God’s message getting through to me.

THE DRIVE TO CHURCH – DECISIONS

This past Sunday, on the way to church, I was talking to my son about “why I go to church and what happens” and about how sometimes when I’m making decisions I will just “have a feeling inside” about which direction I should go, and truly, it’s not always the easy decision “I want”, but I just have a feeling inside that “I should”do it. Is this God letting me know what I should do, because it’s not always what I want to do? During the service, my son and I looked at each other, because it was really ironic, the things we talked about in the car on the way there were the things that Pastor Greg was talking about, almost as if he heard our conversation.  My son noticed it too.

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From The Crossing- Facebook Page

THE MUSIC – CONNECTING PERSONALLY

Another interesting thing happened, this church has phenomenal music by the way, so that probably explains more of why I connect so well.  Anyway, one musician told us a story of how he and a friend had a falling out after a very long friendship, and that he felt like God was telling him to apologize to his friend, which he did apologize, but didn’t get the response from his friend he was expecting.  Anyway that night at 2 am this melody came into his head and he wrote this song until about 4 am; it was a beautiful song. Here is the link:  Kenny DeShields “That’s When You Love”   Relating to this event, in my own experience, I also seem to get middle of the night ideas or early morning ideas.  Is this God providing guidance or influence?

THE MESSAGE

The bible topic this day was the two most important things we can do: “Love God and Love Your Neighbor” The Pastor went into detail on what it means to “Love your Neighbor” and the relevant scripture passage was the Good Samaritan Parable  I’ve heard this story many times before, but he made it more relevant, by asking questions:  he asked everyone to come up with reasons why the first two people didn’t help the beaten man and the answers were: “no one was looking, they didn’t want to be inconvenienced, it was someone else’s job or duty, didn’t want to get involved, etc.”   It is here where it relates to all of us, those could all be OUR reasons for not helping someone in the present day.  How many times have we thought those things in our heads when we didn’t help someone? 

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The Pastor also made another point, if we were truly starving and we were offered a) bread or b) the recipe for bread?   Which would we want at that point in our life?  Of course, the actual bread more immediately addresses the need.  He related this concept of the bread and recipe to people offering empathy or sympathy in WORDS to others, but not taking ACTIONS.  Wow!  I bet we can all relate to that in our lives!  Have you ever had someone tell you what you “wanted” or
“needed” to hear, but not make the personal effort to truly connect with you or take action?  It really feels like empty words, doesn’t it?  Have we done that to others?

SUMMARY: Loving your neighbor may be inconvenient.

MY LIFE EXAMPLES

This also related to me, personally, with the access we have to technology today, we are always connected.  I made the mistake this weekend of multi-tasking, I was distracted by a message that I hadn’t seen.  The message came in about 4 hours earlier so I was curious what it said and clicked on it when I should have been paying attention to the conversation I was having with the person.  This person is 100% more important to me than the message, but I didn’t show it when I quit paying attention to look at the message.  I wasn’t being present in the moment and I offended the other person and felt terrible about it, but I couldn’t take it back!  I did apologize, but the damage was already done at that point.  Sometimes being there for a person may simply mean being fully present and truly listening –  without distractions.  This situation has happened to me, with roles reversed before and it made me feel like I was unimportant.  An action not words example can simply be actively, truly listening to someone, and hearing what they are saying.  And I blew that this weekend!

When someone gives you their full attention, isn’t that awesome? When this happens, it is not only noticed, but remembered, even years later, because not many people truly listen.  So many people have other things going through their minds and may only capture a fraction of what is said.  I seriously remember specific people who listened attentively, because they stand out from all others.

FRIENDS TAKING ACTION

I also had another example of Actions Not Words, that I will always remember:  Our family was away on vacation and had a death in the family while we were away.  A fairly new neighbor heard about this and took immediate action:  Michelle C. contacted people that she met through me and spread the word. She went grocery shopping and Maria R. provided a meal so when we got home we could focus on family and not have to worry about the food basics.  This completely amazed me, the action she took and the other friends who did as well. Logically people do not have much food in their refrigerators when they leave for vacation, so she and others took care of that for us and we didn’t even have to think what we needed!  By the time we arrived home, it was already in our refrigerator!

So in summary, the next time someone is in need the message was to try for Actions not Words in addressing their situation.

THE CHURCH

If you are looking for a Christian Church, they offer online Live service every week, so you can log in where ever you are located as long as you have internet service. Here is their website:  https://www.wcrossing.org/, they are on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter too.

This is an amazing church in my opinion!  My friend, Michelle C. had encouraged me to check out the church years ago, but I was  a member of another church, so I didn’t. Then another friend of mine Krista K. also encouraged me, and I finally did in December 2015.  It was definitely something I should have done a long time ago and since then, I’ve found many of my friends from all different denominations also attend this church.

Have a Make it Count week!  

by Categories: FAITH, Improvement, MUSICTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

$pending Time

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Isn’t that what we really do, “$pend” time?  We receive this gift of time and then we spend it.  There are so many ways to spend our time, and once we spend it, it’s gone.  Understanding that our time is our most important resource and asset, how are we spending it?   Will our contribution make a difference to others?  Will the way we spend our time today help someone, or many others, in the future?

Morning Thoughts

Improvement has been running through my mind frequently.  My most thoughtful moments of the day are when I first wake up.  I don’t remember dreams very often, so I’m not sure if that’s where these thoughts originate, but some days when I wake up, I have specific thoughts that pop into my head and here they are:

Brands and Loyalty – Experience

We all know that we are compelled to associate with certain brands, brands that align with our core values and beliefs in life.  Did you ever meet someone who appeared a certain way, but turned out to be not at all what you originally thought?  (this funny video I recently saw has a great message about appearances delivered in hilarious way) Are we a reflection of our core values and beliefs, or disjointed?  A brand can be a company as well as a person and I completely believe when our brand identity no longer reflects our true core, we lose loyalty of those with whom we connected, personally as well as professionally.  So for this reason, it is truly important: to reflect our brand, don’t waste time trying to be something we are not passionate about.  We accomplish so much more when we are passionate about something, we are driven, nothing stands in our way, we work tirelessly to achieve our goals, we motivate others, others leave happier from their experience with us, this is where customer service excels and the experience is incredible.  (Think of Disney, think of Anheuser Busch- the original company) What if the entire workforce or team we belong to did this?  How amazing would that company or product be?  We all have experiences in customer service and can tell immediately who’s connected and who’s disjointed.  The customer service provided by someone who’s connected is simply amazing and we want to come back!

Honesty- Being True, Real

Isn’t honesty something we all want?  I almost wrote “expect” instead of “want”, but realized I don’t often expect it, but I want it.  Why is it that so many of us get uncomfortable being honest?  I’m betting it has to do with acceptance?  I think we generally want to be accepted by others and being honest really puts us “out there” and vulnerable to acceptance by others, we may not be “liked” for what we say.   I’ve also noticed how dishonesty truly tears apart a person or a company.  How many great companies can you think of that have fallen due to lack of honesty?  Or a more relevant question now, think politics!  Ha ha; I won’t even go there!  Our connection to someone is disrupted when we don’t see honesty.  On the positive side, when someone is honest, we may not agree with them, but don’t you appreciate honesty?  For me, I respect someone more for being honest; that shows me their strength and courage!  It also shows being true to oneself, being real, and who doesn’t love that?

 

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Following a Passion- Happiness

Wouldn’t it be incredible if everyone we knew in our life was following their passion, the vibe would be so positive! Instead of forcing ourselves into a role that doesn’t quite fit, what if we became the best at our talents?  Followed our Passion? Create something amazing?

As an example of this is: I am Christian and have a strong faith, but over time, I’ve realized I don’t fit into a religion and that’s been a struggle for some to understand.  I also was forcing myself to conform, probably for acceptance, but not being honest about it.  I’m not being disrespectful, but I don’t believe “one size fits all” as it relates to a religion; I believe it’s more of a personal connection through prayer.  My life is truly different and better when I pray.  Part of my belief is that God gives us gifts and those who figure out what their gifts are and use them for good excel in life and are the happiest people.

Lifetime of Improvement

I also believe that once we find our passion, that’s not “the end” but rather the beginning, the starting point, because no matter where we find ourselves today, there is always room for improvement, no matter who you are or what you’ve accomplished so far.  Life is like the game of golf, you may get good at it, but you will never master it; there is always room for improvement!  Think of everything in our world that evolves over time:  transportation, technology, housing, businesses, cities, etc. If any of those stopped improving that would be the end.  There is so much that all of us can contribute in life; I hope you seek and realize your passion, explore it, cultivate it and continue to improve because you will be incredible if you do!

Life Events

Events in life can change us forever.  Some experiences are amazing and some we wish to forget. Life is a series of ups and downs, so it’s important to take what life hands you and be strong with it: Turn it into a positive!  This is a quote to keep in mind because it relates to everyone in our social circles: friends, family, and anyone who enters our lives:

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A like-minded friend posted this video recently, great message with a humorous delivery to keep in mind:  Advice

Why do we do what we do?

The answer to this question is the important one; it is our driving force and it’s personal for each of us.  What is your Passion? Driving Force? How are you $pending Time?

It’s Friday, so “Cheers to You” on your journey in life!  I hope today is a great one for you and that you follow your passion and Making It Count- for you and for others in the future! …And have fun doing it!

 

 

 

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