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You’re not going to get everyone to agree on plans. When you need everyone to agree, the least agreeable person has all the power.

If you find yourself all through life managing other’s emotions, expectations, and making sure they are happy all the time – when is it your turn to be happy?

You are allowed to take up space. Don’t minimize yourself or what you want so much that you never get a say in what happens.

Procrastinator: “I do great in my group projects because I don’t want to let them down.” That’s good. Is it ok to let yourself down by not putting the same effort in for yourself?

Boundaries are for you, not for other people.

You can’t control others or tell them what to do. Instead of saying “You can’t do that” to tell others what they can/can’t do, you only control yourself so you say “If you do that, I will do X <leave/report you/etc>”

What would happen if you started treating yourself the way you would treat someone you love?

When real leadership is absent, the loudest complainer tends to get their way.

When someone in your life is trying to bully, change, or make your day a little more shitty, by asking emotionally loaded questions – put the emotional response requirement back on them. Manipulative question: “So, do you like have any friends?” Answer: “Does that worry you?”

Happiness is the persistent willingness to exert some level of effort, each day, toward helping yourself and others

If you don’t have these problems with any other person in your life, why do you think you’re the problematic person in this one relationship?

Your parents know how to push your buttons because they’re the ones who installed them. Your siblings fine tuned them.

Person X may well drink themselves into an early grave, and there’s not a single thing you can do about it.

The facts may not care about your feelings, but your feelings conversely don’t care about the facts.

“Your feelings are something you cannot change”. When I was drinking and drugging, I constantly was trying to find a way to change what I felt or keep what I felt going forever. If I was sad, I did drugs to change that. If I was happy, I did drugs to keep that feeling going. Now I feel things and I realize the easiest thing to do is accept that I feel that way, and try to gather information about why. Then I go change what I can/needs changing and let the rest go.

Just because you can’t control something doesn’t mean you have to carry the weight of it

Every emotion is not tied to your illness/condition, sometimes you are just sad

Task avoidance: “It’s either now, or not now”, insinuating that if its not now it will keep being “not now” until you make it be “now”. That helped me a lot with getting tasks done as I think of them rather than putting it off until I feel like doing it.

The reason why your mom is acting this way towards you is not because she thinks you’re incompetent or bad at everything you do: it’s because she is COMPETING with you.

Happiness is not a destination.

Compromise means meeting in the middle. If the other person doesn’t do their half of the work, stop doing that work for them.

Thoughts are just thoughts. You can welcome them in, and then show them the door. They’re not reality.

If you spoke to your friends the way you speak to yourself, would they stick around?

Love is given. When a relationship doesn’t work out it doesn’t mean you’re not worthy of being loved.

Keeping the peace on the outside should never be more important than keeping the peace in yourself

You don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of love and respect

Link:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1gx0g96/whats_a_gamechanging_insight_your_therapist/

Beloved:
Remind them to be under the control of magistrates and authorities,
to be obedient, to be open to every good enterprise.
They are to slander no one, to be peaceable, considerate,
exercising all graciousness toward everyone.
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deluded,
slaves to various desires and pleasures,
living in malice and envy,
hateful ourselves and hating one another.

But when the kindness and generous love
of God our savior appeared,
not because of any righteous deeds we had done
but because of his mercy,
he saved us through the bath of rebirth
and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
whom he richly poured out on us
through Jesus Christ our savior,
so that we might be justified by his grace
and become heirs in hope of eternal life.

–Ti 3:1-7

Life is a journey of learning who God is and building a relationship with Him. One of the most difficult concepts Christians must wrap their minds around, and probably one of the least sought modern virtues, is how God loves obedience. Jesus, God himself, cast all of his powers aside to become a helpless child – and was obedient to his created mother and father.

The election, current public discourse and political climate have been contentious – putting it mildly. The early Christians were often living under political regimes that persecuted, arrested, and killed them. Yet, here we read that Christians were taught to be obedient to authority. Even Jesus, when being falsely tried, convicted, and killed – was still obedient to authority of the chief priests and Roman authorities. Even when He could have used the power of the crowds to have stopped it, walked away from Jerusalem, or talked his way out of a death sentence.

Instead, we are to act with peace and act graciously towards everyone and be open to every good enterprise. Even bad situations have opportunities for good – look for them! We too were (or are) just as full of evil and shackled by our passions so we do not to slander anyone – but speak always at peace and be considerate to all.

Obedience is a difficult thing – but I think it teaches us a lot of powerful lessons. For one, I think it shows God’s power to turn evil into good. It reminds us that it’s not our efforts that are important, but living in the presence of God in our actions that is most important. It’s when we do not seek to change things through our own actions that God can demonstrate His power through us. Even the seemingly pointless death of Jesus, killed like a common criminal, has turned into the means of salvation for the whole world.

So, step away from the toxic social media. Turn off the doom-filled TV and news feeds. Instead, be Christ in the world – and be the light of hope in the midst of the darkness.

Let nothing disturb you, 
Let nothing frighten you, 
All things are passing away: 
God never changes. 
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing; 
God alone suffices.
— St. Teresa of Avila

I’m not a climate change denier. I am a denier of these cornball solutions proposed to supposedly fix climate change. Why can’t I question bad ideas without being branded a denier/heretic?

I love science. It’s what got me into the field of Computer Science as my livelihood for the last 25 years. Empirical, data-backed thinking is what’s led us from the ignorance and superstitions of the past to understanding we have today. But science has a problem. Namely – that politicians, news agencies, and activists are running around claiming they are speaking for science.

To understand something, you must know what it is you’re seeking. Epistemologically, the object of science is to create physical descriptions of the natural world. Science seeks to describe how the world works via repeatable, quantifiable descriptions of natural processes. Science, however, has NOTHING to say about political policy or ascribing human value to what it finds. Political policy and human value are the proper objects of government and religion. Science can describe how an atom is split – it is politicians, engineers, and theologians that tell us if we should build a bomb or a power plant.

Therefore, it’s time to separate the peanut butter from the chocolate. If someone legitimately questions a political policy or posited social policy for an issue – they are NOT a science denier. They are a policy or activist questioner. I believe most people would agree politicians, and especially activists, should be questioned – regularly. This is a good thing, a necessary thing. Something democracy is founded on. Any activist or politician that resorts to silencing others or cannot defend their proposals by describing the solid scientific evidence and social policy reasoning behind them is a danger to democracy.

Example: We can 100% agree that gravity is real and buildings will fall down and kill people if built badly. A healthy scientific statement can absolutely withstand someone arguing if certain kind of concrete can withstand certain pressures and forces. You go out and try it. Reality decides who’s right. A healthy public policy of building codes based on those facts can withstand any scrutiny without resorting to someone being called a ‘gravity denier’ or ‘regulations denier’. It’s clear that building code has had serious flaws in the past – but that is a flaw of the policy. Science and gravity are just fine thank you.

Public policy and social policy do NOT speak scientifically nor for science. Policy should be BASED on science, but equating the two is wrong. Science and political/social policy fundamentally differ in what they are trying to do.

What we have now are policy makers and activists pretending they are scientists or pretending to speak for science when they are not. They are arguing for a particular political policy – not the science. Most activists, if you look, have very limited to no real knowledge of real science. Most are not scientists at all. Some have very dubious public and private credentials to even speak on these topics. Because they do not understand the science, they all too often resort to ad-hominem name calling more akin to radicals, cults, and zealots.

Sadly, the average person doesn’t usually understand the nuance that science and policy are different. I see all kinds of signs that say ‘Science is real’ and ‘We believe science’ here in Portland, while at the same time voting down fluoridating water – 5 times. It doesn’t help when politicians/activists saying they are the same. It’s beginning to undermine the notion of truth itself. This is why people are increasingly starting to say they don’t trust ‘science’ anymore. What they should say is they don’t (and shouldn’t) trust politicians and activists claiming to be scientists.

Maybe that’s why we are seeing an increase in political fanaticism that one would normally see in a cult. It attracts the same radicals – for the same reasons. (Aside: One might make a very interesting study that with the decline of religious following, people have turned to political/social policy as their new religious belief system. Which is why people’s political beliefs are often held with the same convictions as faith)

But there are currently growing problems in science itself. Sabine Hossenfelder is a widely spoken professor and scientist. I love her videos because she’s been revealing the seedy underbelly of how science has been getting done lately. She’s started to call BS on some widely held scientific trends that are (and have) turned out to be wrong. The news has also had some embarrassing scandals about grossly falsified data by famous and high-ranking university officials. The suspicion is that there is likely a lot more fraud yet to be uncovered based on a amount of blatantly obvious fraud already found. This isn’t new – the history of science is full of liars, cheats, and rivalries that would make a sailor blush.

Hossenfelder has been ruffling some big feathers. She claims her adherence to the standards of truth surrounding her calling foul on the failures of string theory (claims she was proven right about) cost her tenure. She also admits when she’s wrong. Honestly – I think she’s one of the few people really doing science by demanding high standards of proof.

More telling is the comment sections on her Youtube videos that are full of other scientists (and PHD’s) who are encountering the same things and sharing the same stories. Namely, that publishing results that align with current thinking is more important than truth (evidenced by major cases of data fraud being discovered in a shocking numbers of papers). She notes funding channels are controlled by just a few large figureheads in each field that determine what can be researched and often hold personal vendettas against anyone that questions their leadership or scientific direction. Science has become highly entrenched in ‘orthodox’ lines of thought and has their own inquisitions towards those that question the results. She describe how the funding mechanisms keeps perpetuating failed ideas even when decades of work shows no results – or even shows clear negative results.

As stated before public policy and social policy is NOT science. Policy should be BASED on science, but equating the two is wrong because they fundamentally differ in what they are trying to do. The other problem is that it appears we’re not actually DOING science by demanding high standards of repeatable proof.

Truth is being attacked on 2 fronts. Ironically by the very people claiming to be speaking for truth. It’s creating a crisis of faith in science as well as contributing to our increasingly divisive political climate that acts more like cults than democracy.

The only ones who really remember the long days you spend in the office are your children.

Walking around Portland, it doesn’t take long to find a mess. Litter bugs, homelessness, and open drug use are a regular thing. The downtown area is particularly bad; especially around the McDonalds on Burnside and 20th. It’s a daily thing to pass a few passed out bodies lay on the street/bushes or standing around open sidewalk campfire. Drug dealers are very active in the morning at 7am.

A few of us that go to daily mass sometimes pick up a garbage bag, grabbers, and do a walk around the church. It’s not uncommon to complete a 10 minute walk around the block to see there’s already more trash. Used needles, fast food trash, lighters and foil, food remnants, filthy clothes, bottles, cigarette butts, human feces, and people passed out in bushes. It’s all there. I wake people up sleeping to make sure they aren’t dead. I point them towards the many services freely available in the city just blocks away. I usually get a few 4 letter word responses.

As I walk around the building, I often would just say the rosary or pray. When things are bad, you can despair, let anger overwhelm you, or just do something out of love. I say this as someone keenly aware of how badly the city of Portland has failed. Portland policy has directly created this humanitarian disaster. Deaths are now more than double (at one point 4x) what they were before drug legalization. It is a sad fact that prison was literally doing a better job of saving lives than legalization and harm reduction.

As I walked around the building and picked up trash, it struck me that I wasn’t that different. I too leave little bits of trash around all day.

We drop a dirty little comment here. We leave a little lie there. We are discard contempt at a slow shop employee that annoys us. We dirty up someone’s reputation with gossip. We cut someone off in traffic. We bully someone at school/work. We ignore a friend or person who could use a little of our help. We focus only on ourselves. We carelessly drop little bits of un-love trash all day long. Others often have to deal with the fallout of that trash when their spouse comes home from work upset.

It was a moment for me to reflect that when I am humble and help clean up a mess – of either real trash or some situation I find myself in – this is the work of God. God comes to help clean up the hurt, damage, and trash we have made of our lives and our society. We are called to do that out in the world as well.

Where can I stop littering little acts of un-love? What trash can I clean up today in thanks for God helping me clean mine up?

When was the last time you did a completely unselfish act, or act of love? Hmmm. Maybe that was too easy a question.

When was the last time you did something and received no credit/recognition for it? Did you ever only do something because you knew you would get credit for it? Have you purposefully done something kind so that nobody even knew it was you? What if someone else even got the credit?

How did it feel to not get credit, not be recognized, or if someone else got credit?

Matthew 6:1-6

Life is a timed test to achieve our salvation.

Have I invested my talents and gifts selflessly for the good of others or are my talents primarily for my own purposes? When I reach the end will I only be able to say “Thank you for the life you gave me, I buried my life in career, money, popularity, having a perfect family, or chasing earthly pleasures – so all I have is to offer the one life you gave me back?” (Matthew 25:14–30)

You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

Time – Pink Floyd

I saw a quote on a gaming forum the other day that made me pause. A young indie developer was lamenting how long his game was taking to make and he was showing all the signs of burnout. Another dev commented they should just take a break and come back to it in 6 months or a year. ‘You can always come back and finish an idea later.’ Everyone agreed. I would have agreed even 5 years ago.

All during your 20’s and 30’s, time seems infinite. When I reached 40, I realized that statistically, I was HALF WAY through life (assuming average age of death is 77). Time goes so much faster than you expect. When I was doing some financial planning to see if I was on track, this quote came up:

The days are long, but the years are short.

While we are doing the day-to-day living, our investments are compounding for us. If we haven’t been saving for our retirement then we are going to be shocked how quickly a decade goes by and we’re far behind where we hoped.

Not only that, but all those projects and goals I was going to get to some day had less and less time to be done. I have seen this with my friends that have kids. As their kids grow up, they get about 10 good years of summer fun with them before they are teens with their friends or off to college. Then we wake up and realize we are 50. Well over halfway through life.

When you are young, you have all the time and energy in the world – but no money.
When you are middle-age, you have energy and money – but no time.
When you are old, you have money and time – but no energy (or health).

I’m not even 50 and am starting to have friends come down with life-limiting, permanent disabilities or dying of actual medical issues (not just accidents or freak events). The average age of death in the United States is 77 years old. We forget that means that 50% of people never make it to that age. I was recently completely surprised by not 1, but 2, life-threatening medical conditions – I have learned clearly that it can all end very quickly. This is not new:

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Luke 12:16-21

If you think about what’s next, you can become disillusioned:

And I detested all the fruits of my toil under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who is to come after me. And who knows whether that one will be wise or a fool? Yet that one will take control of all the fruits of my toil and wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.
So my heart turned to despair over all the fruits of my toil under the sun. For here is one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and that one’s legacy must be left to another who has not toiled for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. For what profit comes to mortals from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which they toil under the sun? Every day sorrow and grief are their occupation; even at night their hearts are not at rest. This also is vanity.

There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink and provide themselves with good things from their toil. Even this, I saw, is from the hand of God. For who can eat or drink apart from God? For to the one who pleases God, he gives wisdom and knowledge and joy; but to the one who displeases, God gives the task of gathering possessions for the one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chase after wind.

Ecclesiastes 2:18-26

So what is one to do? If we embrace the fact that all these toils are ultimately for not, then we are to set our eyes on something that lasts. God gives us clear direction as to what we should spend our lives on – the things that matter for eternity. I have been re-evaluating all the things I spend my time on now and choosing carefully. What should we choose? Loving our neighbor and toiling in the vineyard so we can show ourselves to be servants who only did what they should have done.

Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

Luke 12:33