Philosophy
Respect People
The Catholic Church’s position on life is unimpeachable. Every human person has inherent dignity and the right to live from the moment of conception to their natural death. Arguably, the Catholic Church is the biggest champion of human rights and dignity in our world today. There are no exceptions and the Church speaks out against violations of the dignity of the human person in all quarters. Whether it be immigration, human trafficking, forced sterilizations, abortion, pornography, IVF, or the poor, the Church fights valiantly on the international, national, regional, and local levels to correct injustices.
Many of us call ourselves pro-life and espouse the virtue of respecting all human life. Undoubtedly, many of us fail to fully live this mission for one simple reason: the sheer magnitude of the disrespect for human life in our culture is impossible to grasp. Respecting life is about more than children and the elderly, it’s about having empathy and compassion for people in all situations. It’s realizing in moments of discomfort or strife that the person opposing you is a person just as you are, and worthy of respect, dignity, and love.
Consider this story, one that I’m sure you can relate to.
Driving conditions in Virginia can be, well, complex. Recently I was traveling home on a major interstate after going to Confession. Elated, and in a state of grace, I had a tremendous sense of peace and calm. It’s that feeling that we all know, the realization that we just received a chance to start all over again. I drive 5 or 6 over the speed limit, and in this case, was traveling on a major trucking route with only two lanes in either direction. With my cruise control set, I moved into the left lane in order to pass two tractor-trailers. We were in a safety zone, an area of interstate that, because of the nature of the road construction, requires a reduced speed. Still, I was traveling at my 6 miles over the limit pace. Admittedly, my pass rate on the trucks wasn’t great, but I was still moving.
Behind me, with all the speed, energy, and inertia of the proverbial bat out of hell came a silver SUV. They flashed their lights, honked, and followed me at an unsafe distance. With no opportunity to pass me on the right due to the trucks, it was the perfect situation for some road rage. Since I’m not an employee of the Virginia Department of Transportation, a delegate in the Virginia Assembly, or even a traffic engineer, I did not have the power to change the speed limit. The limit was determined, by law, to be the safest speed allowable for that stretch of road. Yet, the driver behind me insisted on making it known that they believed my speed was inappropriate and wished that I would simply move out of their way.
Road rage is often cyclical. One person initiates, the other responds, and the cycle continues. I passed the trucks about three minutes after this person came behind me, and they raced on. I had several possible responses. Noticing their license plate, I could’ve said disparaging things about the State of New York and the people from there, I could’ve prolonged their delay by not fully passing the truck. I even could’ve stared at them and gestured appropriately. Instead, I offered a simple prayer for them.
In that moment, I realized just how systemic our respect for life must be. I don’t know what was causing that person’s concern or need to drive so dangerously, but they may have had a legitimate reason. They may be a veteran with PTSD, completely unaware of how their actions are being perceived, or even just someone who’s having a bad day. They may have just been a jerk, I’ll never know. The point is that instead of matching rage for rage, I consciously decided to return compassion and empathy in the event that they truly needed it in that moment.
In order to truly respect life, we must act without exception. All of our actions either respect life or degrade it. So the next time that you’re tempted to join in on office gossip, purposely exclude someone, or even withhold empathy from a person on the street, remember how valiantly the Church fights for the dignity of the human person, and afford that same courtesy to those around you.
I hate Facebook. So I did something about it.
I recently received an email from Facebook congratulating me on my 10 year anniversary on the network. While I’m sure they had a heavily researched intention behind the email, I found it to be both striking and frightening. In the first place, I found it striking how in such a fickle market, they’ve endured for so long. While others have come and gone, Facebook remains. I found it frightening when I considered just how much of my life I’ve lost through Facebook.
There are two ways of looking at social networks. The first way is that they’re a geographically agnostic way of connecting people. The opposing view is that social media is destroying human communication and relationships. I do acknowledge the great good that social networking has done. As a military child growing up in the time before the internet was so mainstream, I lost many friendships with each move. Although it did not necessarily adversely affect me, it would’ve been nice to carry on at least a few of those friendships. At the same time, I’ve found social media has trended from authentic connection to sheer vanity.
So I deactivated my Facebook account. Here’s why.
Certainly there have been a number of evolutions and iterations in how Facebook handles its timeline feature. So much of the news that was appearing was wholly uninteresting, a plethora of articles, images, and status updates liked by people in my network that had no relevancy to my own life. That was annoying, but not my impetus for leaving. Instead, I evaluated how I was using the network and hated what I found.
I was being vain. I was pushing out updates that were only self-serving. I was sharing a heavily curated set of stories, updates, and photos, meant to impress. Like someone preparing for their high school reunion, I was editing my story in order to cater to the expectations of others. The further I fell into this trap, the less that I shared. Instead of sharing an unfiltered view into my life to my connections, I was only sharing that which I believed made me more likable.
Then there was the “default.” Any time I had a lull in my day, I would default to checking social media. So many precious minutes lost that could have been writing, designing, reading, or learning, were sent out into the nothingness of social media updates. Instead of defaulting to something worthwhile that I could walk away from feeling satisfied, I defaulted to reading the same updates that I’d already seen.
Facebook was designed to meet that human desire to connect, but all that it has ended up doing is creating the most tentative of connections. We get into fights instead of getting into conversations. We troll instead of building up. In my estimation, it was no longer worth my time.
I’ve left my Facebook page up so that I can continue to share my work, but I no longer use Facebook for personal reasons. I’ve pared back the number of people that I follow on Twitter and I’m still unsure what I’m going to do about Instagram.
Social networks have largely failed to achieve their stated purpose because they are, in the end, a business. We are the product, sold to marketers, leaving this attempt at human connection hijacked by advertisements. Communication is one area in our lives that we could all work to improve. I’ve taken the first step by ceasing to give time and energy to outlets that fail to make me a better person. What’s your first step?
Sick of Reality TV
Television programming has the unique ability to bring people together. Pursuing Twitter after an episode of “The Bachelor” or checking out the blogs after an explosive episode gives one the sense of just how transcendent it can be. One of the more popular genres of television programming in the past decade has been the rise of so-called “Reality TV.” The thing is, none of it is real, and I’m sick of it.
Entertainment is meant to be a form of escapism, removing us from the cares and concerns of our current state in life and, for a time, immerse us in someone else’s story. The best storytellers are those who are authentic, relatable, and believable, traits that are conspicuously missing from Reality TV. As humans, we crave connection and authenticity, so being manipulated by a set of writers or editors is a truly revolting thought.
The problem with Reality TV is that the scripting is so invasive that it prevents anything real from happening. Characters, whom we’re supposed to believe are opening their lives up to us, are instead just character actors. They play a part and not necessarily the person that they truly are. This is antithetical to the premise of the programming. Even if characters are given leeway to be themselves, in post-production, the editors and producers cherry pick clips in order to fit their narrative. What results is a story so divorced from reality that it bears no merits.
This is a problem in almost all programming today. Competition shows, lifestyle shows, and even entrepreneurial shows have fallen victim to this plague. What’s left is what’s sure to be known as the “Missing Years,” a period of time in which there was no substantive contribution to the art of entertainment. TV Land in 20 years will still be showing “The Andy Griffith Show” and “I Love Lucy,” because they were what they represented themselves to be: fiction. Instead, what we have today is heavily scripted programming masquerading as reality.
The solution is to change our demands in programming, but it must be acknowledged that this is a large ship to turn. We collectively get what we crave, which is why family programming has been squeezed out by racy, borderline pornographic storylines. As with anything else, effecting this change will take us individually refusing to tune in or click on those shows which are devoid of any value: entertainment or otherwise.
Vote Your Conscience
When Virginia held its primary election on Super Tuesday this year, I found myself in a position that I had never been in before as a voter. Having missed only one voting day since I assumed my civic duty, I am typically well-read on the candidates and am prepared weeks in advance to cast my ballot. This year though, things were different.
There is a uniqueness in presidential election primaries in that we have many choices to make among a field of candidates. In fact, there are likely many candidates on the ballot that you agree with and your final choice comes down to whom you like the most. Yet, we’re also dragged into the nasty underbelly of politics.
Elections should be about choosing the most competent person to lead, not voting against a particular candidate. As the pundits and news reports detail delegate math along the way, we’re tempted to vote for whom we think will win as opposed to who is actually right to lead at this point in our nation’s history. This action debased the democratic process and undercuts its noble objectives.
Delegate math is what leads us to vote for the career politician or the biggest bully instead of the unassuming governor or well credentialed intellect. All things being equal, we would vote for those whom it said have little chance of winning not because our vote will make them win, but because we want to vote for the person whom we think is right.
We collectively pay the price for this game in the general election when we’re forced to vote for the lesser of two evils. We have to choose between two nuclear weapons, selected by their respective parties not based on their merits but because they’re believed to obliterate their opponent in the electoral college.
All of this can be traced back to voters not voting their conscience in the primaries. This is the conclusion that I reached before I stepped into the voting booth on Super Tuesday. I needed to not worry about how the remaining primaries were going to go, not about who had the best chance of beating the other party, but only about who was best to lead America right now. I did, and I slept peacefully.
Painful Reminders
We’re all a bit detached from reality. We see ourselves in a certain light that tends to be a bit brighter than it actually is. At the very least, we have an ideal that we’re trying to reach. Daily we’re confronted with reality when we consider our mistakes, failings, and past errors that painfully remind us just how far we have to go.
To err is human, but so is to dwell. We like wallowing in self-pity and will indulge ourselves any chance that we get. We tell ourselves that we are the way we are because of circumstances beyond our control conspiring against us. The truth is that the only thing holding you back from being a better you is, well, you.
I like to be comfortable and so I’ll instinctively pivot away from pain at any chance that I get. This is a natural occurrence, but one that we should really focus on overcoming. Comfortable is safe, and safe is dangerous. Like the frog swimming happily in the warming waters, we can be unaware that comfort is slowly killing us.
Instead of internalizing these painful reminders, what if we laid them down and used them as stepping stones. A broken road that ultimately reaches our destination is just as useful in the final analysis as a perfect road that takes us to the same place. We carry too many burdens that rob us of the joys that we could be experiencing today and our family of the man that they deserve.
Pain is our body’s alarm system attempting to modify our actions. When you encounter painful reminders of a dark past, learn the lesson, lay it down, and walk on. In this way you’ll live a happier today and not have to go through the same challenges tomorrow.
Be You
We all wear masks. We instinctively alter our behavior when we believe we’re being watched in order to match what we believe other people want. This phenomenon is seen most clearly in children who are always seeking to please their parents. The problem with this behavior modification is that it can stifle out what we truly want to express for the sake of being more socially palatable or to gain a sense of acceptance.
How many times have you wanted to voice support for someone who was being ganged up on in a meeting, but you remained silent? How many times have you wanted to express your emotions transparently with your teenage children, but refrained from doing so because you didn’t want it to feel awkward? When you were growing up, do you remember when you wanted to stop being affectionate with your parents in public? As a Dad, I now realize how difficult that must have been for my parents and I dread the day my children take that natural approach with me.
In the long term, systemically suppressing our true emotions and feelings can lead to permanent behavior modifications. Ceasing to be affectionate with your children in the short term can lead to a lifelong change in relational boundaries. Not standing up for someone being gossiped about can lead to you joining in. Not being transparent with your wife can lead to a long term freeze in marital growth.
We have to move past this idea that our emotions are bad and that we should adjust them in order to make ourselves more palatable to others. The fact is, while we may think that others will like us more, the opposite is true. Look at our political system. There’s so much phoniness that when someone comes along and is open, transparent, and truly themselves, it’s like a breath of fresh air. We respect people who admit when they’re wrong, who share how they really feel, and act as the person who they are, not the person that they think that we want.
You are a unique person with something great to offer the world, but if instead you assimilate and are just like everyone else, we lose out on that chance to know you. Be the person you are and share that gift of self with the world. If you remain true to who you are, and I do the same, we can make a real dent in the world.
How Will You Use Your Fresh Start?
I love this time of year when I and every other writer on the Internet write about goals, resolutions, and fresh starts. It’s part meeting a need and part recognizing that the New Year is the biggest time-based turning point in any given year.
My question for you is, how will you use your fresh start?
Too often, we allow ourselves to be our own biggest obstacles. We believe some myth that limits our potential. We can’t be holy because we’re not a priest, we can’t get ahead at work because someone is conspiring against us, we can’t lose weight because we tried and failed. We hold ourselves back. We let the ghosts of the past limit our future.
January 1st is truly just another day on the calendar, but it’s also Day #1. Instead of being limited by your past, or attempting to overreach with a long list of unrealistic resolutions, I invite you to try using focus. Choose two things or areas of your life where you can really dive in and make a huge impact.
What’s better: attempting six goals and failing at all of them or focusing on two goals and making lasting impacts?
I believe that the two areas where you can really make a difference are spiritually and physically. If you can get your spiritual life and your physical health both on point, you’ll naturally see movement in other areas of your life. Holiness and health combined can improve your marriage, improve your relationships, improve your creativity, improve your career, improve your finances, and improve your intellect.
Instead of chasing too many goals, focus on your spiritual health and physical health and in six months you’ll notice how much of an impact those two dynamics have on your entire life.
What Great Things Will You Do in 2016
I’ve asked you how you will use the fresh start that the New Year gives you, but today I want to ask you a different question. What great things will you do in 2016?
Achieving greatness requires two things: planning and execution. No project or goal achieves its objectives without a detailed plan. No plan brings results without execution.
A plan is more than just a commitment. A plan shows you how realistic your huge goal is. If you set a goal to lose 40 lbs, you’ll quit. But if you set a goal to lose 40 lbs and then plan on losing 1 lbs per week for 40 weeks, you realize just how possible it is.
Having a plan to lose 40 lbs is great, but if you have your fancy plan and keep eating the way you currently do, you’ll never make it. Execution requires discipline. But there’s a hidden gem in execution. It requires zero decision making. The decisions have already been made in your planning! So you don’t need to decide if you should eat that cake or go for a walk on any particular day. The plan says cake is only on Sunday and walks are every day, so execute!
We get tied up in the belief that we can’t achieve great things, that planning is a bore and execution is a straight jacket. The reality is planning helps us clarify the vision, the execution helps us meet the objective and together, we achieve greatness.
You have the perfect opportunity today to dream big, make a plan, and set it in motion so that in December you’ll have done something truly great with the time that you’ve been given this year. So the question remains, what great things will you do this year?
Cutting Corners is Weak
Personal integrity is a key component to success. In fact, America’s millionaires rated integrity as the number one reason for their success. Laziness is perhaps the greatest human vice. We have so much potential, the power of our minds, the dexterity of our hands, and a multitude of tools that to take all of these assets and not use them for anything is a waste. Our time and our days mean something, though in the moment that may not be entirely clear. Laziness is more than just complete idleness, it’s also cutting corners. It’s acceptable to acknowledge our tendency to find easy ways out. Half of the battle is knowing just who your enemy is. Instead of cutting those corners, and inevitably losing, do the job right.
Consider the corners we all like cutting. We skip exercise, indulge on ice cream, and gain weight. We skip doing the dishes one evening only to find the kitchen overwhelmed the next day. We go easy on our work at the beginning of the month only to have to play catch up and work three times as hard at the end of the month to make our production goals. Cutting corners only hurts us. It may not hurt now, but eventually, it will.
Life as an adult out on your own gives you dignity. Certainly we each innately have dignity as human persons, but there’s something special about having the ability to work and support yourself. Many times in my working life I’ve recognized and appreciated the gift of honest work and have prayed a simple prayer of thanksgiving for that grace. All jobs, whether they be mowing your lawn or washing your car, all the way up the line to your most important project, deserve to be done with the same degree of diligence. The projects that you complete are a personal reflection on you. So if you consistently turn out shoddy work on the job, you’re liable to get fired. If, however, you are known for diligently completing high quality work on time, you’re liable to get promoted.
Your name is put on every project that you complete. The question is, are you willing to associate yourself with that finished product? It’s a lesson that we all learned very young. Our parents counseled us about the danger in cutting corners. It’s a violation of our integrity, it’s a lie, and it ends up hurting us and our reputation in the end.
The New Year Slump
It’s about that time of year when people hit their New Year slump. The grand plans, resolutions, and goals have encountered the first wave of resistance and most will return to their old ways. To expect a perfect journey is unreasonable and, frankly, was more crazy than the goal to begin with. Resistance provides the opportunity to reinforce the “why” behind what you’re doing.
There are all sorts of roadblocks to success, but only the diligent win. Instead of viewing the slump as a roadblock, see it as an opportunity. Plans always work out on paper, but translating them into real life can be quite messy. What things do you need to tweek and change in order to get moving again?
Goals are long term and nothing is a bigger threat to success than poor short term decision making. Think long term, make decisions based on the long term, get back out there and win.