Augustine was an African Christian who lived from 354-430. So, of course, he never owned a television or watched a movie. However, in his book, Confessions, he says that around the age of sixteen, “I developed a passion for stage plays” (likely Greek tragedies). His observations about the pull of the plays upon his own heart have a strong parallel to the entertainment today and our own reaction to it. Take a look at some quotations from Augustine and the impact the plays had on him.

“The more a man feels such sufferings for himself, the more he is moved by the sight of them on the stage.”

Augustine believed that the plays held up a “mirror to my own miseries” and that he was attracted to the content in the play because it was what was already in his heart.

“The unreal sufferings of the stage…the spectator is not moved to aid the sufferer, but merely to be sorry for him.”

Augustine realized that the tragedies he was witnessing on the stage were not calling him to help the person in need (true caring and love) but instead the fictional depictions of tragedy, pain, and sorry led him to experience a detached pity. He said, “There is real pleasure in pitying others – and we love their sorrows.” His argument was that the plays he went to see were driving his heart to enjoy the sorrows of others rather than to find compassionate solutions for those sorrows.

“Beware of uncleanness… In those days when I went to the theatres, I was glad with lovers when they sinfully enjoyed each other – although the whole thing was merely fictitious and a part of a stage play.”

Augustine saw the tacit approval of wrongdoing in the fictional sphere to be something that was harmful and would leak out into his perception of reality and his view of sin in his day-to-day world.

“I loved to be made sad…and in the misery of others (on the stage) my emotions were stirred. The more my tears were set to flowing, the more pleasure did I get from the drama and the more powerfully did it hold me.”

Augustine’s experience is one that is common to us all. We are gripped by, we remember and are even changed by stories we see portrayed on stage and screen. When the stories cater to our desire to feed our lowest impulses, the hold those stories have upon us is as strong as the impact of stories that inspire what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”

“I loved those sorrows – not that I wanted them to bite too deep (for I had no wish to suffer the sorrows I loved to look upon), but simply to scratch the surface of my heart as I saw them on the stage. If they had been real fingernails, their scratching would have been followed by swelling, inflammation, sores, and flowing pus.”

If we are not careful, we – like Augustine – can be drawn in by entertainment on the screen as a “scratch” to an “itch” that we have for attitudes, perspectives, inclinations, and emotions that are evil and perverse within ourselves. Whether we inwardly revel in an angry monologue delivered by an actor, a scene of sexual lewdness, or a display of rampant materialistic greed portrayed on the screen, scratching that itch in the make-believe world of entertainment does not make that itch go away in real life. Instead, it normalizes the sin in our minds as we go on in search of the next opportunity to scratch that itch.

Was Augustine arguing against all forms of on-stage/on-screen entertainment? I don’t think he was. However, he was noting the detrimental effect (mental, emotional, spiritual) the wrong programming can have upon the human heart.

Here’s a fact for you today. – You can’t care about everything in the world without driving yourself insane.

You can’t be emotionally invested in every person’s sob story or every issue that comes across your path.

It’s impossible.

Over the years the concept of indifference has taken on a negative connotation.

Why?

Because everyone wants you to care about what they care about. And if you don’t — well, then you’re a terrible person.

But you’re not a terrible person.

You’re a human with limitations.

You can’t research, form an opinion about, and be emotionally invested in everything. Nobody on this planet has the bandwidth – the capacity – to care about it all.

What does everyone want from you?

They want you to be emotionally invested in the problems, issues, news items, and causes they care about.

In other words, they have chosen what’s important to them, and they want you to go all-in with them – investing your emotional energy and time.

But here’s the truth.

You also have a choice.

You get to choose what you care about – the causes, issues, and stories in which you will invest your time, energy, and treasure.

The newspaper, Facebook, Twitter, your friends, and the constant barrage of cable news don’t have the right to dictate what takes up your heart and mind today.

So What Shouldn’t You Be Indifferent About?

1. Your emotional, physical, and spiritual well being.
2. Your daily responsibilities.
3. The emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being of family and friends.
4. The real needs of those directly in your orbit. (People you can actually help today.)

Conclusion:

The art of indifference isn’t the same as apathy. Apathy is caring about nothing and no one. Practiced indifference is choosing not to be invested in a news story. Indifference is choosing not to take a side in a neighborhood dispute.

Practiced indifference is choosing to prioritize the things in life that you can actually impact through the investment of your time, effort, and energy over issues and events that are outside the scope of your influence.

It’s setting boundaries for your heart and mind.

Today, free yourself from the idea that you have to have an opinion about everything, take sides on every issue, or be emotionally invested in every cause. You are only one person and have only a limited amount of emotional energy at your disposal. Putting that energy to use within your circle of influence and choosing practical indifference toward everything else will help you from utterly depleting your reserves.

Well, here in Canada we just survived another Thanksgiving weekend. For those of you in the USA, you’re going to have to wait a while to be thankful.

And that’s the point of our talk today.

The tricky thing about having a holiday where we are supposed to be thankful is that it somehow frees us to be ungrateful for the rest of the year. After all, complaining is the real national pastime – no matter which country you call home.

When gratitude becomes a way of life, rather than a reason for a fall family gathering, it revolutionizes how we think and live.

Canadian actor, Will Arnett, connects the dots between gratitude and happiness.

“I am happy because I’m grateful. I choose to be grateful. That gratitude allows me to be happy.”

And American actress, Doris Day, explains the truth about gratitude in a direct style.

“Gratitude is riches. Complain is poverty.”

I’m not writing today to tell you, “It’s Thanksgiving. You BETTER BE thankful!”

That’s WAY to simplistic.

Life is hard. People are difficult. Employers are demanding. Pain is real.

So what is the lesson for today?

There is an unseen link between the choice of gratitude and happiness.

Being consciously thankful for the good that is in our lives has a direct impact on our mind, our outlook, and our day.

You see, happiness is a choice. But to choose happiness is to make dozens of other strategic choices that mold our happiness in the day to day.

One of those choices is gratitude.

I’m not talking about a false thankfulness that divorces us from reality. All of life isn’t rosy. As I said, there are difficult things that happen to us in this life. It’s part of living in a world that is decaying around us. We don’t escape the impact of that downward spiral that grips all of creation.

However, the choice to be grateful finds the glimmer of light sent by the Creator in our darkness to show us that He hasn’t abandoned us, that he’s on our side, and that we will make it through the trial.

We can be happy – not because we try to muster up happiness by talking ourselves into it – but rather, because we choose to be thankful for the good we do have and enjoy.

One last note about thankfulness. If you are going to be a thankful person, you have to have someone to be thankful to. After all, you can’t thank yourself for the warmth of the sun, for the smile of a child, or for the kind word of a stranger. Either there is some person who has been good to you that deserves your gratitude, or you have God in heaven to thank. Either way, thankfulness pushes us to acknowledge that someone else cares about us – and that’s another reason to be happy.

Until next time, have a happy day.

We all have a natural inclination toward something – whether it’s gardening, music, crafts, carpentry, etc. So, we take off on a quest to get better at that “one thing.” And, depending on our innate abilities in that area, we can get ahead of ourselves and create unintentional unhappiness.

How?

By skipping steps.

The better that you are at something right out of the gate, the more likely you are to try to take shortcuts and avoid nailing the fundamentals before tackling the more advanced.

This, of course, is a form of pride.

After all, “I’m gifted” and “I shouldn’t have to focus on the fundamentals and practice the basics.”

Inevitably what happens is that the lack of attention to the essentials becomes glaringly obvious as you move into more complex work in your field.

Epictetus, a Greek philosopher (50-135 AD), said: “Every great power is dangerous for the beginner.”

He was right.

The biblical prophet Isaiah said it like this:

For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line;

Isa. 28:10

There are building blocks that must be put in place in the right order for us to excel at our craft and, at the same time, build a proper perspective of ourselves within that craft.

If you’ve been given a talent or ability above that which has been distributed to others around you, it can be a dangerous thing.

The trouble with humanity is that we are basically lazy. We want to take the easy way to the top, and if we have a little bit of talent that can garner us quick attention and acclaim, we avoid the hard work of learning step by step.

No matter our talent or natural ability, there is no substitute for putting in the hours, doing the practice, hitting the essentials over and over again until they are second nature to us.

The easiest way for us to be disappointed is to lean too heavily on the praise of friends and family who are “amazed” at how “wonderful” we are in the early stages of learning a skill. Just because you can do something that friends and family can’t, doesn’t make you a genius, it only means that the Creator has given you different abilities than He has given them.

Sure, be grateful for whatever encouragement and praise is offered by others, but don’t allow that praise to puff up your idea of your own abilities to the point that you don’t put in the hard work to perfect your craft.

Until next time, have a happy day.

* I cannot recommend every artist, author, or everything written in every book I mention in my blog. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and where a person or book is right or makes a good point, I will give credit where credit is due.

We’re coming into the fall here in Cape Breton, and I’m sitting in a park writing, watching the leaves fall off the trees. The trees have worked since spring to grow those leaves, now they have to let the leaves go. To keep the leaves throughout the harsh storms of the next seasons would be to nearly guarantee that the trees would be blown over and die.

Your hands can only hold so much water, and the water you are able to hold dribbles out of your hands pretty quickly.

Roman Emporer Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) wrote in his journal,

“For such as it is to have once drawn in the air and to have given it back, which we do every moment, just the same is it with the whole respiratory power, which you received at your birth yesterday and the day before, to give it back to the element from which you first drew it.“

Now old Marcus had a flowery way of saying things. Let me simplify it a little bit.

We have to give everything back – even the air we breathe.

King Solomon of ancient Israel said it this way,

“All are from the dust, and all return to dust.” – Ecc 3:20

You can pump as much iron and run as many laps around the track as you want to stay fit (and you should), but in the end, you’ll be giving that body back.

You can gather as much money and as many things as you can stuff into your bank account and home, but you’ll not be able to hold onto them after death.

So, the question arises…

If we have to give it back, is it real?

One wise man said, “If it does not last, it is not real.”

Those individuals that are hyper-focused on gathering money, things, fame, influence, etc. are bound to be disappointed when what they are so focused on chasing slips through their fingers like sand in an hourglass.

What Does Last? What is Real? What Don’t I Have to Give Back?

1. Experiences – Nobody can take your memories away from you. Yes, disease may rob you of your mind, but those experiential memories will return and remain with us in the next life. (Read the Bible story for proof of this in Luke 16:19-31)
2. Relationship with Our Creator – Because God is an eternal being, the relatioship that we are building with Him now is one that will last into eternity. The question is, what kind of relationship are you building with Him?
3. Assistance to Others – One of the ways we live on is through our contributions to individuals around us and society as a whole. What we do for others (physically, emotionally, spiritually) is one thing that we don’t have to give back. It’s the intangible part of our gravestone – there for all time.

What Do We Learn?

Our happiness can’t be rooted in what we will have to give back. The trees work all summer to grow leaves, just to drop them in the fall. We work, earn money, gather things, and gain the respect/admiration of others. Eventually, we lose it or are forced to give it all away.

Happy people are those that understand that most of what we experience on this earth is temporary at best. Wise people don’t anchor their boat of “happy” to the things they are not able to keep.

Until next time, have a happy day.

* I cannot recommend every artist, author, or everything written in every book I mention in my blog. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and where a person or book is right or makes a good point, I will give credit where credit is due.

Today is the first day of a new national holiday for Canada, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. In the words of parliament, “this day honors the lost children and survivors of residential schools, their families, and communities.”

While it remains to be seen what impact a national holiday will have on the ongoing conversation around the history of the residential school system and the treatment of native populations, having a firm grasp on the definition and process of reconciliation is useful for our personal interactions from day to day with each other and our Creator.

Reconciliation by Definition

Although the word “reconcile” is used in the English language in several different scenarios – including accounting and legislative – the definition that is most applicable to our daily lives is:

“to restore to friendship or harmony” – (source: Mirriam Webster Dictionary)

The word reconcile came into the English language from Latin in the early 1300’s and is closely related in definition to:

• rapprochement
• accord
• agreement
• compromise
• harmony
• settlement

Think of reconciliation as two warring parties coming to a peace settlement and then sitting down for a cup of tea together.

Sounds simple, right?

Unfortunately no, reconciliation is a process.

Reconciliation the Process

To have true reconciliation with someone that you are at odd with requires working through a process of thought and action. The relationship of God and man is the best example of reconciliation. The Bible tells us that man rebelled in sin against God and chose to be the enemy of God. As a result, man lives in a state of conflict with God and that relationship needs to be reconciled.

Whether it’s your relationship with God or your relationship with others, the steps of reconciliation are the same.

Step #1 – Warring parties must agree on the issue. “What’s the problem?”

In our example of man vs. God, the issue is sin. Sin separates us from a relationship with God. When man refuses to recognize the roadblock of sin and continues to rebel against God, reconciliation is impossible.

Let’s bring it into our relationship with each other for a moment. We all live in our own realities. One man well said, “There are three sides to every story, your side, my side, and the truth.”

The “realities” that we encapsulate ourselves in are a result of our upbringing, our education, and other influences throughout our lives. Each of us sees teh world from our own perspective.

That’s what makes it hard for people in conflict to reconcile. – They can’t even agree on what the issue (the problem) really is.

Without agreement on “What’s the real problem here?” there can be no forward progress in the process of reconciliation.

Step #2 – Warring parties must agree on the desired outcome.

Once you and the person you have conflict with have come to an agreement on what the problem is, then the question becomes, “What do you each want as a end result (outcome) of this process?”

Again, the people involved have to come to an agreement on this point.

In our example of man vs. God, the desired outcome on God’s side of the equation is peace and a restored relationship with Him. On man’s side of the equation, this is often not the desired outcome. Man most often wants to “go it alone” without God – a part of the rebellion we talked about earlier.

When man and God BOTH desire peace and an ongoing relationship, they’re one step closer to reconciliation.

Step #3 – Warring parties must agree to compromise to make a path for peace.

So, we’ve agreed on what the problem(s) is. We’ve come to an agreement on what we mutually would like to have as an outcome of the process.

Now comes the hardest part – negotiating a compromise that we may both be a little bit uncomfortable with, but will get us to our agreed outcome.

In our example of man vs. God, we see this “compromise” played out.

God saw man’s sin and His holiness would not allow a relationship with us in our sin. God’s part of the solution toward the desired outcome (peace and relationship) was the sacrifice of His only Son, Jesus, on the cross. God had to give something up for this reconciliation to work.

On man’s side, we have to give in to make the reconciliation work as well. We have to give up dependence upon our self-generated “righteousness”, choose to place our dependence on what Jesus did for us on the cross, and come to God’s point of view about our sin and rebellion against Him.

In this example, both man and God had to take a step toward each other. God made the first step, and you and I have to take the other. Then, we can, as the Bible says, be “reconciled to God.”

In conclusion:

Reconciliation among any individuals or group of individuals is the result of a process in which all parties are willing to come to the process with an open heart. When you and the person you are at war with entrench yourselves at each end of the battlefield, no reconciliation will be made.

Find common ground on, “What’s the issue?”

Find agreement on, “What do we want the outcome to be?”

Then build roads toward an accord that may be a little painful for both sides but leads to peace and a restored relationship.

Until next time, have a happy day.

Marcus Pacuvius was a Greek poet who lived from about 220-130 BC. He nearly singlehandedly carried on the tradition of the Greek tragic plays during his lifetime.

But the thing for which he may be most remembered is his daily funeral. Yes, you read that right – daily funeral.

Each day he would have a burial sacrifice prepared in his honor. People would gather and “mourn” him with wine and feasting. His servants would carry him from his bedroom to the funeral feast, while others would applaud and sing, “He has lived his life! He has lived his life!”

In this fashion, Pacuvius was carried out to his own “burial” each day.

Sure, he likely just wanted an excuse and format for a morbid party each day, but still, the idea of acknowledging one’s mortality is a powerful concept.

Let’s talk about some reasons to acknowledge our mortality daily.

You will be more productive.

People talk about “Carpe Diem” (Seize the Day). But you don’t have any push to make the most of today, if you’re ignoring your mortality as if you will live on this earth forever. Productivity, in part, comes from a sense of urgency. If you recognize each day that yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come for you, productivity will be the natural byproduct.

You will be more caring.

Recognizing our own mortality forces us to face the fact that we are not the center of the universe. Other people become more important to us, because we recognize that we will leave them – and their memories of us – behind one day. the natural outflow of a reasonable individual to being faced with their mortality is concern for those they will leave behind. By confronting our own mortality each day, we will remind ourselves to ensure that others are left better by the time they spend with us in this life.

One man said of Jesus Christ, “He left everyone He met in better shape than what He found them.” We would be wise to follow His example.

God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.

Acts 10:38

You will be more curious.

What’s after this life? What is Heaven like? Am I going there? How do I get there?

These are questions that people don’t often ask themselves, but there are answers to each of them. But, because people are lulled to sleep by the day-to-day routine of their lives, they neglect to answer the questions now that they won’t have time to ask in their last hours. Days turn into weeks, and months into years. A lifetime slips by without the curiosity to consider the big picture questions of life.

People that live happily in the shadow of their own tombstone are curious and seekers of answers to the questions that are most important.

You will be more determined.

When you can put off until tomorrow what you could do today, you’re likely to do so. But people that walk daily past their own graves become people that live lives of purpose and determination. They know what is important to them, to their family, and to the causes they support, and they’re determined to “do something that matters while I’m here.”

You will be more deferential.

The closer we get to the end of our journey, the more we realize that our opinion doesn’t matter near as much as what we thought it did. “Deference” is the idea of submitting or yielding the judgment of another.

The more we are willing to live in light of our own mortality, the more we will be willing to yield to the will of God in our lives. After all, if we keep in mind that we may meet Him tomorrow, surely we’re going to be more likely to obey Him today.

But it’s not just the Creator that we become more deferential toward. Suddenly the opinions and desires of others also become a bigger factor in our lives as well.

In conclusion:

We are all mortal. We cannot live pretending to be immortal. In fact, there are happy benefits to be gained from a life that walks through a graveyard each day on the way to live the day.

Until next time, have a happy day.

Legendary football coach, Vince Lombardi, said, “Mental toughness is spartanism with qualities of sacrifice, self-denial, dedication. It is fearlessness, and it is love.”

In his book “The Mental Toughness Handbook” Damon Zahariades states that “mental toughness is our durability in the face of adversity.”

Here’s the truth. Any fool can act tough when everything is going well. But, when life begins to crash down around you, that’s when the world finds out how resilient you really are.

But let’s take a minute and differentiate between mental toughness and mental health. There are times in our lives when, through no fault of our own, our minds aren’t what they should be. Everything from brain injury to chemical imbalance and sleep deprivation can play a role in a lack of mental health.

When we talk about mental toughness, we’re assuming good mental health. Those who are experiencing legitimate mental health challenges have a reason not to be “mentally tough.” In fact, faking mental toughness in the midst of a mental health crisis can be detrimental to recovery.

So there are those for whom this article is not entirely applicable – especially during treatment and recovery.

But for the rest of us, it’s important to exercise our mental muscles, so we can be as inflexible as steel when needed and as expandable as a rubber band when necessary.

Damon Zahariades notes that mental toughness involves three things:

1. Our Reaction to Stress
2. Our Responses to Our Own Emotions
3. Our Resilience When Things Go Wrong

Mental toughness has a close relationship with what the old timers called “true grit.” Grit is an important element in developing mental toughness. It’s that part of us that chooses not to give in. The part of us that won’t quit. The part of us that keeps on fighting.

True grit teaches us to choose our reaction to stress, enables us to objectively view and respond to our own emotions, and helps us bend without breaking when circumstances go off the rails like a freight train around a tight mountain curve.

Paul the Apostle, an early Christian leader, saw mental toughness as the ability to discern the difference between what is true and what is not. By rejecting false narratives about himself that his enemies or his own imagination/emotions tried to impose upon him, he was able to endure unimaginable pain and deprivation at the hands of Jewish and Roman governments.

You can see, in this excerpt from a letter to the believers at Corinth that Paul used what he knew of God’s truth as the yardstick by which he measured those thoughts that would cause his mental toughness to deteriorate.

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ

In Paul’s reaction to stress and pain, we find the first step in building mental toughness.

1. Have an unwavering standard by which you can evaluate your own thoughts and emotions as well as the opinions of others.

Let’s get back to that Vince Lombardi quote:

“Mental toughness is spartanism with qualities of sacrifice, self-denial, dedication. It is fearlessness, and it is love.”

You’re familiar with what Mr. Lombardi means when he describes mental toughness as:

• Sacrifice
• Self-denial
• Fearlessness
• Love

But “spartanism” is something that may not be as familiar to you.

Sparta was a city-state in ancient Greece that gained legendary status because of an ethos that permeated everything from their political system to the mindset of their warriors.

This Spartan ethos was marked by an indomitable spirit, stark simplicity, and a willingness to endure to achieve.

From the Spartans, we discover the other steps to mental toughness.

2. Don’t let the enemy get into your head and drag down your spirit.

3. Don’t let stuff and baggage pull you under the waves. Let go of it.

4. Be willing to push through the pain to get to a better place – even if you can’t see the path or the destination.

Until next time, have a happy day.

* I cannot recommend every artist, author, or everything written in every book I mention in my blog. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and where a person or book is right or makes a good point, I will give credit where credit is due.

There may be nothing worse than walking into a situation blindly with no firm grasp on who is there, what they want, and what it’s all about. Our happiness often takes a hard hit from somewhere out in left field when we don’t do our homework before we enter unfamiliar territory in our lives.

Let’s face it, sometimes we make choices that are little more than a spin of the wheel – hoping against hope that all will be good.

That kind of gamble with our happiness is avoidable 90% of the time if we just take some time to foresee the potential consequences of the choices we’re about to make.

Back in 49 BC – about half a century before the birth of Jesus Christ – Julius Ceasar was warring against the Gauls in what we now know as France. Having conquered that region, he set his sights on crossing the Rubicon River and into Italy. The problem he faced was that this action would violate Roman law and the direct orders of the senate.

With the Latin words Alea iacta est (The die has been cast) – alluding to a game of chance involving dice -, Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon with the full realization that this single action would spark a civil war within the Roman Empire – a war he would ultimately win at the Battle of Pharsalus against Pomey in 48 BC.

Today, the phrase “crossing the Rubicon” carries with it the connotation of making a consequential decision from which there is no return.

So, what’s the decision you’re trying to make?

People often cross their personal “Rubicon” in haste or anger and later come to regret making a momentous decision without appropriate consideration and deliberation.

What are the potential consequences? What is the fallout that likely will occur from your preferred choice?

We are selfish people if we make choices based only on what we want. And ultimately, crossing your “Rubicon” without thought to how your decision will impact those around you will result in escalating your own unhappiness.

Is that choice you’re thinking about making going to be one of those decisions that aren’t easily reversed? Are you likely to start your own civil war with the choice you make?

Julius Caesar had the willpower and the military might to push through the civil war and come out on top, but the aftershocks of that conflict reverberated throughout the empire for years to come. Dissent from the civil war never really died, and Julius Ceasar ultimately paid a hefty price.

Shakespeare put these words into the mouth of Mark Antony as Mark Antony spoke at the funeral of Julius Caesar after Caesar’s assassination.

“The noble Brutus hath told you Ceasar was ambitious; If it were so, it was a grievous fault; And grievously hath Caesar answered it.”

Whether your “Rubicon” decision is driven by ambition (like Ceasar) or anger, disappointment, jealousy, etc. looking down the road a ways to see the consequence before wading into the current can save you much grief and pain.

Until next time, have a happy day.