Wisdom In All Things

To not have the right understanding of what “ought” to be, you, well, end up with what Nike declared in 1978: Just Do It. What’s it? Anything you want it to be.

Essentially, Benjamin is saying: get ‘it’ right–with conviction. Acknowledgment, or intellectual assent, is not the same as having a resolve. Like a soldier under command, our conviction should lead to the commitment of carrying out the right course of action.

Read the transcript for Benjamin Franklin's  13 Virtues - Resolution

Sign up for the Wisdom in All Things email

Benjamin hoped having order “would allow [him] more time for attending to [his] project and [his] studies.” To ensure that order would allow him the space to tackle more pressing and valuable concerns.

I was immediately taken by the fact that he had an excellent morning routine, not to mention that he allowed 3 hours for it! He started his day with the proper order of things.

Read the transcript for Benjamin Franklin's 13 Virtues - Order

Sign up for the Wisdom in All Things email

It should be clear that Franklin is not intending that we become a quiet person, as there are certainly times to speak up. 

It is speaking with a purpose that distinguishes this virtue and avoiding those situations when you would be drawn into inane, unimportant, or trivial discussions. This way, you benefit from your listening, and others benefit from your speaking.

Read the transcript for Benjamin Franklin's 13 Virtues - Silence

Sign up for the Wisdom in All Things email

Benjamin Franklin believed that temperance “tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits and the force of perpetual temptations.”

Read the transcript for Benjamin Franklin's 13 Virtues - Temperance

Sign up for the Wisdom in All Things email

What was once the norm, is now rapidly becoming the exception. And those who are “conforming badly” are no longer just insisting you join them, but are forcing compliance.

To resist isn’t futile. For to remain steadfast, is to save. Consider the lemming that stops, turns around, and starts yelling, “go back the other way!”

It would seem that not conforming may very well be salvific.

Read the transcript for Conforming Badly

Sign up for the Wisdom in All Things email

Regardless of its depth, persistent doubt is certainly devastating, as even infrequent, ill-timed bouts can needlessly delay, derail, or even slowly destroy us.

The idea that we should ask for help with our unbelief is just one crucial element in properly addressing doubt.

Read the transcript for I Doubt It

Sign up for the Wisdom in All Things email

"Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10)."  Doing nothing leads to nothing. Being still leads to knowing. This is the crucial difference between doing nothing and being still. Doing nothing misses the “something”. Consider this: be still, or, you won’t know that He is God. This would be a devastating “miss”. Without being still there would be significant “misses” all throughout our lives.

Read the transcript for Being Still: Doing Nothing Misses Something

Sign up for the Wisdom in All Things email

If happiness shouldn’t even be a goal, then it should certainly never be a purpose: “I exist to be happy.” It’s a little easier to see how ridiculous that sounds when you put it like that. But unfortunately, in big and small ways, that is have become our belief.

Maybe this is the sign you are looking for. The sign that you need to ask yourself, perhaps again, for the first time: Why am I here? And what should I be pursuing?

Read the transcript for From Pursuit to Promise: How Our Promotion of Happiness Has Destroyed Our Reason for Living

Sign up for the Wisdom in All Things email

From the perspective of being as valuable as an expert, David W. Maister (and others) developed a “trust equation” which looks like this:

Trustworthiness = credibility + reliability + intimacy / self-orientation.

Essentially, credibility and reliability are being commoditized, leaving intimacy (emotions) and self-orientation (motives) as the means of remaining valuable and influential–and employed.  In other words, expertise is a matter of the heart.  

Read the transcript for Expertise: A Matter of the Heart

Sign up for the Wisdom in All Things email

In his article, 5 Wrong Ways to Talk About Sin, Derek Rishmawy describes one of the ways we avoid using this “S” word.  He calls it “The Youth Group” way, which, “treats [sin] more like chewing your nails…”  And then nails the reason why we need to–because it is “a serious, soul-destroying plague with real-world (in this and the next) repercussions.”    

That is precisely why we need to use it more often.  We need to know where that line is, when we’re about to cross it, and what happens when we do– because of the implications for everyone! 

Read the transcript for Let's Talk About Sin

Sign up for the Wisdom in All Things email