Perfection

I recently talked to an elderly man who had been blind for the last 60 years. He is still married to the same woman whom he wed a few years before he was struck blind in the war. Very seldom do I ever get a chance to talk to a blind person, so I took advantage of the time I had with him. I also knew that if I offended him and he wanted to beat me up, I had a slight advantage.

One of the questions I asked this man was about his dreams. I was curious about if he saw anything when he dreamed. He said he did and that his dreams were in vivid color and everything he sees is in perfection. If he dreams or even thinks about a pine tree, what he sees is a perfect pine tree. Not one with dead branches or any defects.

This man then went to say when he talks to people he has a mental picture in his head of what they look like. Also, when he talks to his wife or thinks about his wife he sees her as the lovely young bride of so many years ago. He said that he knows she has gray hair and wrinkles, but in his mind he can't picture that. He only pictures her in absolute perfection.

What would it take for us to see people in perfection? To see people for their full potential. Loving those around us for all the right reasons, rather than looking for fault in them.

Day

We all cross paths with a lot of people throughout the day. People in traffic, at work, restaurants, movie theaters, etc. Most people are just trying to make it through the day so they can get home to their families. Is that what we were meant to do?

I think a better approach is instead of getting through the day, find out how you can get from the day. Each day has unlimited potential. We can look to the past or look to the future, but the present is exactly that...a present.

Focus

I have very happy memories of spending time in the summers with my Grandpa when I was young. I remember walking through the tall prairie grass from one farm pond to another. In the morning, when the dew was heavy, I would look back at our tracks through the grass. I commented to Grandpa one time how I didn't walk in a straight line but how he always did. I remember him telling me his secret. I kept my head down when we walked, looking at my feet and all the grasshoppers that were jumping all around me. Grandpa didn't look at his feet. He looked far off into the distance. He focused his eyes on a point on the horizon and walked towards it. Since Grandpa was focused he didn't waste time zig-zagging through the field.

That lesson of focus my Grandpa taught me has stuck with me. There is incredible power when we focus our minds on something. A great example of focus is setting a goal for yourself. The more specific we get in our focus, the more apt we are to achieving what we have our minds set on. And the less likely we are to get distracted by trivial things. Things that can avert our attention elsewhere.

One tip I learned about goals is to be specific. I heard one man say that he used to say he wanted to get in shape. . . . after a while he realized he was in shape, the shape of a pear. He should have been more specific!

Growth

I'm sure you have heard people say that "if you take care of me, then I'll take care of you." You can probably think about people that have that as an actual personal philosophy. Well here is a small twist on that thinking:

"I'll take care of me for you ... will you take care of you for me?"

Think about your relationships and how adopting this philosophy helps you and those closest to you. I knew a guy that was too stubborn to see the doctor when he was sick. His family begged him to go, but for some reason he refused. Yeah, he's dead now. Leaving the family with bills and regrets. How sad!

We should always want to grow and improve not only for ourselves but for those around us. If we aren't adding new knowledge, health practices and experiences in our lives then we aren't taking care of those that mean the most to us.

Move

"Draw near to God and he will draw near to you." - James 4:8

One translation I have heard for this simple yet profound scripture is, "You don't move, I don't move." This concept of moving is true for so many other things in life. If you are moving towards improving yourself then helpful people will appear in your path. Things will begin opening up for you. Those that move towards getting psychically fit will soon find new information, techniques, people, etc. that will help them to achieve this goal.

What are you moving towards? Whatever it is, the quicker you move the quicker it will come to you!

Likeability

Here are six ways that Dale Carnegie mentions on how to make people like you, in his book "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
6. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.

Extra

You know what I love about filling up my vehicle at the gas station? No, it's not the fact that I'm funding some oil executive's retirement by paying 4 freakin' dollars every gallon. What I like about filling up is when I am finished pumping, I leave the nozzle in the gas tank. Then by tilting the hose just right another ounce or two of gas trickles into my gas tank. Free gas baby!

This little extra gas that I don't have to pay for makes the whole experience of getting raped at the pump almost tolerable. I can put $75 worth of gas into my tank but for some reason getting just a little free gas at the end takes the sting away.

In our relationships we have this ability. No, not give our friends more gas than what they are expecting. That's gross. What I'm talking about is giving just a little extra something in the relationship. A little extra care, a little note card in the mail, a short voicemail telling them that you've been thinking about them, a quick prayer for a friend, etc. The little extra effort that goes a long ways in making a good relationship - great.