Within its limits, fun is fun! it is like good medicine. With every ounce of our strength, we need to resist the forces that would pull our hearts into a place where there is no fun. Life in this world is a great ride, whether long or short.
Because of our fallibility, none of us will ever become perfectly objective, much less balance our objectivity with our emotions perfectly. But progress is possible. We can acquire more of the discipline that it takes to be fair-minded.
If you and I are presently “spending” things we should be “saving,” the answer is not to look for some quick-fix techniques. We’ll have to work on our inner character, because frankly, saving takes character. But saving also builds character.
If there are people who are too precise (and there certainly are), there are just as many people (if not more) who are too careless. It probably wouldn’t be too much to say that most of us do better work if we were more precise.
Life is not just about expanding our possibilities; it’s about giving opportunities to others. Even if another person doesn’t take the path we opened up, if we know we gave them a chance they wouldn’t otherwise have had, that’s a good feeling.
It takes humility to do it, but we must own up to the empty spaces in our hearts. It will be hard enough to assess what our needs truly are, but we can’t begin that process until we’ve admitted that we have any needs in the first place.
Hardships and painful situations (many of them created by our own lack of wisdom) should not be despised. If those circumstances are the ones that teach us better discernment and judgment, then let us learn all we can from them.
Because it knows there are good reasons to do so, faith leaves the safe harbor and sails into uncharted waters. It departs from the easy life to do what can’t be done except by those who know what trust is about. It is a treasure, but it is not easy.
A serious life means being fully aware of the alternatives, thinking about them with all the intensity we bring to bear on life-and-death questions. Every choice is a great risk with necessary consequences that are hard to bear.
Punctuality is important in friendships. “Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements” (William Hazlitt). Chronic lateness says, “It doesn’t take much to push aside my meetings with you. Not much at all.”
