Priorities

I recently had a good talk with my grandfather about life. Now when i say a good talk, i mean that he spoke a lot and i listened a lot. There were a lot of things mentioned in this conversation with the central theme being that i needed to cut my hair because first impressions can decide your future. There's a lot of truth in that statement my friends. However, as he went on, he emphasised that i needed to have goals in my mind for what i want to accomplish in my life. These goals need to be prioritised so in such a way that making decisions is not based on my immediate emotions or perspective, but instead to ask myself, "How will this affect my future?" As a married man, my choices involve two people with the hopeful prospect of more in the coming future so there are a lot of things i look at with the mindset of raising a family. Raising a family is a goal. My grandfather has done a lot of things in his life: He has helped assemble the first radio sent into space, set the standards on turf care for much of American sports fields, raised a family, won golf tournaments, designed & built a golf course, collected show cars and won a score of a car shows, traveled the country, and possibly invented the skateboard in the 50's (one of those "anybody could get credit for that" situations i guess). At any rate, when he shares his desire for me to have some initiative and motivation in my life, this is probably the guy to listen to. What he said, however, got me thinking about the world i have grown up in, and the world he grew up in. My grandfather lived in north alabama in a place called Sand Mountain which is pretty much like it sounds like. 100% farmland, he had a childhood in the depression and had a father who is notorious, even almost 30 years after his death, for his hard work ethic. Their family lived off of what they made on the farm, so the depression was actually kind of nice for them because they sold eggs and made furniture that gave them enough money to buy what they NEEDED. There's a word we don't really know how to categorise today. During the Great Depression of the 30's, people quickly realised what they could live with and what they would die without. Fun wasn't bought, it was made by whatever you had around you and people like my grandfather developed a sort of resourcefulness that spilled over into every aspect of their life. When opportunity came their way they were eager to jump on it and took the skills they had to make life better than it was. Poverty can be a powerful motivator if you don't wallow in it. I have never really known poverty, and most things were already prepared for me. Most of my schooling consisted of task completion, whether it be mathematics or sciences. Having initiative was never part of life because everything was there for me to do in chores and homework. The mentality i got from television and my peers was work so you could go play. Playing is a huge part my generations understanding of essential parts of life. Get a good job so you can play hard with expensive toys, save your money for a nice t.v., drive the nicer car so you can look good, etc... There is no driving force to get a job to pay bills so you can keep working and keep living- it's like playing is an understood must have. As far as i am concerned, God spoke about one day of rest, the other 6 you work and toil and sweat and bleed for your life. When you look at people who we deem successful, they will tell a tale quiet similar to the plan God layed out for us when we left the Garden. Our end-goal is not a big paycheck or a nice car. Our endgoal is livelihood, and the knowledge that we toil with our hands and do not enjoy laziness. I am afraid of being stuck in a generation of man-childs, men who are in their 20's and 30's but still counting their collectables and video games ahead of their savings; men who are more concerned with the Thursday night NBC line-up than what this world is going to look like in 20 years. We have the capable hands, the fitness, the brains, but lack the same opportunities given 70 years ago. Instead of more work, the government tried to figure out how to get us more money. I don't want to live in comfort with as little work as possible! I want to work for a living and have the opportunity to do things. Isn't that what America was made for? So that an average man didn't have to stare at government roadblocks that say i have to be this smart or have these qualifications to do what i love? I want to be able to work, and want society to recycle the idea that life is not about the longest party or how awesome the weekend is, but how incredible it is to wake up on Monday and go work and make a living. I want to have the initiative it takes to be more than successful. I want to be inspirational. Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well. -Ecclesiastes 11:6