Faith

Count your blessings

If you are reading this blog post, that’s a blessing. If you can comprehend this blog post, that’s a blessing. We have so many blessings that we often take for granted. We can really find blessings in everything in life.

I always could run very fast. It is just a God given gift. I always appreciated it and used it to my advantage whenever I could. Then I ruptured my achilles.

Not only could I not run anymore. I also could not walk. I had to learn how to walk again. I’ll never forget the first time I walked again about 8 weeks after my surgery to repair my achilles. I was at Target and I was in a walking boot. I could only walk very slow, and it was still kind of painful to walk. This brought me so much joy. I had taken walking for granted my entire life. It made me think of all of the other things that I do daily without thought that I take for granted.

We have so many blessings that we should be thankful for. Even when times are hard and you might not be optimistic about things in life, you still have a lot of things to be thankful for.

When you are thankful for all of your blessing, large and small, you will have a more positive outlook on life, and really just be happier overall.

It’s when we only think about the bad things in life when we begin to not be happy. When I tore my achilles, I could have focused on all of the bad things. Instead, I was just happy that I could walk again. I was happy that I had insurance to have surgery, and that my surgery went well. Those were all blessings.

Thank God for all of your blessings right now, because the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Also, whenever you’re in a crisis, there are still blessings in that situation that you can be thankful for.

Motivation

An object at rest remains at rest

When I was young, I thought that everyone earned more money as they increase in age. I thought that most things change for the better with time. You earn more money, you become wiser, you get rid of your bad habits, etc. That was very young and naïve of me to think that.

Life is actually like Newton’s first law of motion: an object at rest remains at rest, unless a force is applied.

You don’t just magically earn more money as you get older. You have to grind for it. You don’t just stop being lazy as you get older, you will remain lazy until you do the deliberate actions that are needed to not be lazy. You don’t get smarter with time, you have to put the effort in to learn. If not, you will not change. You will be the same exact person you were in the past, until a force is applied.

If you are in a better place in life than you were a decade ago, odds are you put the work in to be there. You might know someone who is in the same place in life after a decade, if not worse. If you look at their actions, you will understand why.

Your hardships or whatever situation that you are in right now can be as temporary as you want them to be. The choice is yours. But don’t be naïve like the kid version of me and think that things will change for the better for you over time with no action and effort. Apply some force or stay at rest.

Uncategorized

The first of many

And for my next trick, I will write a blog post every day.

I have always been a very competitive person. I’m not a sore loser, but I can for sure be a sore winner at times. I want to win at anything that I do. I’ve always been that way. I like to challenge myself all the time. There’s no better feeling than when you challenge yourself to do something, then eventually fulfill that challenge or goal. It’s always reconfirmation that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Growing up, I was very competitive with my siblings. Everything was a competition. We even had a game where whoever put their seat belt on first when we got into the car was the winner. Y’all know I won most of the time.

When I was younger, my brothers and I would always play the video game Madden NFL against each other. We used to love to play this mini-game mode called “Rushing Attack”.

The concept of Rushing Attack was simple: A player is given control of a running back and a full back and there’s also a few moving blocking dummies that would simulate a run play. The objective for that player is to score as many touchdowns as possible within a minute. The opposing player would be on defense with two to three players.Their objective is to stop the person on offense from scoring touchdowns. After one minute, you switch sides. The person who was on offense is now on defense, and vice versa. Whoever had the most points after each player got their one minute on offense, won. You earned points from things such as yards gained, stiff arming someone, tackling someone, etc. The most valuable objective was scoring a touchdown. Those were worth the most points. If you scored consecutive touchdowns, you would earn even more points. That’s pretty much all my brothers and I wanted to do; get consecutive touchdowns.

Playing that game mode all those years and trying to get those consecutive touchdowns helped shape me as a football player. “Rushing Attack” taught me how to run the ball efficiently. It taught me how to read blocks, how to set up blocks. It taught me about angles and leverages and even taught me how to do moves such as spins and jukes. It’s amazing what can happen when you do something repetitively. You will naturally get better. You might even be rewarded even more for doing it consecutively.

That is how I plan to approach writing blogs. I will do it everyday. I got the idea from Seth Godin. He has written a blog post everyday for over 7,000 days. That’s crazy! It’s possible nonetheless (Jordan shrug). He says his blog posts are not to get people to read it, or even for monetization. He posts a blog everyday because he made a decision, one time, to write everyday. He doesn’t post a blog post because he feels like it, and he doesn’t post a blog post because it is perfect. He writes a blog post because it is tomorrow. It’s that simple. Having that mentality helps the work move forward.

To reach any big goal, or to do anything of greatness, you have to do it consistently even when you do not feel like doing it. Imagine if your dentist only performed well at work when they felt like doing it. There would be many days where clients got subpar dental services. As an athlete, you got to show up everyday (every play actually) and perform to the best of your ability. If not, someone who does show up everyday and perform will eventually pass you up.

I love to challenge myself. I love to compete. I love to be consistent and I love to stay out of my comfort zone. Only good things have come out of my life when I have done so. I know that the same will be true with writing a blog post every day. I encourage you to do something consistently also. Rather that’s reading everyday, working out everyday, or practicing whatever skill/craft you are passionate about; just do it.

Posting a blog everyday is not too hard. Neither is doing any other task, such as working out everyday, or eating healthy everyday. But as Jim Rohn would say, “What’s simple to do is also simple not to do. The magic is not in the complexity of the task; the magic is in the doing of simple things repeatedly and long enough to ignite the miracle of the Compound Effect.”

So here’s to my first blog post of many. Each new day that the Lord blesses me with, I shall bless y’all with a new blog post. For this is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice (and blog) and be glad in it. -Psalms 118:24 KJV