Why are so many people offended by everything?

 If someone says that something offends them it seems that the whole world has to stop to soothe the person's feelings. University campuses have "safe spaces" to protect the feelings of people who are hurt because someone said something that made them feel bad. Universities used to be places where persons heard opposing viewpoints as a way to help them be able to think for themselves and be prepared for life in the real world. That can't happen if students have to run to some safe space because someone said something that made them feel bad.

Safe spaces naturally led to the cancel culture where speakers are uninvited to speak on campuses because some group objects to their message. The speakers normally canceled are conservative speakers that people fear might say something that would offend the politically correct crowd. Because universities fear that persons protesting the speaker might cause damage or instigate violence they often give in the demands of a small group of people to cancel the speaker.

Of course, it's not only college students who are offended today. It seems everyone is offended by something or someone, and for some reason we seem to have found in the Constitution the right to not be offended.

Do things ever offend me? Of course. There are many things I find in our society that I find objectionable. I don't like the vulgarity that is so often found in public today. I don't like the divisions that exist in our country. I don't like the way Christians and their faith are marginalized by many in our society today. I'm offended that politicians believe we are too stupid to know when they are lying to us, and I'm even more offended that many in the media are willing to help them deceive the American public. There is much on television that I find offensive. I could go on, but I think I've made the point that there are things that offend me. The difference is how I respond to those things.

Just because things on TV offends me I don't demand that all televisions be destroyed or that I am given a safe space to stay until the offending program goes off. There is a knob on the TV that I can control. I can change the channel or leave the TV off completely. If I am offended by people in the news media I simply choose to not watch or listen to them. If I'm in a place where the language is offensive I simply leave. One way I've found to help slow down the divisions that exist in our country is to remember that I don't have to respond to every social media post with which I disagree. I have strong political and religious beliefs, but I don't hate someone who holds different beliefs. I don't try to silence them or prevent them from having an audience. I served in the Navy so that all Americans would have the right to hold the beliefs they have and to voice those beliefs.

When people demand protection from the things that offend them they are really saying that they are unable to control their emotions. Since they are unable to control their emotions they expect other people to eliminate whatever is bringing discomfort into their lives. It is another form of victim mentality. Everyone else is responsible for making them uncomfortable, so everyone else is responsible to stop doing that.

I encourage you to take responsibility for your life. We cannot control what people might say or do, but we can control how we respond. As we listen to people with whom we disagree sometimes we might learn something that will change how we think about certain things, or it can solidify the opinions we already held, and it will always give us insight into how they think and why they believe what they believe. It is when we listen to divergent ideas that we become more mature in our own thinking. Rather than immediately thinking how something offends you, begin to view the differences you encounter as growing opportunities.

Some people need to choose a new personality

A woman went shopping with her adult daughter and made the experience miserable for everyone. She was rude to the clerks who waited on them. She complained about everything throughout the day. Their last stop was to a shoe store. After trying on a few shoes she stomped out of the store. Once outside she turned to her daughter and demanded, "Did you see the look that salesperson gave me?" The daughter replied, "Mother, she didn't give you that look. You had it when you went into the store!"

We all know people like the mother. They are hypercritical, easily offended and angry about everything. They seem to go out of their way looking for something that will upset them. Unless they are complaining about something they can't be happy. It's a horrible way to live. If confronted, they will just respond that they are just being themselves. The good news is that it doesn't have to be permanent. We can change some aspects of our personality.

People spend vast sums of money on beauty treatments and plastic surgery to change some aspect of their physical appearance they don't like. No matter how much we change our physical appearance, our personality will still come out and show us for the person we are. A person may strive towards physical perfection, but if they maintain a sour personality they will still not be attractive.

Changing our personalities often means making small chances in our actions. For example, a person who is naturally an introvert is not likely to ever be the toast of the party. However, they can take steps to be more outgoing and engaging. My personality is very much that of an introvert. As I tell people, I can very easily blend into the wall paper at a social event, but I choose to not do that. I go to people and begin a conversation with them. It's not always easy, especially at first, but it's usually worth the effort.

A person who is very controlling can learn to let go and trust others to make good decisions for themselves. They can learn to delegate and trust people to complete their task.

Perhaps one of the hardest personality traits to change is anger. Angry people are those likely to insist that it's just the way they are. They can fly off the handle at the slightest provocation and expect everyone to be OK with that.  Angry people wonder why people avoid them and friends stop coming around. It's because people get tired of walking on eggshells around them afraid something they will say or do will set them off again.

Angry people can learn to control their anger. They can choose to respond better to triggers that previously would cause them to erupt.

The first step in getting a personality makeover is to identify the behaviors you need to change. If you're not sure where to start, ask someone who loves you enough to be honest with you. Once you identify the behavior that needs to change you can begin to think through the steps you need to take to make that change. None of this is going to happen overnight so be patient with yourself.

You may want to bring in some professional help, especially if your behaviors are having a negative impact on your life and/or your career. There's nothing wrong with bringing in a life coach or a counselor to help you work through the process you need to follow to change aspects of your personality. Having someone to hold you accountable will probably make the process go quicker and more smoothly.

No one has to feel trapped with a personality issue that is causing them problems. You can make adjustments to your personality if you choose to do so.

Choose to be happy

 Most people would like more happiness in their lives. The interesting thing about happiness is how much of it is actually within our control. Researchers have found that about 50 percent of our happiness comes from set points that are genetically determined. Another 10 percent comes from our circumstances in life. The remaining 40 percent of our happiness is determined by our behavior, and it is this 40 percent that we can control. We can choose to be happier by controlling aspects of our lives that promote happiness.

Perhaps one of the primary ways to be happier is to express gratitude for all the things we have. I recently read someone who said that much of the world would love to have your problems. What they meant was that many of the problems we struggle with are first-world problems. We get upset because a car repair cost more than we though it would while much of the world would love to own a car. We get frustrated because the case of bottled water we buy went up 75 cents a case. Much of the world would love to have clean water to drink. You get the idea. We have much for which to be grateful, and we need to learn to be grateful and to express that gratitude to the right people. When you tell someone how much they mean to you both you and that individual are blessed.

A second behavior that promotes happiness is being optimistic. Too many people walk around like Eeyore. They live with a gloom-and-doom attitude. With that kind of attitude it's impossible to be happy. Optimistic people believe in themselves and their abilities. They look forward to the future and believe they have more control over their destiny. They set goals believing they will achieve them, and they often do. Optimism and happiness go hand-in-hand.

Closely related to optimism is positive thinking. Zig Ziglar used to refer to the opposite of positive thinking as stinkin' thinkin'. Positive thinking people believe in the best of others and themselves. They look for the silver lining in every dark cloud. It's very hard for positive thinking people to get down, and if they do get down they don't stay down very long.

We can increase our level of happiness by practicing acts of kindness towards others. Occasionally you will hear of someone in a drive-through restaurant who pays for the meal for the car behind them. I recently read where that happened, and the person who received the free meal paid for the car behind her, and this went on for several cars. Don't you know each of those people left there just a little happier than they were when they pulled into the drive-through lane? There's something about doing something nice for someone that makes you feel better.

While there are many other things we can do to improve our level of happiness we will just mention one more: learning to forgive. So many people carry years of bitterness within themselves. Someone has hurt them, and they cannot forgive that individual. Unforgiveness makes it impossible to be happy. When we refuse to forgive someone we are allowing that person to hurt us a second time, and we should not give them that much control over our lives. Forgiveness is not easy, but we must find a way to forgive others if we want to truly be happy in this life.

If we control 40 percent of our happiness level then we truly can choose to be happy.

The power of gratitude

As someone who has traveled to various places in the world I recognize how blessed we are when compared to other countries. Even the poorest of us have far more material things than some who live in other countries. We have freedoms that are the envy of people in many nations. We have opportunities that many will never know. Yet, despite the advantages we enjoy, many people are not grateful for what is available to them. Some are never satisfied, always wanting more. Others have an entitlement mindset and believe that they have the right to have the things they want, even if they are taken from someone else.

Did you know that expressing gratitude offers many benefits to the one who is grateful. Sonja Lyubomirsky has written The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want to share what her research teaches about happiness. One of her major findings is that 40 percent of our happiness is within our power to change. One of the things we can do to improve our happiness is to be grateful and expressing that gratefulness to others.

She writes, "People who are consistently grateful have been found to be relatively happier, more energetic, and more hopeful and to report experiencing more frequent positive emotions. They also tend to be more helpful and emphatic, more spiritual and religious, more forgiving, and less materialistic than others who are less disposed to gratefulness. Furthermore, the more a person is inclined to gratitude, the less likely he or she is to be depressed, anxious, lonely, envious, or neurotic."

That's a pretty impressive list of benefits enjoyed by those who are grateful. Most of the people I know would love to have these qualities in their lives. So, how can you become more grateful and enjoy these benefits?

You may want to make a list of the good things that happen in your life. Sometimes we forget the little things for which we should be grateful and focus more on the negative things that happen to us. You may want to begin a journal in which to write down the good things that happened to you that day or the things or people for which you are thankful.

Another thing is to send a note to someone each day who blessed you in some way. You could do the same thing with a text or email, but I think it makes a greater impression on you if you hand write a note of appreciation to someone and mail it to them. It may also be more meaningful to the one receiving the note to know you went to the trouble of sending it to them in this way.

Of course, a face-to-face message of gratitude is always appreciated. I remember when my English teacher in Bible college attended a book signing when my first book was released. I spent time to find her address and send her an invitation to the signing and was delighted when she attended. I was able to tell her that I would never have had the courage to attempt to write a book without her encouragement in class. In our first writing assignment she wrote on the top of the page "You write well." No one had ever told me that before, and it gave me the courage to attempt to write that book a few years later when I finished school.

I find that the more grateful I am about the things I have, the more good seems to come my way. I know when I count my blessings I am much happier and more effective in my life. Determine today to be more grateful and find ways to express your gratitude to others. I think you'll find it will change your life.

Overcoming Difficulties

The first week of Navy boot camp in 1968 was rough. We were assigned to another recruit on temporary assigned duty (TAD) whose job was to get us through processing. It was also his job to make that first week as rough as possible. I can safely say that every one of us hated him before the week was out. That was…until the last night we had him.

He called us to the center of our temporary barracks and told us the next morning we would be going across the highway to our assigned companies to begin our training. We would meet our company commander at that time, and he would return to his own company to complete his basic training. He explained it would be challenging, and there would be times we might not think we could do what we were being asked to do. He told us to remember one thing: Tens of thousands of recruits had done what we would be asked to do, and we could do it as well. Furthermore, he said that the Navy would never ask us to do anything that was not possible to do.

I thought of his words often during boot camp, because there were times I was sure we were being asked to do the impossible. Until I found out it was possible. Throughout my four years in the Navy I remembered his words again when my ship was deployed for long stretches of time, and I was away from my wife and daughter. His words have also been helpful when I’ve gone through difficult times throughout my life.

There have been times when I didn’t think I would get through some situation in my life, and then I would remind myself that millions of other people have gone through the same thing and came out on top. If they could, so can I.

The same is true of each of us. I’ve written a lot about choices the past few weeks, and this is another choice we each have to make at times. We don’t get to choose everything that comes into our lives, but we always get to choose how we will respond to them. And, as I keep reminding my readers, choices have consequences. Some choose to give up in the face of obstacles. Others choose to find ways to overcome those obstacles. Guess which one comes out ahead in the end.

Life will test each one of us. No matter our place in life, our economic or social status, our religious beliefs or lack of them, our race or nationality, we will be tested. Bad things do happen to good people. It rains on the just and the unjust the same. In my seven decades I have found that every test has a purpose and a way to overcome it.

Knowing this and responding appropriately are two different things. Like anyone else, there are times I can be in despair over some challenge and see no way through, but if we don’t give up, there is always a way through. There is always a way to overcome the difficulties that come our way.

One of the things that is often helpful is to remember how we came through previous challenges. Just being reminded that we’ve overcome past difficulties often gives us the ability to overcome our current ones. If you’re struggling right now with something in your life, spend 20 minutes thinking back to past times when you struggled and wasn’t sure you would make it. Obviously, you did. What helped you then that you can apply now to today’s situation?

You get to choose your life

One of the most life-giving lessons I've learned in my seven decades is that I have the opportunity to choose many of the things I experience in life. Obviously, there are some things we do not get to choose. There are persons who are born with handicaps who would never have chosen those handicaps, but they still get to choose how they will respond to those limitations. If you doubt that you need to read What's Your Excuse?: Making the Most of What You Have. It's the story of John Foppe, a man born with no arms who refused to let that handicap limit him. It's a powerful book about how each of us can choose how to respond to the challenges life presents to us.

Foppe could have chosen to be a "perpetual victim." You know those people. They are always blaming others for the bad things that have happened to them. They refuse to take any responsibility for themselves. It's the government's responsibility to provide for them, or the church's, or their family's.

There is no doubt that some people have had rough times. They may not have had the best childhood. They may have suffered abuse or neglect. They may have faced more struggles than most people. I would never discount that, but that is in the past. Maybe there was nothing they could do about their circumstances back then, but now they are adults. They can choose to live in the past and blame their problems on the things that happened back then or they can choose to live in the present and prepare themselves for a better future.

It's time that people begin to take responsibility for their lives. That's called maturity. It's being a grown-up. Instead of demanding that the government increase the minimum wage, do something that will entitle you to earn more. All raising the minimum wage does is cost people jobs. If you want to earn more money, be worth more.

During my senior year of high school I worked at a local supermarket. I was in a class that went to school a half-day and worked the other half. I bagged groceries for .75 cents an hour. I worked about 50 hours a week (You can't do that now while going to school!). In a few weeks I was promoted to a stocker and given responsibility for ordering stock for an entire aisle of products. I requested a raise and received it. A few months later I was given responsibility for a second aisle. Now I was ordering product and responsible for stocking two aisles in that store. I got another raise. Some of the other students in the class complained to the teacher because I was making more than they were. When he challenged me about that I explained if they wanted to make more money all they had to do was to be worth more. After that conversation I asked for another raise and got it, too!

No one can hold you back except you. No one can limit what you can achieve but you. People tell me they can't get a better job because they don't have the education and can't get it.  I earned my bachelor's degree at the age of 46 while working full-time in a factory and pastoring a church. I got my master's degree at 58 while working a full-time job and my doctorate at 62 while working that same job. Don't tell me you can't get the education you need. Besides, you can get a good job without a college education. There are employers who will train people who want to work. Why should anyone worry about a minimum wage job when there are good jobs out there for those willing to pursue them?

Your choices are not limited to jobs or salaries. You get to choose the kind of marriage you will have, the way you raise your children, your financial security, your character, your happiness and a host of other aspects of your life. Quit living in the past and begin making choices that will improve your life now and in the future. The choice is yours.

Happiness is a choice

A 2017 study reported that only about 33 percent of the people who responded to a survey said they were happy. That means there is a lot of unhappy people out there. What is the cause of so much unhappiness? One psychologist claims that about 50 percent of our unhappiness is controlled by our genetics and our environment. That means that 50 percent of our happiness is under our control. Sonja Lybubromirsky, a research professor, who has studied happiness for over 25 years, has written a book called The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want in which she claims that 40 percent of our happiness is within our control. But wait a minute. If part of our unhappiness is due to our environment, that means that some of that is under our control as well. We can take steps to change our environment.

If our unhappiness is due to financial stresses we can do things to improve our finances. If our unhappiness is the result of our work environment, we can change jobs or find ways to make our work less stressful. If marriage issues are the result of our unhappiness we can work to improve our marriage. As you can see, there are many things in our environment that we can make better which means that well over 50 percent of our happiness or unhappiness is within our control. We can choose to be happy.

Besides changing negative things that might be happening in our environment, what are some things we can do to be happier?

• We can change the way we talk to ourselves. As I said in an earlier post, the most important conversation you will have each day is the one you have with yourself. If we speak negative thoughts about ourselves into our minds it's going to be difficult to be happy. It's important to maintain a positive image of ourselves in our minds if we want to be successful in our endeavors, and the way to help promote that positive image is to speak positive words to ourselves.
• It's important to focus on our relationships. Do you spend most of your time with positive people or negative people? If you spend the majority of your time with toxic people that toxicity will begin to affect you. It's real hard to be happy around those who spend most of their time complaining and spreading negativity everywhere they go.
• Find a hobby or activity you enjoy doing. We have to find things we enjoy doing to take us away from the hustle and bustle of life. When I recovered from my clinical depression in the mid-1980s I began to look for things to do that was fun. We took more vacations that we had before. I bought a bass boat, and my wife and I spent time fishing. After selling the boat I bought a motorcycle which we rode on trips. Enjoy life and you can't help but become happier.
• Focus on creating memories, not on accumulating things. We once rode the motorcycle to South Dakota. We went through the Badlands and up to Mt. Rushmore. My wife had always dreamed of seeing Mt. Rushmore, but she certainly never thought it would be from the back of a motorcycle! It was a marvelous trip. We don't have a lot of toys (even the motorcycle is gone now), but that just means the ones we leave behind won't have a lot of stuff to get rid of. But, they will have some great memories we have shared.
• Eliminate anger from your life. We live in a very angry society. It seems everyone is angry with everyone else, and what does that get us? It robs us of the ability to be happy. There are some things for which we should be angry, but much of the anger I see exhibited today does nothing positive.
• Practice forgiveness. This goes along with eliminating anger. Unforgiveness eats away at the one who holds onto it. It normally doesn't impact the person we're refusing to forgive, but it certainly does harm the one refusing to forgive. What has been done in the past cannot be undone. Let it go. That does not mean that we put ourselves in a position where someone who has hurt us can do so again. Forgiveness is letting go of the past and refusing to allow it to hold us captive any longer.

If we take these steps we will find our happiness level will increase. As you can see, everyone of these steps represents a choice you can make which means that you can choose to be happy. I hope you will.

Don't be afraid to fail

If there is one thing that keeps most people from reaching their potential it is the fear of failure. Many people are so afraid they will fail that they don't even make an effort to live up to their potential. Perhaps they have failed in the past. Maybe they are replaying those voices in their heads that told them from childhood that they would never amount to anything. Some have just been beat down by life so much that they have given up. Whatever the reason, this fear of failure controls the thinking and the lives of too many people.

No one enjoys failing. I certainly don't. I can get down with the best of them when I fail at something. But, I don't stay down, and I don't allow past failures keep me from trying again.

When I wrote my first book I sent a proposal to a publisher asking them to publish my book. A few weeks later I got a rejection letter. I sent it to another publisher. When their response came back weeks later they said they might publish it, but it would need a lot of work before they would make a final decision. I did the rewrites they suggested, but it was months before I sent it back to them. I was afraid of being rejected again. When they agreed to publish the book I cried. Had I not overcome my fear of failure that book, and the next seven, would have never been published.

It's important to recognize that we all fail at times. In fact, it's not uncommon to fail. Ted Williams has a lifetime batting average of .344, the best in Major League Baseball. The average batting average in 2017 was .248 so you can see what an accomplishment this is. Williams' average earned him a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame. However, his batting average also reveals that almost two out of three times he got up to bat he failed to get a hit. Is he considered a failure because he made an out almost twice as often as he got a hit? Obviously not!

Brian Tracy writes, “According to the American Management Association, at least 70 percent of your decisions will turn out to be wrong in the fullness of time. This 70 percent figure is an average. Some people will be wrong even more often.” If we are going to be wrong so often we need to learn how to fail forward. In other words, we need to learn how to profit from our failures. Every failure carries with it knowledge that we can use at other times to increase our chances of success.

Research has found that high achievers typically experience at least three to four major failures and seven major successes in their careers. Obviously, they learned important lessons from the failures they experienced which they applied to future endeavors. It's also important to note that they didn't give up after their first failure. They persevered until they achieved the success they were seeking.

I encourage you to choose to fail forward. Don't fear failure, and don't give up when you do fail at something. If you'll press on you will eventually experience the success you seek.

Going the extra mile

A few years ago a new restaurant opened in our community. When that happens I usually check it out before taking anyone else there. It turned out to be pretty good food and service. I ate there 3-4 times a month, and the place seemed to be doing well. Reviews online were always good as well. A lot of people enjoyed eating there as the place was often busy when I went. I had commented to some people that it had become one of my favorite places to eat in town, and one Christmas some friends gave me a gift card for the restaurant.

When I tried to use the card their computer system wouldn't accept it. The waitress got another employee to try the card, and it still didn't work. They finally admitted they didn't know how to use a gift card for payment. They called the owner for instructions who told them that she had not set up the new computer system for the cards. I wasn't pleased, but I paid for my lunch.

A couple of weeks later I returned and again tried to use the gift card. The same thing happened again. No one there knew how get the system to accept the card. The waitress called the owner again, did not get the answer she wanted and asked if I wanted to talk to the owner. I sure did!

The owner apologized for the problem and said she hadn't trained anyone on how to use the system to accept gift cards. I explained this was the second time I had tried to use the card and wasn't very happy that it appeared the cards they sold were no good. Finally, frustrated, the owner said if I could wait 15 minutes she would be there and would take the card. Just as frustrated I responded that I had already been there 15 minutes while the employees had tried to get the card to work and I wasn't interested in wasting another 15 minutes because she didn't know how to train her employees properly. I then asked if I could just give them the $25.00 card for my $10.00 meal and call it even. No, she couldn't accept that. I paid for the meal and never went back. Less than a year later the restaurant closed its doors.

The math is really simple. If you have a customer who is spending $40.00-75.00 a month in your business, you don't jerk them around for $10.00. I titled this post "Going the extra mile," but we're not even talking her about doing anything extraordinary. We're talking about just doing the right thing.

The loss of my business isn't what closed the business down. It was the lack of management by the owner that closed down the business. If she treated me like that, I'm certain she treated others the same way. In addition, it was obvious the quality of the food had deteriorated over time as well. When you combine poor quality food with poor customer service you have a recipe for disaster in the restaurant business. When you practice poor customer service in any business, you won't be in business long. People talk about both their good experiences and their bad ones, and bad news travels fast.

To succeed in business, or anything else in life, you have to deliver every day. If something goes wrong, and it will, you do whatever it takes to make it right. You can turn a bad customer experience into a great one with a commitment to do so regardless of what it takes. There might be some temporary discomfort involved in making things right, but that's better than a long-term or permanent loss.

It really is all about choices. Every day you get to choose the kind of experience the people you serve with have. Based on those experiences, they will choose whether to continue to do business with you or not.

The most important conversation you will have today

The most important conversation you will have today will be with yourself. Few people understand the importance of the things we tell ourselves. If we did, we would avoid saying many of the things we often say such as "I never do anything right," or "I'll never get this weight off so I might as well stop trying," or "I'm just not smart enough to get that job," or a host of other negative things we tell ourselves every day.

When we continually feed into our minds negative thoughts about ourselves we set ourselves up for failure. After a while we begin to believe these things we say to ourselves and they become self-fulfilling prophecies. We expect to fail so we do. Even if something does go right we chalk it up to luck or circumstance, never to our own abilities.

Do I believe in positive thinking? I do up to a point. It certainly beats stinkin' thinkin' and the other negative things we tell ourselves. However, I am not in the crowd that believes that positive thinking will enable you to do anything you want. I can be the most positive person you'll ever meet, but you don't want me performing brain surgery on you. At the same time, positive thinking will help you do the things you do better than negative thinking would.

If a person isn't naturally a positive thinker what can he or she do to become one? Start by taking an honest look at your positive traits. What are the things you do well? Accept them. What do others compliment you on? Accept those compliments. Become very much aware of your positive traits and abilities and embrace them in everything you do. Repeat those positive aspects of yourself to yourself often.

The second thing is to avoid negative people. No, you don't want to surround yourself with yes-men. You want people to point out to you weaknesses you might have and flaws in your logic when appropriate, but you don't need a steady diet of negative thoughts from the people you associate with. Frankly, I don't have time for such people in my life so I try to avoid being around them as much as possible. When I have to be with such people and they start in on their negativity I focus on other things. I tune them out as much as possible and refuse to embrace their critical spirits.

Practice positive self-talk every day. Some motivational speakers suggest having a card with a number of positive affirmations on your bathroom counter top. They recommend looking at yourself in the mirror and reading that card to yourself every morning as you prepare for the day. Some even recommend carrying the card in your pocket and reading it to yourself throughout the day as needed.

You will never rise above the level of conversation you have with yourself. If you speak negative thoughts about yourself to yourself, your life with be marked with disappointment and failure. If you speak positive uplifting words to yourself you will find that those words will become a reality in your life. Which will you choose to speak. The choice is yours.

What are you prepared to do?

In the movie The Untouchables Sean Connery's character has the best line of the entire film. Elliot Ness is trying to recruit him to help Ness send Al Capone to prison. Three times in the film Connery's character asks the question, "What are you prepared to do?" The final time he asked the question was just before he died after being gunned down by one of Capone's men.

He asks the question before agreeing to help Ness because he wants to know how far Ness is willing to go to put Capone away. Connery plays an Irish cop who isn't interested in being part of any half-hearted attempt to take on Capone's criminal empire. It's not until he is convinced that Ness is committed to doing whatever it takes that he agrees to join him in his effort.

The reason I enjoy this line so much is that it is a question that each of us must ask ourselves when we want to tackle something so big in our lives that there is a good chance we will fail. Too often we settle for living lives that lack adventure and substance. We settle for the mundane, the safe, the boring because we are afraid if we try to venture beyond that we will fail. How many people have wanted to start their own business but never found the courage to do so? How many wanted to further their education but didn't think they had what it took? How many wanted to have a rich, satisfying relationship with someone but was afraid of being hurt? Living our lives to the fullest requires risk, and many of us are afraid of risk.  It's only when we are willing to stretch ourselves that we can be the people we are called to be and experience all that life has to offer.

But as we think about doing that we need to pause and ask ourselves the question: What are we prepared to do? How far are we willing to do to realize our dreams? What are we willing to give up to gain what we want most out of life? John Maxwell says that we have to give up to go up. In other words, we have to be willing to sacrifice some things in order to achieve the things we want most. Jesus Christ challenged us to count the cost because there is always a cost to achieve the most out of life.

While sacrifice will be required, we must not sacrifice some things. Our integrity for one thing. Some people are willing to sacrifice their integrity in order to gain material things. They will lie, cheat, steal and do anything else to get what they want. That is too high a price to pay. So is sacrificing our families. How many people have thought they had it all only to look back to find out they had lost their family in the process? It's also not worth it to sacrifice our health in order to achieve the things we want in life. I think of the many famous performers whose lives were ruined by the drugs they used to keep performing. Certainly, we can never sacrifice our faith in our pursuit of whatever we want in life. Many have abandoned the faith of their childhood in order to live their dreams. If our dreams cause us to sacrifice our integrity, our families, our health and our faith those dreams will turn into nightmares. We will find we paid too high a price.

What are some of the things we will need to do in order to live a more fulfilling and meaningful life? If I may again quote John Maxwell, he often says that each of us has a choice. We can either pay now and play later, or we can play now and pay later. There is always a cost if we want to achieve more in life. We just have to decide when we want to pay it. He would say it's best to pay it early in life so as to be able to enjoy the fruits of your efforts later. I would agree.

This requires a dedicated focus on doing the things that will achieve what you want. While others are playing you are focused on doing the things necessary to achieve success in your chosen field. While others are going into debt to buy cars and homes they cannot afford, you are avoiding debt, living within your means, putting money into your retirement account and investments. If that sounds boring, just wait until your friends can't afford to retire while you have a few million in your retirement account. Then you can see who's bored. We can make similar comparisons about any area of life you want. When you focus on doing the right thing in those areas you may miss out on temporary pleasure at first, but you will reap the rewards of your discipline later.

It's very unlikely to will achieve the things you want most in life by accident. It will require dedicated focus on your part, a willingness to pay a price and a steadfast commitment to achieving your dreams. So, what are you prepared to do?

Focus on changing one thing

When I was a pastor a young mother came to be with numerous problems that were causing a lot of difficulty. She described some of them to me and admitted she often felt overwhelmed by all the negative things that were going on in her life. She was confused about how to do anything to change her situation.

I asked her if she ever watched Star Wars movies. She admitted she did. I asked if she remembered when a ship would jump into hyperspace and how the movie would show all the stars flying past them at high rates of speed. She remembered that. I asked if that was how her problems seemed to her, that they were all flying towards her at one time, and as she tried to deal with them she felt overwhelmed. She stared at me and responded that was exactly how she felt. I explained that is why she felt so overwhelmed. It was impossible to deal with each of them at the same time. What she needed to do was to address one of them and deal with it before she moved on to another one.

This week I’ve talked about choices and the need we sometimes have to make different choices to improve our lives. But, what do we do if there are many areas in our life that are causing us problems. We have to do what I explained to that mother. We have to take one at a time and put our primary focus on making choices that will improve that aspect of our lives.

You may wonder how we know which one to address first. There are two schools of thought. One is to deal with the one that seems easiest to resolve. Success in that area of your life will give you a sense of accomplishment and motivation to attack other areas. The second approach is to deal with the one that will give you the greatest overall success. Which one of your problems, if you resolved it, would provide you with the greatest benefit? Perhaps that is the one with which to be begin.

I can’t tell you which approach to take because I don’t know your situation. You do, so this is a decision you need to make for yourself. You may want to bring in other persons you trust to help you make that decision. That might be a friend, your minister, a counselor or a coach. As I have shared in this blog before, I have coached a number of people who were dealing with issues in their lives. If you think I might be able to help you sort through this, I do have room for a few coaching clients.

What you don’t want to do is to allow your problems to keep attacking you and doing nothing about it. That choice won’t make the positive changes in your life that you are seeking. Choose to do nothing, and those problems will only get worse. Choose to make the necessary changes to eliminate those problems, and your life will improve in that area. Remember . . .choices have consequences.

Choose your response to difficult times

When things happen to us we have two options. We can choose to react to them, or we can choose to respond to them. You may think there is no difference between the two choices, but there is a big difference. If your doctor gives you a prescription and tells you to come back in a week, and when you go back you complain about the side effects, the doctor will say you have had a reaction to the medicine and change the medication But, if you go back and you are feeling better the doctor will say you are responding well to the medication. Reacting is bad; responding is good.

Well-known minister, Chuck Swindoll, wrote that the longer he lived the more he realized the impact attitude has on our lives. He said he was convinced that life is 10 percent of what happens to us and 90 percent of how we respond to it. The key, he wrote, is that we are in charge of our attitudes.

In concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl's amazing book Man's Search for Meaning, he told of the men in the housing units who went around comforting others and sharing their last pieces of bread. These individuals taught Frankl that "everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

We cannot control everything that comes into our lives. Every one of us will experience difficult challenges at various times. Right now, for some, it's financial challenges as they suddenly lost their jobs, and, perhaps, their employer decided not to reopen. For others, it's health issues. It might be family or relational problems. For many recent graduates, they are facing a tough job market and wonder how they will find employment.

These are tough challenges with no quick and easy solutions in many cases. While it might take time to resolve the problem, one thing we can do immediately is decide what our attitude will be towards the problem. We can let it get us down and give up, or we can decide to work towards a solution and overcome it. Swindoll is right. Our attitude makes all the difference in the world, and we can always choose our attitude.

I have to admit that I've not always taken the positive approach to my problems. My personality type is such that I can fall into the gloom-and-doom perspective rather easily. I can get down on myself and want to give up at times. That means I have to work extra hard at maintaining a positive approach, but when I do that things seem to go much better. Problems gets resolved faster, and there's a lot less wear and tear.

Choosing to stay positive in a negative situation isn't easy, but it is possible. The next time a problem crops up will you react to it or respond to it? The choice is yours.