- Live One Day at a Time – Life is not a dress rehearsal. Time cannot be saved. Let’s learn from our past, look to the future, but live in the NOW! Make it happen Today. When you have traded this day off for something, make sure you didn’t leave anything on the table–that the trade-off was worth the cost.
- Give Your Spouse and Best Friends Random Acts of Kindness –
Every day look for ways to give out “gifts.” Gifts are things you can do, that you don’t usually do, but that you choose to do. Perhaps create a jar in which you list those things you are willing to give as gifts and then pull at least one a day to give as a random kindness. Take the 5 Love Languages quiz together with your spouse and find out what pleases him or her and then go do it often and well.
- Live with a View to the End – People are born, they suffer and as G.B. Shaw so eloquently pit it, “one out of one of us dies.” Take some reflective time and look forward to your own funeral and reflect on how you want to be remembered. Work toward becoming that kind of person.
- Give Yourself to Others – From my personal theological position, the only time Jesus Christ ever said He was being an example for us was when He washed His disciples feet. Invest yourself in what is good for others. As Zig Ziglar says, ” If you help enough other people get what they want, you will get what you want.”
- Learn to Forgive and Forget – There ain’t no burden as heavy as carrying a grudge. If you are toting any, put them down this month and lose the caner of resentment. Ultimately only the grudge-carrier gets hurt. Trust me, I’m a doctor and I’ve tried it both ways.
- Face Adversity with Courage – Nearly everyone gets at least one knockdown punch. It’s not whether or not you will get knocked down; it’s how often you get back up. So when illness, death, job loss, children who go off the reservation, spouses who misbehave, learn how to grieve and heal. Nothing comes your way that God has not provided strength to go through.
- Keep a Sense of Humor – Complaining is not one of the spiritual gifts. Happiness is a choice, pain is inevitable, but misery is optional. As Abraham Lincoln reminded us, “Most of us are about as happy as we decide to be.” You can spend your life making “Oh, ain’t it awful” noises, or you can be a positive happy spirit–on purpose. Both tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies. I don’t care how you FEEL…just DO IT.
- Deal Kindly with Each Other – Lighten up. Be nice to your spouse, your children, and your co-workers.
- Walk Humbly – No arrogance, no rudeness. We have an awesome opportunity ahead of this year with lots of promise. None of us knows the end. Whether we end in wealth or poverty, let’s walk humble and gratefully for our blessings.
- Make Sure That Manners and Chivalry Don’t Die On Your Watch –
Practice and model for your children and others…regardless of how many of your friends make fun: Say yes sir, no ma’am, thank you, please, you’re welcome (please lose the ‘no problem’ junk). Stand up when a lady comes or leaves a table or enters a room, hold and open doors, walk on the street side of females.
- Learn to Use Your Words – Compliment one another, speak love all the time. Celebrate special occasions and if you don’t have enough of them create more.
- Pray Diligently for a New Spiritual Awakening and for End Times -Cover your bases on both sides…pray for either a new Great Awakening or that Jesus will come back, and soon!
Final Note
- Do What’s Right – Become what the elder George Bush encouraged us to “become, kinder and gentler, not because you feel like it, but because it is the right/wise thing to do.”
