From Day-to-Day

Subtitle: Taking the challenge as it comes

We all have on-days and off-days.  As we used to say, using a car engine metaphor, we begin facing a day hopefully running on all 8 cylinders but find if we are not in good tune running perhaps on 7 or even 5.  But we’re still running. 

Symptoms for off-days could be:

• Low energy

• Being tired

• Being easily distracted by other concerns—losing focus

• Feeling environmental or situational changes militate against you

• Being injured or not well:  again, not 100% or even 50%

• Being required to do what you are not trained or accustomed to doing

• Making poor response to extraordinary demands or circumstances

What to do?

• Take stock of your stock at the moment.  Be realistic, but know that you usually have reserves or abilities that go beyond what you perceive.  Keep the engine running and thc car (you) moving; don't just park if faced with a challenge. 

• Know your limitations and do not jeopardize yourself by attempting to go beyond them unless it for survival in extremity.

• Do something else that day if you can--and you'll find you CAN.  You may be better prepared the next day.  If not . . .

• Approach the same challenge differently if you can’t do the above.  Above all, don’t just let down; do what you can with what you’ve got.

For future days--

• Prepare yourself for inevitable emergencies—have supplies, gear, etc., on hand.  Take an inventory of what you've got and what you need. 

• Develop some extraordinary helping skills (first aid, leadership, situational analysis, counseling) well before a bad day comes for yourself or others who may need to count on you.  Find some way to be useful.

• Know how to enlist the help of others.  Build a network of potential resources.  Know how to access them immediately if necessary. Likewise, be willing and able to help others on their ‘off-days.’

• Have a plan A (your ideal); plan B (a workable alternative); plan C (for the worst scenario).  Review and practice your plan(s).

• Try to anticipate what might happen or has happened to others less prepared.  Ask yourself, “What could happen?”  Then ask, “What needs to happen now?”

• Have the self-discipline to achieve an optimum physical fitness and mental toughness (through diet, enough sleep, physical fitness exercise, and practice going beyond your comfort level).

• Go on the offense before you are forced to go defensive. Be proactive. Determine to act rather than being acted upon.  IT ALL TAKES FORETHOUGHT and PLANNING. 

Remember always:

“If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.”

“Now, go forth—dress this garden (this life you've been given); take good care of        it . . . .” 

 Yes, from day-to-day. 

Let Freedom Ring

Six years ago, on July 5, 2010 I posted a weblog I titled “The Day After.”  It basically referred to the day after the 4^th of July, our nation’s Independence Day, or any significant day.  In that essay I said this:

“Today is the day after Independence Day in the United States of America. I believe there are many people in this ‘land of the free and home of the brave’ who hold with me that freedom under law and being brave in the face of threats to our lives, our liberties or our sacred honor are values we should hold dear and strive to defend. We behaved like we believed it yesterday as we sang our great national anthems, listened to patriotic speeches, enjoyed the American flags and buntings, and were awed by the ‘rockets red glare’ where our communities didn’t have ordinances against our celebrations. The question is, will we behave like we believe it tomorrow and next week and next month?

“I therefore extend this challenge made on the 5th of July to the day after our national holiday, or Hanukah, or the day after Christmas or Easter, the day after Thanksgiving and Memorial Day, the day or week or month after any of our significant days of appreciation and remembrance: I challenge you to retain the kindled feelings of appreciation, of renewed determination, and of hope engendered, and live your life in pursuit of the noble ideals that these dates signify.”

I would like today, July 7, 2016 to elaborate briefly on that theme and to use Dwight D. Eisenhower, former U.S. Army general and 34^th president of the United States to illustrate another aspect of the principle of freedom. 

 

“Freedom,” President Eisenhower said in his 1957 State of the Union address, “has been defined as the opportunity for self-discipline.”  He illustrated the principle himself on the day he decided to stop being a four-pack -a-day cigarette smoker.  Commenting on his decision to gain his freedom from this addiction and quit cold-turkey he said, “I simply gave myself an order.”  Eisenhower’s life, says David Brooks, “was fueled by passion and policed by self-control.”

Far too few people realize that the freedom to exercise one’s will to do what they want is also the freedom to exercise self-discipline that allows one to be free from the worst kinds of bondage—spiritual, emotional, and mental self-recrimination and the consequences of unbridled pursuit of physical pleasures or passions.  Personal freedom exercised properly is to cultivate a regulated character.  Put another way, it is better to bridle a horse so that it can be controlled and trained than to simply shoot the horse or incarcerate a man who doesn’t understand the restraints or constraints of freedom.   Sociologist Max Weber said that a moderate man aims to be passionate about his ends but deliberate about the proper means to realize them. 

 

If we are to let freedom ring across this land as once did our nation’s Liberty Bell, we must not hit it so hard that a crack develops so badly in our national character, as it did in the Liberty Bell, that it can no longer can it be rung.