Investments

"A godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children."

"Children are an heritage of the Lord."

I believe that children are your longest-term investments.  And the only way to leave an inheritance to your children's children is by shaping the lives of those under your direct care.

What sort of inheritance are you giving your children's children?  How would it change your daily actions if you asked yourself "Is this the best way that I can shape the lives of my descendants?"

"And Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart."

Happy Mother's Day.

Failure is the only option

Failure is the most powerful learning force we know.  We are here to learn to obey God's commandments.  We must obey in order to be trusted stewards of He who created the universe.  Using failure to teach requires two key components:

Failure is not Fatal
If failure in a particular endeavor kills the relationship/job/person/health/etc, then the price is too high.  Often, the fear of such Fatal Failure causes the learner to avoid even trying, thus preventing any lesson from happening.

Failure has Consequences
Failure cannot be free.  If it is, then the learner becomes cavalier about his actions.  Effectively communicated consequences can cause the learner to pay attention.

The Garden of Eden is a perfect example of failure as a learning mechanism.  When God put Adam and Eve in the Garden, he gave them the commandment to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  He clearly explained the consequences of failing to keep this commandment, and he provided a mechanism to keep their failure from being fatal.  This experience sparked our life on this earth.

"And the days of the children of men were prolonged, according to the will of God, that they might repent while in the flesh; wherefore, their state became a state of probation, and their time was lengthened, according to the commandments which the Lord God gave unto the children of men.  For he gave commandment that all men must repent: for he showed unto all men that they were lost, because of the transgression of their parents."

"And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden.  And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.

"And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin."  (2 Nephi 2:21-23)
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What things in life require daily maintenance?

As I've mentioned, my wife and I are expecting a baby soon.  This new arrival has caused some upheaval in our life, making it more difficult to accomplish all those simple daily tasks that maintain our home.  It leads me to wonder what things require daily maintenance.  I thought I'd brainstorm a list.  Feel free to comment with your own.

Dishes
Bathing
Spiritual renewal
Compliments
Exercise
Laundry
Cleaning
Expressing gratitude
Making peace
Saying "I love you."
Writing in a journal
Flossing

Funny thing is, as I wrote this, I compared to what I actually spend a lot of my time doing daily.

Checking email
Checking the news
Texting/phone apps/instant messaging
Complaining about the weather
Complaining about co-workers
Watching TV/movies

Which list would make you happier?  Are you allowing your habits to make you unhappy?

"Loving Well"

God is Love.  The gospel of Jesus Christ commands us to love God and to love our fellow men.  Love is the common theme in the counsel that the Lord has given us through His scriptures.  It is worthwhile to examine love in all of its flavors.  We start out in this life loving our parents.  If we're lucky, we also love our siblings.  As we branch into the world, we love friends and extended family.  Eventually, we might marry and love a spouse.  And then we love our children, and the cycle perpetuates.  We often give and receive counsel to love the people I just mentioned, but how often do we ponder whether or not we are loving them well.

Is Love a skill that must be practiced, refined, perfected, and presented at the last day?

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called "Outliers".  He analyzes people in various fields who far outperform their peers.  One of the strongest common themes that he found among these outliers was time. On average, it takes 10,000 hours of dedicated, focused, mentored practice at a given activity to break out of the pack and become truly excellent at something.  Is Love any exception?

When you relate to your spouse during day-to-day things, do you pay attention to whether you are loving them with your words and your actions?  Or are you taking "love" for granted?

Is "No" sometimes more loving then "Yes"?

I would suggest that Godlike Love is a skill that we can learn.  I think it's the main thing He's trying to teach us.  I also suggest that upon practicing the skill of Love with sufficient intensity, it changes our nature, making us more like God.  After all, you go where you look.  Ponder this the next time you are challenged in one of your relationships.  Examine whether or not your Love skill is a little rusty.  Apply a diligent effort to not love your family on autopilot, but with diligence and patience.

The atonement of Jesus Christ was the greatest example of God's Love that we know.  Of all the actions available to the Son of God, he chose to redeem us from our sins.  That is the embodiment of not just love, but loving us well.

Pull and the art of leadership

When a man marries a woman, he is commanded to cleave unto her.  Together they are to become one.  This is only possible if the couple is equally yoked.  A yoke is designed to aid a team of oxen in pulling a heavy load.  Marital unity is more than a suggestion.  This commandment from God is designed for our happiness and success in life.  Many marriages struggle because each member of the couple decides to chase after their own dreams.  After all, it's hard work to communicate genuine feelings.  It's even harder to solve genuine differences.  Instead, they each run towards their own goals and then chafe at the bonds of their marriage.

Marriage bonds prevent us from straying too far from each other.  If we insist on living separate lives, the bonds eventually break.  Sometimes one partner succeeds in pulling the other one along against their will, but this is not what marriage was intended for.  Marriage was intended to provide the strength necessary to raise children.

Child-rearing is a heavy load.  It requires patience, perseverance, and more patience.  The marriage bond is designed to draw two people together and point them in the same direction, so that when they pull, they pull the intended load.

Are you making your marriage harder than it has to be?

Can you lead your children home if you're not pulling together?

Currency

I wonder why we seek static solutions?  It's doomed from the start.  

"There, I'm married, glad that's taken care of."

"There, got my job, I'll just work here until I die."

"There, I talked about money, sex, drugs, discipline, clothes, respect, and work with my kid.  Glad that's out of the way."

This view is patently ridiculous.

Life has a current to it, a flow of give and take, need and bounty, peace and striving.  If we learn to embrace this currency we can find contentment in daily movement, even as it stretches us.

Embrace your personal brand of weird

My father taught me one crucial lesson.  I had my own personal brand of weird, and I must embrace it.  It's taken me decades to start to understand the power of this one lesson.  But living this lesson has brought me my greatest joys.

It's costly to be strange, but it's worth it.  It takes courage to buck the trend.  Most people do not love what they do, because it takes courage.  Courageous love is not a very popular position.  Many people miss the key component required to truly love.  You must start by loving God.  The first and great commandment is first for a reason.  God is the easiest thing in the world to love.  The more perfectly you love Him, the more He can change your nature.  He will always change us to become more like Him if He can.  The more we become like Him, the greater our capacity to love becomes.  Eventually we can love ourselves as well as others, and at last we gain the capacity to truly love what we do.

And then we change the world.