Just Think!

Just think about it. Really, just think! How many of us spend some time just thinking about things? If you are like most of us, you fall asleep if you sit long enough doing nothing – and then lay awake half the night rolling something over and over in your head!

Think family. Do we all go along merrily every day until some crisis (real, small, or imagined) causes us to react? Or do we think about a strategic vision for ourselves and our families? Isn’t this the topic on which we should be spending a good deal of our time thinking? Many do not. Perhaps that is why our kids are having so many problems. Our advice, guidance and counsel is often based merely upon rote response, or simply how we feel at that particular time, rather than well reasoned discernment of how each decision interacts with each other.

If we really want consistency – and certainty for our children – we need to establish a firm foundation upon which all other decisions are made. The only way to do that is to think about it. Think religion. Is our understanding of faith limited to the puffs of white or black smoke we see from the Vatican chimney? Do we go to Mass every Sunday with the expectation that is all we need to do to get to heaven? Do we practice our faith merely by rote without understanding the tenets of our faith? How is it that for one person the idea of giving their life for their faith means years of devoted service to the poor while another’s idea is to blow one’s self up in a crowded shopping district?

Am I less a Catholic, Lutheran, Jew, or Muslim if I think about–and perhaps question–various tenets of my religion? I think not. Does religion even have any place in my life? If not, perhaps I should think about that. Think jobs. I can tell you without question that there are days that I simply go through my daily routine without really thinking about what I am doing. Reviewing another report . . . tedious . . . but I knock it out. Did I put real thought into it? I guess that depends. Is that right? Probably not.

Our employers deserve and expect the best that we can provide. Every day. We should also expect the best from ourselves as well. If we simply go through the motions, how can we possibly be satisfied with our performance? No matter whether you are washing dishes, delivering papers, or analyzing voice patters of potential terrorists, your job requires at least some degree of thought. Think about it and think about how you can do it better.

Think politics. It is likely that you, like many others, think little beyond the snippets, one-liners, or prepackaged info bites. Instead of doing our own thinking, we let the news media do our thinking for us. If you disdain the “old” media, your knowledge base likely depends upon which side of the aisle that you adhere to. Fox News for some and MSNBC for others. For those even more ardent, the Drudge Report or the Huffington Post is possibly the way you receive and digest the political situations in the nation and the world. Whatever way you receive your news, how many of you spend time pondering your own original thought on topics such as the national debt, sequestration, foreign policy, and other hot political issues? Unfortunately, I suspect very little.

Think goals. Many of us have a “bucket list” of things that we want to do before we die. How important are these in the scheme of things? Is it more important for me to hike Mount Kilimanjaro than it is to help my son graduate from college? If so, I suspect that my priorities are a bit skewed. Shouldn’t our long-term goals be more than a simple bucket list? As for me, I think I’d rather spend time with family and friends than to worry about crossing an item off the bucket list. Then again, taking my son to hike Kilimanjaro as a graduation present might be the best of both worlds! Of course, I’d have to coordinate that with what is best for my family, make sure I’ve done well enough in my job to afford it, make peace with my God in case something goes wrong, and check the political situation in Tanzania.

I guess it all does come full circle. I certainly do not consider myself an expert on thinking, or on any of these other topics. I just think that I need to think more. Perhaps my musings here may cause others to just think, or at least think more. So, put down the remote, step away from the computer, and go think!