Where are you looking?

April 29, 2024

The Best of Jack’s Winning Words 4/29/24 – Reposts from the blog of the late Pastor Jack Freed – Originally sent February 26, 2009

“Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost.” (Robert Schuller) I generally agree with the thought of this quote. However, I get a bit nervous when I see the words, “always” and “never,” because I want some wiggle-room. Schuller’s basic point is that we need to appreciate what we have and look ahead, rather that live with regrets and look back. I like that. 😉 Jack 

There are all sorts of sayings about not focusing upon looking back. I like these two –

 You can’t drive forward if you keep looking in the rearview mirror. That’s why the windshield is huge, so look forward.

There’s a reason why the rearview mirror is smaller than the windshield – where you are going is way more important than where you’ve been.

 Jack Freed was a glass half-full person who didn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on the past. He was much more interested and focused upon the future.

Where are you looking? Do you spend much of your time looking in the rear-view mirror in regret. Do you dwell upon some past event or decision that you made that didn’t work out as you had hoped?

Don’t you get tired of staring into that tiny mirror of the past rather than looking out through the windshield of the future and seeing what yet may be. Let the things in your past fade into the distance where they belong.

Former First Lady Betty Ford was quoted as saying, “I don’t look at what I’ve lost. I look instead to what I have left.” To that I would add, “And what is yet to come.”

So, change were you are looking. A glance at the past is sometimes useful for learning something from it. You can’t live there, but you can live in the future. Look to the future.

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Posted by Norm Werner

How are you looking at things?

April 8, 2024

The Best of Jack’s Winning Words 4/8/24 – reprises from the blog of the late Pastor Jack Freed – Originally sent February 12, 2008

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“Weather is a great bluffer. It’s the same with life. Things can look dark, then a break shows in the sky, and all is changed.” (Unknown) Even though we talk a lot about the weather, there are things more important than the forecast. Darkness can come into our lives unexpectedly, but it’s a bluff. Eventually the sun breaks through, and all will be right and bright again. Keep looking up. 😉 Jack
 
Jack wasn’t really talking about the weather. His posts were always guides to a better life. As luck would have it I also received the graphic below today and tis just fits perfectly with Jack’s post.

Jack always wrote his posts with a positive outlook on life and encouraged his readers to change how they looked at things in life. Many of us, including me, need to consider how we look at things in life and perhaps reconsider that view.

Life is full of ups and downs, things that we like or don’t like and decisions which may have  pleasant or unpleasant outcomes. The glass half-empty person always sees the downside of things and wastes a lot of time worrying about them; whereas the glass half-full person see an opportunity to learn in the face of a setback. The optimists is trying to do better next time, while the pessimist may not even think that there will be a next time. Which way do you think?

Perhaps it is time to change the way that you look at things. No matter no bad the situation may be, if you are still alive there will be a next time and the hope to do better next time. There is an old saying that, “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” It also makes you smarter. It may not be necessary to give up your dream, but it might be time to give up on the approach that you have been using to achieve that dream. Change the way you look at that dream and see if you can figure out a better way to achieve it. Sometimes just doing that also allows you to re-examine the dream itself to see if it needs some changes, too.

Qualities like persistence, perseverance and conviction are great if that are not being applied to the wrong goals or the wrong methods. The point is that you should always be open to change – change in the goals that you are striving to achieve and change in the approaches that you are currently using to achieve those goals.

So, today look at things differently and see if that doesn’t change what you see.

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Posted by Norm Werner