I was at an arcade with my son Camden recently and he wanted to play Whack-A-Mole.  He pumped in the token and started whacking.  At first, he was in the rhythm.  He was smacking those moles with pretty good precision.  For a split second, he got off balance. From that point on his rhythm was off he wasn't hitting the moles as he did in the beginning.

My point?  The thing I realized while observing this is that many times in life we can be in rhythm and doing quite well.  Then something happens to throw us off.  If we try to keep going without resetting our mind or actions, we will be out of balance.  Our rhythm will be off.

The next time you start to feel off-balance, stop, reset and then proceed. 

What do you think?  Post a comment or share a story below.

Sometimes in life we have to learn how to just suck it up.    Especially in the quest for a more intentional life, a person must learn there are some things just not worth getting upset over and worrying about.   You might call this "pick your battles"; I like to call it "suck it up". 

I'm getting some curve balls thrown at me recently on a big project and so I have two choices:

1.  Get mad, make waves and potentially cause trouble.

2.  Suck it up.   Do what I have to do to finish the project.

Now I should make a disclaimer that "sucking it up" does not apply when you're blatantly getting walked on or taken advantage of.  It just applies to the things that make you internally upset, but in reality are not that big of a deal.

Sucking it up applies to all areas of our lives:  marriage, raising kids, work, church, volunteer groups.....

By resolving to the fact that I can't control everything and that sometimes I just need to suck it up, it makes my life more intentional and a lot more peaceful.   How about you?

[image by Vaidy Krishnan]

Have you ever felt like this picture?   Like you're just barely holding on.   Like a clothespin was all that was keeping you from falling hard.

It's one of those seasons for me.  Big website project due to go live next Monday and it's been a long month prepping for it.

I keep telling myself "just hold on", "just hold on".   "You've been here before and it always works out."

That's the cool thing about experience - you can look back and see that you've been through similar times in your life and lived to tell about it.  

Just hold on.  To whatever you're going through....Just hold on.

[image by stratosg]

Holli recently got me a new devotional book called "5 Minute Bible Workouts for Men".   I'm really enjoying it.  It's easy to read and the contents are great.  From time to time, I'll share on the blog some of the things I'm reading.

Did you know Abraham Lincoln was a failure?  He ended up with an amazing presidency, but he had many failures on the road to the white house.

I found this really interesting and I never knew this about old Honest Abe:

• Failed in business in 1831
• Defeated for legislature in 1832
• Second failure in business in 1833
• Suffered nervous breakdown in 1836
• Defeated for speaker in 1838
• Defeated for elector in 1840
• Defeated for congress in 1843
• Defeated for congress in 1848
• Defeated for senate in 1855
• Defeated for vice president in 1856
• Defeated for senate in 1858
• Elected president in 1860

That's a 30 year span.   Talk about diligence and perseverance.

Makes me think of 1 Cor 9:24 -- "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize."