“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily…”

Thomas S. Szasz

There you have it. A little humility will keep you learning. Perhaps that’s why humble people seem so apt to adapt?

My boy and I are up early-ish this morning, and the conversation has gone like this: (Imagine a two-year-old inflection)

Luke: Want see Mama

Me: Well, we’re trying to let Mama sleep, so you need to just play with daddy. Want to come look out the window?

Luke: Ooh, Mr. Brown’s car!

Me: Ooh, it rained all night.

Luke: Yeah, rain rain. It’s wind?

Me: Yep, the wind is blowing. We need to talk about some breakfast.

Luke: Maybe some blue macaroni?

Me: That’s not breakfast.

Luke: Oh, just crackers.

Me: That’s not really breakfast either. How ’bout toast or cereal or oatmeal?

Luke: Maybe… play motorcycle?

Me: Wow. You have the opposite of a one-track mind, don’t you!

and so on. It’s a fun morning!

Is never done. Confirmed. Last night, I hung out with my boy while Rebecca went to a church ladies meeting (everyone dresses up like Dana Carvey’s Church Lady and sits around talking like that character.) (Just Kidding!) I don’t know if I’ve ever had so tiring an evening. What I realized is that most of the time, even when I’m giving primary attention to Luke while Rebecca is working on something else, she’s still there in the background, translating for him, making sure that I understand where’s he at in his evening. Take her out of the equation, and things get tough!

By the time my dear wife got home last night, I think I was pretty much dead on my feet. I don’t remember much about the rest of the night.

All that to say, my already-immense respect for what my wife does for my son is flying even higher today. My cup of coffee is also 2x bigger than it usually is.

I’m a big fan of planning. Having a well put together plan for a day really helps me to get things moving, to keep things moving, and to enjoy myself while it’s all happening. Yesterday was a day where the plan worked for most of the day. I’d say well over 95% of the day went according to plan. It was nice.

I hate planning. When nothing conforms to my plan for a day, it really drives me crazy. Nothing gets moving. Momentum stops. I can’t enjoy myself because I’m too busy putting out fires. Friday was a day where my plan didn’t work for a single minute all day. It was terrible.

That’s the lesson I’m struggling to learn about organizing and scheduling. It’s great when the factors you cannot control come together in a way that does not thwart your intentions. But, sometimes your intentions will be thwarted. It’s those times that truly test your character. How you treat your spouse, your children, your friends, your clients on those days is a simple sign of how you’re progressing.

I have a ways to go!

A study on the mobile phone usage patterns of people aged 12-17 has just been released. All the news outlets are rushing to cover it. They’re offering basic synopses, cute little tidbits of facts.

But we all know what will follow. Next we’ll have communication development experts talking about the negative impact of text speech on the ability of teenagers to communicate effectively. Some psychologist will get dragged out to talk about the impact of digital interaction versus face-to-face interaction. We’ll have the First Lady talking about teenagers putting down their cell phones and running around outside.

I have no problem with all of that — I know it’s how the news cycle works. If you watch Today! or Good Morning America (or some other morning show), you’ve seen the same cycle work itself out hundreds of times. I wonder if we’re not starting to developed conditioned responses, though. It feels like we can predict what they want us to think before they start.

I don’t think we can accurately predict the impact of communication on society or individuals with very much accuracy. I mean, when the telephone was being developed, I’m sure that there were questions about the impact. It hasn’t all been rosy. All you have to do is listen to me answer a telemarketing call to find that out. But, the ability to communicate effectively, voice-to-voice, over hundreds and thousands of miles did change society. It made it possible for people to live far away and still feel close. It (and subsequent communications development) led work-from-home arrangements from being something that only farmers and travelling salesmen could do to being an excellent arrangement for both businesses and individuals. It changed, or helped to change, the definition of local. In forty, fifty, sixty years, we might be able to see better how text messaging has impacted our world.

“Deficiency motivation doesn’t work. It will lead to a life-long pursuit of try to fix me. Learn to appreciate what you have and where and who you are.”

I don’t think that’s 100% true, but I do think it’s some true.

Sentence structure is a funny thing when it comes from a two year old. He’s got the right idea, but he’s just not quite there yet. “Here goes it” often comes out for “Here it goes,” “My do it” for “Let me do it,” and “Not scare me” for “I’m not scared.”

We have, it appears, a timid little boy. He was out playing by the flower bed at the front of the house while I sat on the porch. He saw a bug (“Dada, bug!”). I identified it as a wasp and decided to have the “stinging insect” talk with him. Big mistake. For the next three days, every bug that moved was “Hurt me! Hurt me!” Likewise, watching dad drive the lawnmower? Cool. Getting a chance to sit on the lawnmower with dad? Terrifying! Do you have any idea how loud that thing is?

Figuring out how to mitigate that timidness is a real challenge. On some level, a little bit of caution can go a long way. But, being afraid of everything is also counterproductive. It’s an issue that adults face — we mostly meet things we’re afraid of with skepticism or sarcasm rather than terror, but it’s no less fear… it’s just less obvious fear.

Jon Acuff at Stuff Christians Like has a great analogy he refers to as Booty, God, Booty. It’s a humorous reminder that sometimes we act like we’re right with God while we focus entirely on ourselves. It’s better than that, though, you should read it.

Anyway, I’ve realized that coming from a line of chronic worriers, I do a similar thing, but it’d be more appropriately called Stress, God, Stress. In incredibly stressful circumstances, I’ll worry and worry and worry. Then, when God clearly intervenes in the situation and clears it up so much better than I can imagine, I spend a little bit of time in a right relationship to Him — thankful, worshipful, giving Him the glory. My problem is that minutes, or hours, or — in really good times — days later, I end up right back into worry and self-generated stress.

Around the Mackay household, we often comment to each other about our son’s insistence on food. He gets pretty serious about it sometimes. After we get him settled in to eat, I’ll say to my wife, “Goodness, you’d think we had at some point not fed him.” The thing is, every time he’s needed food, he’s gotten food. Every time. Yet, he still doesn’t trust that when he asks for “Yunch” (pronouncing Ls is so hard), he’s going to get lunch.

I can be that way, too. Except, I can usually pronounce my Ls.

In an episode of the Office, Michael Scott talks about how there was a time when people used the term boss to describe something cool. He went on to mourn the way people don’t perceive bosses as cool any longer.

Of course, a big reason for that show’s success is that it does such a good job parodying all the worst parts of modern middle-management. Things like a boss who doesn’t know how to do the basic elements of his employees jobs, who doesn’t understand how to manage, and also has no respect for his bosses.

I think he was on to something — it’s hip in North America to be down on authority. It’s cool to be a rebel. We do it in ways that would have shocked our grandparents or our parents. There was a time when management was appreciated for the jobs they oversaw — people were glad to be working. Now we have a fairly heightened sense of entitlement — I deserve a great job and I deserve a manager that bows to my every need.

Obviously, an attitude adjustment is in order — I’m not exactly sure how far it needs to be taken, but I am sure that there’s a lot of room for us to be more appreciative of the people who keep our jobs in place by doing paperwork and other management tasks that let the people up the totem-pole further know that we’re valuable.

Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.

- Lou Holtz

(My wife’s favorite football commentator. Not!)