Take a few moments and try to answer these questions. This blog is nothing but questions to stir your thinking. The blog that follows will contain the thoughts of the “expert.” This blog is here to stimulate the real expert. You. Slow down and reflect.
Why do we buy millions of diet books today and yet continue, as a people, to gain more weight?
Why do we buy countless books about relationships and yet seem, as a people, more isolated, seperated, and divorced than ever?
Why do we buy more books than ever about spirituality? Are the people you run with today more spiritual than the ones of yesterday?
Why do we buy books, tapes, cd’s, podcasts, seminars, magazines, ezines, and countless other “sources of expertise” on WEALTH building and yet the average American today is MORE in debt than ever?
Why?
Why do we have such good intentions and so little resilience?
Take a moment and answer these questions with your country, culture, and community in mind.
Now make it personal. Why do you do the same? Why are you the exception? Why will you, in the end, be able to STAND?
Have you developed the CORE strength to consistently “resist impulse?”
Slow down and reflect.
Write.
BUILT TO LEAD 
this is really great food for thought! My vises have always been nice clothes, nice things… having stuff… lots of “stuff”. God has really been working on me in this area of my character… convicting me and magnifying before my eyes the real reasons i “feel” i “need” these things. This has been a mountain for me. By the grace of God only I have been able to make gradual change. I still have a ways to go in this area, and probably have many other areas that need to be tackeled. But I’m learning what I can today.
I think culture gives us very little time to sit and think… to identify the “felt needs” that cause us to run to these things. We can read all we want, but if we don’t then take time to examine ourselves and identify what impulses we are acting out of and then pro-actively move to fight those… we can’t change. As a Christian this involves inviting the conviction of God when I”m about to instinctualy act upon impulses that have guided me thus far. And then when his conviction says “stop, think, what ‘felt need’ is guiding you”… i stop, i think, and I do my best to obey the conviction. Baby steps.
I love the idea of “baby steps.” As adults we often times get overwhelmed by the size of the mountain. We lose hope because all we see is the adversity, not the beauty, the learning, or our progress along the path. In the end, we all need to “just keep going.” Baby steps.
Cool.
There is a new Saturn commercial along these lines. Rethink Excess. I hope to see these ideas take off as more of a force in our lives. “The Long Tail” may help facilitate some of these changes. As we become less controlled by the media, we should all have more of a grounding in thinking for ourselves (our core) and less on group think (I need to buy this because the TV told me to etc.)