Motivation

Nature Speaks, Nature Remembers: My Strong, Protective Flower Tree

Flower Tree

(Photo Credit: Ginnie Ann Daniels)

I had some trees cut around the house that seemed likely to fall. After the trees were cut, some of the remaining stumps left such distinctive prints. One, in particular, evoked the memory of when Billy and I, as a young couple 30 years ago, purchased our home. What follows is the dominant impression this idiosyncratic tree, uniquely mine, engendered.

The tree reminded me of you 30 years ago when we first moved in, so strong with muscle limbs, protecting our little family from storms and harsh sunrays. Yet, with time, the strong become weak but still try to withhold winds and persevere. Each year, more dead leaves fell, and we could tell—with unspoken words—this once robust tree was dying.

Flower Tree

(Photo Credit: Ginnie Ann Daniels)

Your strong roots embedded lasting memories for your seedlings, family and friends. We have to let go and start anew. With exultation, however, we never forget that the strong leave roots in the dirt with everlasting memory of the last leaf that fell.

I can now look out of my window to see and remember my strong, protective flower tree.

In loving memory of Billy Daniels, spouse of Ginnie Ann Daniels, married nearly 44 years (23 days short of 44 years).

Ginnie Ann Daniels, El Dorado, Arkansas, Author

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Editor

Pop-Up Sermon: Unload Unnecessary Baggage

Although we keep important items in our metaphorical luggage, too much unnecessary stuff remains. Continuing to carry all of this junk weighs you down, presses you small. “Bag Lady,” one of Erykah Badu’s most powerful and popular songs, reveals the toxic nature of maintaining excess baggage, and people disregard at their own peril the valuable lessons this song offers. You must realize that immense stress will kill you. It’s essential, therefore, to remove stressful phenomena and people from your life. Don’t get buried in the baggage you elect to transport.

Today is the right time to release the excess, dispose of the trash, and organize the clutter. Consuming and hanging around mess will turn you into mess. If you really don’t like mess, then get rid of it. Don’t go another day dealing with unhealthy stress levels, guilt, shame, condemnation, worry, and fear; tap into a hope on the inside of you far greater than them all.

When you cannot find any joy and benefit in a thing or person, then it’s time to disconnect from it or him or her.

You possess the power to improve your life today: dump the junk now.

#PopUpSermon

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Pop-Up Sermon: Show People Themselves

Couple Arguing

(Photo Credit: Urbanette)

One of the most effective ways to show people how they behave is to respond to them the same way they respond to you. This, of course, goes against what is traditionally taught in most faiths. From time to time, however, you need to expose people for who they are by demonstrating to them how they act. Jesus often employed parables (elementary teachings) to make profound and enduring statements. You might contemplate approaching people in the aforementioned way as a means of adopting a similar pedagogical practice used by Jesus.

By temporarily choosing the ways of others, you can cause them to abandon their unfavorable conduct, considering they will not like when these ways are used against them. This strategy presents a meaningful opportunity for you to teach them valuable lessons and change their lives potentially forever.

At some point, you simply have to let folks know their behavior is unacceptable, and you must engage in efforts to discontinue their troubling conduct. You possess the power to ameliorate those around you.  Although they may not know yet, you’re the change they need to see in their lives.

#PopUpSermon

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Pop-Up Sermon: Be Valued and No Fool

Be No Fool

(Photo Credit: No Way Girl)

With this piece, Revolutionary Paideia launches a new weekly feature, “Pop-Up Sermon.” What is “Pop-Up Sermon”? From one sentence to a full-length piece, this feature, “Pop-Up Sermon,” will offer you a sermon that you might not receive from your church’s pulpit. Uncomfortable truths will often be submitted to you. As spineless, milquetoast, equivocating, and self-serving preachers are becoming more prevalent, I commit to being that preacher for you who will deliver what you might not want to hear but need to hear. The central goal is to speak some relevant, useful words into your life at least once a week. Be sure to check out Revolutionary Paideia each day, considering a “Pop-Up Sermon” could emerge at any time.

Today’s Pop-Up Sermon:

Learn to appreciate people. When people fail to appreciate you, then you have a responsibility to teach them how to appreciate you. This may, unfortunately for them, mean ignoring them. Know your worth; then govern yourself accordingly. Don’t let folks use you, and don’t be their fool.

#PopUpSermon

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Be Yourself: A Simple But Powerful Message

Enjoying Life

(Photo Credit: The Stress Relief Program)

Be yourself.  In the postmodern epoch, too many people in the United States and across the globe are focused on being “people-pleasers” and aren’t focused on simply being who they are.  When you exercise the freedom you have to be yourself, you open up a world of new possibilities for yourself.  People who don’t have the courage to be themselves are being dominated by the bondage of fear.  You can make a decision today to liberate yourself from the bondage of fear.  Fear arrests your development.

Never be afraid to chart your own course in life.  Don’t worry about not seeing a model of who you would like to become—be the person and change you desire to see.

It’s never too late to start living a life of true freedom.  You’re not really liberated until you make the decision to live your life on your own terms.

Give yourself the chance to be the best you.  This is only possible by releasing yourself from the pressure to be someone who you aren’t.

Live your best life.  Muster the courage to be yourself.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Avoiding Problems Doesn’t Remove Them

Black Man

(Photo Credit: madamenoire.com)

If you keep running from your problems, you will never find a resolution to them.  When you try to pretend like your problems aren’t there, you’re only making them worse: the longer you avoid seeking solutions to your problems, the more difficult they become to address.  Too many people attempt to sham like they have conquered the quandaries that have given them the most pain.  It’s becoming popular for many people to say they’re “reinventing themselves,” “renewing themselves,” “living a new life,” and etc., but the reality is a true change in your life materializes conspicuous signs of change—not facades.  When many people say the aforementioned things, they’re making an effort to have others to believe their lies; they want others to think they’re living a life where they’re facing their problems directly when they’re not.

If you’re really “reinventing” yourself, “renewing” yourself, and “living a new life,” then why are there no substantive ostensible changes in your life?  Why are you unwilling to truly be yourself?  What continues to hold you back from real progress?  At the core of the answers to those questions is one’s intentional effort to run away from, hide, disguise, and bury his or her problems instead of working to defeat them.

You don’t have to live your life trying to hide and evade your problems; you can conquer them.  You must, however, be willing to deal candidly with those problems.  One can make serious progress toward remedying his or her quandaries when he or she musters the courage to confront them boldly.  Too many people attempt to bury their problems behind materialistic phenomena like money, cars, clothes, jewelry, houses, jobs, degrees, and etc., but trying to camouflage those things that are eating away at you will inevitably lead to your own undoing.

Although you may fool a number of people with your efforts to present your life as devoid of problems, the majority of folks know you have some problems—no matter what you say.  Everything’s not always going good for you.  Life exposes us to occasional challenges and problems, so don’t try to act like you’re so special and exempt for this reality.  When you invest significant time in trying to prove to others that you’re living a newly “invented” and “transformed” life, you already know authentic happiness doesn’t exist in your life, and you’re the one who is preventing real happiness from existing in your life.

Don’t allow pride to keep you from asking for help from others.  Additionally, don’t let your pride be the ultimate source of your problems.

It would be so much better to see someone truly living an ameliorated life than living a life of continuous lies; a life where one dons a faux happiness.  While things may not be going great for you right now, don’t try to pretend like they are.  Make a strong effort to engender the change in your life that will produce genuine positive results and progress—not results and “progress” that have to be fictitiously manufactured.

Boldly face your problems today and have a truly improved tomorrow.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Just Like Jesus: A Heart Like His by Max Lucado

Just Like Jesus by Max Lucado

Just Like Jesus: A Heart Like His ( by Max Lucado, the popular author of numerous Christian books, presents the dominant thesis that God loves you the way you are but He does not intend to leave you the way you are.  Lucado contends that God wants you to develop a heart like Jesus and He wants to make you just like Jesus.  The author asserts that the central focus of a true Christian’s life is patterning his or her thoughts, words, and actions after Jesus.

I found Lucado’s book to provide a substantive understanding of how God will assist you in becoming what He wants you to be.  At the end of the book, there is a “Study Guide” for each chapter that enables the reader to engage in critical thought about each chapter.  By including this “Study Guide,” the writer evinces his serious desire for the reader to grasp the importance of each chapter’s primary messages.  I agree with Lucado’s overriding thesis that God loves you just the way you are but He does not intend for you to remain the way you are.

Too often religious leaders don’t let people know they have greatness already within them.  When Jesus comes into their lives, He activates the greatness that lies within them.  Lucado’s book is vital reminder to readers that God can use them for His glory as He transforms them into the people He needs them to be.  I found his argument that God longs for total control of humans’ lives to be at the core of what it means to be a Christian and a significant message for postmodern Christians to contemplate and embrace.

I highly recommend you purchase this book today!  The book can be purchased here: http://www.thomasnelson.com/just-like-jesus-5.html and you can read other reviews of this book here: http://www.booksneeze.com/reviews/bybook/9780849947438.  I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson to compose this review.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Boredom Can Lead to Trouble

Bored

On Facebook and Twitter, I often read about how “bored” many people are.  With as many tasks I have to complete each day, I have a difficult time envisaging how any individual who is in middle school and beyond can experience boredom.  Why not read the numerous great books available?  Why not start a blog?  Why not invest more time into studying your core academic subjects, especially those that pose the greatest challenges?  When you feel like you’re bored, this is simply a sign you’re not devoting your time to enough important phenomena.  While you may not feel inclined to make lifestyle changes, I want to warn you that I’ve witnessed too many people get themselves into serious trouble by being “bored” too often.

The answer to being bored is not drinking so many alcoholic beverages you end up attempting to drive your car and then foolishly run into someone on the road and kill him or her.  This can cause you to end up incarceration and then you’re really going to know what boredom truly is.

Although you may live in a small town where there’s not many places to visit to offer you entertainment, you need to learn to gain satisfaction from appropriate things you can do with your time.  For those of you in middle or high school, I would encourage you to participate in as many extracurricular activities as you can.  Join as many clubs as you can.  If there are not clubs or organizations on your campus that interest you, see if there is a faculty member who would be willing to start a formal organization or club that interests you and others.  If you cannot get a faculty member to help you to start the type of organization or club you desire to be a member of, then partner with other students and form the club or organization.  You will find that there’s nothing wrong with having an informal club or organization.

Make the most of your time.  Life is too short for you to waste most of your time talking about you’re bored.  One of the best ways to terminate boredom is to find things you can do to help others.  Your life will be more rewarding when you give some of your time to helping others.  Many people are always bored because they are empty on the inside.  When you share some of your time assisting others, your life will have more meaning.

Allowing yourself to be bored can cause you to make poor choices; choices that may impact you for a long time or forever.  Be the master of your own behavior.  Don’t let your body control you—you control your body.

If you’re a college student and you find yourself bored, this means you’re wasting valuable time that you could be investing in increasing the prospect of you obtaining a job after you graduate or improving your chances to gain adequate funding for graduate school.  It may be useful for you to get a part-time job to occupy some of the time you believe needs to be filled, and this will enable you to make some needed money.

Don’t let your idle mind be your tragic flaw.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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The Spotlight

Spotlight

For many people, they have a great desire to be in the spotlight.  When many of these individuals get their chance to be in the spotlight they fail.  Many people are going to have to learn that they are simply not ready to have the spotlight turned on them.  Each time you have your opportunity to be in the spotlight and you keep failing while in it means it’s not your time to be in the spotlight.  Learn how to sit back and learn from others who are successful in the spotlight more before you try to claim the spotlight.  Some people will have to face the harsh reality that the spotlight is simply not for them.

You also have to understand that having the spotlight all of the time is not necessarily a good thing.  Some people are embarrassing themselves in the spotlight.  The only reason many people have the spotlight is people enjoy laughing at how stupid they are performing in the spotlight.  What may be even more sad than this is many of these individuals don’t know that people are laughing at them, instead of laughing with them.  Don’t become so desperate for attention that you will be willing to do anything to get it.  Unfortunately, too many people are willing to go to extremes to get attention.

If you’re really worthy of being in the spotlight, you will not have to beg or force you way into it.  Most people who authentically deserve to be in the spotlight have an opportunity to be in the spotlight.  Of course, there are many well-deserving people who should be in the spotlight but are not in it.  Many people who do thankless work and who do charitable work go without the proper recognition they deserve.  It is people like those who do thankless and charitable work who need to be in the spotlight and not people who are engaging in a whole bunch of foolishness.

A person is really vain who says that he or she deserves to be in the spotlight, especially when no one else says he or she deserves to be in the spotlight.

Many people who are in the spotlight and have been in the spotlight can tell you that it’s not all good as you think it may be to be in the spotlight.  If you’re always chasing after the spotlight, you will live a completely empty life.  Chasing the spotlight means you’re constantly looking for someone to validate who you are.  You must learn to validate yourself.  Don’t always look for someone else to let you know that you are special.

Don’t get angry when people laugh at you when you force your way into the spotlight and were not ready for it.  Learn to be patient and wait for your opportunity to shine to naturally arrive.

People are not going to think you should be in the spotlight just because you are always speaking the loudest, always feel you need to be the one who’s talking, always feel the need to make a grand entrance when you walk into a room, and/or always saying ridiculous things on your Facebook page just to get attention.

To succeed in the spotlight, you must earn the spotlight.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Being Disappointed with Yourself

You’re not always going to meet your own expectations for yourself and the expectations of others. No human being is perfect. A part of being human is understanding that you are incapable of perfection. When you have not met your responsibilities, don’t sit there and wallow in your self-pity—dust yourself off and try again. If you have made some poor choices, it’s okay. Learn from those poor choices and strive to not make them again. If you make them again, keep working not to repeat them. Too many people put too much pressure on themselves to be perfect. For many, it’s almost like a surprise when they don’t do things perfectly. Why would you be surprised? You have not been perfect from the day you were conceived.

You cannot let what you feel others may think about your poor choices worry you that much. You will drive yourself insane trying to please people all the time. It’s impossible to please people all the time because many people don’t even know what “being pleased” is.

Being disappointed is not a good feeling. We have to make sure that we are doing our best to prevent disappointments from occurring. However, no matter how much you are doing to attempt to prevent disappointments from happening they are still going to happen. The effort that you devote to foiling disappointments from occurring can help to reduce the number of disappointments you experience.

If you are never disappointed with yourself, you will never know how proud of yourself you should be when you do something really good or great. Disappointments come to improve us. If everything goes just great for you all the time, you would not feel human. It would also feel like you cannot feel. Do you really want to go through life not being able to feel? I don’t think you really want to go through life not being able to feel.

People think that everything always goes great for me. They look at my level of success, accomplishments, titles, positions, degrees, talents, and etc. and think that every day and everything is wonderful for me. Yes, I’m very successful and highly accomplished but my success and accomplishments did not come without my share of disappointments.  In fact, the more success and accomplishments I earn the greater the pressure I place on myself to be even better. With the tremendous pressure I place on myself to become greater and greater, I experience many disappointments.

Don’t make me be less than human by thinking that everything is always going great for me and that every day is a successful day for me. I am not a robot. I feel. Although my external wrapper and internal coating is much stronger than most, I still feel. I have cloudy days and cloudy moments just as you do. I encourage you not to perceive people who are successful and accomplished to be something larger than human. Yes, we are successful and accomplished but still human.

I take comfort in my disappointments because I did all that I could reasonably do to avoid being disappointed. At the end of the day, all I can ask myself to do is the best I can do. When I’ve done all I can reasonably do to do my best, it’s then that I recognize I don’t have a need to feel disappointed with myself.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison