more today than yesterday

The beauty of music is that it's personal. It's up to the listener's interpretation and it strikes a chord within us based on the experiences that we have. It's a very effective tool to use for reflection and even prayer.

I remember how once in a silent retreat a spiritual director shared the song Grenade by Bruno Mars to the group of students. He asked how it would mean to the group if Jesus were the one singing it. The group had a good laugh at the thought!

This is the same with the song below from the oldies band, Spiral Staircase (I picked out Bruno's cover for this post though). A mentor of mine shared a prayer which is from the song and here I am sharing my prayer with you. I hope you say it with me every day.

 

Lord, grant me the grace to love You more today than yesterday. 

effective procrastination

I was reading a transcript of an interview with Frank Partnoy, the author of "Wait: The Art and Science of Delay" and the topic was about a thing such as "optimum amount of delay." He goes on mentioning that there is a certain amount of time that a decision or action can be put off such that the benefits may be the same or even better. This concept is being used by courier companies when delivering packages where it doesn't matter if they send the package early in the morning as the customer is concerned that the packages 

In any case, the topic gives insight into a lot of things especially in the world we live in today:

1. We need to be wary of the environment around us. A study that exposed a group to a movie clip with fast food logos flashed in milliseconds (without them noticing it) concluded that the clip with the logos had a huge effect on how a person behaved after watching it. The study noticed a significant change in the perception of time to those exposed to the subliminal messages - they read 20% faster than those who did not see the logos, they had a hard time enjoying Nat Geo photos, and they perceived time to be faster, hence a song for them was too long and they were also more impatient with slight delays.
2. Delayed gratification is an essential skill in building up your leadership potential. I won't dwell in this as many personal management materials have much to say about it.
3. Procrastination has been given a bad name! By definition, if you look up procrastination in the dictionary, it simply means the act of delaying or postponing something. Being lazy and not doing anything, yes, that's unacceptable; but putting off replying to your mails by an hour or by a day, that maybe something to think about - do we really need to answer them in an instant? Same goes with our experience with social networking sites.

However, a caveat that we should also note:

• It’s all about determining your values and setting priorities. It doesn't mean that you'll be guilty not cleaning your room if you've been busy flying in an out of countries stopping world hunger (or doing service in the community day in and day out – though this is still not an excuse!)
• The optimum amount of delay concept is not an excuse for inaction. The concept in Partnoy's cases (at least in the interview) dwelt more on situations involving tactical decisions and not strategic ones. 

The reason why I shared these few things as well is because the items I’ve listed above actually tells a lot about the things that we should note in living out our Christian life – after all, there’s no such thing as having a double life and still be a Christian!

1.      Start every day with a prayer. Set yourself first thing in the morning apart from the world and joined in the loving embrace of our Lord. The world around affects us whether we like it or not, consciously and unconsciously, positively or adversely. We see more than just fast food logos every day as we step out of our room. A similar impact happens even when we just open our gadgets first thing in the morning. We should protect ourselves from the impact of the world on us and on our Christian life. A classic example: 'riches to honor to pride' – the strategy of the evil one that St. Ignatius of Loyola teaches us to be aware the world's grandeur as all other vices will follow once the three are ingrained in us.

2.      Wait on the Lord; trust, persevere, and turn only to Him. The Lord has an appointed time for His return and judgment (Habakkuk 2:3). This is the ultimate vision on why we aim to control our need for instant gratification. I need not talk about completing your emergency fund before buying your luxuries, or even just waiting for the end of work to play those online games, these are nothing compared to the vision we, Christians, have of meeting our Creator face to face and until then persevering in this world in waiting for Him.

3.       Do all things for the greater glory of God – not for the good but for the greater glory! This is where all things depend on when setting priorities. The priorities we set determine which things can be put off and which things need to be acted on immediately. The optimum amount of delay concept on tactical and strategic decision can be used in these cases. As for rightfully discerning how best you can serve the Lord in your current state of life and capacity, there is much time to explore and really figure out the best way that would give the greater glory to God while in the meantime still serving Him (tactical). As for gaining the prize to be one with Christ in Heaven (strategic), there is no more tomorrow, now is the time to respond to the unbounded love that He has given us!