Inspiration

What inspires you? What does it take to get your attention, to lift your eyes above your daily cares, so they may see grandeur, dignity, hope, the sublime and the holy?

Now is a great time of year to explore your sources of inspiration. We are told to count our blessings. This is very good, yet I’m beginning to realize that is merely a starting point. Counting our blessings simply reminds us to be aware of what we do have, engendering gratitude. It’s like climbing a mountain, and taking a break to realize how far we’ve come.

Counting our inspirations lifts us still higher, encouraging us to push further up the mountain, to keep climbing, for we are not yet as He intends for us to be.

SDG

Do More With Less?

“Doing more with less” seems to be the motto of this time. Administrators and managers everywhere are urging folks to pitch in more to get through these difficult times. And certainly there is wisdom in that general principle.

Reason, Force, and Love

It has been observed in a number of places that there are basically two means of persuading someone to do something they are not initially inclined to do. You can convince them through logic and reason or you can force them with superior strength or power of some sort. The only time you can do the latter is if you indeed have the upper hand in some way. If you are in a weaker position, the former is believed to be the only option available to you, though, you do have the option of using reason even if you are in a stronger position, resorting to force only if reason doesn’t work.

In a magazine letter to the editor, a reader conveyed the above message. In the next issue, another reader responded saying there was a third means of persuasion, love. For example, neither reason nor force explain a father running back into a burning building for his children. Only love does.

As an educator, I am sometimes frustrated in finding ways to motivate my students. Often logic and reason seem to fail before the forces of other classes, jobs, and even laziness or apathy. When that fails, the only other tool I’ve found in my toolkit is their grade, which for an upper division, one credit-hour class, isn’t always a very strong motivating force. But, is there a way to love them into higher performance?

I’m open to ideas.

SDG