This is a new event we are going to do each weekend so that we can get to know each other better. Please tell your friends, and join in with your stellar opinions! Feel free to drop links to your writing or the writing of others that you would like to recommend on the subject too. Here’s this week’s topic, very open-ended:
What is the brightest new idea
that you had this year that
you would give as advice
to someone else?
19 thoughts on “SOCIALIS SATURDAY Bright Ideas”
The brightest? Don’t let opportunities pass you by; your initial “yes” may become a “yes for others!
I suppose mine is a bit like Julie’s, but definitely take a risk! I have found this year that I am much more likely to regret a risk I didn’t take than taking one I was unsure about (and they don’t always turn out great).
Mine (which to me a while to get to) is that you can be the person you want to be, live the life you want, just as you are. You don’t need a fairytale makeover like in the movies, or to be a certain weight, or look a certain way. God meets you right where you are!
These are great! Simple but true!
My advice (which is my advice to myself in the coming year) is listen more and talk less.
Don’t be afraid to develop new skills but don’t feel like you have to do so either.
I think the best advice I took this year was my own to start my blog. Does that count? It has been very inspirational for me and it’s opened me up to many new friendships!
Mine was depending on grace just like the air I breath daily. “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
(John 15:5 NASB)
Accept your limitations and don’t beat yourself up over them.
Join Pinterest! Not an earth-shattering revelation, but seriously worth the time investment. I’ve found so many money-saving tips, fun crafts with the kids, all kinds of things. I wish I had joined months ago.
I’ve been really proud of two ideas/pieces of advice I’ve given myself. The first is quality over quantity. Sometimes I get it in my mind that if I just had “more” of something, my life will be better. However, that’s not always the case. So now, instead of just doing a lot of something, or buying a lot of something, I really take the time to think about what it is that I want and how this decision is going to help me get that. The second is just do it already. Once I make a decision, I just need to do it, instead of think about it too much.
@Calah I love that tip! I have also found that using the internet has helped me save time and money!
Two ideas. First (and this one is ironic enough), try going for a while without the internet at home (or television, for that matter). My wife and I have been living without internet in our apartment for a little over a year, and while there are some things which are more difficult to do as a result (blogging, for example), all-in-all it really means we have a better family life. It’s just nice not to even be tempted into all of the distractions which can come from having the internet readily available to us. (Note: an aside result of this though is that I don’t normally have access to the internet over the weekend. Tonight is an odd night in that sense, because I actually had to go into work.)
Second, and totally unrelated piece of utterly random wedding advice (for those who have weddings in their futures): get your photographer (or another volunteer) to take several “panning” shots of your guests during the wedding and again during the reception. These pictures will come in handy months later when you sit down to write all the “thank-yous” for gifts and are trying to remember whether the person was actually at your wedding or not. Guest books help, but not everybody will “sign in,” and odds are that on such a momentous occasion you are not going to recall who was and wasn’t there.
My spiritual director asked me “What ministries do you do for the Church?” and I was ashamed that I could only list being a Cantor in the choir as the ministry I was doing, even though I’d done many other things in the past, and I occasionally helped with youth group.
He said, “What about being a loving husband and devoted father? Isn’t that the most important ministry you are doing for the Church?”
I have embraced this as very true. The love I express when I make dinner for my wife or read books to my daughter and be THERE for them in every way is truly the most important ministry I am doing for the Body of Christ! It is my vocation!
@JC – I wrote that second tip down for the future. Thanks!
@Allie: np. It’s funny, after our wedding my wife and I wrote out thank-yous to all of the folks who sent us gifts, and also tried to get thank-yous to everybody who traveled to our wedding. There was one friend of our who we couldn’t recall either way–and none of our random photos had her (we didn’t have any specifically of the guests in the pews or at the reception afterward). It was literally months later when some other random friend posted their pictures on facebook that we finally had proof either way as to whether this friend was actually in attendance. So yeah, definitely have somebody taking a few random but high-quality pictures of the guests. 🙂
@JC, Alicia, Steven et Trista – I love yours!
@SWP – And what a great vocation that is! It is so important to remember that it’s more the ordinary acts which define us, not the extra ones.
@Calah– Noooooo! I’m resisting!!
Make good friends. Also, prioritize. Sometimes it’s more important to get the bare minimum done and give yourself some time. ~Ink
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