Make the Most of Your Time

First things first

Learn to say “no” to the unproductive 

Success depends on what you neglect

JESUS AT THE MASTERS

 

             The caddies didn’t believe it was Jesus Christ, not at first.

            True, John Daly said he had asked him to come down for some golf. John said he had offered up some prayers asking for help with his drinking and gambling problems. Next thing he knows, Jesus had qualified to play in the Masters.

            “I haven’t met him yet,” Daly told Sports Illustrated. “I’ve been in court dealing with my fourth wife’s demand for increased alimony, but I’ve read a little about him and I’m eager to talk to him in person.”

            By then a rusty 1963 Corvair wheezed into view, the engine sputtering before dying in the groundskeepers parking area. When a man giving off a glow of radiant light stepped out of the car, we knew he was a special chap who put no value in transportation safety.           

            Jesus was mobbed, first by tens, then hundreds, all asking for autographs that they could sell on E-Bay. He wore blue jeans, a Texas Aggie T-shirt, and a WWJD? Wristband. “What Would Jesus Do?” shouted a woman in the crowd.

            “Nah,” Christ said with a laugh. “What Would Jack Do? My Dad and I are huge Nicklaus fans. Not only could he play golf, but also he designs great courses. We’re kind of partial to creative talent.”

            Christ continued, “Money is ruining sports. Man cannot serve two masters,”

            The crowd was a little puzzled by the masters thing. “Everyone knows there is only one Masters Golf Tournament,” Clete Purcell, a tournament official, said.

            “Let’s tee-em up,” Christ said, walking over and putting his arm around Daly who wept uncontrollably because of the forgiving and unconditional love he felt from Jesus.

            Christ gave Daly the honors. Shaken-up by his encounter with Jesus, Daly hit a dogleg hook into the woods. Jesus, nodding empathetically toward Daly, quickly approached his ball. With no practice swing, he struck the ball. Ka-Boom! The ball took off like Elijah’s chariot and zoomed upward and onward, quickly rising higher and higher disappearing behind an immense cloud that flashed with lightening.

            “Out of practice, Christ said. “ I need to remember to reduce the power in my swing when I’m here on earth.”

             He shrugged, smiled toward the crowd, and placed a second ball on the tee. His next shot zoomed 350 yards, landing in the middle of the fairway.

            The huge crowd following him must have numbered at least 5,000. They were surprised to discover that Christ kept up a running banter as he played. “Keeps me loose,” Christ explained. 

            “I used to play golf just about everyday—except Sundays, of course—with Adam. Talk about a beautiful course! No one could top the one we had in Eden. The only problem was the snake kept swallowing the ball. After Eve came along, Adam had so many ‘honey-do’ projects he didn’t have time for golf.”                       

            Teeing-up for the fifth hole, he continued, “ I didn’t play again until Moses came to Midian. That was a rough course.  Bushes everywhere. Moses always took a mighty swing trying to get the ball from the tee-box to the green so he wouldn’t have to probe around in the bushes. One day he took a prodigious swing and the ball sailed right over the green. That’s when Moses had his ‘burning bush’ experience and had to take the next camel to Egypt.”           

            On the sixth hole, Christ hit his first shot into some tall grass.  The ball rested under a tree limb. Without hesitation, Christ took a vicious swing. The ball ricocheted off the tree limb, hit a fairway marker, careened off a rock, and bounded into the middle of the fairway. Christ shrugged his shoulders, looked toward the crowd, then up to heaven. “Praise God,” he sang out.

            The seventh hole brought near disaster. Hitting a two-iron, Christ sliced his ball into a lake. He absentmindedly walked on top of the lake and fished the ball out of the water, all the time talking, “I dearly wanted to play a round of golf with David.  Dad thought he would play well—liked his heart. But with Bathsheba, Nathan, and Absalom crowding his schedule, he never could find the time for golf.”

            With a fluid swing, Christ hit the ball off the top of the water. The ball left his club crisply never rising higher than five feet until it glanced off the water and skipped three times onto dry land.

            Without a pause Jesus continued, “I tried a game or two with the prophets—what bores. They would ruin the fun by telling you where the ball was going before you hit it.”

            Christ continued, “After that, I got a little busy and it wasn’t until the dark ages that I tried to play again. I wanted to play with Richard-the-Lion-Hearted—what a great name for a golfer—that’s where Earl Woods came up with Tiger’s name—but Richard couldn’t play a lick what with all that armor he wore.”

            Taking the seven-iron out of the bag, he hit the ball three hundred feet where it landed on the green and rolled into the cup for a birdie. By then the crowds kept getting larger and larger blocking play. As the multitude swelled, the Masters Committee Chairman asked Christ to leave. “No problem,” Christ said, “I’m used to rapid departures. I just wish I could have played Amen Corner.”

            When asked if he wanted a ride, He replied with a twinkle in his eye, “Thanks, but no need.”  He found Daly in the crowd rounding up people for an Alcoholics Anonymous chapter. Christ hugged him. With that, there was a blinding flash and they were gone.

            The line on Christ: five pars, one bogie, one birdie, and one saved soul.

 

PREVENTING OVERWORK

            Vacation, a time of rest and freedom from work, can be experienced each and everyday. Duke University psychiatrist, John Rhoads, MD, studied successful, effective, and healthy executives who worked at least sixty hours weekly and compared these individuals with executives who developed burnout from working over sixty hours weekly. The following table summarizes those findings.           

 

THOSE WHO EXPERENCE WORK SUCCESS	THOSE WHO EXPERIENCE work burnout
Postpone thinking about problems	Ruminate about work problems
Take time off when productivity begins to diminish	Take their computer and cell phone on their vacations to keep-up with work activities
Use exercise, hobbies, and sports to deal with work stress	Use drugs or alcohol to deal with work stress
Enjoy scheduled vacations	Tend to postpone vacations
Cultivate a stable family life	Spend very little time with their family
Maintain friendships	Have a difficult time cultivating friendships
Exercise regularly	Watch television regularly
Have varied interest outside of work	Feel uncomfortable away from work
Can laugh at themselves	Take life and themselves too seriously

 

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO HAVE FUN?

	LITTLE OF THE TIME 1-pt/each √	SOME OF THE TIME 2-pt/each √	A LOT OF THE TIME 3-pt/each √	MOST OF THE TIME 4-pt/each √
I enjoy hobbies without feeling guilty about not working.
I am optimistic and cheerful.
I surround my self with happy, positive, and fun-loving people.
I correct my mistakes and blunders, but don’t continue to worry about them
I take a long weekend away from work when I begin to feel burned out and tired.
Leisure activity helps me feel rested.
Sports and games bring me more laughs than frowns because I play to have fun not necessarily to win.
I enjoy creative play—dancing, painting, party games, playing a musical instrument, etc.
I laugh at least once a day.
I take vacations without worrying about the job.
Multiply √ by the value given in each column

 

Add the total for each column to get the GRAND TOTAL = ________

Scoring

10-14 points = President of Eeyore International

15-24 points = Party pooper

25-34 points = Fun to be around

34-40 points = Life of the party

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO HAVE FUN?

	LITTLE OF THE TIME 1-pt/each √	SOME OF THE TIME 2-pt/each √	A LOT OF THE TIME 3-pt/each √	MOST OF THE TIME 4-pt/each √
I enjoy hobbies without feeling guilty about not working.
I am optimistic and cheerful.
I surround my self with happy, positive, and fun-loving people.
I correct my mistakes and blunders, but don’t continue to worry about them
I take a long weekend away from work when I begin to feel burned out and tired.
Leisure activity helps me feel rested.
Sports and games bring me more laughs than frowns because I play to have fun not necessarily to win.
I enjoy creative play—dancing, painting, party games, playing a musical instrument, etc.
I laugh at least once a day.
I take vacations without worrying about the job.
Multiply √ by the value given in each column

 

Add the total for each column to get the GRAND TOTAL = ________

Scoring

10-14 points = President of Eeyore International

15-24 points = Party pooper

25-34 points = Fun to be around

34-40 points = Life of the party

Problems of an Increased Workload

            A self-induced increased workload causes deterioration in marriage and family life, undermining the main source of non-work related support. Likewise, avoiding vacation time leads to a decline in efficiency and initiative resulting in an increasing spiral of mistakes and complaints from associates and customers. Paradoxically, rather resulting in approve from others over­work eventually results in criticizes from family, colleagues, and employers.

             Usually those who fail to take regular vacations become cynical, negative, rigid, and inflexible. Accompanying poor work performance is the inability to relax and enjoy recreational pursuits.

The Vacationless Life

            A vacation-less life may be caused, in part, by cultural factors. Emotional conflicts that contribute to the overwork syndrome may be associated with the following:

Ø    Compensation for feelings of inferiority or insecurity

Ø    Identification with a demanding parental expectations

Ø    Recompense for physical limitations such as poor health or aging.

Ø    A solution for prob­lems of aggression and guilt

Ø    A need for approval

Ø    Excessive competitive drive

Ø    An attempt to enhance self-esteem

Ø    The desire to improve social status

Ø    The need for excessive financial gain

Ø    A fascination with the accumulation of material objects

Ø    The inability to refuse the requests of others

Ø    Self-imposed demands for perfection           

Vacation Statistics

            Research clearly demonstrates that an annual vacation significantly cuts risks of most diseases by 20-30 percent. The Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial of 12,000 American men revealed that during a 5-year study period those who took the most vacations had 20 percent less risk of dying from any cause than those who took the fewest vacations. A 1999 Dutch study found that overcommittment to work without an annual vacation increased physical and emotional illnesses.

            A study by the World Tourism Organization study showed that vacation time for Americans lags well behind other industrialized countries. The WTO listed the average annual vacation days by country as follows: Italy (42), France (37), Germany (35), Brazil (34), Britain (28), Canada (26), South Korea (25), Japan (25), the United States (13).                         

More than one third of Americans fail to use their full vacation times. Of those who do take full time away from their regular jobs much of their vacation time is spent on activities other than rest and relaxation:

Ø    19 percent spend their vacation time on family or personal responsibilities, including illness, funerals, caring for sick children or parents

Ø    Another 13 percent spend vacation time going to school, working at another job, or participating in reserve military service.

Ø    One in five vacationers are contacted about work matters during non-work times

Ø    23 percent of employed adults in the United States report checking work email or voicemail while vacationing           

CONNECTIONS

Most nights our house is empty. The kids are grown and gone; our grandchildren have moved with them. So, at night I read to Vicki. This tradition goes back to my grandfather who read to my mother, uncles, and aunts. My mother and uncles read to my brother and me. When my grandmother was dying of lymphoma, I read Huckleberry Finn to her. My grandfather, an uncle and his wife, and Vicki would listen. Later I read to our son and daughter just before bedtime. They, in turn, read to their children. The best reader is our daughter Wende. When she begins to read, we all stop what we are doing and gather around. Her intonations, accents, and pacing turn sounds into pictures.
For the past few nights, I’ve been reading my favorite of all read-out-loud-books, Peter Pan. Later, Vicki and I began talking about James M. Barrie and his connection with Daphne du Maurier.

George du Maurier


Sylvia Llewelyn Davies Gerald du Maurier

George Jack Peter Michael Nicholas Daphne Angela

Setting Goals To Achieve Your Dreams

A dream without a goal is similar to taking an automobile trip without a road map. You will surely arrive, but where? To make certain that you achieve your dreams set specific, measurable goals that are compatible with your dreams.

Break goals down into small steps, review them daily and revise them regularly. List activities that will help you attain your goals. Develop a detailed, scheduled plan of action, then take one small step at a time to move toward your goals.

Henry David Thoreau said, "If one marches confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to lead the life he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours."

You can strengthen the belief that your goals will be reached by acting as if they have already been met.

Speak, think, act, and live the traits and qualities you desire. You then become that person.

In establishing goals, keep these guidelines in mind:

1. Goals should be for you and not for someone else.
2. Goals should be realistic and believable.
3. Goals must be achievable, so attack big goals in short steps, one at a time. For example, to lose 50 pounds, establish a goal to lose one pound a week for 50 weeks.
4. Goals should allow you to enjoy life. Don't tackle so much work that you don't have enough time to relax. The purpose of goal setting is to reduce, not increase frustration.

Follow these steps in making your goals useful:

1. Write your goals on a single sheet of paper.
2. Read your goals every day.
3. Each day question your resolve: "Am I doing those things that will help me achieve my goals?"

And remember:

1. Unwritten goals are simply wishes.
2. Successful achievement depends on commitment to your goal. Review reinforces commitment.
3. Asking yourself the activity question-"Am I doing those things that I need to do to achieve my goals?" - will help focus your energy.
4. As you change, change your goals.

Learn Something Useful

Learn more about those things about which you have little or no interest and you will find yourself becoming fas¬cinated by the subject. The more you know about some¬thing, the more your enthusiasm soars. Make an effort to learn all you can about people-ask about their occupation, their families, their hobbies, their dreams and ideas. Keep asking and you're certain to find something to get enthusi¬astic about. The more you get to know people, the more attractive you will find them.

Final Four Flapdoodles

 

 

Final four flapdoodles

by

Jack Walker

 

            You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Now the way that the book winds up is this: Huck was going to light out for the territory because Aunt Sally was going to adopt him and sivilize him, and he couldn’t stand it.

            Just as he was about to set out for the western territories, he heard people talkin’ down at the livery stable. They was braggin’ and boastin’ about the Cajun Country in Louisiana and how lazy and comfortable it was down there. They said it was the least sivilized place in the whole world. When Huck heard that he didn’t lose no time getting’ there. By and by, he married a gal from Chataignier, Louisiana. That ended any chance for getting’ sivilized, and he was mighty proud of it too.

            I’m considerable happy about it myself, ‘cause it he hadn’t got married I wouldn’t have been his great, great grandson and I wouldn’t have been called by his very own name and I wouldn’t have been third cousin, once removed to the man who writes this here sports report.

            The last time I saw my cousin who writes this rag, he warn’t in a good humor. He was bent into a sorrowful shape, because the Louisiana-Lafayette basketball team had less chance than a dead skunk of gettin’ to the final four tournament. He had been wasteful with hope when he bought tickets in advance and now his money was gone and his dreams too.

            There’s nothin’ more mournful than a man whose team has lost. So I sat there with him to give him what comfort I could. Suddenly, without no warning at all, he up and says, “Huck, I just don’t have the heart to write the a sports report this month. Rootin’ for them Ragin Cajuns done wore me out with grief. I want you to write that newsletter for me. You owe me. Remember twenty years ago when I took you to the final four? Well, I’m calling in my tally. I want you to write about what you thunk about that tourney and we’ll put it in the newsletter and your debt would be paid in full.”

            I never knowed I had no debt, ‘cause I thought he had asked me to go for free, but when he bust out a-crying and a-blubbering ‘bout his poor departed Ragin Cajuns, I just didn’t have the heart to say no to him. And that’s how I come to write this here story.

            I’m just gonna tell you ‘bout the truth as I seen it. It was a real bully tournament. Before the games started there was all sorts of scrounging and pushing and shoving in the streets that was full with excitement. The spledidest sight came in one big flash: All them players came runnin’ into the gym and the crowds went plumb wild; the bands was playing peppery songs, and the cheerleads were prancing and doing flips and such.

            When the games started, those boys went a-weaving around the court lookin’ ever so tall and bouncy, bobbin’ and runnin’, dribblin’, jumpin’ and shootin’. One side would up and yell when their team did good and the other side would up and yell when their team did good. With all the yellin’ and shoutin’ and jumpin’ up and down, I was plumb wore out and I didn’t play in the game one lick.

            It was fun and all, but in the end, I couldn’t tell you who won or lost. I was too busy listenin’ to the sounds and lookin’ at all the things that filled my eyes to know. Anyways, them games was plenty good enough for me and if ever I get a chance to go again, I would strike out and go right away.

            The powerful fine thing that made me remember the most was when the coaches got up to talk to the men who go around these sportin’ events writing ‘bout what they saw and what they heard. I got a big kick out of listening to what the coaches had to say. The coach who shook me up considerable was a Yankee named Bobby Knight.

            He looked out at that crowd of sports reporters and commenced to cussing. As far as I could tell he had no good reason for cussing except he liked the sound of the words. He cussed the fans, the press, and the refs who weren’t even there. Then he ripped into a passel of his players. He said:

            You think I have a good team. My own blind grandmother can tell my team is no good. They couldn’t put the ball in the basket standing on a stepladder. Victory favors the team making the fewest mistakes and my team is still making mistakes.

            He cussed his team ‘til he wore himself plum out. Then he finished up with some sort of general cuss all around.

            When he left the room looking as worn out as a ninety year old man, I knowed deep down that he was the one making all the mistakes. I told myself that if I was a basketball player and he asked me to play for his team I would turn around and run faster than Lot’s wife and never look back neither.

             Well, you could knock me down with a feather when I heard some of the people talkin’ good about him and explainin’ why he warn’t all that bad. They said that his brain overflowed with knowin’ all sorts of stuff and he could talk real interestin’ and be your best friend if he warn’t thinkin’ of winnin’, which warn’t very often.

            They said he got uptight because he knowed so much about basketball. He thinks he is considerable smarter than everyone else and his big head makes him think he can win every game while any fool knows you can’t. He goes on trying and pushing to beat every team and when he doesn’t he begins acting like he got the brain fever and he gets to rippin’ and tearin’ and smashin’ things. I kept thinkin’ that if you was to cut him open you’d see lava flow instead of blood.

            The folks that I heard talkin’ said that winnin’ didn’t give him more than a minute of satisfaction because as soon as his team wins he commences to think about how to beat the next team, leavin’ off the celebration for other folks.

            I reckon that sour people leave a rotten backwash and I don’t care how much brains and charm Mr. Knight has on good days, I don’t want nothin’ to do with him on any day although just thinkin’ about how he messes up his life makes me feel sorrowful and mournful for him.

            There was a Southern coach there who was right peculiar too. His name was Larry Brown. He seemed to be trying awful hard to relax and take it easy, but it warn’t working. He was like a man who sung the right words but got the tune all wrong. If you put him up against a funeral director, you wound think that funeral director was a circus clown.

            He said the most confoundest thing for somebody from the South I have ever heard. It was so contrary to what anybody would think excepting maybe a puritan preacher on a diet of clabbered milk that I writ it down word for word. He said:

            No matter what happens, I have never really enjoyed life much. I never allowed myself to enjoy experiences at the moment. Someday told me “Slow down and smell the roses.’ I don’t know what that means.

            That was such a pitiful thing to say that I studied him up real close. His face was cold as a glacier. His words were chloroform to the spirit. He never said nothin’ positive, He made me shiver all over just like when spelunking in a cave and finding a bottomless pit. You lean over the edge and throw a rock in that terrible darkness and the rock falls and falls and soon you don’t see it fallin’ and you listen real careful for the longest of times and you don’t hear nothin’ but gloomy silence. That was Mr. Brown, forlorn as an empty house. I don’t see how he could motivate no basketball player, a gaggle of gravediggers maybe, but no basketball team.

            Writing this hear report was making me feel as low as a tugboat in the fog, when I turned on the radio and heard a man by the name of Billie Gillespie, coach of the mighty Kentucky Wildcats. He was like a superb summer morning with a freshness and breeziness that gave a satisfyin’ sense of freedom. I writ down his speech. This is the word-by-word truth as to what he said:

            When our team hits the floor, we know where we are going and we know what to do. We expect to win and because we know we are going to win, we usually win. Playing fearlessly makes the game fun.            Relaxed confidence allows better play. There is no better way to play relaxed than to have fun when you are playing.

            One time our team was playing lousy and stinking up the place. I called time out and told them, “Boys you are playing so bad that you can’t get any worse, so you might as well go out and have some fun.” They did and we won.                       

            A coach must give the team confidence by being in charge all the time. When we have a time out, you won’t see me huddling up with the assistant coaches. No sir. I go right up to those players with the assurance that I know what I’m doing. When I have self-doubt—and all powerful people, study their behavior, and make changes when appropriate—I never call myself a wimp or admit puzzlement out loud. That takes away a players confidence.

            When we lose a game—and boys sometimes we do lose, believe it or not—I feel beat up and sore all over as if I had gone 15 rounds with Mohammed Ali. I never let my players know. I increase the spring in my step and act more cocky than usual.

            And when the refs make a mistake that they are prone to do, I let them know that I’m in charge. I notice that all refs have a hearing problem so I have to yell to get their attention. I don’t saunter up to them with my hands in my pocket talking gentle. I instruct them like I was a drill sergeant. They’ll soon learn how to make the right calls.

            We play alive, open to every possibility and we make the moment ours, again and again. Our style of play gives the message that it’s great to be alive.

            Billie Gillespie got me so excited I wanted to jump up and holler. My heart near busted with excitement. Even to this day, it thrills me through and through to think of the spirit, the gladness, and the wild sense of freedom that made the blood dance in my veins when Billie Gillespie turned words into fireflies.

            Studying up on these three men and what all they stood for set me to thinkin’ ‘bout what makes life good. It ain’t winning’ and it ain’t losing’. Its livin’ and livin’ to the full each and everyday. It ain’t somberness and strivin’. It’s thankfulness and gratefulness. It ain’t grindin’ work. It’s finding play in your work.

            That’s the end. There ain’t nothing more to write about, and I am powerful glad of it, because if I’d knowed what trouble it was to make this sports article I wouldn’t have answered to the job and I ain’t going to no more, even for courtside final four tickets.