Touch-and-Go. A term those aspiring to pilot a plane understand. It’s the practice lap through the airspace around your local airport, landing, and then taking to the air again without stopping. At some point, you will do a full-stop and taxi back to base, but for the most part, you are just flying the proverbial circle. Over and over, and over, again. Touch the ground, and then go around again.
Why do this?
My instructor loved to teach how to come in high, make a controlled descent (think elevator) toward the ground, and know you have time to take other actions should the moment require them. If you come in low? There’s not much time to react! We practiced dozens and hundreds of times to get used to the thinking and feeling process of landing safely.
Maybe we need to practice “doing life” a little better
to be in control when the moment requires a different action!
I know we need to sleep, but I’m not good at giving up my awake time so my body and mind can rest. Yes, I fall asleep quickly, but that’s only to speed up the sleeping session so I can get up early. But the same thing is true about all facets of life – exercise, work, socializing, meet and greets. Maybe we should practice more to respond better when the moment requires a different response.
Could it be that’s exactly how we live life successfully?
As the old story goes, the student asks, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” The Instructor repeats, “Practice. Practice! Practice!!”
Supposedly it takes 21 days of Repetition to create a habit, but there may be more to it. Doing what we want to become our lifestyle could be the better way of thinking.
Do it once = Action
Do it twice = Repetition
Do it a few times = Behavior
Do it multiple months = Habit
Do it for a year = Lifestyle
“It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It’s what we do consistently.” ~Tony Robbins
Making Good Choices
When we are young, others decide our actions for us. As we age, we choose what we want. The mix between the two worlds defines our possibilities.
Though I am a reader, my mom helped me become that reader at a very young age. “Go, Dog! Go!” I don’t remember when I learned the alphabet. It just seemed that knowledge was always there. Individual letters arranged around sounds, along with the spacings, make words. Words tell a story. I love stories!
I married a good lady who is a reader. We pass it along to our children. Words. Stories. Books. Reading. Writing. Studying the process makes for generations of readers.
Consistencies in choices make better future generations.
Making better choices applies to our manners, how we treat others, understanding the world around us, and being respectful yet determined. It even affects our Spiritual walk. What we started with, especially when it’s well grounded, sets up future generations for success and growth.
I’ve been studying our pattern of life for a season, and I’ve found that we can be good, but others can affect our outcome. Ideally, your better pattern of life affects others, so they become better, but it works both ways.
Practicing Some Touch-and-Go: Making better choices applies to our manners, how we treat others, understanding the world around us, and being respectful yet determined. It even affects our Spiritual walk. Click To TweetWisdom
We all know that Solomon wrote hundreds of proverbial style statements. So are gold as we put them to use. Others, well, just say we’ve not been in that situation just yet!
The one he wrote that we love leaves feeling like its wisdom presents a conundrum.
Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6 NKJV
His father was King David, who made mistakes in life that cost others their lives. But David was a man who followed after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22.) Solomon started off well, but distractions took him down a path that was not pleasing to God. This wisest man set up the next generation to live as failures. The pattern of David was broken. His lifestyle appeared at various times, but consider Ahab – he was not kinfolk, just the next King of a divided nation.
…Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger
than all the kings of Israel who were before him.
1 Kings 16:33 NKJV
Here’s a bit of wisdom. As parents, pastors, teachers, leaders, mentors, and coaches, we all try to do what’s best with the person before us, but we should be looking past this one and who will be the ones that follow generations down the road. Ask any of us who have been there. What we’ve set as a pattern to live is not always followed. But my influence is far-reaching, and there are others I can reach by being consistent. I may not meet them, but let my pattern be what they find so good choices can be made. Even after I’m gone.