rebelling against low expectations
(Matt Walsh Blog) — Child psychologists have “discovered” that adolescence actually ends not at 18, but at 25. Once again psychologists have waved their wands and magically created a larger customer base. But maybe I’m being cynical, maybe adolescence really does end at 25. Or is it 18? Or is it 40? 35? 50? 12? 2? 93? I think the answer is yes. And no. Let me explain. Back in the old days, there...
Joy in the midst of trials. Is it really possible? I sit beside my classmates, waiting for this guy to do our chapel service. I gaze out the window, and see only a glimpse of light trying to break through the morning darkness. I just want this over with. So we can go back to class, and I can finish that essay I turned in late and ask someone for help on that one Latin sentence that I just can’t...
Want to do hard things? Want to succeed at life’s toughest challenge? Learn to forgive. Even the most talented people have limited impact until they learn the basics of forgiveness. But what does forgiveness mean, exactly? Is it merely saying “I forgive you”? Does it mean forgetting as well? We can try to squeeze it into a simple definition by saying: forgiveness is the continuous state of a...
“But now, O Lord, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand.” — Isaiah 64:8 I look back this past year, and see how far I’ve come. The Lord has shaped me, and molded me, and I am slowly becoming more and more like Him. I cannot boast. I cannot boast in myself, but only that the Lord has taught me many, many things that have challenged, changed...
Artists are profoundly obsessive people. A visual artist can become almost abnormally preoccupied with a single color for weeks or months at a time. It isn’t just the use of the color, but the mere sight of it that enthralls the imagination. At the moment, I’m going through a torrid love affair with — of all possible hues — black. Black is the absorption of all the colors of the spectrum — the...
It’s hard to let go when our hands are clenched hard around our dreams, our aspirations, our lives. I’m at that age when people are constantly asking me what I’m going to do, what college I’m going to go to, etc. And, again, I chuckle. I smile and I reply, “I don’t know yet.” Sure enough, I have goals. I have aspirations. I have dreams, plans (remember? *grin* ). In fact, I dream of marrying some...
(Branson Tri-Lake News) — To say 17-year-old Riley Banks is on a mission could be considered an understatement. The Branson teen has distributed hundreds of backpacks and school supplies to children in Kenya, provided more than 1,000 hygiene kits to girls there, helped provide a medical clinic for more than 1,300 people and opened a school this year. She does it all through her nonprofit...
(Huffington Post) — In the U.S., we tend to think of babies and young children as immature, incompetent beings. This is because of a long history of research in developmental psychology — especially the work of Jean Piaget — that viewed infants’ and children’s thinking as deficient compared to adults’. By studying his own two children, Piaget concluded that children...
“Sing for joy in the Lord, O you righteous ones; praise is becoming to the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; sing praises to Him with a harp of ten strings. Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully with a shout of joy, for the word of the Lord is upright, and all His work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the loving kindness of the Lord...
(QUARTZ) — “I’m just not a math person.” We hear it all the time. And we’ve had enough. Because we believe that the idea of “math people” is the most self-destructive idea in America today. The truth is, you probably are a math person, and by thinking otherwise, you are possibly hamstringing your own career. Worse, you may be helping to perpetuate a pernicious myth that is harming underprivileged...
rebelling against low expectations
