Simplifying


Matthew 22:34-40
King James Version (KJV)
 
34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.
35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Today I tossed 99% of the paper that had accrued during my decade long doctoral program. The papers were research studies, my term papers, manuals, teacher hand-outs, and the like. In the last two years and change since earning the Ph.D. I had developed an aversion to all of that paper in terms of looking at it. The papers loomed like some teetering tenement that needed to be wrecking-balled.

I am moving soon and rather than just tote the stacks with me to go set in another pile collecting dust, I chucked them. I am a little concerned that the automatic trashcan-picker upper mechanism is going to bust along with the plastic trashcan. I am pushing an upper limit. I sense it. The can weighs about 100 pounds if not more.

There is always a fear that I might need to reference something in the future. Some academic pack-rat hoarding instinct. I pulled out ten or so of my research papers from the piles. Interesting that the distallation could go from so much paper to so little. This is the work that stood out and may turn into a book some day. Mentioning books, soon I am to purge myself of 90% of my books.

On e-front, I have been negating Facebook Feeds. I have just hit the wall. It is like Facebook reviewing has turned into a volunteer part-time job. The main criteria is if the posts really don't do much to foster wisdom in the topics I love most: My faith, family, friends, beer, organic food, fitness, writing and books, the Philadelphia Eagles, and special places to me like Temple University.

I have been resolute in bearing the sword. I want to spend 90% of my time on the top 10% of my priorities. I was getting bogged down in information that just is not that important to me.

Think about when Jesus came to this earth. Judaism had become stacked so high with rules, rituals, patronage, and power, that loving God and loving people had been buried. Not hard to understand...very hard to do. We often see our problems as informational and intellectual; they are not. Our problems are volitional: Doing what we know needs to be done with the right attitude. Cheerful giver type of thing.

To seek and find treasures typically means centering one's attention and neglecting other things. To gain greater we have to lose lesser. Losing as a means to gaining...       

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