10,000 Hours to Fermat’s Theorem

By my estimate I’ve put in about 150 hours.  Only 9,850 to go.

At the end of the internship at WWU the entire staff and intern group sat down for a few hours.  We affirmed each other and encouraged one another.  James Junior, who’s been a mentor to me spiritually and athletically, commented that life might be a bit difficult for me.  You see, James and I play racquetball nearly every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 7am.  He beats me every single time (nearly without exception).  We’ve been doing this for close to 6 months now, and I’ve won 3 times.  That’s right, 3 times.  Doing the math we’ll say we play 8 times per month, multiplied by 6 months says we’ve played 48 times.  Each time we play 3 games.  So out of 144 games, I’ve won 3.  Do you know what the percentage is that I win?  2.08%.  Time after time though I come back for more.  Brutal.  And it’s not that I’m getting slaughtered, although that happens every now and then.  The scores are usually around 10-15.  I can play, and play well, but James eeks out those extra few points.

Life for me is a bit like racquetball.  Try try and try again.  Every so often I win.

Well, I came across this video today and it gave me hope.  The lecture states that with 10,000 hours you can do just about anything.  For me this includes beating James at racquetball.  By my estimate I’ve put in about 150 hours.  Only 9,850 to go.

That All God’s People be Prophets

Ever thought about what happens when there’s no authoritarian leader? From the fire fly to humans to ants. We could learn a bit here and Moses got it right.

Emergence

The New Yorker on Biblical Leadership

Everyone has worked for a dysfunctional boss. Too bad the boss never watched this video.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Casey came home from work yesterday and recounted her day to me. It went something like this. “Baby spat up on me. Then during lunch time one baby began to cry. The rest then began to cry because one of them was crying. Then they all couldn’t stop crying because the others were crying and they couldn’t eat. That made them even more mad and they cried harder. Then I got flustered because none of them would stop crying and they couldn’t think that if they stopped crying they might get what they want–food.”

Pondering this strangeness I decided that we haven’t changed much. We work ourselves up over things we can not control and then get even more flustered that we can not control them because we are out of control. The only thing to do is chill. Matthew 6:25-34.