Tag: Personal Development

My Advice to High School Graduates

~ Joseph McBee ~ Leave a comment

It’s graduation time and we are in full swing with our daughter, nieces, and nephews graduating from high school. It’s an emotional time.

There is a sense of excitement and a sense of “can we just get this over with” for all parties involved. The seniors feel ready to get out and get going with “real life” and the parents are relieved in one way and maybe a little anxious in another.

Are they ready?
Did we do a good job preparing them?
How can we help without meddling?
What will they face “out there”?

I would like to offer a little advice for all the newly minted graduates, specifically those headed off to college. I don’t expect you to really listen. I probably wouldn’t have at your age, but I’ll feel better offering it all the same.

First, you don’t know as much as you think you do.

I am not trying to insult you. It’s just a fact and one that will become apparent to you FAST. There is no way you can be prepared for everything you are about to face so please be humble enough to ask for some advice now and again. That’s what grown ups do when they face something they don’t know enough about to navigate on their own.

Second, college is NOT the “real world.”

If you are going off to college after graduation don’t think you are entering the real world. You’re not. Not by a long shot. It’s different than high school, that’s true, but you’re still operating with a safety net. In the real world, there isn’t one. Enjoy your expanded freedom, but don’t mistake it for what you will face after you leave.

Next, the freedom you are about to get is going to overwhelm you.

I realize you can’t wait to get away from your parents and siblings and all the structures that have nurtured you for your entire life. They feel stifling and suffocating right now and you want the fresh air of freedom to do your own thing and make all your own choices.

I get that, but trust me when I say, it’s going to feel overwhelming.

That’s not a bad thing. And it doesn’t mean you’re weak or that you won’t make it. Take a deep breath, remember my first piece of advice, and do the best you can. You’ll get used to it.

Fourth, it’s okay if you miss your family.

You are probably convinced that once you move out, you’ll never come back and you won’t miss your family at all. If you are leaving an abusive home life, that may be true, but for most of you, it’s not.

You’re going to miss your family and that’s okay. It’s normal and good to miss being with the people who know you and love you no matter what. That will fade over time as you build a new support network, but until then, don’t be ashamed to call your folks or to come home once in a while. We are going to miss you too.

Fifth, you’re going to lose touch with your high school friends.

All those folks you grew up with, your ride or dies, your besties for the resties, you are going to lose touch with almost all of them more and more until they are just a nice memory. That’s normal. And you’ll make new friends.

There is nothing to feel guilt or shame about there. When you are young, friendship is a group sport. As you age, it’s far more of an individual activity. You’ll have fewer friendships as you get older, but they will also be deeper and richer friendships.

Finally, enjoy yourself but don’t be stupid.

College can be fun. Don’t take it too seriously. Learn and grow and explore what you’re interested in. Get involved in stuff on campus. Make some new friends. Do something to serve others. But don’t be stupid.

Making friends with stupid people doing stupid things will just drag you down with them. There are no parents watching your every move now so it’ll be much easier to do something you know you shouldn’t be doing. You’ll need to make wise choices on your own about who you spend time with and what you do.

Another part of that wisdom is doing things like eating right, avoiding alcohol (I promise it does NOTHING good for you), getting some exercise, making sure you’re getting plenty of sleep, and going to church.

You probably won’t do much of that stuff, and you’ll pay the price for it. Some things can only be learned from pain. Just try to remember, you are free to make choices but you are not free to choose the consequences that come with them.

I wish you well in this next phase of your life. Be patient with yourself and with your parents. We love you and we did the best we could. I know we weren’t always easy to live with, but neither were you.

It’s Not the Catastrophe You Think It Is

~ Joseph McBee ~ Leave a comment

Confession time.

I am a chronic catastrophizer.

I RUN quickly to the absolute worse scenarios in my mind, dwell on them, and become convinced that those catastrophic scenarios are the most likely ones, even when they are remote.

Make a mistake at work? Everyone thinks I am incompetent now.
Have a fight with my wife? We’re on our way to a divorce.
Have to start taking blood pressure meds? I am going to die any day now.
Don’t get the feedback I want on a project? I am a failure and everyone hates it.

NONE of these are true. But they FEEL true and my mind and body respond as if they are true.

Then I tear myself to shreds internally until the issue is resolved.

After that comes the feelings of shame as I realize that yet again I have blown something out of proportion.

Not Just What Happened, But What Will Happen

It even impacts events that have not taken place yet.

I have social anxiety because I convince myself that I will do or say something stupid and embarrass myself or my family.

I dread doctor visits, work meetings, social events, ceremonies, dinners out, and travel plans, all because I believe they will be difficult or embarrassing or won’t go well.

I am not paralyzed by this. I go anyway. I do them anyway. But, it’s difficult to enjoy them because I am waiting for disaster to strike.

It’s not fun. And it had become my default mode of thinking for so long that I wasn’t even aware that I was doing it. And I wasn’t aware of what it was doing to me and to the people I care about.

Enter a New Practice

I’ve been working on it. Part of that is writing about it in my journal and here. So you’ll see more of this.

I’ve been trying something recently that has been helpful and that is replacing my negativity bias with a positivity bias.

Negativity bias is the human tendency to register negative events more readily than positive ones and to dwell on those negative events.

It rewires your brain to associate negative emotions with certain people, events, and experiences, and causes you to avoid them or approach them with fear or even anger.

In fact, it can cause you to see ONLY the negative and filter out anything positive.

I’ve been working on creating a positivity bias by bookending my days with positive expectations on one end and grateful, positive reflection on the other.

When I get up in the mornings my first thought is, “Today is going to be a great day. I am grateful to you, Lord.”

That’s like a command for your brain. It starts seeking out the great things in your day that you can be thankful for.

At the end of the day, when I am in bed I rehearse in my mind all the great things that happened that day and give thanks to God for them. This is especially important because this is where the real changes take place in the way you think and approach your days.

I felt like it’s been making a difference, but the real test came yesterday.

Putting it to the Test

Yesterday was my annual physical. Those are important, especially when you’re middle-aged, and as my doctor reviewed my EKG she said I needed to see a cardiologist. “Non-emergent arterial blockage” she called it.

Cue the panic attack.

Only there wasn’t one. And that surprised me.

She said that as long as I got a full work up in the next 3 to 6 months and started taking a baby aspirin I’d be fine and they probably wouldn’t do anything about it but establish a baseline so they can watch it.

And there were other issues too, that I won’t go into here, but it was stuff that would have sent me into an abyss of fear and despair only this time it didn’t. Not at all.

In fact, I walked out of the office feeling thankful to God that these issues had been revealed and that the changes I had been making in my diet and physical activity already had me on the right track and that I could just continue on that path.

That was nice.

I have some minor health challenges to face, positivity bias is NOT living in denial of reality, but the issues I am facing are not the catastrophe I would usually think they are. Instead, I am facing them feeling thankful and determined to make the changes I need to make.

Why It Feels Like There is Never Enough Time

~ Joseph McBee ~ Leave a comment

Why does it feel like there is never enough time to do everything we want to do?

Because there is not enough time to do everything we want to do.

I am not being facetious. I mean this quite literally. It FEELS true, because it IS true. There is not enough time to do everything we want to do.

If you want to be delivered from the compulsion to do so much your head is spinning at all times and you feel exhausted and torn apart by all the demands on your life. Or if you want to be delivered from the sense of overwhelm that sits on your shoulders and pushes you onto the couch where you scroll through your phone or watch TV for hours on end because you don’t have the mental or emotional capacity to do anything else then you have to embrace an important fact.

You are finite.

You have limits.

The insanity of our lives begins to clear away when we embrace our finitude. EMBRACE it. Don’t just accept it.

Limited Ability

Physically and emotionally, none of us were designed to do it all. We can’t handle it. We each have a certain capacity for things. Some can manage more, and some less.

In Matthew 25:14-30 we read the parable of the talents where a man going on a long trip calls his three servants together to give them instructions about what they were to do in his absence. Verse 15 says, “To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.“

There are people I admire running multi-million dollar businesses, authoring books, and being a $100,000 + keynote speaker and I can’t help but think, “I couldn’t manage all of that.”

I think that because I feel like I know my limits. Maybe I am not a five talent guy. Maybe I can only manage 2 really well. I need to embrace that limit. It’s OKAY for me to be a two talent guy. When the man returned from his journey he praised BOTH the five talent and two talent servants.

The truth is I cannot do everything. But what I can do, I can do well.

Limited Life

We are also limited in the number of days we have to live. Some have more and some have less, but all of us have a limited number of them.

Even if you live to be a healthy 100 years old, and I hope you do, there still won’t be enough time to do all that you want to do.

At 54, I think a lot about how there are fewer days ahead of me and yet there is still so much I want to get done. If I live to be 80, it won’t be enough time. .

I will leave MANY things undone and unfinished. I just will.

And what will become of all I did finish? It will turn to dust and be forgotten over time.

The same is true for you.

That is not futility, it is finitude, and it is freedom.

Limited Biology

We also have limits physically.

  • We cannot be in two places at once.
  • We cannot go long without food and drink.
  • We cannot go long without rest and sleep.
  • We get sick and injured.
  • We can become disabled.
  • We grow old.
  • We die.

We can be strong, physically fit, and energetic, and yet we will still need to give our bodies food and water and rest. We will need to stop.

Push too far beyond your limited biology and you will find yourself exhausted, sick, and suffering.

What Can We Do?

Allow me to encourage you with a few responses to your finitude.

Embrace the way God has designed you. There is mercy in finitude. This life is hard, why would anyone want to live forever? We have been given limits by a limitless God and our limits humble us and drive us to the God who made us and loves us and that’s a good thing.

Work hard and then rest. In no way am I suggesting that we don’t need to work hard. Of course we do. But the way to honor God with that is to do the best you can and take time to rest. That is one of the reasons God set apart the Sabbath day. The limits on our body, our need for rest, remind us that we are NOT God.

Put your phone down. I think we can all agree that spending our limited time and energy doom scrolling is not wise. Let’s also agree to put our phones down and have a real conversation with someone. Let’s read a book. Let’s pray for others. Let’s study the Bible. Let’s go for a walk. Let’s go to a museum, or on a hike, or learn a new hobby, or be of service to others or cook a meal with our kids…I mean, come on, there are PLENTY of other things to do that are life-giving and fruitful.

Be selective about what you take on. You can’t do it all. Every need you hear about does not create an obligation for you. Every empty spot on your schedule does not need to be filled. Every time one of your kids or friends, or family members has a meltdown, you do not have to step in and save the day. In fact, it’s often better if you don’t. Here’s a big one, every good idea you have does not have to be acted on! You’re going to have to make choices. Saying yes to one thing means you MUST say no to something else. So choose. Commit.. Execute. And refuse to feel guilty about what is left undone.

If we can focus on being faithful and at peace rather than frantic because of all we are trying to do and all we are leaving undone, we will find a lot more joy in this life.

You are NOT God. You have limits. The limitless God made you that way. He has it all under control and EVERYTHING he wants done WILL get done. He will see to it.

So…peace to you. Be still and be at rest.

You are NOT God, and That Sets You Free

~ Joseph McBee ~ Leave a comment

We are not designed to be sovereign but to be dependent on the one who is.

I love this quote from Alan Noble:

“One of my concerns about contemporary society is that it suffers from a lack of agency…Alain Ehrenberg notes in his book THE WEARINESS OF THE SLEF, that inhibition is one of the symptoms of contemporary depression. He ties it to the burden of being a sovereign self, an overwhelming experience for most people that often leaves them frozen and feeling unable to move in the world.”

The belief that you are completely sovereign over your own life can be a paralytic.

  • What if I take the wrong path in life?
  • What if I never fulfill my potential?
  • What if I just live an ordinary life and never do anything great?
  • What if I fail?
  • What if I look foolish trying to do something?
  • What if my life doesn’t go EXACTLY like I want it to?

The belief that a good, loving, and kind God is sovereign over all things liberates us from the paralysis of self-sovereignty. It sets us free to risk and to advance and to try. And yes, to fail too. Because failure is a part of living. A BIG part of it.

If God is sovereign, then I am free to live without fear.

If God is sovereign, then I am free to take risks.

If God is sovereign, then I do not have to be afraid of whatever trials may come or what their eventual outcome may be.

When we don’t keep God’s sovereignty in mind, we put far too much pressure on ourselves to achieve certain outcomes and it can paralyze us into doing nothing.

A lack of faith in God’s sovereignty can also cause us to procrastinate on things we know we should be doing.

It is arrogant to believe I will always have the time to do what I know I should be doing right now. I don’t control the length of my life. My days are quite literally numbered (Psalm 139:16) and only God knows when they are up.

That fact should create a sense of urgency but without fear.

I am absolutely immortal until my days are done because they are in God’s book and I cannot add even one hour to their length (Luke 12:25-26).

So why worry?

Urgency without fear. We must do what we can. And leave the results with God.

Christians should be some of the boldest risk takers and doers and leaders and creators on the planet. We can risk and do and lead and create without fear, because we know we are not sovereign and that God is.