We all have hopes, goals, and dreams. If we're going to have any hope of accomplishing those hopes, goals and dreams, we must make a commitment never to give up on them. I got a lot (comparatively) accomplished yesterday. Today, I felt like I got very little, if anything at all, accomplished. But when I looked at my goals that I had written down in yesterday's blog post, I saw that I gave myself no concrete things to do...and so, I lived my day today with very little intentionality. I'm reminded from a quote from Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living."
So you have a bad day -so you fail- so you've had bad days and fallen a million times in the past. The past doesn't matter. What matters is that you never give up on yourself -that you never give up on others -that you never give up on the good that you want to see happen in the world.
And so, I must admit, checking a couple times today and seeing my youtube channel (click here to see it) only has 9 views and no subscribers...and my patreon page has 0 donors...I was tempted to ask myself, "What on earth am I doing?"
But here's the answer: I'm doing something I believe in, and I'm doing something important. So, here's my new goal: A new blog post every week. That's not wildly ambitious. As well, I've been brainstorming other possible directions to move with this site, the channel, etc: building up people to be the best possible people they can be, so that they can, as Gandhi is reported to have said "be the change you wish to see in the world." If we want the world to be a better place, we have to start within ourselves.
I must admit as well that I was inspired by checking out Rob Dial (check out his facebook here). I found out about him by searching youtube for videos on world hunger, and finding his fundraising video. I don't know who you are, but if you're anything like myself, you're probably tempted to judge me right now. I did find his style a little cheesy, and maybe a little "salesman-y", but I reconsidered my opinions when I found out a couple very good friends of mine follow his face book page. It's a bad habit of mine, and probably a great many others, to judge everyone by standards I'm not sure I even hold God up to. In other words, I'm great at fault-finding. The fact is, Rob Dial may be cheesy! He may be "salesman-y", and that's fine. He's also got a lot of very good things to say, and I believe he's a force of positivity in the world.
All that being said, he's inspired me to think about including on this channel a kind of...dear Lord...for lack of a better term...a "motivational" aspect to this channel. The reason I am thinking about expanding in this direction is not only because I saw his admittedly corny videos and thought I could do better, but because I have beaten addiction and mental illness ("beaten", not just "battled") in my life, and I know (from "battling" it for almost two decades) that many people don't see this as a possibility for themselves, and that messages of hope -of people who have come through to the other side- are very helpful. If I do move the channel/page in this direction, I will continue to ask for donations, making clear that every dollar will "go directly into the hands of the poor and needy in the form of food/material/financial assistance or into a special account reserved for medical and relief missions." If you'd like to support our work and my vision for a better world, please consider donating as little as a dollar per month here or one time here. Thanks and peace be with you.