blogging vacation

With other commitments looming and much travel ahead, it will be a couple of weeks (at least) until my next post.

May you discover the next path in your journey, and the destination for your life.
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Live My Own Life

Life is a balance between what do I want to do and what do I want to become. An unnecessary complication is to add "what do others want of me."

You can be a good family member, friend, and a good neighbor without sacrificing parts of your life to satisfy other's expectations. Set your own expectations high, and then decide for yourself what is important.

"It is not the critic that counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement. And at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt

It is your life, live your own life in a way that is meaningful - to you.

Why is it that millions of children who are pushouts or dropouts amount to business as usual in the public schools, while one family educating a child at home becomes a major threat to universal public education and the survival of democracy? - Stephen Arons

Life vs School - Life vs Job

You travel through school just to get to the next school level, you go through college to get a good job, you dedicate yourself to a job to get advancement, you work for decades to reach a retirement that may allow you to live your own life.

Your starting point was the freedom of childhood where you spent all your time enraptured with the joy of discovery. A few falls and bruises resulted - but you were encouraged to try again. Eventually you succeed in many natural and enjoyable endeavors.

Then you start school. To try and fail is now horrible, to learn but not memorize is unforgivable, the goal has become to impress and conform. There are targets, but you have not chosen them. You no longer discover exciting knowledge and skills, you now learn how to cram and use stories to survive within a bureaucracy.

You graduate and use those same bureaucratic skills; make work, segmented knowledge and labor, last minute efforts, avoidance of trial and error learning, hyperbole instead of reality. By the time you retire this is how you will believe the world is supposed to operate and you will encourage others to pay a similar price for success.

All of the above after your too short childhood is based on a lie. "School was the unhappiest time of my life and the worst trick it ever played on me was to pretend that it was the world in miniature. For it hindered me from discovering how lovely and delightful and kind the world can be, and how much of it is intelligible." - E. M. Forster

Since your directions were wrong, you will end up in the wrong location. You were not born to be an employee. You will not find meaning in your life by following fictions.

• If bears do not add fat in the fall, can they cram for hibernation?

• Can beavers repetitiously chew at the same tree and still build their dam?

• Can an antelope use excuses about his troubled fawn-hood to escape the lions jaws?

The real world is nothing like school, it is also nothing like working in the bureaucracies that follow school. The real world is much more like the freedom and responsibility you once experienced as a child.

You learned to walk by falling down, you learned to fall backwards because forwards hurt more. You learned to speak by first making sounds that others did not understand. You learned to share by example and personal instruction (and maybe a swat where you had learned to fall).

When disaster strikes it is too late to cram for survival skills. When opportunity knocks it is too late to memorize preparation tools. When life beckons it is too late to learn its language.

It turns out that childish ways are the most mature.

Those rules based institutions treated us as perpetually ignorant children, and punished us if we did not fit their mold. You were molded by obsolete machines to fit a past era. Those running educational machines continue to extrude cogs that no longer fit even the faltering industrial age.

Find your own path, perhaps start your own business, return to the wisdom and flexibility you had before life's real challenges were stolen from you.

Discover life instead of just finding another job.

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Dottie Walters, 1925 - 2007

Dottie Walters was a friend of Bastiat Free University.

Dottie inspired tens of thousands to reach for great achievement, she is still inspiring more through her materials.

If you have looked at the BFU master's courses you will see Dottie Walters listed as one of the luminaries that has created a course. Unlike most college courses the books required are not those written by Dottie, they are of books that inspired her to become both a successful female entrepreneur and an inspirational speaker.

• Dottie Walters, how does it feel to have blown a handful of stardust to the world? - Napoleon Hill

A biography of Dottie is on the way, it will not be a standard biography. Those she has impacted; great motivators, speakers, entrepreneurs, and trainers will share in their own words how Dottie helped move them to success.

You will not want to miss Share and Grow Rich, The Dottie Walters Effect when it is released, these powerful words once spoken by Dottie can still impel your success -- order it today. Dottie has helped so many - let her help you also.

Book description at Amazon -- Experience the inspirational story of legendary speaker, author, and marketing genius Dottie Walters though the eyes of those who loved her. Share and Grow Rich captures events that shaped the life of those who transformed the speaking world and shares the lessons she learned along the way. Walters paved the way for women in business and for the profession of speaking. She launched countless successful careers and touched many hearts in the process. Allow her story to touch your heart too!

The title of the new book is derived from her own book Speak And Grow Rich, Which Dottie used as a platform for expanding opportunity in the field of public speaking. She founded a welcoming and advertising service, created a speakers bureau, listened to young upstarts like myself and gave encouragement, wrote several books, started a magazine called Sharing Ideas, spoke inspirational messages herself, raised a family, and seemingly managed a thousand other things.

• Dottie has that special talent to put her thoughts into words so that the words go out and move the people. - Earl Nightengale

One of her first books filled a needed niche - Never Underestimate The Selling Power Of A Woman, Dottie Walters personified this power. Anything Dottie touched, audio material, books, training materials, and lives has had an enduring impact. As an early and vocal woman entrepreneur she inspired many other women to seek success in sales or public speaking.

Go read the inspirational story about Dottie Walters written by her daughter. Don't miss the section on the special wisdom of Dottie Walters. I'm sure you will then want to learn more.

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Giving To Change The World

While we greatly appreciate any college donations to Bastiat Free University, this journal post is about a rewarding lifestyle of giving to change the world.

Give where you want to give, in the manner you want to give. There is just too much joy to be found in giving not to make it part of your life. Getting is cool, becoming rich may be glorious, but appropriate giving to a need or opportunity is wonderfully satisfying.

One of our favorite gifts, right after Junior Partner Ministries and BFU, is a gift toward micro finance. Even a small gift made here can make a huge difference in a village's prospects. Notice that for me all these gifts are about the future - each makes our world a better place to live.

Don't be guided by guilt, don't let slick pictures of a need impel you action. Let your first choice be action and seek out those giving opportunities that will yield the most satisfaction in you life. Find an opportunity not just to meet a current need, those sad pictures will get plenty of donations. Instead be part of the solution. Find and support change that will continue with positive ripples throughout society.

Find a worthy cause or causes, then share in the joy and hope they help create. Make these causes your cause, become involved in the solutions they are creating. The Bible says the Lord loves a cheerful giver; find those opportunities where you can give cheerfully - and enjoy them often.

It is not your age or wealth that will make you a successful philanthropist, it is you willingness to share a bit of what you have right now. As you age and your wealth grows you will be able to share even more. Giving not from pity, not under coercion, but from a deep desire to see your gift change the world.

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