Last night I saw a movie, I won't say what it is, I think that will make this story more interesting to you.  But a line from it sparked so much thought behind it I had to write about it. 

There was one simple line said towards the final moments of the film.  "So much life is lost on the waiting."  It is an inspiring line. How many of us with for a happy ending and the waiting becomes our bane.  The waiting destroys hope and happiness.  The waiting eats up the time we could have spent living.

When I was a young man, I had a goal in life.  To be a wise man at an early age.  I didn't' want to waste my life waiting and learning lessons the hard way.   But the reality is in order to live life and learn lessons you must get out there and live life as if you were a dying man living on borrowed time.  Living every moment as if it counted more than anyone could possible understand.  Of course your ethics really kick in then.  Do you lie, beg, borrow and steal or do you work hard to accumulate life experiences and riches on a righteous path?  

Life is lost on waiting...  How much of our lives are lost on waiting?  Waiting for love?  Waiting for a chance at a job, waiting g for a break to come our way... waiting in traffic!   It always comes down to living.  Sometimes we decide we want to live more depending on the season. What is it about spring and summer that makes life so worth living?  You wake up early in the morning either knowing it's going to be a great day or pensive day as soon as the ...   more »

Years ago I read a book... actually I listened to it (many times) by Peter Senge, named The Fifth Discipline.  It was about thinking in totality, seeing things from a distant view where a system is in place.

From this book and I took a couple major disciplines from it for life.  One was the art of thinking in systems and the other was the concept of mental models.   Today I want to explain systems thinking in regards to my life and my children's lives.

Let me first give an example in my life so you may see how it can relate in your own life.  The other night I was installing a new shower head system in my shower.  The boys and I are in the bathroom with all the parts.  My oldest son is keen to state we should be reading the directions to our youngest son.  This may seem strange that one son is dictating this information to another but it is part of systems thinking being instilled from one family member to another.   However for years and years since my first son received his first set of Lincoln Logs we always used directions.   To this day he always refers to directions when building or assembling things.  Why do I mention this?  Reading the directions in full and having them in advance of a project is in fact a form of systems thinking.

You see when you step back and view things on a whole you are better prepared to work within that system even if you are only going to operate strictly within a small segment.  Now I'll return to my story of the plumbing.