Jack Wagon (Don’t be one) 11-24-10
I just love that commercial and I some how needed to write a blog with the word Jack Wagon in it somewhere. After watching the commercial I decided that I would probably be the same type of psychiatrist as Sergeant R. Lee Ermey but not as intimidating. Heck I look like Opie Taylor. It is kind of hard to intimidate people when you remind them of an Andy Griffith character. I started thinking about how we can be a Jack Wagon this time of year and it starts for us in two days. Black Friday! Some places have already started the frenzy by being open this week and starting on Thanksgiving Day. Come on over half of America will be in a turkey coma Thursday and not able to function in a crowded store. So the first one’s to be a Jack Wagon on this season is the stores. They have commercialized my beloved turkey day with being open. Okay ladies don’t be mad at me; some of you train for this black Friday event for weeks like it’s a marathon. I am ok with that. It is to you like opening day of deer season is to us deer hunters, except you get up earlier for it and it is dangerous for the other hunters (shoppers) in the stores. Woman world is tuff, especially that day! My wife has a group from our church leaving at 3 A.M. Friday. I may go hunting and I don’t have to get up till 4:30. More power to yall.
So you may ask how we can avoid being the Jack Wagon. 1. Stick to a budget! Get a number that you and you spouse can work with and stick to that number. 2. Don’t use credit cards because next year at this time you will be paying for this Christmas. If you use a credit card you tend to spend 12-18% more than if you use cash. Now lets be honest, I have done it is the past, you shop for someone else and you wind up not getting them anything, but you successfully get yourself a couple of gifts. What ever the amount you decide to spend get cash and when the cash is gone you are done. It’s a behavior issue not a number issue. 3. You don’t have to finish Friday! This is where you ladies need to take a lesson from us men. You can shop up to December 24th and not spend everything at once. Space out your shopping because if you do it all at once you will be ready to get it done and spend that extra instead of looking for a bargain. 4. Make a gift for others, I will tend to keep something longer if someone makes me something, and I will not forget it, especially if its food! 5. Bargain with people; ask for a discount, you never can tell when they will say yes. The answer is always no if you don’t ask. So I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and a great shopping experience. Don’t be an overspending Jack Wagon. Ladies be careful, have mercy on us men if you see us in the store with our wives or by ourselves; we are out of our element and we look like Jack Wagons in your environment! Have a blessed Thanksgiving and Christmas!
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Less is more
You may be thinking that I am just trying to make you feel better because your 401k is now a 201k or that your pay has been cut lower than it was two years ago. But think about it, sometimes we are going at a pace to have “more” that we are missing out on winning at other things that may bring more joy in our lives. Hey my income is less because I do not work where I use to but I don’t have all of the stress of being gone as much and feeling like I don’t have time to do anything. Like the late Dale Earnhardt said, slower is faster. When you go slower and don’t wear your machine out, you don’t have to make as many pit stops to work on it and by the end of the race you are up front in a position to win; while the ones running wide open are in the back, pedal to the floor ,trying to get up to the front but they are out of time. Wow I did get something out of Nascar when I watched it! So I suggest that we look at what where we really want to be, take a breath and start pursuing the dream. Weather it is being debt free, doing a job that you always wanted to do, at your pace, or building relationships, which is the most important. Let’s use this time to re-evaluate, re focus and reload to build the life that God put us down here to have. When we do these things we glorify Him and we enjoy ourselves. And yes God wants you to have His money, but He doesn’t want it to have you. And besides don’t you think it is easier to make money doing something you love versus something that pays well and makes you unhappy and takes all of your time?
11-18-10
You may be thinking that I am just trying to make you feel better because your 401k is now a 201k or that your pay has been cut lower than it was two years ago. But think about it, sometimes we are going at a pace to have “more” that we are missing out on winning at other things that may bring more joy in our lives. Hey my income is less because I do not work where I use to but I don’t have all of the stress of being gone as much and feeling like I don’t have time to do anything. Like the late Dale Earnhardt said, slower is faster. When you go slower and don’t wear your machine out, you don’t have to make as many pit stops to work on it and by the end of the race you are up front in a position to win; while the ones running wide open are in the back, pedal to the floor ,trying to get up to the front but they are out of time. Wow I did get something out of Nascar when I watched it! So I suggest that we look at what where we really want to be, take a breath and start pursuing the dream. Weather it is being debt free, doing a job that you always wanted to do, at your pace, or building relationships, which is the most important. Let’s use this time to re-evaluate, re focus and reload to build the life that God put us down here to have. When we do these things we glorify Him and we enjoy ourselves. And yes God wants you to have His money, but He doesn’t want it to have you. And besides don’t you think it is easier to make money doing something you love versus something that pays well and makes you unhappy and takes all of your time?
11-18-10
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Are you looking or seeing?
I went to a funeral yesterday for a member of our church who was blind for most of her life. She was a wonderful woman who lived till 91 years of age. Members of our church would go and pick her up on Sunday and Wednesdays and do all kinds of different errands for her. Miss Allen knew what my name was, Tim, but she always called me Kim, and I didn’t argue with her because I would still be called Kim no matter what and I did not want to get in trouble with her for arguing. Our former pastor preached at the funereal and he made a great statement. “We look with our eyes and we see with our mind.” That is a very true statement! I have been blessed with excellent vision all of my life and the wonderful ability to “look.” But I have to confess I don’t see all that well at times. My ability to see often gets blurred by what I am looking at in my life. I have also noticed that a lot of other people suffer from this problem.
We often get so focused on what we are looking at and everything else gets blurred that is beyond the object or situation. It’s the old “I can’t see the forest because the trees are in the way!” There is nothing more frustrating than looking right at something and not seeing it in front of us. We look at our current situations in life and all we see is this is just the way it is, or I will work harder at this and it will maybe get better. Miss Allen never could look at her house to see if it needed cleaning, but anytime I dropped her off it was clean, really clean. She could always see her clean house. Maybe we need to start seeing where we want to go in our lives instead of looking at all the problems in our life. What ever we are looking at is the direction we will be traveling. I believe I will work on my seeing. I know Miss Allen is seeing everything she knew was out there now, and as a bonus, she can now look at what she has been seeing!
Kim West (Tim West) 11-9-10
I went to a funeral yesterday for a member of our church who was blind for most of her life. She was a wonderful woman who lived till 91 years of age. Members of our church would go and pick her up on Sunday and Wednesdays and do all kinds of different errands for her. Miss Allen knew what my name was, Tim, but she always called me Kim, and I didn’t argue with her because I would still be called Kim no matter what and I did not want to get in trouble with her for arguing. Our former pastor preached at the funereal and he made a great statement. “We look with our eyes and we see with our mind.” That is a very true statement! I have been blessed with excellent vision all of my life and the wonderful ability to “look.” But I have to confess I don’t see all that well at times. My ability to see often gets blurred by what I am looking at in my life. I have also noticed that a lot of other people suffer from this problem.
We often get so focused on what we are looking at and everything else gets blurred that is beyond the object or situation. It’s the old “I can’t see the forest because the trees are in the way!” There is nothing more frustrating than looking right at something and not seeing it in front of us. We look at our current situations in life and all we see is this is just the way it is, or I will work harder at this and it will maybe get better. Miss Allen never could look at her house to see if it needed cleaning, but anytime I dropped her off it was clean, really clean. She could always see her clean house. Maybe we need to start seeing where we want to go in our lives instead of looking at all the problems in our life. What ever we are looking at is the direction we will be traveling. I believe I will work on my seeing. I know Miss Allen is seeing everything she knew was out there now, and as a bonus, she can now look at what she has been seeing!
Kim West (Tim West) 11-9-10
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
I cant see my feet!
I can’t see my feet!
11-2-2010
It’s true that when you walk you can’t focus on your feet or you will run into things that will hurt you. Living a life of faith in Jesus Christ keeps you from seeing the path that your feet are on sometimes. I like to hunt and spend time in the woods and I have gotten lost on an occasion or three. One memorable time was when a friend of mine was looking at some land and he wanted to show me this great place in the swamp. We crossed the creek and I asked him do you know where you are going? Yes of course I do! 15 minutes later I heard him say that “I don’t know where I am at!” I didn’t pay attention to where we were going because I figured I didn’t need to because he “knew where we were at.” So a couple of hours later we make our way to a paved road and walk up to a mans house and he told us what road were on and we started heading back to the truck. He drove past us a few minutes later and waved. I guess he wanted us to enjoy our country walk and didn’t offer us a ride. We walked 8 miles back to the truck. Nothing like feeling lost in the middle of no where Georgia.
Our walk in life gets that way sometimes, I get a plan and map it out and I know where I am going. But with Jesus in charge of my life, He wants me to trust Him to lead the way and follow His plan that He gave me. He is the greatest leader in history, and a lot of times, like with my friend, I don’t pay any attention to where He is leading and I look up and I am lost. I get lost because I notice I am looking at my feet and then realize I am confused because I hit something. After I recover from the hit I realize I can’t see my leader and I panic. I have to fight off all of those thoughts, I am by my self, what’s going to happen to me, will I ever find my leader, I can’t see Him or hear him. Although I don’t believe it at the time, He knows exactly where I am at and I could probably hear Him if I shut up worrying and listen. When I am in this place I start looking for people who are lost to and enjoy talking about our being lost and how bad it is and complain and have a old fashioned pity party. If I just listen and keep walking in the direction that He told me before I was lost I will begin to see an opening in the swamp to a field, just like with me and my buddy. Although the field was grown up to my head, I kept walking until I got to an old dirt road. I kept walking up that old road until we got to them mans house, and Jesus used him to tell us which direction to go to the truck. I just wished He told him to give us a ride, but Jesus knows there is strength to build in the struggle. No matter what you and I may be going through in our life, when we feel completely lost and helpless and want to give up, remember our leader knows where we are at, stop looking at your feet and look to where you are going. In the words of Joe Dirt, you gotta keep on keeping on!
Tim West
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Go West Coaching
11-2-2010
It’s true that when you walk you can’t focus on your feet or you will run into things that will hurt you. Living a life of faith in Jesus Christ keeps you from seeing the path that your feet are on sometimes. I like to hunt and spend time in the woods and I have gotten lost on an occasion or three. One memorable time was when a friend of mine was looking at some land and he wanted to show me this great place in the swamp. We crossed the creek and I asked him do you know where you are going? Yes of course I do! 15 minutes later I heard him say that “I don’t know where I am at!” I didn’t pay attention to where we were going because I figured I didn’t need to because he “knew where we were at.” So a couple of hours later we make our way to a paved road and walk up to a mans house and he told us what road were on and we started heading back to the truck. He drove past us a few minutes later and waved. I guess he wanted us to enjoy our country walk and didn’t offer us a ride. We walked 8 miles back to the truck. Nothing like feeling lost in the middle of no where Georgia.
Our walk in life gets that way sometimes, I get a plan and map it out and I know where I am going. But with Jesus in charge of my life, He wants me to trust Him to lead the way and follow His plan that He gave me. He is the greatest leader in history, and a lot of times, like with my friend, I don’t pay any attention to where He is leading and I look up and I am lost. I get lost because I notice I am looking at my feet and then realize I am confused because I hit something. After I recover from the hit I realize I can’t see my leader and I panic. I have to fight off all of those thoughts, I am by my self, what’s going to happen to me, will I ever find my leader, I can’t see Him or hear him. Although I don’t believe it at the time, He knows exactly where I am at and I could probably hear Him if I shut up worrying and listen. When I am in this place I start looking for people who are lost to and enjoy talking about our being lost and how bad it is and complain and have a old fashioned pity party. If I just listen and keep walking in the direction that He told me before I was lost I will begin to see an opening in the swamp to a field, just like with me and my buddy. Although the field was grown up to my head, I kept walking until I got to an old dirt road. I kept walking up that old road until we got to them mans house, and Jesus used him to tell us which direction to go to the truck. I just wished He told him to give us a ride, but Jesus knows there is strength to build in the struggle. No matter what you and I may be going through in our life, when we feel completely lost and helpless and want to give up, remember our leader knows where we are at, stop looking at your feet and look to where you are going. In the words of Joe Dirt, you gotta keep on keeping on!
Tim West
Email your comments
Go West Coaching
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