The Modest Miracle

ka-BOOM A lightning bolt strikes the ground, pile-driving a million particles of plasma and an incredible amount of energy into a small charred patch of undergrowth.   The peal of its thunder shocks the world for many miles around. As awesome as this pure rush of elemental prowess, a second later it's all over and the dreary landscape is almost exactly the way it's always been. Life can be like that. There are moments when we, like the lightning, sit in positions of incredible power and influence.   But many times we don't appreciate the opportunities and soon they've gone by with a flash and a bang. Only, in life, those opportunities are much easier to overlook precisely because they are not as (no pun intended) flashy. To be in a position of power means to have a certain amount of say or influence.   This is easy to recognize when you think about the way the opinions of celebrities have a disproportionate influence on the world just b...

What decision do you think has the most impact on your ability to be a competent person? Competency means to perform at a high level.   To be a competent chess player, a person must consistently make good moves without many mistakes. But life is full of mistakes.   We make them any time we act or think selfishly.   How can we ever hope to be truly competent at what matters most when we exhibit that type of behavior so frequently? I was a Psychology undergraduate at BYU, but one of the discipline's ideas that has stuck with me the most came from a class of the same subject that I took in high school. When people discover a disparity between their actions and standards, the realization creates cognitive dissonance, a fancy term for internal stress or conflict.   In order to resolve the discrepancy, a person typically responds by either elevating their behavior to meet the standard or dropping their stan dards to meet the behavior. That concept ...

True greatness comes from within.   It stands independent of outside forces and quietly, persistently outlasts them all.   The person who is truly great doesn't have to be the same as other people because their prowess stems from the inside, not from reactions to the scrutinizing eye of the masses. Roger Federer is perhaps the greatest tennis player who has ever lived.   At 36, well past the prime of most players, he is one of two serious contenders for the designation of highest-ranked player in the world by the end of the year.   Throughout his whole career he has been the epitome of consistent excellence, winning almost 82% of his professional matches as of 2015. To put that in perspective, that is like the NBA   Golden State Warriors repeating their 67-15 2016-2017 record (tied for the second best record in franchise history) -- for 19 straight years.   Without adding younger players to their roster between seasons. To most people Federer ...