Work and Attitude

Enjoying work has been a real struggle for me lately. My productivity level has gone up a documented 65% in the last year. All the while, I've committed to working no more than 9 hours a day. This has not been easy to do as I could work 11 hours a day at a more realistic and less stressful pace. Anyway, the more requests that come in from customers, the more discouraged I tend to get unless I put a Spiritual perspective on things. What occurred to me today, was there are some customers and other folks who ask me to do things in the usual, 'I need it ASAP" mode and my attitude is fairly good. Why is that? Well, they are likable people, they understand the stress I have in my job and they are very thankful and appreciative. Then there are customers and account folks who really don't take any of this into consideration... they just need it now.

Obviously, this is less than motivating and the last month has been a real struggle to want to do their work at all, never mind do it fast. But when I compare it to the other folks I like, I realize it's more than the stress load. It's my valuation of who is asking. So, today, I've taken a new tactic:

Colossians 3:22-24 (New Living Translation)

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord. Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.  Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.

So, I'm taking the customer requests now, not just as doing it as unto the Lord but as if He himself has asked me to do it. It is making a difference. Combining this, with setting reasonable delivery dates should be sufficient. If they don't like the dates, too bad for them. I'm doing the very best I can and although they may be disappointed, I know my lord Jesus is not.

(Off topic) Major world events and Social networking

I've known about the ability of Social networking to get the word out in real time about Major World events. This became reality for me with the MG 3.8 earthquake that hit 15 miles NW of us today. I felt awoken to the thought I was hearing Thunder; then thought maybe an airplane went down. Having felt minor tremors before, my thought shifted to a possible earthquake. So I grabbed my iPhone and did a Google search on "Illinois Earthquake today"

Nothing happened. I watched the page as it had a twitter feed.90 seconds later the tweets came streaming in. That was REALLY cool. 5 minutes later, I refreshed the page and the USGS had the earthquake data posted.

30 Years ago, probably no one outside of Illinois would even heard anything about it except through a family phone call and perhaps a newspaper article a few days later.

A 100 years ago, no one would ever had known.

It's just interesting to think about. This is a much smaller world we live in now.

How can I deal with my Fear?

I like this article from Insight for Living:


http://www.insight.org/library/articles/encouragement-healing/deal-with-fear.html

quoting a portion of the article:


"Another key to controlling your thought life is to control what goes into your mind. Negative thoughts feed the emotion of fear, giving it power. You can convince yourself that something bad will happen by thinking it will—and then, it’s more likely to happen! Identify your negative, self-limiting thoughts and stop them before they enter your heart. Guard against negative thoughts like these:

    Comparison: “I’m not as likable as that person.”

    All-or-Nothing: “If I can’t have a close friend, then I just won’t have any friends.”

• Exaggeration: “That experience completely devastated me. I will never recover.” 
• Catastrophe: “If I go to that social event, it will be a disaster.” 
• Self-Limitation: “I can’t . . .”

Replace these negative thoughts with truths from Scripture. Imagine how your thoughts might change when you introduce Christ into your thinking:

• Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.(2 Corinthians 3:4-5) 
• But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. (2 Corinthians 4:7) 
• I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13)"