This past weekend, Katie and I left the kids with the grandparents and drove to Dallas for the Dave Ramsey Smart Conference. While the opportunity to spend even 24 hours away from the kiddos was rather freeing, the conference provided quite a bit food for thought. The day was filled with speakers from varied professions, each having great perspective and advice, as well as a book to sell. None were from Texas and when one cautiously mentioned that she had been spanked as a child, the place nearly broke into a standing ovation; similar to when Ramsey commented that one of the four pieces of plastic he keeps in his wallet is a concealed carry weapon permit.
Texas. Sigh.
Of the speakers, the most notable (aside from Dave Ramsey) was Dr. Meg Meeker, whose matter-of-fact explanation (listen to an interview Strong Mothers, Strong Sons and Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. Seems like great blogging material, but there’s so much to process from the talk that I have a hard time nailing down a topic. Maybe later.
The last speaker of the day was a man named Andy Andrews who I think could best be described as someone who makes eccentric people nervous. He’s basically nuts, or at least acts the part, and that’s part of his presentation. Not my style, but he got a pretty good reaction from the crowd. Thought it wasn’t quite life-changing, one idea he presented was that you shouldn’t believe everything you think. I thought it interesting because as I advance in years, I begin to notice how wrong I am about a whole host of things. While most of the wrong things I think and believe to be true are relatively small details about stories or current events, there are a few bigg’ns that I’ve discovered over the last year or so.
Doubting what you know can be a tricky proposition from a moral standpoint; a person can’t be expected to morally act beyond their conscience, for instance. Still, I’ve found a few untrue (or at least, untested) thoughts that I have believed to be true, mostly to do with negative assessments of who I am. I think I’m tired all the time, that I have difficulty learning new skills, that I’m having a bad day, that I don’t like sushi, that I’m old and set in my ways. Whatever it is, there isn’t much of a reason I can’t challenge these assumptions about myself. Ultimately, it seems to come down to the idea that I can’t change. Sometimes it just takes a little disbelief and attitude change. Once I decided to stop telling people that I was tired, the exhaustion I had been experiencing began to dissipate; I decided to regard days as being great as a default. And I will always hate sushi.
Katie rejects the notion that I’m becoming an old fogie, since I’m still in my 30′s and maybe she’s right. The tendency to believe everything we think about ourselves is a tempting one, but it should always align with a desire to see reality for what it actually is.