Education

A person’s education is one of the most important developments in their life. I went to public schools all my life, and am thankful that we have a system here in America where you can receive twelve years of schooling for free. We often forget what a blessing it is to have the oppurtunity to recieve that much schooling.

As I am reading a book this week written by Napolean Hill in the 1930’s, I found some interesting correlations when he discussed education. The same issues about education they were dealing with in the early 20th century are the same issues we are battling today. The main issue I am thinking about is how to teach students on taking knowledge they learn and use it practically their jobs. Knowledge is only potential power until you act upon it.

The strides we are making with creating classes geared more toward practical, including the hiring of more teachers with industry experience on the subject they are teaching. In my opinion, this is extremely important to a college degree. In education we need to keep adapting to teaching new changes in society, and an example is social media and cell phones in today’s workforce.

There are plenty of examples we can use of people who had little schooling but were very “educated”. One of my favorites is that of Henry Ford who had less than 6 years of schooling in his whole life, but was still very “educated”. Let me explain: the word education comes from the Latin word “educo”. This word means to educe, to draw out, to develop within. So, a truly educated person is one who is able to develop his mind constantly to achieve what he wants.

Henry Ford revolutionized the car industry by constantly developing his mind to achieve his goal of changing the world. There are other great examples like Thomas Edison who only had three months of schooling, but changed the world with the lightbulb. A more modern example is Steve Jobs who only had a high school degree, but kept developing his mind so he could take Apple from a garage to the world leader in technology.

I believe that we are going to fix the problems with the education system, because even though they have been around for centuries, I see tremendous progress through my own exprience. We truly need to keep the true meaning of getting educated in the forefront of our minds. I am thankful for all the people who have shown us what educating your mind truly looks like, and I am thankful for all the people who have invested in me to help me understand these lessons.

A Different College Experience

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As I have talked a lot on here about reading books, well I have been blown away by a book this week and wanted to share my thoughts on it with you! I had the opportunity this week to read my friend Brian Mills (@briandmills247) book called “A Different College Experience”. Most people want to beat around the bush when it comes to college kids and their faith, citing that they will just go through “phases” and that’s just the way it is. But I am thankful for people like Brian Mills and Ben Trueblood (also an author of this book) who are being proactive with tackling the biggest issues college students will face.

One of my favorite things about how these issues were faced in this book, was how much scripture was integrated throughout each chapter. You are not just receiving advice from two pastors, but more importantly reading what the bible has to say about each issue. This is something that I found super beneficial in my college experience because often times christians on a college campus can feel isolated. This could not be farther from the truth because you are never alone with Jesus.

There is hope! This is a huge takeaway that I received from this book and is something that is so simple but important. I want every college student or high school student to know that there is hope in your experience. “Loneliness is an epidemic on college campuses”, hope is often too far lost with college students but as we see in Romans 8:37, “know that we more than conquerors through Christ”.

Lastly, keep good company because bad company corrupts good morals (read Luke 6:45). No one can fight peer pressure forever, you might be saying “no” but regardless the bad lifestyle will still chip away at you without you knowing it. Place yourself around people who build you up and go for it together.

I was blessed by all the messages in this book. Deny temptation for the true freedom that is found in him, and always remember that greater is he!

The Masters

This is one of my favorite times of the the year, and that is because the Masters is happening. The Masters is the most elite tournament in professional golf that happens every year. As someone who loves golf so much, I love just sitting and watching every shot of the tournament. My favorite golfer is Tiger Woods and I am hoping to see him make a comeback this year to win the whole tournament for his 5th time.

One of the great things about the Masters is that there are no phones allowed on the course. All of the patrons have to check their phones inside a locker before going on the course. It is one of the rare times in our society where you look around and do not see anyone on their phones. No one is posting on social media, taking pictures, or texting. This is so rare in sports because everyone usually is too consumed on their phone to truly take in the action.

Spring Football

As I am entering in my last year of college football, it comes with a different appreciation of the little things. At Tennessee we have spring football practice right now. If you follow any Tennessee social media accounts I am sure that you have seen plenty of posts about it starting. Usually for a lot of guys spring football is rough because you are a competitor and are wanting to put the practice into action, but that is still 5 months away. It is a time to work on your craft and truly sculpt what kind of team you want to be. Having spent 5 years here at Tennessee I have been able to see a lot of different spring practices and I have seen what kind of fruit is produced from these practices whether good or bad.

When you know something is coming to an end soon, you get appreciative of a lot of the little things you never thought about before. Even something like the 15 spring football practices we have, and the oppurtunity it brings to everyone.

Coffee

It is 11 am on a Friday morning, and I am about to drink my second latte of the morning. If you know me then you know that this probably is not the best for me considering my natural energy that I wake up with every morning. I have found that with coffee it is a social drink, and that is why I learned to start drinking it last year. I find myself in a coffee shop whenever I can because that is where I can connect with people and get work done.

One of my favorite things is just getting to start conversations with people in coffee shops. You get to hear a lot of interesting things about their life. This is an important part of our society that I think we do not need to lose, and that is the ability to connect to someone we do not know at all.

It is hilarious to scan the room because you will have a working professional on a call, someone drinking their coffee while scrolling social media, and then usually someone reading a good book. So many different types of people who all converge on one spot to do completely different activities while drinking their coffee.

Seeing something from nothing

In the 1800’s a old country doctor in the south went into a store to try and pander a clerk. He talked to the young clerk in the store for about an hour, and then he went out to his buggy to get an old kettle and a wooden paddle. The clerk sees the kettle and took out $500 which was the clerk’s entire savings. The doctor then gives the clerk a small slip of paper with the secret formula to get the kettle to boiling. The doctor was thrilled to get $500 to get rid of what he deemed was a useless old kettle that had not brought him success, but the clerk saw far more with his imagination than the doctor did.

The clerk took that old kettle and formula, mixed another ingredient and out came something that changed the world. What came out of that has given millions of people jobs across the world, changed an entire city to become the hub of the southeast in business, and is used in most every country.

Asa Chandler saw something from nothing and we still see the impacts that Coca Cola has on our world today. The company is dominant from restaurants, stores, social media, and in most households. Coca Cola might not being existent today if Asa Chandler didn’t invest his entire savings into an old Kettle, a wooden paddle, and a failed secret formula.

Habits

Habits are one of the most important things in any successful person’s life. They are the little things that a person routinely does to achieve a goal. In my experience, having good habits in my everyday life has been the key to keep my progress. When I first got to college, my football coach talked a lot about getting 1 percent better everyday. At the time I thought that was a cool saying, but it was not until a couple of years later when that saying really kicked in for me.

It is easy for someone to do something once or twice, and they will maybe post a picture on their story about it to show it off. But I am talking about the everyday grind of doing something in order to make yourself better and that typically does not include posting pictures of it. For me it has been my sleep schedule, my readings everyday, and then working on my football craft everyday.

I want to encourage everyone to analyze where they want to go in life, and what neccesary steps it will take to get to that place. Then set up a system of habits to improve everyday until you are where you want to be.

The Spring Break Paradox

The spring break paradox is one that I have noticed throughout college, and that is the amount of people who are consumed by posting so many pictures of their vacation instead of actually vacationing. I have seen this through all of my spring breaks I have been on, and then I see this just through the amount of posting I see from other people. The problem I see is that people are losing the true sense of what it means to vacation because they want people to see what they are doing in an even better light that what it probably is. The best times of my vacations are ones where my phone is not even in sight because you cannot manufacture those best times.

My goal is that people realize that you do not have to set up pictures constantly to make your vacation look amazing on social media, but instead put the phone in the backpack and go create a true memory. The era of influencers has everyone thinking they have to post constantly of where they are on their vacation, and you miss out on the limited time you have in a day to do things!

Ripple Effect

I was on Twitter this week when I noticed some of the trending topics. More importantly I looked at the sources from which these topics started trending from. Several times I saw that they started from just one tweet, and that tweet would sometimes even come from a user with only a couple hundred followers. That one tweet started a ripple effect that reached millions, and that is the power of social media.

The ripple effect that any message on social media can have is crazy. This is why every message that you choose to send out their should be carefully thought of. You never know when the ripple effect will take place because messages can be brought up through the internet at any given time. It is very critical that we are conscious of what we are putting out, and look at it to see if it really brings value to yourself or other people.

Freedom

Freedom is an often misunderstood word in our society today. Most people will tweet about America being the home of freedom, without even truly remembering why we can say that. We had so many men and women who gave so much for this quick slogan to be used today. King George III the tryant had strangled the colonies with his taxes and refused to give the colonies up. At the time the British empire was thriving with colonizing across the entire globe, and was not going to start a precedent by giving up one of his colonies with the most potential. The colonials fought back to beat the British, and they did it on their own land.

This quick history talk was to show that there was a price and a reason that we are indeed the most “free” country in the world. But there is another freedom that was even of bigger importance than America gaining its independance.

This freedom was when Jesus, the son of God, defeated death by coming back to life after 3 days. That gave everyone the chance to have freedom from an eternity spent in Hell by believing that he is God. You then also have the blessing to live this brief life on earth with a heavenly freedom only found in Jesus.

The freedom to live in a country because of what the colonials did was amazing and we can cherish that while we live this life here. But the freedom in Jesus is one that we can cherish here and for all of enternity.

The Oscars

Tonight the Oscars takes over cable television, but more importantly, it takes over social media. Every time I know one of these events are coming on, I know that I will see a huge blitz of content on social media about the show. People will take to Twitter to voice their likes, comments, and opinions about what is happening at the Oscars.

One of my favorite things to look for on Twitter tonight is what people truly attach too during the show. Is it the Actors? Is it their favorite genre of movie? Is it some sort of big political stance made during the show?

It is quite funny the number of people who will almost live tweet the entire show, and whether they were happy or mad about the winner of a category. I never realize how many movie “experts” I follow until tonight. I get a kick out of reading peoples feed though when their tweets all over the place because of the award show. Twitter you just keep on keeping on with your entertainment in our daily lives!