Have you ever seen ten different people make the exact same mistake, right in a row? I have.
They installed a speed bump on the road outside a church that I was on staff at. People sped through there all the time, and this particular Sunday was no exception. Several of the elders and staff members sat in front of the church and laughed our heads off as ten different people in ten different cars sped down the road, each hitting the speed bump at around forty miles per hour causing their cars to launch into the air. Not one of them learned the lesson from the previous car.
I laughed at that until I realized that I do the same things in my own life year after year after year. You do too! Here are a few things we refuse to learn from year to year:
1. We need money for Christmas gifts! Seriously, why does this surprise us each year? It surprised us last year too. I guess we didn't realize Christmas would come again this year too. Instead of budgeting for it, it becomes a budget-breaker for many.
What happens in many cases is that the Christmas gifts are put on a credit card, which ends up getting paid off many months and many more dollars later. That turns a simple life lesson into a very costly one, as well as a case of poor stewardship.
2. I lost an hour of sleep because of Daylight Savings Time! It amazes me, year after year, how surprised people are when they "lose an hour of sleep" on this sadistic day as if we didn't know it was coming. I guess going to bed an hour earlier (because we remember how bad we felt last year, right?) just doesn't work for most people, and every year we are surprised that we wake up feeling tired. Many people skip church that Sunday because they didn't learn last year's lesson.
The week following Daylight Savings Time is a down week. Ask any teacher or any pastor or well, just about anyone, and they will tell you that people truly pay for that lost hour of sleep for a while. It happens every year- you'd think one of these years we would wise up and learn from it.
3. What? Taxes are due on April 15th this year? Yes, and they were due April 15th the last year as well. Yet, how many of us see that day "sneak up on us" each year? Surprise!
It's much easier to do taxes online now, but I remember the days when you had to mail them in. I will never forget driving by the post office at 11:30 pm on April 14th, seeing the mile-long line of cars at every mailbox dropping off their tax returns.
4. I don't know why I keep getting sick! But shhhh! I can't hear my late-night movie! It never fails- every time we stay up too late and don't get enough sleep, we get sick. But it still surprises us when it happens- like it has never happened before.
As a parent, I think the #1 predictor of whether or not my kids will get sick is how much sleep they get at night. That goes for myself as well.
5. Why are my kids driving me crazy today? Why are they so whiny today? Why are they so rude today? Along those same lines, we get after our kids for being whiny, rude, or disrespectful . . . but we are the ones who let them stay up two hours past their bedtime and they are exhausted. It shouldn't surprise us, but it does. Instead of blaming the kids, we need to blame ourselves, and we need to quit being surprised that they are acting like they are when they are tired.
I'm sure there are more, but those were the only ones I could think of today. Winston Churchill said, "Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
They installed a speed bump on the road outside a church that I was on staff at. People sped through there all the time, and this particular Sunday was no exception. Several of the elders and staff members sat in front of the church and laughed our heads off as ten different people in ten different cars sped down the road, each hitting the speed bump at around forty miles per hour causing their cars to launch into the air. Not one of them learned the lesson from the previous car.
I laughed at that until I realized that I do the same things in my own life year after year after year. You do too! Here are a few things we refuse to learn from year to year:
1. We need money for Christmas gifts! Seriously, why does this surprise us each year? It surprised us last year too. I guess we didn't realize Christmas would come again this year too. Instead of budgeting for it, it becomes a budget-breaker for many.
What happens in many cases is that the Christmas gifts are put on a credit card, which ends up getting paid off many months and many more dollars later. That turns a simple life lesson into a very costly one, as well as a case of poor stewardship.
2. I lost an hour of sleep because of Daylight Savings Time! It amazes me, year after year, how surprised people are when they "lose an hour of sleep" on this sadistic day as if we didn't know it was coming. I guess going to bed an hour earlier (because we remember how bad we felt last year, right?) just doesn't work for most people, and every year we are surprised that we wake up feeling tired. Many people skip church that Sunday because they didn't learn last year's lesson.
The week following Daylight Savings Time is a down week. Ask any teacher or any pastor or well, just about anyone, and they will tell you that people truly pay for that lost hour of sleep for a while. It happens every year- you'd think one of these years we would wise up and learn from it.
3. What? Taxes are due on April 15th this year? Yes, and they were due April 15th the last year as well. Yet, how many of us see that day "sneak up on us" each year? Surprise!
It's much easier to do taxes online now, but I remember the days when you had to mail them in. I will never forget driving by the post office at 11:30 pm on April 14th, seeing the mile-long line of cars at every mailbox dropping off their tax returns.
4. I don't know why I keep getting sick! But shhhh! I can't hear my late-night movie! It never fails- every time we stay up too late and don't get enough sleep, we get sick. But it still surprises us when it happens- like it has never happened before.
As a parent, I think the #1 predictor of whether or not my kids will get sick is how much sleep they get at night. That goes for myself as well.
5. Why are my kids driving me crazy today? Why are they so whiny today? Why are they so rude today? Along those same lines, we get after our kids for being whiny, rude, or disrespectful . . . but we are the ones who let them stay up two hours past their bedtime and they are exhausted. It shouldn't surprise us, but it does. Instead of blaming the kids, we need to blame ourselves, and we need to quit being surprised that they are acting like they are when they are tired.
I'm sure there are more, but those were the only ones I could think of today. Winston Churchill said, "Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
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