Ultimate life questions

A popular approach to helping you discover your calling is to ask ultimate life questions. A Forbes article illustrates the approach. Ask yourself these questions:

  1. Which five words best describe you?
  2. What can’t you stop yourself from doing?
  3. What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?
  4. What’s one small thing you can do today to move yourself forward?
  5. If you knew you only had five years left to live, what would you do differently?

The questions from the article are supposed to bracket your calling by narrowing the possibilities to a range you can manage. What you manage is the research into the details of those possibilities so you can translate a noble purpose into daily activities.

Nordic walking meetup in Tuscaloosa County on 8/12

Join us on Saturday to find out what Nordic walking is all about! No charge; poles provided. Look for the white Nordic walking sign.
  • When: 10 AM; August 12
  • Where: Annette N. Shelby Park (1614 15th Street, Tuscaloosa)
  • Dress for the weather; bring some water.

Instructor: Leroy Hurt, ANWA-certified Advanced Nordic Walking instructor

Why Nordic walking?
  • Full body, low impact
  • Increase weight loss
  • Improve cholesterol
  • Improve blood pressure
  • Facilitate rehabilitation
  • Maintain stability and balance
  • Maintain posture
  • Facilitate stress relief
  • Support muscle toning
  • Improve cardiovascular function
  • Improve lung capacity
  • Support immune system
  • Socialize with walking companions
  • You determine the intensity of your workout


Learn more about Nordic walking at my Nordic Walking Guy blog and Nordic Walking Guy Facebook page.

An approach to critical thinking

Via Arts and Letters Daily, an article describing philosophical heuristics we all can use to improve our own critical thinking. Heuristics are techniques to help you solve problems or make decisions. You know them as rules of thumb, educated guesses, or estimates (among other terms).

Some heuristics suggested:

  • When listening to arguments, mentally add “…as opposed to…” to identify a counterpoint.
  • Examine extreme claims (“everyone knows…”) by looking for extreme counterexamples. For example, does the claim hold when applied to the very first instance? “Everyone knows the universe started with the Big Bang.” What started the Big Bang?
  • Identify the truth dependencies of an argument. What true statement does the argument depend on? What truth does that true statement depend on? And so forth.
  • Take an argument to its extreme to see how far you can take it.
A clever seat


Are the kids OK?

Via Christianity Today, the question for parents: "How do we actually go about developing empathy in our kids?"

A major point: "…the key to fostering moral development is to focus on your actions and not words alone."

Apropos of Independence Day, what it was like to raise children back in the day: "At our nation’s beginning, childhood meant participating in the family’s provision of basic needs (for example, by working on a farm) while today, by contrast, most children’s activities are oriented around self-fulfillment."

How to do it: "One of the best ways for parents to demonstrate the value of empathy…is volunteering as a family and finding ways to serve both local and global communities."
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