Ray

I'm thrilled to announce that I am writing this article using my new Dragon Naturally Speaking software. It Is really cool! (ok, I am still typing some but with time the software would hopefully recognize my voice better...)

Today I would like to begin the first part of the miniseries titled Lessons Learned so Far in Life. Take time to think, sounds like such a simple thing, yet many of us go through the same cycles day after day, week after week never bothers to take the time to stop and asked ourselves questions like: why am I doing what I'm doing, am I doing it in the best way possible, etc? I have came full circle on this as the doer and a type A person. I thrive in action. I used to believe that doing anything is better than doing nothing, but I'm not so sure anymore. There many times in a hurry and eagerness is getting something done, had won down the wrong path and not tell much time and labor have been wasted.

Take for example last year when I was in China working on a dictionary that has three languages. Without thinking, I started entering the data myself. Now it has been years since I have seriously done anything in Chinese so my typing speed in Chinese is not the best and I just don't recognize some characters anymore so I will have to look them up in another dictionary first. It was a time consuming and error-prone process. After about hundred pages of this, I was very frustrated. Then my more intelligent fiancée suggested, "don't you know a Chinese typist, but it should let her do the Chinese part?" So I went to see the typist and she completed in two weeks what would have taken me at least two-month to do and many fistful of hair.

Nor are such examples limited to the personal realm. My current company, for example, uses an old database technology that came out in 1997. At the time it was probably cutting edge, and even today, you can see some of the reasons why they chose the product: it is very flexible and her little constraints on users. But the lack of constraints comes at a cost. Today, this small company of less than 100 people have 300 or more databases, that is more than 3 databases per person! (If you know about databases, you will instantly realize how insane this is. If you don't care about technologies, substitute this with your favorite workplace example.) To make matters worse, most of these databases are interlinked to each other. So picture a gigantic bowl of spaghetti, and you get the picture. In hindsight, the day the programmers built the second database, pointing to the first one was a day that everything went downhill. Someone should have said: "STOP! Let's THINK about this before we just do it."

In business and life, we are not called to be mindless drones performing routine tasks, rather because we were created in the image of God, we have intelligence and responsibility to use it. So take some time today to think through what you are doing, evaluate, and plan, you can't afford not to.

All of the sudden, I don't feel young quite anymore.

Maybe it is the fact that now I am married, now I belong to the elite cool group of married people and doing married things.

Maybe it is the fact that all of the sudden that I noticed that people are not too much older than me now. When I meet someone who is in their 40s and 50s, and that is old! :p If I really think about, that is only 10 to 20 years away!

So I am not calling this a MID-life crisis, that would somehow imply I am only going to live to be 60! But this is an Inter-life crisis of sorts.

I am not running out to buy that Aston Martin or anything but this hopefully will get me to think about THE big question:

We all want to please the ones that we love, so as I am turning 30 (next year!) it will be good to pick one afternoon, put my feet up, grab a cup a coffee and ask Jesus if I have been living according to his will, if I am being a "good and faithful servant"...

These days it seems that Christians aren't so much concerned about being right than being "smart".

First there is the issue of global warming. Some would still argue that it does not exist. Let's look at this way: let's say global warming is fake, what do you lose if you buy cars with higher mpg, recycle things, looking for environmentally friendly way of doing things? Maybe a little time and energy, i.e. some inconvenience to you.

But what if it is real and you don't believe it and still do things the way that was done in the past?

Or on the issue of giving. Did you know that on average Christians only give about 2% of the income? If we just did our minimum 10% tithing then there would be extra $6 billion dollars a year that could be use to reach the world for the glory of God. Why aren't we giving? Maybe faith is an issue, maybe lack of understanding, but I don't think it is inaccurate to say that in most cases it is just plain ol' selfishness. Oh and people find plenty of excuses for it; they claim that their heavenly father wants to bless them richly to show His glory. While that is true, it is only part of the story: we are blessed so we can be a blessing.

If you give out of gratitude for God, sometimes beyond what is comfortable or required, what is Jesus likely to say when he returns? "Joe, I can't believe you gave so much; I meant for you to enjoy all those blessings I gave you all by yourself. You could have used a better TV, a new car and a timeshare. Why did you give so much away, you dummy!" Or is he more likely going to say, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." (Matthew 25:34-36)

Let's stop erring on the side of being selfish, being concerned on being "smart" for your own sake. Let's err on the side of compassion, on the side of generosity, on being "right" for God.

In most computer courses, your very first program outputs, "hello world!" So I guess this is mine. :)

Hello world, hello scroogles and hello blogging again. I have tried to blog before, a few times, same with journaling too, but it never became a habit. 

But a lot things are changing lately. I just got married, started a new job, and launched a website! BetterServants is aiming to be a place where business/technology minded Christians can come and share their experiences and challenges so we can learn together how to serve Jesus better. Come check it out!

So I am excited to blog again, to document the joys and sorrows of starting a website, get on my soapbox once in awhile about this issue or that, and hope to make some friends in the process. Thank you for reading!