This has been running around in my head for some time. I thought I would go ahead and make a list of the ways we rob ourselves of life's best. I hope God uses this to spark some positive changes in us all.
How to Avoid Improvement:
1. Always assume it is others who need to improve.
2. Maintain a “can’t do” attitude.
3. Gossip about others regularly.
4. Find those who will agree with you about everything and stick only with them.
5. Limit yourself to those tasks that you can do with ease.
6. Let everything “happen” to you. Do not make any real choices.
7. Complain about how everything “happens” to you.
8. Harbor envy.
9. Trash your spouse to your friends.
10. Assume that if another is successful, he must be crooked.
11. Always make excuses for why you failed.
12. Place “Murphy’s Laws” on your wall at home of the office and buy into that stuff.
13. Never break out of your safety zone.
14. Never break out of your comfort zone.
15. Let criticism rule your life.
16. Believe the worst about others.
17. Believe most things are too difficult for you.
18. Don’t read books.
19. Do watch lots of TV.
20. Do what you do for the money.
21. Do what you do for the approval of others.
22. Cheat when you can get away with it.
23. Avoid physical exercise.
24. Try to get by with the minimum effort.
25. Say, “That’s not my job.”
26. Believe you are special.
27. Believe others owe you something.
28. Accuse others of what you know, deep down in your heart, is true about your own self.
29. Do not ask God “What can I do for your glory?”
30. Do not ask others, “What can I do to help you?”
31. Believe that life it supposed to be easy.
32. Expect others to make your life easier.
33. Get angry when others fail to make your life easy.
34. Blame others with your own failures.
35. Make sure you get credit for everything you do.
36. Make others look bad when you can get away with it.
37. Be cynical because being cynical is “cool”.
38. Be emotionally invested in other people's failure.
39. Be a taker.
40. Whine a lot.
41. Reject your elders’ counsel.
42. Believe your elders are stupid, ignorant, or un-hip.
43. Listen more to other losers than to winners.
44. Trust your own emotions.
45. Never apologize because you are never wrong.
46. Hold a grudge because you believe it will actually hurt the other person more than it hurts yourself.
47. Never become silent and submissive in the very presence of God.
48. Make excuses for why you can’t do something
49. Blame God for your depression.
50. Believe that self promotion is a form of improvement.
Quotes:
"A ship cannot move with yesterday's winds" (Unknown)
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are
small matters compared to what lies within us."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he isn't.
A sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is."
Horace Walpole
"Anything I've ever done that ultimately was worthwhile initially scared me to death."
Betty Bender