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Thursday, October 02, 2008

High Expectations

I’ve been digesting this in little pieces:




Its primarily directed at teens…but honestly, there is wisdom in it for all of us, either because we need to rise to the challenge of a brave new world, or because we need to prepare our children to do the same.

I love the premise these kids were raised with…their parents in some sense expected something as phenomenal as this from them…I want to do the same – of myself, of my husband, of my children, of my grandchildren.

I was raised with high expectations and hold myself to a high standard. Some people in my life believe its an unnecessarily high bar. I don’t think so…I DO think that I’m harder on myself following failure than I should be…but not on my initial expectations of myself. I want to leave a legacy.

At any rate…I love the concept that the teens live up to our low expectations of them. And further, I propose that ALL of us are living up to the low expectations of our culture.

I think that the current financial crisis in America is a testament to where our culture places importance. We tie an unprecedented amount of importance to money in the bank, stuff in the closet, being better, and richer, and faster, and more. We all want to at least appear to be wealthy and able to throw it around like confetti…so, as a nation and, despite repeated warnings from experts, we’ve all over-leveraged ourselves. The only people who have come out the better are those who were already rich…

And if you have doubts about what our teens see in terms of how the “should be” according to our culture, watch My Super Sweet Sixteen, Cribs, Paris Hiltons BFF or any of the other purely drivel shows marketed by the MTV crew.

A few years ago, my husband and I decided to get out of debt. We wanted to stop being slaves to 9-5 jobs, to seek the call of the Lord on our lives and to have the resources to do what He called us to do.

Last year, we took a Crown Financial Study and had our eyes opened to what the Bible says about money that affirmed our beliefs, an spurred us to greater levels of honesty and restraint financially. We started managing our money instead of letting our money manage us. Our goal: To be able to do more for the Kingdom of God.

Ok…but THIS BOOK…seriously…it can and will change your life. It encourages us to take on new challenges, to free ourselves of what society says we can or should do and to really listen to the call of God in our lives. Its amazing and really, really liberating.

I often wonder if we are unnecessarily hard on our two-year old. We have pushed learning with our son…the basic foundation of his larger education – letters, colors, numbers, shapes, animals, etc – and social skills – please, thank you, excuse me, I’m sorry, feet on the floor, gentle hands, ask nicely, use your fork, etc. We understand that he, in his way, is an exceptional child. But no more and no less exceptional than any other child. We have had and will continue to have very high expectations for him. And this book…this book affirms that children, people, rise to the level of what is expected of them.

Its refreshing to see an approach where the importance is not on how old somebody is, but on what they can accomplish if they set their mind to something.

These two boys have also got an amazing blog called theRebelution. Its SO worth subscribing to the feed.

And check out their reading list...I think I'll be working on a few of these books myself...I'm embarrassed to say that there are MANY I've not approached yet.

Peace ya'll!

1 comment:

Samantha said...

That is going on my request list at the library.
And thank you for the link to their reading list! The Ralph Moody series is one I remember reading as a child but couldn't remember anything more about than absolutely loving them. They're going on my list too - both of my kids will enjoy them.