Skip to main content

Are we becoming more undisciplined?

Steve Tobak sees the signs in a recent article for Fox Business on the “Lost Art of Discipline”:
“...I rarely have a coherent thought before noon and my workdays are peppered with blood-pumping and synapse-sparking activities that bear little resemblance to what I do for a living. But throughout my career I have always sacrificed whatever I had to and pushed my people to do the same to ensure the job got done. And that’s getting harder and harder to do all the time. Granted, there have always been distractions – the archenemies of discipline – but these days, they seem to be multiplying at an alarming rate. And, more importantly, nobody’s immune, not even our business and political leaders…”

“....Twitter CEO Dick Costolo recently got himself embroiled in a ludicrous online debate over the gender constitution of his management team and board of directors... not a great idea, especially with an IPO on the way….Senator John McCain couldn’t get through a Senate committee hearing without playing poker on his iPhone….Even highly focused overachievers like me – who grew up in the tech industry and should definitely know better – sit down to work only to find that, a few tweets, texts, and emails later, half the day is gone and the work is a long way away from getting done…”
In short we are now addicted to distraction. And as he later puts it, it now comes in many shapes and sizes including, tweeting, posting, blogging, emailing, gaming, shopping…..And if he is right, the “the threshold for human susceptibility to these addictions is getting lower all the time”. It is a powerful reminder that the human heart is an idol factory! We are constantly looking to fill that God shaped hole with anything we can lay our hands on!

Copyright © Chola Mukanga 2013
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I am what I am by Gloria Gaynor

Beverly Knight closed the opening ceremony of the Paralympics with what has been dubbed the signature tune of the Paralympics. I had no idea Ms Knight is still in the singing business. And clearly going by the raving reviews she will continue to be around. One media source says her performance was so electric that "there wasn’t a dry eye to be seen as she sang the lyrics to the song and people even watching at home felt the passion in her words" . The song was Gloria Gaynor's I am what I am . Clearly not written by Gloria Gaynor but certainly musically owned and popularized by her. It opens triumphantly: I am what I am / I am my own special creation / So come take a look / Give me the hook or the ovation / It's my world that I want to have a little pride in / My world and it's not a place I have to hide in / Life's not worth a damn till you can say I am what I am The words “I am what I am” echo over ten times in the song. A bold declaration that she ...
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →

Trusting God, By Jerry Bridges (A Review)

Trust is the bedrock of human relations. It is a necessity in a world of finite creatures. We do not know everything and we are powerless over many of the events that occur in our lives. We depend on others to make life work. We cannot afford not to trust. Trust deepens us as individuals by bringing us into mutually satisfying relationships. It enables us to know, love and learn from each other. The tragedy of life is that the one person who we can truly depend on and deserves all our trust, is also the person we struggle to put our trust in. When it comes to trusting God, we are all bankrupt. This poverty is most acute when we go through pain and adversity. Jerry Bridges’ Trusting God aims to help us take a fresh look at God. To help restore our confidence in the goodness and sovereignty of God. This issue is important because though many of us claim to trust God, our thoughts and actions speak otherwise. In our private moments we often ask: how can we trust a God who is supposedly ...
KEEP READING →

Repeaters

Repeaters is directed by rising Canadian director Carl Bessai. It tells the story of three drug addicts - Kyle, Sonia and Mike - who have become friends in the drug rehab. As part of the rehabilitation process they are granted their first day out in the community to "make amends" with loved ones, only to experience failure. Kyle has a young sister who refuses to talk to him. Sonia fails to reconcile with her father lying on the death bed in hospital. Mike is rebuffed by his father in jail. Next morning they wake up to find the day is repeating itself. Everything happening exactly as it was the previous day. And this cycle continues going forward. The film is essentially an exploration of how the three respond to their predicament. On the first two repeats, after satisfying themselves that the repeats are genuine, they  indulge in carefree experiences! Their new immortality or externally inconsequential existence becomes a license to take drugs, rob people and...
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →