My friend was frustrated. She staged an event and the manager of one of the acts at the event got all selfish, acting like they were the only act that counted. The manager was in my friend’s face about what needed to be done for his band.

My friend was so angry and overwhelmed she wanted to blow.

But in a way that surprised even her, she decided to just stop and not push and to walk away and trust God. She didn’t know what would happen.

In the end the manager’s attitude caught up with him, and it turned out great without my friend blowing and she was so glad she chilled.

That’s a dot.

A week later she was sharing about an upcoming family trip and one family member who was always contrary and divisive. My friend was apprehensive about what would happen in the time they would be together.

She was told,

Uh, didn’t you just learn something about chilling and trusting and not depending on your own ability to make things work? And didn’t that turn out in a way that you could not have engineered yourself?

You could see the wheels turning.

Oh yeah.

She forgot to connect the dots.

Can you relate?

~~~

This is Day 9 of 31 Days of Connecting the Dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams. Subscribe on the right or below and each day will be delivered every morning to your inbox.

You could have told Ebenezer Scrooge over and over: You need to be kinder and gentler! People matter! It’s not all about work! You’re wasting your life! How can you treat Bob Cratchit like that–he’s hurting! His son’s sick!

All that was true. True dots.

But telling someone they should change hardly ever changes anything. How many times have you changed because someone told you to?

Ebenezer’s attitude came from something–his inner scrooge, a view, a perspective, an expectation of life and of what life is.

What he did made perfect sense to him–it FIT how he had already connected the dots.

In a way, he couldn’t do anything different; it was outside his realm of experience and comprehension.

Then one night he has the chance to connect the dots of his Past, Present, and Yet to Come. He sees new dots, and reconnects the old ones in new ways. It’s radically shocking. He begs for it to stop. His eyes are opened and his attitude, behavior, and the kind of person he is, changes forever.

Google says perspective is

the ability to perceive things in their actual interrelationships of comparative importance.

Google knows how to connect the dots.

Someone else said perspective is when little things are seen for what they really are.

When have your eyes been opened and you saw things for what they really are?

~~~

This is Day 8 of 31 Days of Connecting the Dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams. Subscribe on the right or below and each day will be delivered every morning to your inbox. Visit the Nester to choose from over 1,200 more 31 Dayers.

No pressure. Just lovely, interesting discussions.

That’s how Richard Feynman described how he learned to connect the dots.

You don’t learn it from school. Richard wasn’t crazy about school. He said,

School invented a set of rules which if you followed them without thinking could produce the answer. A series of steps by which you could get the answer if you didn’t understand what you were trying to do.

Richard went to very exclusive schools, but it was his dad who encouraged him to be curious and pay attention and connect the dots so that he had understanding.

Richard won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. You may not want a Nobel Prize, but you can do the same thing Richard did–be curious and connect the dots–for your own purpose.

What does that look like?

In the opening scene from “Infinity,” Richard’s dad uses lovely, interesting discussions (which you can have in your head) to encourage the curiosity that leads to things making sense. (If you’re reading this in email, click HERE to visit the blog to see the video – it’s 3:50 and worth it)

This is Day 7 of 31 Days of Connecting the Dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams. Subscribe on the right or below and each day will be delivered every morning to your inbox. Visit the Nester to choose from over 1,200 more 31 Dayers.

I love David McCullough’s writing. His curiosity glues him to one thing like President Truman, or 1776, or the Johnstown Flood, or the Brooklyn Bridge. Then he wrestles it to death for years to understand and make it clear and interesting to himself so that it will be interesting to us.

He connects the dots of the past with the dots of you and your present. But first he has to see the dots.

Seeing is so important . . . Insight comes, more often than not, from looking at what’s been on the table all along, in front of everybody, rather than from discovering something new.

The chances of finding a new piece are fairly remote . . . it’s more likely you see something that’s been around a long time that others haven’t seen. Sometimes it derives from your own nature, your own interests.

More often, it’s just that nobody bothered to look closely enough.

— author David McCullough

Recently I noticed that my 4Runner displays the outside temperature on the dashboard. Cool!

Except I’ve owned the car ten years. Never noticed. Never bothered to look closely enough. What else am I missing that’s right in front of me?

~~~

This is Day 6 of 31 Days of Connecting the Dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams. Subscribe on the right or below and each day will be delivered every morning to your inbox. Visit the Nester to choose from over 1,200 more 31 Dayers.

The habit? CURIOSITY

Curiosity makes you ask ‘why?’

Curiosity makes you pay attention.

Curiosity makes you look closer to see how it works.

When you ask ‘why’ and look closer and pay attention, you learn a little bit. Usually the little bits are random. Learn enough little bits, though, and curiosity makes you start to look for patterns and connections. You can’t help it if you have the curiosity habit. That’s when the fun starts.

Recently I sat on the beach at sunrise and watched joggers and dog walkers and bike riders and shell hunters and picture takers and wondered:

Why are people so attracted to the ocean and the shoreline? They get up early and journey down to the beach like a pilgrimage. I’m doing it too! Why?

You’d think this is where I tell you some big revelation. Nope. I didn’t get past seeing it as some kind of human instinct. Just another dot. For now.

But maybe later this dot will connect with some other random dots and turn into some kind of revelation.

Some may think that’s dumb and not worth thinking about. To me it’s normal. I’m exercising my curiosity muscle. Just out of habit, without trying. Can’t help it.

You may not be naturally curious. That’s fine, you’ll still learn to connect the dots. But if you can be even slightly more curious a few times a day I think you have a better chance of making more sense of your life and world.

Here, try it – take ONE MINUTE to think and answer this:

Why have you never met another person exactly like you?

Is that person just like you out there but you just haven’t seen them yet? Or are you the only one like yourself?

If you ARE the only one like yourself, what might that mean?

If you can make yourself curious about this, you might begin to connect some dots between yourself, God, and your purpose on earth. That’s no small thing. And from just a little curiosity.

Make it a habit and your life will begin to make more and more sense.

What are you curious about right now?

~~~

This is Day 5 of 31 Days of Connecting the Dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams. Subscribe on the right or below and each day will be delivered every morning to your inbox. Visit the Nester to choose from over 1,100 more 31 Dayers.

I’m at a professional conference and my hotel is a few blocks from the Art Institute of Chicago. Never been to an AI. I climb the steps between the big green lions, enter and look for the Monets. I’m no art lover but I love Monet.

Within two minutes I’m in person with On the Bank of the Seine.

It’s a woman, and a tree, and a boat and river, and a village across the river.

It’s not flat. And it’s alive.

You can feel it without touching it. I realize that a reproduction, or a photo of a painting in a book, is not the same as the work of art itself.

I stare, then instinctively step back and stare some more. I step back again, maybe eight feet away. What a wonderful painting.

Then I move a few steps closer again to see how the painting changes. Then I get right on it and stare some more. (I later learn that’s how you look at art–close, medium, far).

Close up it’s a bunch of strokes and colors and textures, seems jumbled up, and doesn’t at all appear as art. Standing as close as Monet stood when he painted you think “How does he know to do that so that from a distance all the brush strokes make sense as one picture?”

He does it by always leaning back to see how things connect.

This is how your life works

When you view it from a distance you see the whole and how it all fits together.

You spend most of your time on the individual brush strokes–your dots. But you can’t live there. You’re always backing up to get the big picture.

Artists aren’t born fully baked. Over time they learn to put together brush strokes that connect and become a single work. You do too.

And there is one habit that will help you do this better than ever. That’s Day 5 tomorrow.

~~~

This is Day 4 of 31 Days of Connecting the Dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams. Subscribe on the right or below and each day will be delivered every morning to your inbox. Visit the Nester to choose from over 1,000 more 31 Dayers.

Harold’s class was about Bible doctrine. (I had to ask him what ‘doctrine’ meant).

But it didn’t stay Bible doctrine.

Somehow Harold put one arm around the book and the other arm around all those dots I mentioned yesterday.

Like they were all friends or something

It was subtle. He wasn’t preachy, and he didn’t use the Christian cliches I’d heard.

I didn’t hear direct answers or explanations on how the dots were connected. But I felt it.

You know how a family has many members and generations, and each is an individual, yet each is related? And you can see the family resemblance in each individual no matter how different they are from each other?

Hearing Harold talk made me feel that way about my dots.

They’re all one big family

It was appealing. It felt good.

Life seemed simpler when I heard him talk.

Later, I’d call for advice on what was bugging me in my marriage, or with money, or at church or work. Questions about all those dots. I was amazed at how he seemed to see threads of connection, consistency, and predictability in things I thought were unrelated.

When you learn to connect the dots, living becomes art, not a how-to

When I called for advice he wouldn’t tell me what to do. He just asked questions and told stories and helped me think. I told him “I don’t want to call you every time I’m trying to figure things out. I want to be able to do this myself.” He said, “You’ll get there.”

He didn’t teach me. He just did it and I seemed to learn by watching him. Then I caught it.

Expect that here for the rest of the 31 Days

Stories, observations, and questions. Threads of connection between pieces that you think are unrelated.

Maybe something will begin to add up for you like it did for me.

~~~

Day 3 of 31 Days of Connecting the Dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams. Subscribe on the right or below and each day will be delivered every morning to your inbox. Visit the Nester for over 1,000 more 31 Dayers.

Day 2 of 31 Days of Connecting the Dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams – for more 31 Days fun, visit the Nester

On a summer Sunday afternoon I got a call from a man who would change my life.

Harold was eleven years older than me. Earlier that day in church he heard me tell the story of how I became a Christian. He was calling to invite me to his Sunday evening class.

I attended the class that evening.

That was the beginning of the dot connecting

Dot connecting was not what he taught. He never used that phrase. But it was what he did. It was how he lived and viewed life.

It was normal to him but not to me.

I saw life as a complicated collection of separate challenges and experiences. God and the Bible were over there. Marriage and family were over here. Then there’s work, and friends, and money, and all the swirly, soupy, foggy tangle of stuff I wish I could untangle.

If I could untangle it and assign everything to its own dot it might look like this:

• the past I can’t change, with the drunkenness, irrresponsibility, and guilt
• the future I want — are these hopes and dreams real or just wishy-washy?
• the acceptance I want, have, don’t have, wish I could give
• the anger I don’t talk about
• bad days
• good days
• fear of the present, fear of the future
• discouragement, confusion, defeat
• “this is awesome!”
• “this is horrible!”
• “They’re idiots! How can they think that!”
• “if only…”
• “why does this always happen to me?”
• “God must not love me…”
• “God must really love me!”
• “I am such a loser”
• “Why can’t I change?”

You get the idea.

YOU might add:

• divorce
• illness
• unemployment
• loneliness
• rejection
• hope
• regret
• despair
• success
• happiness
• trouble
• pain
• etc

That’s how I saw life before Harold. A bunch of separate dots.

I was wrong

(continued HERE)

~~~~

THE NESTER’S 31 DAYS challenge is a great way to dig into something you’re interested in, get intimate with it, and maybe even help someone else. Every day in October you write one thing on the topic that’s meaning something to you these days. Since you know you have to share, it forces you to understand it better yourself.

Last year over 700 people linked up, encouraging themselves and each other. You can join this year, or just find some favorites to read at the Nester’s blog.

By the way, she’s my daughter.

Last year I wrote for 31 days on Scary Hope. I got so into it that it turned into a Kindle ebook, which you can see on the sidebar.

My 31 Days begins below, followed by an index of every 31 Days post so far.

31 days of connecting the dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams.

Is this connecting the dots thing for you?

LET’S FIND OUT 

You want a better life. I want a better life. Everybody want a better life. One way to make life better is to learn how to do things. How to cook, organize, save time, lose weight, spend less, save more, fix it, make it, sell it, change it. How-to stuff.

THIS WON’T HELP YOU WITH ANY OF THAT

Another way to make life better is to understand why and how things happen that make you happy, sad, and mad. Things in relationships and circumstances at home, at work, with people, and in your whole life.

As you put together how and why things happen, you learn what to expect, what to do, how to react.

Connect the dots of the pieces and it changes how the pieces look. As you learn to connect the dots you calm down and gain hope. Your expectations change. Nothing surprises you, not circumstances or people. You make better decisions. You grow in peace and confidence. You can be generous and help others.

Life makes more sense, and feels lighter and simpler.

You don’t run around thinking “why is this happening?!”

You gain a sense of why you’re here. Life seems more like one thing instead of a bunch of disconnected pieces.

Stuff that frustrates and bugs you falls into place at a lower level. You still have the frustrations and the problems to solve–and you need the practical advice–but with a bigger perspective, the frustrating things aren’t as stressful.

You can have peace even though you still have the problems. Problems aren’t as big and dominating. You look around and realize we’re all basically alike. You’re not alone. You’re not weird. You always thought you couldn’t do what ‘they’ do, but now you realize if ‘they’ can we all can. And should. So you do.

I hope this will help you do that

But it’s not steps or a how-to. It’s perspective and thinking. It doesn’t take more thinking, just a certain way of doing it.

IF THAT SEEMS BORING TO YOU, THIS IS NOT FOR YOU

If it seems interesting then you might want to subscribe below or on the right. Connecting the dots makes my life better. Yours can be too. It’s not a teaching thing. I watched another guy do it and caught it. You can too.

It started with a phone call . . .

~~~~

Day 2 – The day I started connecting the dots

Day 3 – They all be kin

Day 4 – How Monet can help you connect your dots

Day 5 – The one habit that’s the secret sauce to connecting your dots