Khrish Danam Con't

Challenge yourself to learn something new everyday. Learning actually increases the blood flow to your brain, which lowers your chances of senility in old age. Then DO something with your knowledge. The world is full of broke, smart people. When you are problem solving, one of the most common mistakes people make is that when they come up with the first solution, they stop thinking! Keep brainstorming and going at it, often your 2^nd and 3^rd solutions will be better than your first!

To illustrate this last point, he told the story of driving down the freeway with his 2 or 3 yr old daughter. Who had, apparently, just learned how to let herself out of her carseat. After repeated requests for her to get back in her car-seat, to which she responded with increasingly vociferous and stubborn refusals. Finally he pulled over to the side of the freeway, just furious. Slamming out of the car as he stomped his way around to her door, thinking ‘Oh yes you WILL get back in your car-seat because I am BIGGER than you…” When he stopped himself, and thought, well, this is a solution, but is it the best solution.

Well, he was still too mad to go much beyond that initial thought, and as he reached to yank the door open, he felt again the strong impression “think again.” So he threw his hands up in the air, looked heavenward and cried in frustration “She’s YOUR daughter…what do you want me to do with her!” And the strong feeling came “give her a hug.” Well, as he said “The last thing I wanted to do was give that child a hug!” But the feeling came again, “Give her a hug.” So he opened the back door and there she stood on the seat, arms cross, chin stuck out, spoiling for a fight. And he just held his arms open. She ran into his arms and threw her little arms around his neck and just hung on, sobbing and sobbing. And after about 10 minutes she climbed back into her car-seat, good as gold, and they continued on home without further incident.

I LOVED this story. I heard so much more in it than just ‘look for more than one solution.’ For me it was a poignant and touching example of how much God is aware of his children, from stubborn 2 year olds to exasperate fathers, and understands exactly what is going on in their hearts and what they need most at any given moment. In the LDS church we generally refer to the strong impression to do something that comes from outside yourself as a prompting from the Holy Spirit, and believe He is a messenger from God, one way in which God communicates with us on a daily basis. I’m not sure what this speaker’s religious affiliation is, but he clearly believes in God, and, according to my perspective, explained clearly an example of how much God loves us, happening right there on a California freeway. Did I mention that this secular conference reminded me strongly of the bi-annual conferences of my church! Lol.