Intentional Choices

I’ve always loved quotes and recently started collecting them on my pinterest board. I thought it would be kind of fun to create my own images to go with them, so this might be a new “mini blog series” for the next couple weeks. I’ll share briefly what the quote means to me or how it relates to the mission of our blog: simply intentional.

I think the above quote is extremely true. Oftentimes we say something is important to us, but the true test is whether we actually put our time, energy, money, and effort into it. When what we say- or even believe- is important to us, does not line up with  our actions, we are sadly deceiving ourselves and not fully living the life we intended. So here’s a question for all of us to consider then: What am I putting my time, energy, money, and effort into? Take a second to think about what exactly you spent your waking hours on yesterday, what purchases took up a lot of your budget this past month, what has been occupying the majority of your thoughts. Sometimes my answers start to sound like things I’d be ashamed to call important: watching TV shows online, buying food that just gets wasted or that degrades my health, thinking bitterly about other peoples’ behaviors. If these are the opposite of what’s important to me, it’s time to try being more intentional with my time, energy, money, and effort, like spending more quality time face-to-face with people I care about, buying only what I need, bettering my health, and reflecting on how I can continue to improve my own character.

Other related quotes:

We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.  ~Marcus Fabius Quintilian

There is no such thing as a list of reasons.  There is either one sufficient reason or a list of excuses.  ~Robert Brault

For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing.  ~Romans 7:19