Chet Collins's Blog: Catholic Husband, page 13

Five Minutes

Spirituality is a major component of what it means to be human. We have a connection with our Creator that is far more personal and intimate than any other in the created world. The main channel of building and developing this relationship is through our prayer life. As with all things in life, it ebbs and flows, and it becomes far too easy to let ourselves get in the way.

A prayer life is the cumulative efforts that we make to spend time with God. But prayer is far more simple. If you have five ...

Potential Energy

The most enduring success that any of us can enjoy is often the result of extensive efforts over time. Years of quiet, diligent work results in “overnight success.” Although those around us can see the finished product, almost everyone misses the tiny wins that led to victory.

Sustaining any good habits over time, in pursuit of a personal goal, is never frictionless. Life ebbs and flows, with easy days and hard days. On the hard days, it’s easy to quit, especially if progress isn’t apparent. When...

The Genius of Mass

Most Catholics ignore their obligation to go to Sunday Mass. Their reasons are myriad, but it’s a big mistake. Sunday Mass represents the most brilliant and disruptive hour of the entire week.

For 167 hours every week, we have ceaseless demands on our time. We have to menu plan, grocery shop, clean the house, do the laundry, drive the kids around, update the budget, answer email, work, wash the cars, mow the lawn, walk the dog, pick up the house, clean up messes, shop for clothes, open packages, ...

Bottomless Tasks

I start every Monday with a fresh set of hours to work, and a full task list. As the week progresses, more and more tasks are added and a few get checked off. My task list will never be empty, and the sooner I accept that reality, the better.

Although most of us work in the knowledge economy, our labor is a production line. Things are completed, new things are added. There is no end until you change jobs or retire. That’s a good thing in that it ensures our economic viability. It’s a bad thing wh...

Disrupt

Wall Street is obsessed with disruptors; those companies that take a stale industry and deploy an entirely new approach, dislodging the entrenched powers. We’ve seen it time and again is business, sports, and wars when a dark horse comes out of nowhere, changes the game, and beats the unbeatable opponent.

There’s a reason why disruption is such a useful tool: it works. We all work ourselves into ruts. Whether for good or evil, disruption breaks the cycle.

Personal change and improvement is always ...

Inconvenience

The kids went on vacation earlier this summer without Alison and I. Grandparents Camp is a nice annual tradition for any child. We realized that an additional sleep machine would be needed, so at 1:34pm on a Saturday afternoon, I ordered one on Amazon. A 4:36am the next morning, Sunday morning, it was delivered. That’s stunning convenience.

It’s easy to get frustrated with the little inconveniences that we suffer throughout the day. The slow driver in the left lane, running out of our favorite co...

Limitless

There are certain things in life that we pick up and just can’t seem to put down. Rules, guidelines, suggestions, and ideas that we carry with us and that color our world. We begin our lives knowing nothing, and over the first few decades we soak up the world, slowly losing our curiosity and settling into a mental rigidity.

So much of life is a war with ourselves. We have to fight off inertia, laziness, fear, anxiety, and overcompensation. Our battles are fought in our minds, as we seek to maint...

Fifty-Four

I recently finished reading Atomic Habits, the pop culture phenom beloved by productivity hackers in every industry. The premise of the book is simple: success or failure is built in the tiny, every day actions that we repeatedly take. If we string together a series of positive actions, we’ll see a bigger net result. The opposite is true for negative habits.

Cultivating a rich prayer life is the struggle of a lifetime for every Catholic. As broad and diverse as the life of the Church is, our comm...

Restart

From time to time, we get derailed by life and need a reset. Although we may daydream about grandiose plans that will restore us to our former glory, years of broken plans and commitments reveal a simple truth.

The best way to succeed in any plan, program, or life change agenda is to start small, and start today.

Trust

In the most difficult and stressful times of our lives, it’s easy to lose control of our thoughts. The Paleolithic parts of our brains take over, blocking out the logical thinking that has enabled every positive advancement in our lives.

Although our biology fights against our reason, we have at hand many bits of wisdom, sprinkled throughout the Bible. These lines, written thousands of years ago, feel as if they were written just for us. As we stop the spiral, take a deep breath, and regain contr...