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Time Lag

We’ve all heard about jet lag, that messed up, a disconcerting thing that happens to our bodies after flying across time zones. It’s been said that each time zone crossed equates to one day of recovery. 

For my constitution, that may be a bit generous.

Though thinking back to when I frequently flew, I suspect that the more regularly one travels, the less the effect. Interestingly, flying west (“gaining” time) doesn’t phase me as much; but the return trip (“losing” time) really sets me back.

A similar disturbance happens to me each time we switch from “normal” time to daylight-savings time (DST) and visa versa. I call this phenomenon “time lag.”

Just as in flying west, the fall DST switch causes a relatively minor disruption to my sleep equilibrium. However, the ‘spring forward’ time change throws me off for several days, just as does a flight east that crosses several time zones.

When we lived in Wisconsin (which is on the eastern part of the Central time zone), DST made sense—it was an appropriate shift of the clock to better match the rising and setting of the sun.

However, Michigan is on the far western part of the Eastern Time Zone, and it’s never made sense. For the majority of the year, my reasonable 6 am rising is in the dark.

On the summer solstice, dusk doesn’t occur until after 10:30 pm. And a scant two weeks later, we have to wait well after 11 pm just to watch fireworks. What nonsense!

I’d just as soon forget the whole daylight-savings time thing and lose the time lag along with it.

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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The Exciting Millennial Generation

It seems that I’ve recently heard a lot of complaints about this “younger generation,” known as the Millennial Generation or Generation Y (those born after 1984—or between 1980 and 2000—depending who’s doing the explaining).

Employers moan that Millennials don’t want to work: they arrive late, lack motivation, and do not make good employees. Customers complain than Generation Y doesn’t seem to care and looks strange.

True, each successive generation causes angst and head scratching from their elders. However, with Gen-Y there is an additional factor at play—the emergence of a postmodern mindset. (See What Does Postmodern Mean?)

Generally, Gen-Y, and to a lesser extent Gen-X that preceded them, have postmodern perspectives on life, whereas prior generations are more likely modern thinkers. Herein is the rub that causes the above frustrations.

One element of the postmodern outlook is that they want meaningful work and to make a difference in the world.Career, wealth, and possessions tend to have little draw to postmodern people. And this excites me.

I recently asked a 21-year woman if she would soon be graduating from college. (This was a bad assumption on my part.)

She hemmed a bit and then admitted that she had just dropped out of cosmetology school—her second post-high educational effort.

She realized that a career in cosmetology would be a shallow and meaningless pursuit. She wants to make a difference in the world by helping those in a third-world country—she leaves in two months.

Another acquaintance abandoned her career path as a paralegal and is cranking through grad school—so she can join the Peace Crops—and then aid governments in developing countries.

Another 20-something friend is wrapping up a yearlong stint in Russia.

Even though he’s not yet back to the States, he is already planning on a return trip as soon as possible. A fourth friend simply desires to travel the world—to help the people she meets.

I could go on and on about this “younger generation” who are set on making a difference, have forsaken materialism, and seek meaningful work—and it excites me greatly—Gen-Y has the potential to make this world a better place.

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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What Does Postmodern Mean?

I was talking with a 20-something friend and tossed out the phrase “postmodern.” His ears perked up and he asked what it meant.

“You’re postmodern,” I spontaneously asserted.

“I know; that’s what people tell me,” he replied,“but what’s it mean?”

“First there is one aspect of postmodernity that doesn’t fit you,” I clarified. “Most postmoderns do not accept absolute truth; to them all things are relative.

The only thing they accept with absolute certainty is that there are no absolutes.’ (Don’t think about that too long—it will give you a headache!)

“The rest of the profile seems to match you,” I continued. “In general, postmodern people value relationships and relish experiences—for them, the ‘journey is the reward.’

They want work that is fulfilling and allows them to make a difference in the world, but they guardedly balance work with their personal life. They tend to not be materialistic and money doesn’t mean as much to them as a ‘modern’ person.

They are decidedly non-religious, but are quite open to spirituality and metaphysical dialogue.”

He agreed with my assessment that he was postmodern.“And what about you?” he asked.

There is a propensity for younger generations to be postmodern and generations people—like me—to be modern. It’s not a life stage phenomenon, but more a lifelong mindset.

Being on the tail end of the baby boom generation, I should be modern, but in reality, “I skew towards postmodern.” He smiled at that; I guess that’s why we get along so well.

If you work with or manage postmodern people (typically generation Y or the Millennials, born after 1984), you will likely be challenged beyond anything you’ve experienced. 

Keeping this brief overview in mind might help you to better understand them. But don’t assume they think and act like you (unless you’re also postmodern) or you’ll never really connect with them.

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Dialing for Dollars: Frustrations with Accounts Payable

My least favorite task is making collection calls, but it was again time to do so. Although it took less than an hour, I spent more than a day getting psyched up for this distasteful task.

I find that I am quite adept at finding other things to do (which are decidedly more interesting and satisfying) in order to avoid “dialing for dollars.”

My perspective is that it is moral and ethical business behavior to pay all bills by their due date, if not sooner. Therefore, I shouldn’t be put in a position to have to ask people for the money that they freely and readily agreed to pay me for my services.

I have found that my customers fall into four categories:

  1. Most pay their bills on time, every time. (Thank you!)
  2. Some generally pay on time, but need an occasional reminder or a resent invoice.
  3. A few always need a phone call before they pay. (This could be a result of corporate policy or cash-flow issues.)
  4. A couple can’t or won’t pay what they owe me.

I once worked for a company whose policy was to pay all bills, net forty-five. It wasn’t a cash-flow issue, but a desire to operate off other people’s money.

This made it most challenging to engage new vendors and keep existing ones happy; they always wanted to be paid net thirty.

Another company I worked for had cash flows issues—sometimes majorly so—and paid almost all bills late, sometimes months late; this was an even more challenging environment.

I have decided to treat my vendors the way I want to be treated: I usually pay bills within twenty-four hours.

That requires a bit more cash reserves—and many would call it fiscally foolish—but I call it the right thing to do.

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Is It Time For a Vacation?

I’ve been thinking a lot about vacations lately. It’s been years since I’ve taken an annual two-week break from work. This year is no exception. I wonder if this is wise.

I suspect employers began offering vacations to long-term employees as a reward for their service, expecting workers to return from their two-week sojourn rested and ready to work with greater effectiveness.

Just as the weekend provides a short break from the workweek, a vacation provides a longer break from the work year. And we do need breaks.

Yet too many employees cram as much activity into their vacation time as possible. They come back exhausted instead of refreshed. They need to return to work to rest from their vacation.

This is not as it should be. For these folks, their work prior to their vacation is wasted in anticipation, and their work after vacation is equally unproductive because they’re too tired to do much.

Then there are people like me. At most of my jobs, no one did my work while I was gone. I’d spend the week before vacation, trying hard to work ahead.

Then, afterwards, it would take a couple weeks to catch up. For all the good my vacation did—and I actually rested on my vacations—the backlog of work when I returned quickly negated its benefits.

For the past fifteen years, a two-week vacation has been out of the question: the overlapping production schedules of multiple publications leaves me no time to take a long break.

Instead, I’ve opted for shorter respites, an occasional long weekend, a day trip here and there, even time off during the day for a quick outing.

It’s a rhythm that works for me, but all the while I wonder what I might be missing by not taking a two-week vacation.

When was your last vacation? What did you do?

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Partner or Employee?

Several years ago, after much planning and consideration, my bride joined me in my publishing business.

Her long commute to her prior job was becoming wearisome and with winter approaching, bad weather would make it even longer and more of a concern.

As we shared this possibility with others, the idea was met with raised eyebrows and skepticism. One doubtful friend directly stated, “Married people should not work together.”

A wise friend, however, advised that we consider whether Candy would be my employee or my partner. That was a great question and we opted for partner.

We even did a trial run this spring when she had some vacation time to use up. The test went quite well, so we moved forward with our plans.

Now, six weeks into it, we are pleased with the results. It was a good move, and I wish we had done it sooner.

The only occasional hiccup is that sometimes she acts as an employee and sometimes I view her as one.

Still, we are steadily moving towards the goal of becoming business partners and I suspect as she more fully understands the business, that goal will be realized.

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Do You Have Power?

Last weekend we decided to watch a DVD.  The only problem was that we were in the middle of a power outage. Undaunted, we gathered around a laptop and popped in the DVD. It would not play; something about a missing plug-in.

Although frustrating, we moved to a second laptop. The DVD played fine — until the battery died with only a couple of scenes remaining.

I pulled a third laptop out of the closet, but the battery was dead. 

Fortunately, the battery from the first laptop was interchangeable. Unfortunately, that computer had issues as well: one program had an audio problem and the other one, video.

However, a small UPS in my office still had some life left in it, so we migrated there with laptop #2 — and watched another 30 seconds before the UPS ran out of juice.

The movie would need to wait for tomorrow.

As I lay in bed, wondering how it ended, I recalled the power inverter in my car. We could have retreated there to power the laptop and conclude the movie. 

While I considered the merits of sitting in a car that was parked in a garage to watch a movie on a laptop, I drifted off to sleep — and to the sound of my neighbor’s generator.

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Six Years Too Late

A while back, my bride was awarded a “five-year plaque” at work—and she was miffed. Public recognition for five years of work is supposed to be a good thing. Causing angst wasn’t the intention. 

The goal of the award was to make her feel appreciated, to give her a reason to feel good about her job and the company she worked for.

Sadly, it had the opposite effect. You see, it was given to her after eleven years of employment. It was a recognition that was six years too late. Even more tragic, none of her co-workers realized the error.

I encouraged her to get the error corrected. My reasoning was that if for any future reason her employment tenure needed to be verified, it would be good for them to have accurate information.

This discrepancy between reality and their computer database gives me pause. It is often claimed that many people lie on their resumes and job applications. 

While I am sure that there are plenty of grand embellishments and outright fabrications that are advanced during employment procurement efforts, I wonder how many of these alleged lies are in actuality errant corporate records.

If she were to put on a job application or credit application that she had been employed for eleven years, but the company would only confirm five, who would be believed? 

Would she even be consulted or made aware of a discrepancy? 

I fear not. I suspect her application would be summarily rejected and she would never know the reason why.

Anyway, after a bit, if digging, we found her first W2 from eleven years ago. She showed it to human resources and with a couple of key clicks, the error was fixed.

I wonder when she’ll get her ten-year plaque.

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Thank you, Volunteer Fire Fighters!

When I went to my bank last week, there was a commotion at the car wash next door. A number of trucks were parked haphazardly around the building and a couple of fire trucks were along side.

The folks at the bank confirmed there had been a fire. Apparently, someone had carelessly flung a cigarette.

It seems a bit ironic that a business that uses mass quantities of water would fall victim to fire, but that’s what happened.

The good news is that the fire department is across the street. The bad news is that it is a volunteer fire department. That means that although the equipment was nearby, the people to operate it wasn’t.

As I understand, when the alarm sounds, the volunteers amass at the station until enough have arrived to operate a truck and then they take off. The rest of the volunteers converge at the fire, hence the random positioning of trucks.

The fire damage was obvious, with blackened doors and an open roof, but the majority of the building was standing and intact. Even so, the fire department had encircled the building with yellow “caution” tape, thereby shutting down the business.

This week, it has re-opened.

I recall that when I bought my house and insured it, my agent explained that my rate was in the highest category because I was served by a volunteer fire department.

Statistically, this results in slower response times and greater damage.

I somewhat sarcastically remarked that if my house caught on fire, the insurance company must assume it would be a complete loss. My agent cautiously concurred.

Fortunately, based on what I witnessed at the car wash, that is not necessarily the case. 

Thank you, volunteer firefighters!

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Go Directly to Jail, Do Not Pass Go

The recent issue of Sojourners magazine cited some sobering facts about the state of the prison system in the United States:

7.4 million people were under the control of the US criminal justice system in 2007.

I’m not exactly sure what is meant by “under control,” but that is over 2 percent of the population, which is shocking.

67 percent of people released from prison are re-arrested within three years. So, the number of repeat offenders in prison is substantial. The question is, how much does incarceration contribute to recidivism?

More to the point, would crime decrease if we could keep first-time offenders out of prison? The environment has to be another factor, and in most cases, a released prisoner returns to the same environment; that doesn’t help.

Economics would be another factor; see the next point.

83.5 percent of the people in jail (in 2002) earned less than 2,000 dollars a month prior to being arrested. Certainly, economic pressure is a factor in the commission of crimes. 

Interestingly, a 2,000 dollars month threshold is quite a bit more than the poverty level, which the US Census Bureau put at 9,183 dollars a year for a single person in 2002.

Two thousand a month roughly equates to an hourly wage of 12.50 dollars, quite a bit higher than the current minimum wage. This all suggests that viable employment, at an appropriate wage, is part of the solution to lower crime and incarceration.

[The title of this post comes from the game of Monopoly and was chosen merely to be catchy and provoking. Interestingly, Go Directly to Jail is also the title of a book on this subject. I haven’t read it, but it may be worth checking out. The product description on Amazon is most promising, but the reader reviews suggest that it digresses from that tack. Caveat emptor.[

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.