Good women

I've subscribing to a Church email list called "Family Gems" where they periodically send out interesting quotes from various Church leaders pertaining to the family. I thought this one was particularly good and one I hope my sons will take to heart over time (see the Family Gem for August 29, 2008 on this page):

"You young men need to know that you can hardly achieve your highest potential without the influence of good women, particularly your mother and, in a few years, a good wife. Learn now to show respect and gratitude. Remember that your mother is your mother. She should not need to issue orders. Her wish, her hope, her hint should provide direction that you would honor."

Education Week

A friend of mine who is investigating the Church gave me a program from the BYU Campus Education Week that is done every year. This year's session was August 18 to August 22 and they had over 1,000 different classes across a range of continuing education topics - not just religion. Sounds like a worthwhile event. Once the kids are older and can participate as well, we'll go on a regular basis. In the meantime, it's hard to justify a week away from the family to go to things like this on my own - even though I'd personally find it super-interesting. Posting the link here in case others might be interested for next year.

Weekly schedule

I've been thinking a lot about how to balance everything I have going on in my life. There are only so many hours in a week and it's hard to make everything fit. Also, unless we consciously manage things, certain aspects of our life (like work, church, etc) have a way of taking over and crowding out other things we may want and need to get done in other aspects of our life. Therefore, this past week, I did a personal exercise where I said "if I really could control my schedule, how would I ideally manage my time in a given week?" That caused me to put together a list of competing demands on my time along with a list of things I'd like to be doing more of. It also caused me to quantify the amount of time that was required and/or appropriate for each of those activities and also think about what additional constraints I needed to take into account (i.e., train schedules, kids' bedtimes and nighttime routines, what activities were appropriate on the Sabbath, etc).

I ended up optimizing for the following:

• 8 hours per night of sleep. I typically short-change this (as do others) but I think it's a mistake and I think my body needs about 7-8 hours of sleep to function optimally.
• 50 hours per week of work. I went back and forth a bit on this one. You could certainly argue for a 40 hour work week but that's just not the reality of the career choice that I've made at the moment. At the same time, my job could easily suck up 60 or 70 hours per week if I let it so there needs to be a balance. 50 hours seemed like a reasonable compromise for now but it's something to revisit over time - especially given the length of my commute at the moment (which isn't factored into the 50 hour figure).
• Being home for dinner each night with the kids. This may not always be possible given business trips, business dinners, special events, etc but I think the going-in-assumption should be that I'm home each night for dinner and bedtime.
• Spending time with my kids. In addition to being home for dinner each night, I'd like to spend some quality time with them on the weekend.
• Spending time with my wife. I'd like a dedicated block with just her each week and ideally some shorter dedicated blocks during the rest of the week.
• Honoring God and Church commitments / guidelines. This includes keeping the Sabbath day holy, attending my weekly ward missionary meeting, having daily scripture study, and doing a weekly family home evening.
• Exercising three times a week. Ideally I'd exercise more often than that but it's all a balance. I'm not exercising at all at the moment (which isn't right) but I can't exercise everyday either and still make everything else fit.
• Relaxation and personal projects. Somewhere in there, I need at least a little down time. I also need time for personal projects like family history, blogging, reading, etc. Being social occasionally wouldn't be bad either.

Against those constraints, I put together a generic weekly schedule (see PDF). I would be interested in people's opinions regarding how to optimize the time better and/or a different set of priorities/constraints. You'll notice that I played some tricks here like assuming that I can spend an hour of my commute time on the train getting work done. But I also tried to stay practical and realistic about how long things take and that you can't transition from one thing to another instantaneously. For example, you can't go from playing basketball to going to sleep right away after you get home.

Anyway, I'll be interested in what people have to say (if anything) and in how closely I'm able to adhere to this schedule. It's certainly a work in progress.

Confused as ever

A co-worker just pointed me to this interesting quote. It was originally posted on the wall of a mathematics reading room but I think it has pretty broad applicability.

“We have not succeeded in answering all our problems. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some ways we feel we are as confused as ever, but we believe we are confused on a higher level and about more important things.” Sitert-Øksendal (1985).

I could certainly make this statement about work. There are still a number of key questions we need to answer to push our business forward. I could also make this statement about religion. As you answer some questions, it only raises others on a higher level and of more importance. Anyway, a good quote and something to think about.

God in the Dock

My mom recently sent me two excerpts from a book of essays and letters by C.S. Lewis called God in the Dock. The first one (see PDF) is entitled "What are we to make of Jesus Christ?". It reminded me of something I read about Jesus Christ in C.S. Lewis' book Mere Christianity (see prior post). At the time, that passage by C.S. Lewis really solidified my belief in Jesus Christ being the Son of God. This other excerpt that my mom sent me goes into that topic in a bit more detail but with the same impact for me.

The second excerpt (see PDF) is from a chapter entitled "Christian Apologetics". In it, C.S. Lewis says that "for my own part, I have sometimes told my audience that the only two things really worth considering are Christianity and Hinduism." I didn't fully follow Lewis' argument around Thick religion and Clear religion. Perhaps that's more clear if you read the rest of the chapter. At any rate, I have enjoyed what I've read about Hinduism (see prior post) and fully intend to get back to it at some point. I think Hinduism has a lot to offer - and it would seem that C.S. Lewis agrees.

How to tell if you are Mom's favorite

My mother-in-law forwarded this photo to me the other day with the subject line "How to tell if you are Mom's favorite". I thought it was amusing so I decided to post it here. In general, it's hard not to play favorites among your kids sometimes. When the kids were younger, a co-worker told me that there would be moments where both kids would be in crisis at the same time or would be demanding my time or attention at the same time and I'd need to make a decision (in that moment) who I was going to focus on. And regardless of how "fair" I tried to make it over time, the other kid would remember that I didn't pick him over his brother in that instance. Such is being a parent I suppose and I'm sure I exhibited that behavior when I was a child. Interesting to now see it from the opposite perspective.

Encyclopedia of Mormonism

Many of you won't be interested in this. I'm posting these links here for my own future reference as I need to do research on various church-related subjects.

The Encyclopedia of Mormonism, now available online in searchable text format, can be an excellent source of information on a wide variety of subjects dealing with the beliefs, teachings, and practices of the Church. (Note: This encyclopedia is a joint product of Brigham Young University and Macmillan Publishing Company and does not necessarily represent the official position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)

The earlier 1992 edition (with PDFs containing photos, maps, etc) is also still online.