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Seeking Excellence
Seeking Excellence provides people with the purpose, direction, and motivation to relentlessly pursue their God-given mission in life.
This community is about becoming fully alive through living a life of excellence.
We will discuss all things excellence including fitness, mental health, relationships, personal finance, Christianity, and social/cultural issues.
Join us here if you're ready to be your best!
This community is about becoming fully alive through living a life of excellence.
We will discuss all things excellence including fitness, mental health, relationships, personal finance, Christianity, and social/cultural issues.
Join us here if you're ready to be your best!
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
Nathan Crankfield@nathancrankfield
August 13, 2024
Who do you think you're talking to?
Has God ever stopped you in your tracks and said, "Who do you think you're talking to?"
He has to me (multiple times), but most recently, it happened last night.
I was gathered around a fire smoking a Dominican Republic cigar at a friend's house just after sundown. We were continuing our conversation and study of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. We were specifically reading chapters 43-45 - which is when Isaiah drops some of his most đ„ đ„đ„ stuff.
To be honest, I only got through chapters 43 and 44 during my prayer time yesterday. I'm a horrible procrastinator when it comes to doing my Scripture reading for this group as I almost always read it the day of our meeting. When we got to Chapter 45, that's when things got real for me.
You see, lately I've been going through some frustrating times. It seems like every time we get ahead in one area of life as a family, some other frustration and setback pops up. We recently got a raise thanks to my generous employers at Hallow, but then found that our Airbnb has a shower leak that will require a total makeover. It's hard to get ahead as it is in this economy while living in a city like Denver and growing a family, but these difficulties seemed to be piling up.
My prayer recently has been a lot of venting to God and expressing my anger with these situations, situations I feel God Himself led me to directly. I think it's good to have real, honest conversations with our Lord, but as with all things, when done in excess it can become problematic.
This was a theme in our conversation last night, but it hit a pinnacle when we hit Isaiah 45:9-11.
It says, "Does the clay say to him who fashions it, 'what are you making?' Or 'Your work has no handles'? Woe to him who says to a father, 'What are you begetting?'. . . Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: 'Will you question me about my children or command me concerning the work of my hands? I made the earth and created man upon it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host"
God is working in your life and in mine to make us into the person He created us to be. He does this through our highs AND our lows, through victories and the things that seem like defeat. It's okay, and even good at times, to express your frustration and sufferings to the Lord.
But at the end of the day, remember who you are talking to, i.e. the Creator and King of the Universe. He has a plan for you. You can be frustrated with that plan at times, but never doubt in its goodness.
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"My daughter was really offended by your talk last night." đ
"My daughter was really offended by your talk last night."
Someone dropped this bomb on me unexpectedly after daily mass this past summer. Although I can sometimes be a bit dicey and bold in my presentations, I was pretty shocked to hear it.
I had given a talk to middle schoolers the night prior on how our faith can help us in managing sadness, anxiety, and stress.
After mass the next day, I was walking in the convention center and was stopped by a woman who asked if I spoke to the middle schoolers the night prior. I responded in the affirmative.
"My daughter was really offended by your talk."
In a flash, I try to recall what I said that might have been the trigger for offense. Nothing came to mind. So I inquired, "Interesting. What was it that bothered her?"
"She said that you told the kids that if you experience anxiety, you can essentially pray it all away. And she has been clinically diagnosed with severe anxiety so it upset her."
"AH okay, I see the misunderstanding here" I ...
00:56:59
I am a Charlie Kirk, not a George Floyd
Over the last few days, I've taken a lot of time to reflect on the importance of this moment for our nation and for the Church.
Here are further reflections on these recent events and what I think we ought to do from here.
00:36:22
The Lion and the Lamb - What We Can Learn from the Life and Death of Charlie Kirk
Yesterday, we lost a legend in the Christian movement in our country and world.
Charlie was a great force for good.
We remain here on earth to continue fighting the same mission - advancing truth, beauty, and goodness against the evil forces who work against us.
I encourage you to battle the temptation to hate or become cowardly in the face of hate. More than ever, we need love and courage to guide our words and actions.
00:34:02
"We've always done it this way"
This has long been understood as a recipe for disaster in business.
But doesn't this also apply to my personal life, the Church, the government, and other important parts of society?
People who are hungry for power tend to operate with the motto, "never waste a tragedy". We saw this explicitly in 2020, when so many freedoms were removed without much pushback from society.
When people are afraid and times are uncertain, it's easy to push programs, laws, and policies that greatly shift the way society operates.
Then they just give it enough time and what was previously considered unthinkable becomes the new norm.
The government certainly knows that when we have a system in place for a long period of time we start to think of it as the only way of doing things.
When we don't know our history, as Christians or as Americans, we are easily led to accept that the government can best provide solutions to the issues facing society, which is almost never the case.
We all know that in business, ...
Multiple hard truths can be believed at the same time
An important thing to remember is this - multiple things can be true at the same time. You can easily believe all of the following statements, which I believe shouldn't be controversial at all :
1) Taxes are taken by threat of imprisonment or heavy fines, aka by force, and meant to be used for improving society as a whole.
2) If you're able but unwilling to work, you should not have any aspect of your life subsidized by taxes.
3) If a person loses their income, it is good for them to receive help while they look for more work.
4) It is also good for the poor, children, the sick, the physically and mentally disabled, and the elderly to receive help if they are unable to work or feed themselves.
5) It is best for both #3 and #4 to come from personal charity rather than taxation. And this is what was done for most of the history of Western Civilization.
6) Taxes are not charity. They do not produce the virtue of generosity. And they sterilize the relationship between the giver and ...
Happy Halloween from the Seeking Excellence Team!
What Is the Real Value of Stay-at-Home Moms?
Addressing the extremes of what society claims this vocation is worth
According to Investopedia, the real income of a stay-at-home parent exceeds $200,000. But is that based on reality?Â
For context, my wife stays home full-time with our children. We are very pro-stay-at-home moms around hereâthat should already be well known.Â
However, I am very opposed to skewing the numbers to make a financial point. The Investopedia article does precisely that. I have two significant issues with it.Â
First, itâs simply dishonest (which Iâll explain in a moment) and therefore unhelpful for those trying to decide whether to have a parent stay home full-time.
The second issue is that the article is materialistic in nature, focusing primarily on a financial argument for a decision that is fundamentally human, formative, vocational, and, for many, spiritual. It prioritizes money over the two most valuable aspects of having a stay-at-home parent, both of which are priceless.
Letâs address the dishonesty first. As you can see in the screenshot below, the article accurately assigns national average costs to the general work done by a stay-at-home parent.
Â
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This part is true: that's what you'd pay individuals to do those tasks. The problem, though, is that only the top 1% of society actually hires people to do that work. My wife doesnât save us money by doing our laundry, cooking our meals, cleaning the house, or driving the kids around.
Why? Because if we both worked, we wouldnât pay anyone to do those things. In most dual-income households, people end up doing all that work ON TOP OF their full-time jobs. Full-time working and parenting is an absolute grind, thereâs no doubt about it.
My wife does save us money on childcare, but it doesnât come anywhere near $130k per year for two children, unless I were hiring private trilingual tutors at the highest end of the cost spectrum.
Some two-income households have family members watch their children or other arrangements that cost $1,000 a month or less, so the $130k price tag to cover 14 hours of childcare per day is just absurd.
Now, I understand why people do this. Itâs an extreme reaction to societyâs growing distaste for traditional family values. When the world rejects the value of motherhood, we try to amplify it using the one measure the world respects most: money.
But money isnât the best way to measure the value of the stay-at-home parent lifestyle and their contribution to the family. My wife would be the first to tell you that the most valuable part is the extra time she gets to spend with our kids.
By the time our children are 5, Emily will have had almost an extra 10,000 hours with them that she'd otherwise have missed out on. That has a massive impact on their character formation, familial bond, and education.
Whatâs in it for me, the provider? Besides the satisfaction of those extra 10,000 hours for my wife and kids, itâs the massive increase in leisure time I get because someone is managing the home full-time.
No, this doesn't mean I never help out around the house. But I donât have to split cooking meals, doing laundry, and many other chores because she handles the majority of them while Iâm working.
Then, when I come home, I'm able to enjoy the meal she's prepared and take over the kids for a couple of hours before we tag-team bedtime. I get to play with the kids every evening instead of washing dishes or cleaning the house. Itâs a win-win: she gets her much-needed break from the children, and I get my precious time with
them.
That said, becoming a one-income household is definitely a financial decision. The problem with Investopediaâs math is that it distorts the financial bar of entry.Â
Most approach the financial
aspect of one parent leaving their job
through a simple equation:
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