The Best Ideas I've Ever Heard: (What I Want My Grandchildren to Know)

By James Doudiet

The author started writing "The Best Ideas I've Ever Heard" the year his first three grandchildren were born a month apart. He was looking for a legacy he could leave that would be useful to them. What resulted is a book of ideas and observations about life that should be useful to anyone. He presents these ideas through a hundred short essays. More than anything, the author argues that life is limited in time and space, so we should approach life's journey thoughtfully, and live our lives intentionally. He recommends having goals, seeking moral guidelines and being kind to everyone we meet on this journey we call life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098352011

Book preview

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"Wisdom is more valuable than jewels;

nothing you can want can compare to it."

Proverbs 3:15

© James Doudiet 2020

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 9781098352011

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Resources

Chapter 2

Doing

Chapter 3

Knowing

Chapter 4

Ideas from Others

Chapter 5

Snow Letter

Chapter 6

The Bible’s Wisdom

Epilogue

Cute and Wise Sayings

Suggested Reading

Acknowledgements

Index

Bibliography

For Sam, Emily, Alec and Logan

The next generation

Preface

I have written The Best Ideas I’ve Ever Heard for my grandchildren, Sam, Emily, Alec, and Logan—the next generation of our family. But if you are not one of them, you are welcome to read along, too. This is intended to help you become a capable adult (who can take care of yourself and those for whom you are responsible), for that should be the hope of one generation for the next: to create the opportunity to pass on the skills necessary to manage all that life has to offer and to understand, as best we can, what life is about. As I quote Christopher Kimball in chapter 4, Teaching the next generation how to be useful, how to make the most of what lies between the bookends of a summer day or even a life, is a promise I know I will keep.

It is my greatest hope that this book will help you live life intentionally rather than accidentally (or in an unplanned way). I have organized the material so that it doesn’t have to be read in order from cover to cover; rather you can search for that one right piece of insight needed at just the perfect time to make a difference. Because of this, some ideas are found in more than one place, so you can stumble on them more than once.

As you will read, my faith is a big part of who I am. But I believe that faith is for everyone to figure out for oneself. I think an important part of leading an intentional life is in deciding where faith and being part of a faith community fit into your life. I would encourage everyone to give it serious thought.

In a way, I am writing this as an exercise to see what I have learned during my life to date (beyond age seventy). It is possible that the list of insights will seem pitifully short or that the value of them will be small. I do know that when I have had the occasion to speak, I have been complimented from time to time by people in the audience saying that I am a good communicator or that they understood and remembered, sometimes years later, something I said. I may have a gift for that sort of thing. I don’t know.

At any rate, there is potential value in recording ideas. There is the benefit of organizing them. There is benefit, too, in explaining them fully, not just in the half-measured way when an idea rumbles around in your head and you are the only one listening, but in the way you need to be clear when talking to someone about whom you care.

Where do the insights gained from living come from? I suppose they come from reading (and other media), talking to people, and listening, as well as in experiencing the highs and lows of living a life. A really good idea based on some true principle is universal, I suppose, meaning it can apply to anyone at any time. But a useful idea has a different characteristic. A useful idea, based on the observation of a true principle, comes into your head at just the right time to move you in the right direction, solve some problem, or put something in just the right perspective. In short, a useful idea can make the difference here and now. Therefore, it would be great to have a reservoir of useful ideas ready to tap. That is the concept behind this book—to have an organized compendium of useful ideas ready to tap into just when you need one.

From time to time we all run across something whimsical and serious at the same time. The following has been such a piece for me.

The Unplanned Life

By Anonymous

I made a big decision a little while ago.

I don’t remember what it was, which prob’ly goes to show

That many times a simple choice can prove to be essential

Even though it often might appear inconsequential.

I must have been distracted when I left my home because

Left or right I’m sure I went. (I wonder which it was!)

Anyway, I never veered: I walked in that direction

Utterly absorbed, it seems, in quiet introspection.

For no reason I can think of, I’ve wandered far astray.

And that is how I got to where I find myself today.

It struck me when I first read this poem that this is how we usually live our lives: without much thought of when or where the key moments might arrive. This book is dedicated to the proposition that we can be more attentive to how to prepare for, if not identify, such times, and thereby live our lives intentionally rather than accidentally.

Structure of the Book

I have arranged the following Best Ideas into three categories to help you ponder, remember, and find them in the book if occasion warrants. I have also crafted a short essay to convey what each insight has meant to me. The distinctions are somewhat arbitrary since there are elements of all of the categories in each one.

Resources: insights that can give us tools to make life better for ourselves or for others.

Doing: insights that require some action to make them effective.

Knowing: insights that revolve around wisdom and understanding.

Generally, as I have applied each insight to my own life, it has resulted in action or peace or both, leading me to live a more productive, happy life. What I hope to do is impart ideas for you to consider, explore, accept, or reject as seems sensible for you. Perhaps knowing about my insights will allow you to uncover your own for your life.

Each Reader Is Unique

I realize that each person who reads this book will interpret it differently. Each reader comes with a different set of life experiences and needs that create the lens through which you will see what I have written. In addition, you could read this now and then again in a few years and find something in the second reading that was hidden in the first. Therefore, I cannot try to make a case for any of my ideas or observations. You the reader must be working in collaboration with me if such a case is to be made. So, you are my partner in trying to extract, as best you can, something of lasting value for yourself from the experiences and observations I share in this book.

Memento Mori

One last thing to mention before we begin: our mortality. Now this may seem a downer, but it is intended to be just the opposite. Mortality can be a powerful inducement to do and create. Ultimately, your time is limited, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. I believe recognizing that death exists can be the most powerful motivator to living life intentionally, to be thinking about what you are doing rather than just bouncing from thing to thing. In ancient Rome, when a victorious general paraded through the streets as the population sang his praises, a servant would whisper in his ear, Memento mori, which means, Remember you will die. It was intended to help the hero keep things in perspective. Similarly, we should keep our life in perspective—the highs are not really that high and the lows are not as low as they seem at the time. And, as I will discuss later, only a few things really count. Search for them and try to get them right as best you can.

Chapter 1

Resources

(What to Take for the Journey)

Life Keys: know your gifts and use them; the gifts of other people are different from yours (celebrate them, don’t envy them)

To understand your gifts, you must try many things, because you cannot know who you are until you learn who you are not, and you cannot learn who you are not until you discover your limits. Push against your limits, conquering those you can; with the others, move on without regret.

One of the great insights in my life was the recognition that each of us is born with certain characteristics that I have come to call gifts. We don’t get to choose our gifts. It is a lifelong task to discover just what gifts we have. One clue can come from our family. If your mother is musical, you might have inherited that gift from her, or maybe not. Or, perhaps your father likes to build things, and he will show you how to handle tools. You may find you like to build things, too.

How do we know what our gifts are? That is a real challenge because we cannot know if we have a knack for something unless we are exposed to it. So, the objective should be to expose children to many things, and as adults we would be wise to continue this exploration. I think we are on the right track when we find we like to do something. Here are clues I look for to see if I may have a gift for something: when I do something easily and well; when I get positive energy from doing it; when I do not consider it work; when I want to do more of something; and when I spend extra time learning about it. This does not mean that I will become the best in the world at doing that thing, but it does mean that I will get joy from doing it.

Conversely, when I am not good at something, or, while I can do it, it drains all my energy, are clues that I might be outside my set of gifts. This doesn’t mean that I should not do such a task (such as balancing the checkbook, for example) if it is required of me, but I would be better off avoiding such things to reduce stress and lead a more peaceful life.

Our church sponsored several classes on what was called Life Keys (see Suggested Reading). The goal of the classes was to help folks discover what their gifts were. This has many practical applications. My wife, Jan, discovered that she has the gift of hospitality among others. Consequently, she gets a great deal of energy from hosting a party or bringing someone a meal. We know other people who wouldn’t do that on a bet. She also loves being in charge of an organization’s financial details as treasurer, but she does not seek to be a leader such as a president. She always had trouble saying no when asked to take a leadership spot until she took the Life Keys course. Thereafter, she could decline graciously by saying, No, that is not one of my gifts.

Clearly, filling your life with activities based on your gifts and reducing as much as possible the activities outside of your gift set will reduce stress, add joy and accomplishment, and give you a greater sense of peace than anything else I can imagine.

Goals: have them; use them

I was introduced to this useful idea via audiotape of The Strangest Secret in the World, a talk by Earl Nightingale, a great inspirational speaker of an earlier generation. Although his words were first spoken in 1948 or so, they are timeless. First, he posed an intriguing question: why is it that in the richest country that ever existed, most people by the age of 65 are not financially independent? In fact, he claimed, by that time in life most people are broke. His answer was astoundingly simple (as most useful ideas are): goals. People who get on in this life have them; people who go nowhere don’t.

He goes on to relate example after example to hammer home the value of having goals, including his theme phrase, You become what you think about. If you have a goal and earnestly desire to attain it, you will single-mindedly focus on the way to achieve it. Success is deciding on a goal and using time-tested techniques to turn desire into action, which are tactics used by people who have achieved remarkable success in many fields.

He correctly points out that many worthwhile goals have little or nothing to do with the accumulation of money or recognition. Success may mean engaging in charitable work or raising a family because that is what a person really wants to do. Whatever the goal, the one thing goal-makers have in common is after carefully settling on a worthwhile goal, they all go after it relentlessly—not in a frantic, haphazard way, but thoughtfully, stacking the odds of success in their favor by studying and putting into practice techniques that have brought others success in similar fields of endeavor. Once in place the execution of their plans becomes habit, and the exercise of that habit eventually leads to the achievement of their goal. If you are willing to pay the price, you can achieve almost any goal.

Choose your goals carefully. Understand how your natural gifts, talents, and interests apply. Don’t let wishful thinking intervene. Study what works and what doesn’t. Over time, substitute positive steps for negative. Gradually, the habit of thinking and acting positively toward the attainment of your goal will take root. Of vital importance is writing down your goal on a card in a short, clearly defined statement.