Socratic Life

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In order to stay sharp, it is important that you exercise your brain. The less we use our minds, the duller they become. There is a lot of emphasis these days on staying physically healthy, but we should also be concerned for our mental well-being. Our brains continue to expand and adapt to the stimuli they receive throughout our lives. The more we take care of our brains, the better thinkers we become. Here are twenty ways that you can develop a training regimen for your brain!

1. Read a good book.

Reading a book stimulates the imagination. Your brain can’t keep from drawing mental pictures when you read. Reading gets your mind off its butt and to work. I love to let a book carry me away. I always have a book that I’m reading and sometimes I have 3 or 4! I get most of my books from the library to avoid the cost of buying each one. This also allows me to try a wide variety of books without risk.

2. Big Brain Academy.

Video games have a bad reputation for causing brain rot, but there are some that will actually help you strengthen your mind. I like Big Brain Academy for the Wii. It is a collection of brain teasers that tests your mental acuity. The tests are entertaining and addicting. You can even compete with others which makes for some great family fun.

3. Practice meditation.

Don’t worry, I’m not going off the new age deep-end here. There are a lot of different forms of meditation. To me, in its most simple form, meditation is about spending a little time alone to relax and center your thoughts. It is amazingly therapeutic. If you haven’t tried meditation before, I would highly recommend reading this guide to meditation.

4. Get plenty of rest.

A lack of sleep can interfere with your ability to assimilate new information. This means those all-nighters you pulled back in college were much less effective than you thought. Your brain needs rest to operate at its peak performance. This may be why things always seem clearer and brighter after a good night’s sleep.

5. Exercise regularly.

You didn’t think you were going to get away without a little time on the treadmill did you? Cardiovascular exercise improves blood flow to the brain which improves brain functioning. One study found that physical exercise actually helped to increase the volume of the brain. So, if you want a bigger, better brain, then get to exercising!

6. Eat a good breakfast.

It is not a myth. Eating a good breakfast does get you off to a better start. You should eat a breakfast high in protein and good carbohydrates. A couple of pieces of whole-grain toast with peanut butter will fit the bill. Eggs are also an excellent source of protein. Nuts, milk, and fresh fruit are also great ways to feed your brain.

7. Think positive thoughts.

Encourage yourself. I am convinced that positive thinking increases the effectiveness of the brain and helps to avoid things like depression. I like to say that your brain works much like a computer, garbage-in, garbage-out. Find positive, encouraging people to hang around, read material that jazzes you up, do whatever it is that makes you feel good about yourself. These things will also help you be more mentally productive.

8. Be a continual learner.

Never stop being curious about your world. Seek out new experiences, skills, and knowledge. Think of something that you’ve always wanted to learn to do and then get started. A now famous study, showed that certain areas of the brains of London cab drivers were more developed compared to the average citizen. This was due to their need to learn how to navigate the maze of downtown streets. We can use this technique of challenging our brains to improve our abilities.

9. Lay off the alcohol.

Alcohol is of course a depressant. It slows down mental functions. The effects of alcohol on a person’s cognitive ability is well-documented. If you need peak mental performance, then stop drinking alcohol. In addition to its obvious effects, it also decreases the restfulness of one’s sleep which, as we have already discussed, impedes your ability to think clearly.

10. Get romantic (especially if you’re a woman).

Studies have shown that there may be a link between regular sex and improved brain performance in women. Love-making increases a woman’s estrogen levels and higher estrogen levels are tied to better mental performance. Of course, the mental benefits probably do not outweigh the risks, unless you are in a faithful, monogamous relationship.

11. Break your routines.

Drive a new way to work. Try writing with your less dominant hand. Mix things up a little. This perks up your brain because it requires you to think more. You aren’t just running on auto-pilot. Challenge your brain by getting out of your routines and it will respond. This is a great way to get your mental juices flowing.

12. Stop watching so much television.

Researchers have found that too much television between the ages of 1 and 3 leads to attention problems later in childhood. Let’s face it, TV is mind-numbing. Get up off the couch and away from the television. Sure, there is some good educational stuff for children and adults, but the average American watches way too much TV. If you want peak mental performance, then turn off the boob tube.

13. Work with numbers.

Do math problems in your head instead of on a calculator. For many of us, it is use it or lose it. We have become mentally lazy. We rely on our gadgets instead of thinking for ourselves. Working with and memorizing numbers is a great way to get your brain back in shape. This could pay off big dividends down the road!

14. Stop relying on your GPS to tell you where to go.

Remember the cab drivers in #8 above? Using your brain to figure out how to get from Point A to Point B is good mental exercise. You have to use your brain’s ability to determine spatial relationships to effectively read a map and navigate a city. Traveling in an unfamiliar area is even better!

15. Recall old memories.

Get out those old picture albums and start thumbing through them. This taps into your brains memory banks. Pictures will help you recall things that you thought you forgot. Dig deep to see just what all you remember. If you have other ways to stimulate your memory, like old letters or home movies, then by all means use those too.

16. Make beautiful music.

Learning to play a musical instrument is a great way to super-charge your brain. It requires a number of different parts of your brain to work together to make the melodies that you desire. Of course, if you are already a musician, then learn a new piece. Push yourself to learn new techniques. Music is a great workout for the mind.

17. Speak a new tongue.

Many people agree that learning to a speak a new language is a powerful way to give the mind a stretch. If you’ve ever tried to learn even a few new words, then you know this can be difficult. Of course, the harder something is for the brain, the better! You have so much more mental capacity than you might imagine. Give it a try!

18. Memorize a song.

Many of us have lots of old songs stored in our heads, but why not expand your memory by learning a few new tunes? It may take awhile at first, but if you keep at it, you will find it gets easier. This is your brain getting back in shape.

19. Walk around the house blindfolded.

It might seem like a strange activity, but your brain can handle it. Once you try it a few times, you will probably find it fun and challenging. Again, this one draws on your memory, motor skills, and reasoning abilities. What a workout!

20. Expand your vocabulary.

Decide to learn one new word a day. There are several websites out there that can help you with this endeavor. You’ll not only be expanding your mind, but you’ll also be able to impress your friends and co-workers when you work one of your new words into a conversation.

Get started today and be smarter tomorrow!

There you have it! I have just given you 20 very practical ways to sharpen your mind. These suggestions will have your brain back in tip-top shape in no time. Why are you waiting? It is time to start exercising your mental muscles!

How do you keep your brain in perfect working order?

10W-40?

I Really like this article.

Have you ever tried to challenge yourself by thinking differently?

…Relative question.

Have you ever tried to challenge your thought activity?

Really look at it and say. Hmmmmmmmm…………

What else is there?

Rather than getting deep into the emotional energy of the situation, I reminded myself of the acceptance principal, and decided that it would be better to use my energy to mold a better and more positive future….

Through positive meditation I have found myself more able to decide what is going to happen next. Remember.. It isn’t what happens to you, it is what you are doing in response to the outside stimulus.

If you think about it, acceptance is a major part of happiness. As you accept “things” as they are you may find yourself relieved of the tension of judgments, frustrations, irritations and anxieties. From a very basic concept we can see why this may be a little difficult to get use to. The rate of speed at which our lives are hard boosted forward with the technologies, processes, tools and compromises, can in itself tell the story of LOUDER, FASTER, BRIGHTER, HARDER, MORE!!!

Take some time to realign your mind with your spirit. Open a window and breathe some fresh air, accept “things” for what they really are.

While thinking about the different things that you can do to “liven” up your intellectual perspectives you may take a quick peak at www.wikihow.com’s How to think like a genius.

The list is as follows.

1 ) Read
2 ) Learn
3 ) Solve
4 ) Detailed
5 ) Redefine
6 ) Think “What if?”
7 ) Inquisitive
8 ) Willing to listen
9 ) Multiple Perspective
10 ) Determined
11 ) Ambidextrous
12 ) Discover
13 ) Embrace
14 ) Unorthodox
15 ) Practice
16 ) Experiment
17 ) Open Mind

When we constantly push ourselves out of our own comfort zones into the unknown, we are exercising our minds and feelings. By doing this we can stretch our capacities and potential. If we put ourselves in situations to stretch our mental capacities we will only be the better for it as we meet life’s daily challenges.

This article is from the blog of Steven Aitchison. I would recommend subscribing to his rss feed.

It can be extremely difficult to focus on the good when, seemingly, bad things are happening in your life. However you can train your mind to focus on the good things in your life rather than dwelling on the bad. No it’s not one of those positive thinking articles that you’ve read all over the web and are sick and tired of. This is about changing the way you think, changing your thinking pattern. Do you use any of these thinking patterns in your day to day life?
8 limiting patterns of thinking

1. ‘Life is shit’ Thinking pattern –Everything in life is bad, everybody is not to be trusted and nothing good will ever happen to them e.g. “I won’t get that job, the interviewer didn’t like me, I didn’t particularly like them anyway.”
2. ‘Unsubstantiated conclusive’ Thinking pattern– You tend to make a lot of conclusions without any evidence to back up your conclusions. This can be a really destructive pattern as it can limit you in seeing reality for what it is e.g. “He walks a bit funny, he must be gay.” (I actually heard someone saying this about a colleague last week).
3. ‘Never to me’ Thinking pattern – This is when you think nothing good will ever happen to you. This can be a deep seated way of thinking and it is a deep down inability to believe you are worthy of anything good happening to you e.g. “I’ll never have money, I’ve never had it before so I’ll never have it in the future, might as well carry on with this shitty job, at least it pays the mortgage.”
4. ‘The negative psychic’ Thinking pattern – Presuming you know what people are thinking about you and it’s all bad. e.g. “She thinks I’m an idiot, I’ll try to avoid talking to her.”
5. ‘Should, would, could’ Thinking pattern – This type of person knows what they have to do to change their life, they are capable and they know it and they would do it if only……… e.g. “I know I could go to university and I would, but I’m just to busy with other things right now, I’ll apply next year.”
6. ‘Emotion based’ Thinking pattern – Your emotions control what you are thinking and therefore your vision of what reality is e.g. “I feel incapable of doing that so I must be incapable”.
7. ‘It’s all my fault’ Thinking pattern – You see yourself as being the cause of everything bad that has happened e.g. “It’s my fault he left me for another woman.” You’ll notice this type of person does not take responsibility for the good things that happen.
8. ‘They’re all wrong’ Thinking pattern – You see everyone as incapable of doing anything right and your way is the best way to do it e.g. “He can’t do it right, I’ll stay late tonight and fix it when he’s gone.”

These are just some of the common thinking patterns I have come across in my life and I have used some of them myself, I used to use mix the ‘Never to me’ and ‘The negative psychic’ thinking patterns about everything, “She’ll never go out with me she thinks I’m an idiot.” I made a conscious effort to change what I believed about myself and what I believed about the world and it has literally changed my life.

How to change the destructive thinking patterns

The first stage of changing is to recognise the problem – You will find a lot of people in life who just don’t think there is a problem so there is no need to change. If this is you then do nothing. If you want to change you must think there is a need and you will start to recognise what things need to change and it usually starts with your perception of life. Everybody’s perception of life is different, therefore everyone’s reality is different. I don’t live in the same world as you and you don’t live in the same world as me. That might sound a strange concept to some people, but think about it for a few minutes, it could change the way you see the world. I’ll give you an example:

In 2004 I took a redundancy package from my place of employment and received about £10,000 for my troubles, not a lot at all when I was earning £25,000 a year when I left. I was speaking to my friend about it and he thought I was absolutely nuts to do it, especially since I was married with two children. I explained to him how free I felt and what plans I had to start an online book dealing business and my wife was right behind me. He still thought I was crazy. My perception of the world was one of opportunity, life was great and I was free from the rat race for a while and I would get to see my wife and children a lot more than I had, I was ecstatic and if it didn’t work out I had a lot of skills to offer another employer. My friends perception was one of doom and gloom, he needed the security of a full time job even though he hated it and was working 12 hours per day. It turns out I worked at it for 1 year made a good profit but gave it up due to a huge downturn in business. At the end of it I was still optimistic as I knew I was good enough to get another job until I could do something else.

Everybody’s view of the world is different and it all comes down to the thinking patterns you use in your daily life. If you think life is wonderful you will notice the wonderful things in your life, if you think life is shit you will find shit things about life. Change your thoughts and you literally change the world you are living in. First you have to recognise your destructive thinking pattern.

The second stage is to be aware of when you are using the destructive thinking patterns – We can employ different thinking patterns depending on what we are doing in life. For example you could use a positive thinking pattern at work as you are very confident in your ability and yet use a destructive one when it comes to looking for love. Recognising when you use destructive thinking patterns can help you to change that pattern. Now that you have recognised when you use the destructive thinking patterns it is now time to change it.

The third stage is to replace the bad with the good – This is something that you don’t do immediately. You don’t say to yourself ‘I’ll never be able to do that”, which is you old thinking pattern, to “Oh yes I can”. That won’t work. You have to let the old pattern die slowly whilst slowly introducing your new improved thinking pattern. Here an example:

You are out in a club and you want to talk to someone you are attracted to. Your thoughts are “ She’ll never talk to me, she’s gorgeous.” You will immediately recognise this pattern of thinking and tell yourself something good about yourself e.g. “I’m good at _______(FILL IN THE BLANK), it can be anything. This will not immediately help your situation but it will slowly begin to change your old destructive thinking pattern with a new one.

This stage takes place over time and is not done immediately. The best time to change a destructive thinking pattern is to let it run it’s course and slowly replace it with a thinking pattern that is better for you. I know people want a microwave life, stick it in the micro and it’s ready in 3 minutes, your life is not like that and you cannot change in 1 day, unless something drastic happens.
You can work on more than 1 destructive thinking pattern at a time.

To recap

To change your thinking pattern you have to

Recognise
Be aware
Slowly change and introduce a new thinking pattern
Keep working on all your destructive thinking patterns

Change your life with your new way of thinking

Recognising and changing your way of thinking can be a long process depending on what patterns of thinking you employ and how badly you want to change. People can change, do change and change for the rest of their lives, I know I have, so don’t be thinking you’ll never be able to change, you can and you will if you really want to.

After a few months you will see a huge difference in your life and you will want to use your new way of thinking to good effect. You will start to notice new types of people enter into your life who can help you reach the goals you have in life and in turn you will help them reach their goals, don’t worry about how just now.
Take time to think about your goals and take the time often to do this. I take time every day to think about where I want to be in life and slowly but surely it happens. Personally I find it better in the morning to really think about my goals and then again at night just before I am falling asleep. It works for me but you will have to experiment a little to find your way of thinking about your goals.

In life we can all get stressed out and feel as if we are alone and in mental pain or distress. Everyone that I have ever talked to has felt stressed out at one time or another. What can we do when we are feeling this stress and pressure? Just relax? Take a chill pill? Just don’t let it get to you? As we all know it is easy to give that kind of advice. It is very hard to do however. Unless you have a few tricks up your sleeve.

Basic meditation can help more than you know.

Relaxation and meditation can have a very powerful effect on the body, says Steven Fahrion, Ph.D., director of research at the Life Sciences Institute of Mind-Body Health in Topeka, Kansas. It can help you cope with all kinds of stress-related problems, including migraines, peptic ulcers and anxiety. So I think that people who develop and retain peace of mind do experience mental and physical healing.

How does a person meditate and what is basic meditation?

Meditation can be thought of as many things, including a specific place to go, or a time to relax, or just a few minutes to close your eyes and be at peace. Meditation can really be anything that you want it to be . For that reason there is no real way to define what meditation is exactly for everyone. The Dalai Lama probably meditates differently than you or I do but, for practical reasons let’s call what we are going to to “A basic meditation for relaxation”.

Lets start with the steps to a basic medititation.

• Find a quiet place that you can be at peace. be calm

• Get into a comfortably seated position. spine straight and stacked

• Notice your breathing. inhale-exhale-deep breath.

• Continue to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.breathe deeply

• Continue to focus on your breathing.
  feel the breath in and out.

• Breathe in and out at least 10 times letting your lunges get the maximum air possible.

• Come back into awareness.

• Take a deep breathe and feel refreshed

Is it really that simple? YES! it really is.

If one’s life is simple, contentment has to come. Simplicity is extremely important for happiness. Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have, is very vital: satisfaction with just enough food, clothing, and shelter to protect yourself from the elements. And finally, there is an intense delight in abandoning faulty states of mind and in cultivating helpful ones in meditation. Dalai Lama

photo by karlequin

This short article was found on http://www.illuminatedmind.net please visit for some really great posts!

Have you ever wished you could go back in time and have a conversation with one of the greatest minds in history? Well, you can’t sorry, they’re dead. Unless of course you’re clairaudient, be my guest. But for the rest of us, we can still refer to the words they left behind.

Even though these great teachers have passed on, their words still live, and in them their wisdom. I’ve made a list of seven what I believe are some of the greatest teachings by the world’s greatest minds.

1. Realizing Your Dreams

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”
- Lawrence J. Peter

In order for us to achieve our dreams, we must have a vision of our goals. Writing down our dreams and creating a list of actions helps us stick to our plan. As it’s said “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. When we turn our goals into measurable actions, we gain clarity and are able to see the necessary steps we must take in order to achieve them.

Action: Visualize a life of your wildest dreams. What did you dream of doing when you were a child? What would you do if you had a million dollars? Create a vision for your goals and start breaking them down into small actions that you can take on a day by day basis.

2. Overcoming Fear

“It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, “Always do what you are afraid to do.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The best way to learn something is to dive right in to it. When we overcome our fear of failure, we learn that only those who are asleep make no mistakes. Fear is the only thing keeping us from experiencing a life of love and fulfillment. If we make a commitment to an uncompromisable quest for truth, we will realize that as we grow more into the truth, our fears start to disappear.

Action: You must define your fears in order to conquer them. Create a list of everything you’re afraid of and start facing them one at a time. Make a commitment to yourself now to not let fear rule your life.

3. Intention and Desire

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become.”- Guatama Buddha

Our thoughts determine our reality. When we stop thinking about what we don’t and begin thinking about what we do want, our lives begin to transform. Instead of working against our desires and intentions, we move into alignment with them.

Action: Create a list of your intentions and desires. Wherever you go, take this list with you. Read it when you wake up and before you go to sleep.

4. Happiness

“Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances.”
- Benjamin Franklin

Happiness comes from an inner peace, understanding and acceptance of life; a perspective of truth that opens your eyes to the beauty of life all around us. Happiness cannot be achieved by external status, it must be an internal state that we realize when we see our innate perfection.

Action: Realize that happiness is a choice. In every decision you make ask yourself “how can I respond to make myself happy and fulfilled?”

5. Self Acceptance

“If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” – Jesus

When we stop trying to be what we are not, we realize our authenticity. Before we had knowledge, we were completely authentic. We learn to use knowledge to measure and judge, which is a powerful tool we have as humans. However we create an image of perfection in our mind of what we should be, but are not. We confuse knowledge for nature. We believe in the lie of our imperfection. When we realize this we can reclaim the truth of our perfection and live in love and acceptance.

Action: Make a commitment to never go against yourself. Practice non-judgment and realize that the same part of your mind that condemns you is the same voice that caused you to take the action in the first place. We don’t even have to believe what we say to ourselves.

6. Appreciation and Gratitude

“So much has been given to me, I have not time to ponder over that which has been denied.”
- Helen Keller

How many times do we count our misfortunes rather than our blessings? When we take time to open our eyes to the miracle of life we can see the many gifts that have been given to us. Remembering all the beautiful aspects of life and all the reasons you are blessed can immediately shift our mood. We can move from sorrow and despair to appreciation and hope.

Action: Each time you find yourself complaining about something, re-direct your focus to something you are grateful for. Make a habit of transforming your awareness of troubles into an awareness of abundance.

7. The Art of Simplicity

“I made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it short.”
- Blaise Pascal

Perfection is not when there is nothing to add, but when there is nothing more to take away. As Bruce Lee once said “the height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.” True mastery of our lives is realizing the simple joys of life, removing distractions and clutter from our lives.

Action: The art of simplicity is knowing what to take away. Practice recognizing when you’re spending your time on unimportant tasks and re-focus on the important.

This list is by no means exhaustive. There are other many great teachings that I did not include here because I felt like they were already expounded on thoroughly elsewhere, such as Einstein and Gandhi’s timeless classics. There are also great teachings to be found from our parents or friends.

If you have any lessons to add, I encourage you to share them with us in the comments below. Also, I want to give a special thanks to Manu from LifeTweak for inspiring me with his “10 Golden Lessons from Albert Einstein”.

For more powerful lessons from great minds, subscribe to Illuminated Mind.

THINKERS ANONYMOUS
This Story was found on www.thejaywalker.com

http://thejaywalker.com/pages/thinkers.html

Do You Think To Much?

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then to loosen up. Inevitably though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker.

I began to think alone – “to relax,” I told myself – but I knew it wasn’t true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.

I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don’t mix, but I couldn’t stop myself.

I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, “What is it exactly we are doing here?”

Things weren’t going so great at home either. One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother’s.

I soon had a reputation as a heavy thinker. One day the boss called me in. He said, “Skippy, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don’t stop thinking on the job, you’ll have to find another job.” This gave me a lot to think about.

I came home early after my conversation with the boss. “Honey,” I confessed, “I’ve been thinking…”

“I know you’ve been thinking,” she said, “and I want a divorce!”

“But Honey, surely it’s not that serious.”

“It is serious,” she said, lower lip aquiver. “You think as much as college professors, and college professors don’t make any money, so if you keep on thinking we won’t have any money!”

“That’s a faulty syllogism,” I said impatiently, and she began to cry. I’d had enough. “I’m going to the library,” I snarled as I stomped out the door.

I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche, with a PBS station on the radio. I roared into the parking lot and ran up to the big glass doors… they didn’t open. The library was closed.

To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.

As I sank to the ground clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. “Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?” it asked. You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker’s Anonymous poster.

Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was “Porky’s.” Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.

I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just seemed… easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.

As I was searching through a few of my favorites looking for some brain teasers and minute mysteries to get my brain started this morning, I found this intriguing page that has several things to exercise your brain. It has articles about creativity, memory, vocabulary and stress.

Following is an excerpt from the About Us section…

You exercise your body to stay physically in shape, so why shouldn’t you exercise your brain to stay mentally fit? With these daily exercises you will learn how to flex your mind, improve your creativity and boost your memory. As with any exercise, repetition is necessary for you to see improvement, so pick your favorite exercises from our daily suggestions and repeat them as desired. Try to do some mentalrobics every single day!

www.mentalrobics.com

BY BOYD CRAIG, PRESIDENT, AMERICA’S FREEDOM FESTIVAL AT PROVO 2007

Things were not going well for the the Union army. With July 1862 came a call from President Abraham Lincoln lnto the governors of the northern states for 300,000 more volunteers. Convinced that the very existence of the United States hung in the balance, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a promising young rhetoric professor at Bowdoin College,wrote to the Governor of Maine and offered his service:

In pursuance of the offer of reinforcements for the war, I ask if your Excellency desires and will accept my service. . . . But, I fear, this war, so costly of blood and treasure, will not cease until the men of the North are willing to leave good positions, and sacrifice the dearest personal interests, to rescue our Country from desolation, and defend the National existence against treachery at home and jealousy abroad. This war must be ended, with a swift and strong hand; and every man ought to come forward and ask to be placed at his proper post. Governor Washburn accepted his offer. Though chamberlain knew little of soldiering, he quickly rose through the ranks. His most defining hour came as commander of the Union’s 20th Maine Company on Little Round Topin the Battle of Gettysburg. His orders were to hold firm the extreme left of the Union line and to prevent the Confederate army from flanking them. His company bravely held the line until, at last, they ran out of ammunition. Refusing to give way, he paused in silent reflection, then called forth the order, “Fix bayonets!” The entire line followed his lead, rose up in a shout, and with fixed bayonets, rushed the approaching army in an all-out attack.

Stunned by the fearsome sight, the enemy’s front line threw down their arms and surrendered. Swinging forward with an extended “right wheel,” the 20th Maine went on to break the second line, eventually overtaking, killing, or capturing the entire attacking regiment that vastly outnumbered them.

Many are convinced that this victory of raw courage on Little Round Top was the turning point for the North’s victory at Gettysburg and the CivilWar. One person. One volunteer.

Modem-day “Little Round Tops” surround us-crises in our families, in our neighborhoods and communities, in our schools, in our nation, and beyond. Calls to volunteer may not come from governors and presidents; but they do come as calls of conscience to action. The challenge to “hold the line” at all costs in the face of relentless opposition is no different. But the true crisis will not be triggered by a lack of “ammunition.” More likely is it to come by inaction, by small circles of concern limited to “me and mine,” by numbness to need, by leaving the job to government and institutions.

We welcome the coming season of national celebration. Independence Day is a time for family gathering, fun, and fireworks-a time to honor all who, like Chamberlain, have offered their service and lives in defense of liberty. It’s a time to acknowledge and express gratitude to God for the blessings of freedom.

Come and enjoy the many events of America’s Freedom Festival-all dedicated to celebrating our freedom and liberty. May we also reflect on what life is “calling out to us” to do with that freedom-and then volunteer. Reach out. “Adopt” a troubled teen. Affirm a child’s worth and potential. “Adopt”a cause. Give a regular portion of your time to meet a great need. Such service, given freely,is one of the hallmarks of a great America. As Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain put it, “No sacrifice or service of mine requires any other reward than that which conscience gives to every man who does his duty.”

I really enjoyed this article because it reminds me of the need to be a better person, love those around you and strive to serve God and Country.