Some alternative axioms

After reading Hybels I needed the counsel of one of my mentors. I've never met him but his wisdom helps me-he is called Gordon Macdonald. His book of axioms is called A resilient life and it is soul food. This morning, I slowly read the chapter entitled 'the value of lingering'.

MacDonald talks about friends. He quotes Malcolm Gladwell's book the Tipping Point who says we have a maximum of 150 people with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship. This is called our sympathy group (those we would feel comfortable joining for a coffee if we saw them in Starbucks) But there is a more intimate group says Gladwell.

"Make a list of all those you know whose death would leave you truly devastated"

This, he says, are deeply involved mourners.

'When I harshly critiqued myself twenty years ago on the paucity of my personal friendships. I imagined my own funeral and who might come. I suspected that there might be a modest crowd, but I had a hard time identifying those who might qualify as deeply involved mourners. They would be those with whom I had lingered, and I hadn't done much lingering up until that point in my life." [p.208]

I need to give some thought to lingering. Actually I just need to do more of it.

You need to own MacDonald's book. In a world of axioms of busyness and performance it will bless you.

It really will.