Today’s post is the featured article from the December 2009 issue of The Front Porch Newsletter. If you would like to automatically receive The Front Porch e-newsletter on the last Thursday of each month just click here to sign-up for your complimentary subscription.
So where is your dwelling place? I don’t mean where you live, but rather what you think about. Worry about. Dream about. In other words … what do you dwell upon? Or maybe, for some, the more likely question is … what dwells upon you? It is usually one way or the other.
I would suggest that where we dwell has everything to do with where we are headed. Or not. I have often heard that you become what you think about. I have also heard that you become who you hang with. I suppose they go hand in hand. Think about it! Where you dwell has a lot to do with what you dwell about. And what you dwell about has everything to do with where you are headed.
So who and what define your dwelling?
Is your dwelling reactively defined by an automatic lifestyle or do you dwell with intention. Some tell me they don’t have a moment to think … much less to dwell. I’m not convinced we have to stop to dwell. Good or bad, we dwell even while we are moving 100 miles-an-hour! But I do think we need to stop to think about what we dwell upon. Most of us just don’t think about it. And it has significant implications!
It might do us some good to stop, for a moment, and simply think about what we have been dwelling upon over this last year … and what we would really like to dwell upon in this New Year.
The blank space below is not a design error. Rather, it is designed just to be a pause. A moment. For you to stop and dwell. Your tendency might be just to pass over this “white space” and keep-on reading. It is what we so often do.
But I hope you will stop, for just a moment, in this little dwelling place below … and dwell on what you dwell about. Or what has been dwelling on you.
What we dwell upon has everything to do with how we lead … and ultimately with how we live.
But one final note … I am so grateful to so many people and organizations who have been deeply dwelling on their core values over the last few months. Since publishing GOOD to the CORE this past year I have become increasingly aware of how truly difficult the concept of core values can be when you get dead serious about it. I think we have seen many examples over the last decade in just how deadly it can be when we don’t dwell on our core values. I hope this new decade will prove to be different. I am convinced the hope of something different starts one person at a time. When it comes to core values … let the dwelling begin!