People Rushing To Nowhere: A Satire Song Transformed Into An Inspiration And Challenge

This is line two of a 39-line song I wrote. Each line is a self-contained thought, and you can read each as an article. I'll tell you about this project in a moment, and how it is at least partially in tribute to John Denver, who died in a plane crash in October, 1997. The satire song this article is taken from was inspired by him, and taken from many of the concepts and problems he sang about.

Many people have speed, but not much direction. A song says, we're people in a hurry, going nowhere in a hurry." Will Rogers said, "Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save." We lawyers have a saying: "Everything is urgent, but very little is really important." I've had many late night phone calls to do something - when it's impossible to do anything until the next day. We get caught up in a frenzy of urgency.

This is one thing I loved about John Denver. John was a man on a mission - a mission to discover today, while on his way to tomorrow. In other words, he had goals and a destination in mind: something he wanted to accomplish. He wanted his songs to have international impact. He sure accomplished that, didn't he? But he also saw life as a journey - where he experienced everything and everyone he could.

We often react emotionally rather than logically. Emotions often outweigh logic. Our minds say if something affects us personally, then it must be important, and if it is important then it must also be urgent. This is deductive thinking that isn't logical. We get conditioned to rush. Highway speed limit signs are only there to show us how much we're speeding - not to control us. Most studies say most people do not have any clearly defined goals anyway, so what's the rush to get to... nowhere? We say we want to be successful. We say we want to be financially secure. We say we want to climb the corporate ladder. But we often don't know what these things mean.

I look at life in terms of three things:
(1) purposes,
(2) priorities,
(3) practices.

If the three of these are not lining up in my life, then something is wrong. Purpose addresses my mission: the reason I am on this planet. Success, and finances, and getting higher on a ladder may be important, but they do not define purpose. Without purpose, there is no REASON for priorities and practices. I must define ME, before I can define what 'ME' should be doing. A college poll says most students take Psychology 101 to find out why they are on the planet (the meaning to their existence). But Psychology 101 does not even begin to address this subject.

(1) PURPOSE is what I want engraved on my tombstone, when it is all said and done. It is what my life is about. Life isn't about things. It is about people in my life who matter to me. It is about a God who loves me more than I can ever begin to comprehend with my limited mental abilities. Purpose is about things I can do for others. Purpose is about making a difference in the lives of others - about helping them become all they can be. The Bible says there are only two things in life that are eternal: (a) people, and (b) God's word. Both exist forever.

(2) PRIORITIES fall in step behind my purpose. What things in life do I want to give my daily time to? What do I want the ledger of this day to reflect when the day is over? Do I start working on the most important thing to me this day, or do I just let myself be guided by the phone, or who knocks on my door, or other circumstances? To be in control, I must define my own priorities. They are too important to allow others to define them for me. Purpose defines the great dimensions of my life, but priorities define the daily fruitfulness of my life.

(3) PRACTICES provide a good check and balance to the first two, plus they are necessary to get any job done. We must take action on our purposes and priorities, and our practices should coincide with our purposes and priorities. If I say my purpose is to have a good, strong, loving family, and if I set a priority of having a family night once a week - but I don't take action on this and do it, then my practices do not line up with the first two. My purpose and priorities should coincide with my practices - which are actions to accomplish the first two. Priorities without purposes are like pouring water into a paper sack. Practices without purposes and priorities is like kicking a can down the street.

In Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy asked the Cheshire cat which road to take. The cat asked, "Where are you going?" Dorothy said she didn't know. The cat replied, "Then it doesn't matter which road you take." This applies to US. Without linking our purposes, priorities and practices we are like a ship at sea without a rudder - blown by every wind - stalled in every calm. We don't know where we're going.

Life becomes exciting when we develop clear mental images of where we are going. Can you imagine a football game being played on a field without yard-markers? The players wouldn't know for sure when they had made a touchdown - or even a first down. Purposes, priorities and practices are what keep us on course. To me, this must include our loving heavenly Father, and his Son Jesus. The apostle Paul says, "I know WHOM I have believed." Most of us are so focused on WHAT we believe, we never think about WHOM we believe.

But in other areas I believe in having priorities that determine my practices. All of us have a spiritual side to us (whether or not we choose to acknowledge it), and a physical world side to us. John Denver sings that the spirit is vital - 'but the flesh must be given its due.' We are spirit, soul and body. Like God, we are a trinity. I call us 'The Whole Person.' The Bible says we are a new species, when we live in Jesus. We're a 'GodMan,' which has no sexual implication.

We must live life as a journey. We must take time to 'stop and smell the roses,' as a song says that I sing. We men must take time to 'kiss our wife and tell her that she's pretty,' as another song says. We must take time to look up into the face of God. John wasn't speaking of a love affair with a woman when he wrote, 'Come and Let Me Look Into Your Eyes.' He was singing to God.

And when is the best time to get our thinking linked to life's realities? I find it is the first few minutes of every day - often before my feet even hit the floor. It is amazing to me how little things in life can enter into distract me, complicate my life, and try to take me captive -- before I get my thinking straight. If I don't take control of my day - early each day - then the day takes control over me. I become a VICTIM of the day rather than a VICTOR over it. I take the first few minutes to be grateful to God for even being alive, for my purposes in life, and for the fact that I am a 'GodMan.' Then I think about my priorities and practices for the day. If I don't do this, then like the Cheshire cat says, it doesn't really matter which direction I head off in.

Here is the first verse from the three-verse song this article comes from. I'll tell you how to find out more about the song and the articles below.

America! Land of pride and plenty
People rushing to nowhere (the title of this article)
Idle time beyond compare
Ignoring others in despair
Searching for some certainty.
People hear yet seldom listen
Others look but cannot see
Competing in the wrong directions
Acting out facsimiles.
People full yet always hungry
Reaching out, but seldom touching
Outward laughing, inward crying
Avoiding our Gethsemane.