Davin Parish said,
"I have found that I have been very snappy lately. Snappy and just..... okay you get the picture. But not just feeling glum in one area of my life I was glum in spiritual, physical and emotional. A little bit of a pattern was that I wasn't eating. If I ate it wasn't on time. I was also staying up later than I should've been. So I started fixing it. I have started drinking at least 8 cups of water a day, eating well balanced and on schedule meals, and going to bed early. It is amazing the difference. I am more effective when doing schoolwork and more kind when dealing with others. Not only did it help me physically but mentally and spiritually as well. One of my parents told me how sometimes elite athletes will get a little depressed when their performance level goes down. When they went to counseling the counselor would notice that in most cases, this drop in physical performance was caused by a lack of use and involvement with other areas of their life, like mental and spiritual. I think it's this way because living a well-balanced life, a life where you focus pretty evenly on all these areas, can keep you from burning out. Sometimes we can go and go and go without noticing that we are getting burned out. The quality of energy that goes into the time we spend goes down. Another little story, the army had to groups of soldiers and they did a test to see which group could hit the most targets with their big artillery in three days. The first group was told to fire as many rounds as they could, to keep firing and firing. To the second group, they said; take break and small naps in between firing. On the first day group one was in the lead but on day two their accuracy was going down badly and group two caught the lead. Their accuracy didn't go down as much.
Have you ever noticed how sometimes you'll be in a fight with someone and it will seem super important and when it's over you'll realize how useless and strange the argument was. Then you wonder why you spent so much time arguing. I've done it before. It's a little like staring intently at the ground while walking. If you don't look up every once in a while it's hard to keep walking in a straight line. If you don't look up for a long time you'll find yourself heading the complete wrong direction. It's better to look up sooner than later. When I get super intent and overly focused on an argument or a single area of my life "looking up" or working on another area can get you to see that you’re heading in the wrong direction. Taking breaks to focus on other areas of life really serves as a wake-up call for me it helps me to look up earlier rather than later."
Missy Nelson said,
"I had a really cool experience last night with my young woman's group. I had them help me with my Final Leadership Project, (The Smile Movement) We made notes that said stuff about smiling on them and then went to Walmart and handed them out to random people. It was so amazing to see how something so simple can change someones attitude so fast. But there was one particular person that I handed a note too that had a lasting effect on me. I had one note left, I was walking toward the entrance with one of the little Beehives, who also had one more note. We wanted to give our last notes to someone we thought really looked like they needed it. A man who looked really sad and lonely was walking towards us as we headed for the entrance. His face was black and looked like it had been severely burned. The other young woman I was with says "eww" and walks by as fast as she could. I smiled, stopped and handed my note to him with a big smile on my face. I will never forget the look on his blackened face. That is what I call the light of Christ. If only more people would stop and smile at everyone, our world would be a better place."
Fearlesslystaystrong said,
"Today, I took the time to help my little brother write two words, even though I was in the middle of an online class. It only took a few minutes.
I also have tried to use my time better today. It's been a struggle at times, but I've done a lot better so far!"
You all are living such great stories! The world won't know what to do with all this awesomeness :) Keep it up!
So a few of you have asked what exactly we mean by Stories. I'm here to break up that confusion!
A story can be really anything meaningful in your life. Something great along your path. It doesn't have to be anything big either. It can be anything from the feeling you got when you shared a smile with someone who seemed down, doing what you're asked happily, running around with a smile, making everyday count by being happy, serving someone in need, having an amazingly epic adventure that just made your life, a big service project, anything meaningful to you that made you day/week/year/life.
Just keep in mind, that it doesn't have to be big, anything meaningful along your path to awesome!
So send in your stories! We seriously love to hear them! It puts a great big smile on our faces to hear about the great things you're all doing!
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