The Rock Perspective

I Miss When We Could Disagree Well

2026-07-15T13:35:44-07:00

Regardless of the differences in policy and opinion, this is how I think our leaders and representatives should act. I miss the days when they carried themselves in a civil way toward each other and worked hard to come together on solutions through debate, compromise, and respect, both toward one another and toward the people whom they represent.

I am not naive about it. There have always been dissenting opinions and big differences in these things, and there always will be. But there is a difference between arguing hard for what you believe and treating the other person as an enemy to be humiliated. Somewhere we blurred that line, and I do not think we are better for it.

The reason it stays on my mind is that it is not only a problem for politicians. It shows up at dinner tables and in comment sections and between old friends. I am trying hard to become the kind of person who can sit across from someone I disagree with and still treat them with dignity. That is a small thing, but small things add up, and it is the part any of us can actually control.

A Fresh Start, Every Single Day

2026-07-15T13:31:16-07:00

One of the beliefs I hold most firmly is also one of the simplest. Each day provides a fresh opportunity to accomplish your goals. I have said it so many times that it would be easy to let it become just words, but I try not to.

I have made real mistakes. I failed to manage my finances well and went into debt I could not pay back. I disappointed and let down those close to me at times. There were seasons where I led people poorly and knew it. If yesterday were the final word, I would be stuck. But my faith tells me it is not the final word, and neither is the year before that or the decade before that.

So I try to start each morning without dragging the whole weight of the past into it. Not pretending the past did not happen, but not letting it decide today either. That is what a fresh start means to me. It is a quiet kind of hope, and it is enough to get me moving.

Why I Put Health and Wealth in the Same Sentence

2026-07-15T13:27:04-07:00

For most of my working life I thought of health and money as two different piles of worry. You dealt with one at the doctor's office and the other at the kitchen table, and they did not have much to do with each other. The older I get, the more I see how wrong that was.

In your later years, the two start to feed each other. When you do not sleep well, everything costs more, in energy and in patience and sometimes in dollars. When money is tight, the stress of it keeps you up at night, and then you are back to not sleeping. It becomes a loop, and I have been in it.

What I am trying to do now, both for myself and for the people I hope to help, is treat the two together instead of separately. Rest better so you have the energy to work on the finances. Bring in a little more income so the worry eases and the rest comes easier. It is not a quick fix and I am not going to pretend it is. But putting the two in the same sentence, and working on them at the same time, has been a better plan for me than treating them as strangers.