Here’s a video of Eliana singing!  I’ll try to be back soon with birthday party pictures.

“Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same”

I heard that recently in a song by The Fray.  For a fairly straightforward statement, a lot of meaning can be found.  It seems these days it has become increasingly difficult to stand firm without compromise in this compromising world.  Our government which was once founded on firm set of beliefs seems to be compromising left and right whether to fit the agenda of a certain demographic or to seek the approval of other countries and peoples.

I tend to avoid politics in a conversation.  I don’t say much of the topic; I always figured there were enough talking heads on both sides of the aisle.  I began typing this post without the slightest thought of politics in my mind.  But perhaps that was lazy and ever irresponsible of me.  Getting back to the quote from the beginning, it seems for me, and perhaps many others, the hardest thing to do is to speak up.

I’ve learned through working many years in offices that it is true that the squeaky wheel does in fact get the grease. But if we extend the metaphor further, remember that for that one squeaky wheel, there are three wheels quietly doing their job, doing what is expected of them and no more.  Why is that? Why do we keep our heads down and go about our business?  Are we afraid? Are we just lazy?

Perhaps we have already begun moving in the right direction.  I look around today and hear a lot of squeaking and I applaud those who are willing to speak out.  But then I think about the wheels again and I wonder how many others are just going through the motions, saying nothing.  I know I have been guilty of it.  It is time for us to stop doing what is expected of us by the world and instead start  EXCEEDING those expectations.  Be heard.  Voice your opinion.  But before speaking out in words, speak out with love.  Demonstrate a love like no other to those around you.

Every so many months I take a look at flottfamily.com and think “I haven’t posted anything in a while.”  If not for the wonderful pictures Michelle posts of Eliana, there’d be nothing new at all.  Usually after weeks of thinking this, I work up the gumption to post, and in doing so realize I have precious little to say.  Why is that?

I think I should like to write more often; writing was something I loved to do in my younger years but with age it seems that flame has dwindled to a mere spark.  Michelle has been doing a project called “Project 365″ which challenges a photographer to take and post a photo every day for a year.

I wonder to myself if I shouldn’t begin my own Project 365, forcing myself to write a little something each day.  While there will surely be days when the fruits of my effort are less than pleasing, the overall goal I believe is simply to exercise my mind in writing.  If I discipline myself to do anything everyday, then surely after a year I would be better at it.  So if I write something tomorrow and the next day and so on, perhaps those won’t be anything worth reading.  But imagining how much sharper my mind and my writing could be a year from now, it seems awfully lazy to not make the attempt.