[May 1, 2022] Get off your butt and move on with your life. It’s your turn in the “box,” the box of life is calling. Decision time. Either you choose full responsibility for your life, or you don’t. There are no maybe, kinda, or half-measures; this is an all-or-nothing idea.
Life is about having a family, friends, a job (or school), plans for time outside of work, and good physical and mental health. You should possess most of these, but if you don’t have any of them, all you have left is pain and suffering. With a proper goal in your life, which you want to strive for while you are young, you have an aim, and what you do is oriented toward it. If you adopt responsibility, you have made a conscious decision and are admitting to the world that it’s your time in the “box.”
Adoption of responsibility means having clear, measurable life goals, and while those goals may change – our preferences can morph over time – we should embrace the real-world fact we might fail. There is real fear in adopting this strategy. It means knowing the conditions of failure, like not having a job or family or money. It explains why so many resist specifying our goals. We don’t like to clarify conditions for failure because it is so painful. Is it really better to remain willfully ignorant and infant-like? The problem is, in that case, we will fail all the time; we just won’t know it until we fail so badly that our life is over. And that can quickly occur by age 30 or 40. Imagine a 30-year-old infant, and their life is over.
The question that follows is, how can you be productive and live a good life?
Be specific about what you want and set up those things you need to do to get the things you want. Perhaps you will not hit these things – these intermediate goals – all the time. Maybe you hit them only 50% of the time. That’s okay because, over time, you will get better, and maybe tomorrow or next week, you can achieve 51%.
Do not be consumed by falling short of your goals. Keep at it. People with goals in their life succeed because they know where they’re going. If you don’t have an aim, you will get there 0% of the time. If you’re alive and genuinely want to be an upright, valuable person to yourself, your family, and your community, then grasp responsibility and be content that it’s your time in the “box.”
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Please read my new book, “Our Longest Year in Iraq,” on Amazon (link here).
Great advice that will be largely ignored by the youngest in our society. When you’re a kiddo, you play hard in the yard. When you go off to college, you play hard on your computer games and frolicking in the sack of other men or men2. Say, who is funny? I resent that.
Good one, Marx.
If only the fake news media got off their butts and did their job instead of making sh$$ up, then we could actually discover what is really happening in the world instead of seeing what’s inside a liberal, leftist, whacko’s limited brain.
Not likely I’m afraid. I’ve known too many folks who are not willing to get their butt off the chair and get to work. Too long being lazy and stupid. Lazy, fat, mindless, and nasty. Common among men more than women but I find it very common among college educated young women for some weird reason I cannot explain.
Excellent article. One of your best, Gen. Satterfield. Sounds like advice from my mom.
Pow, got that right. Another on target blog post by Gen. Satterfield. I would say this is common sense, but nothing seems common sense today.
I told my brother, who is in his 40s, to get off his butt and go to work. He says it’s easier to collect a check from the government. How do you argue with a moron like that? well, not a real moron but you get the picture.
Get off your butt. Great title but will your words resonate with the young (I think that is your targeted audience, Gen. Satterfield). Let’s see an experiment where they get hit with this advice in the face. Will any change? I doubt it. Takes a lot of time to convince those who have sucked from the tit of government a long time to come off it.
Good point, but more important than us all waiting for it to happen, you have to take action in your own hands. Run for local office in your town and make sure stupid stuff is not happening like we see across the nation, like encouraging little kids to change their gender. Stupid is as …..
I found this article especially entertaining but gives some real important advice (like today’s article, 2 May 2022). Grow up! Yeah, well I’m not so sure this is an easy sell. We’ll see how things work out but as long as others like our government continues to encourage child like behavior, we will get more of it.
Gen. Satterfield, another spot-on article for your future awards. Ha Ha. Truthfully, I hope you do win awards for your website. So well put together. And, just to let others know, there are many ‘tabs’ at that the top that has a lot of good info as well. 👍
Great!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Hi Fake News, welcome aboard. Yep, this is a great website.
Adopt responsibility ….. hard sell to lazy kids.
But you can make the sell. I do it with young kids all the time. I just call it having fun outdoors and teaching them some of the basic skills of making their life easier like how to wear your socks so you don’t get blisters, or how to start a fire, or track animals. They love it.
If you don’t hit your goals 100%, do not fear. Do what you can and then tomorrow do better. It takes focus, hard work (meaning a lot of time and thought) to succeed. But you have to take the first step. ✔
How do you have a good life? The question of the ages and Gen. Satterfield is doing his best to answer that question and doing a bang-up job of it. There is no simple answer.
One thing we can all agree upon is the fact that if you sit on your butt all day wasting your time, that is not the way to a good life. There is always something better. The problem, which Gen. Satterfield has not really hit on is that there is a need for internal motivation. Sorry, he doesn’t say it here but he has in other articles. Taken together, this is a wonderful website on leadership.
…. playing video games and taking mind-altering drugs. Yeah, that gets you there. /sarc
Too bad that folks don’t get it. They are waiting for the govt to track them down and give them a handout. This will not turn out well for our country. Already Pres Joe Biden (dimentia patient on steroids) has created the “Mary Poppins of disinformation” cabinet position. No surprise there.
Nina Jankowicz, the new head of the federal government’s announced Disinformation Governance Board. See Gen. S’s Daily Favorites. Here is the direct link:
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3472471-bidens-mary-poppins-of-disinformation-the-perfect-nanny-to-tidy-up-mess-of-free-speech/
Giving women a bad name.
Gen. S. got this one right …. nailed it, “Adoption of responsibility means having clear, measurable life goals, and while those goals may change – our preferences can morph over time – we should embrace the real-world fact we might fail.”
Loved the article today, Gen. Satterfield. Thanks!!!!!
He he he, yep! Got it Bobby Joe. Lots of big fans on today, I see. This leadership website is good for us all and the best part is that Gen. Satterfield neither charges money for it, nor does he ask for donations. I’m happy about that. Says a lot about his character. But, I will ask us all to buy his book, ‘Our Longest Year in Iraq.’ Thanks all. Have a great Sunday.
Yeah Bobby Joe, me too. Best leadership website on the Internet. 👍
Had your cup of coffee yet! Get off your butt and do something. Great article, Gen. Satterfield. Sadly, the very people who need to hear this message are the very ones who will neither read it nor hear your words of advice from others. Lazy? Perhaps it is even worse.
Thanks Janna, well said. For me this is going to be a very long day after church. My family is visiting my inlaws and that means I’m headed to the garage for my tools. Lots of work around the house. I asked a local kid (who I thought was a good boy) to help and I would pay him $50 for about 2 hours of work. He told me to go ‘screw off.’ Whatever that means, it’s not good and says a lot about the lazy kids these days.
Amazing! ……
Don’t be too surprised Dale, I’ve been witnessing this reaction for a long time now.
Your nanny state at work. And your nanny state parents who want it. And they wonder why their kids don’t behave. Yep, they are the problem and now their kids are the problem.
Liberalism destroys, this is just one example among many.
Got that straight 😁
He he he $&@#%^}