Some Is Better Than None

Ahh...a new year is beginning! Maybe you haven’t written your New Year’s Resolutions down, but there are probably a few goals swirling around in your mind. 

This year you’re going to exercise five times a week and lose 20 pounds. 

This year your family is going to eat much healthier. 

This year you’re going to keep your house much cleaner. 

This year you’re going to be a lot more organized. 

This year you’re really going to get a handle on the kids’ schoolwork and not get behind on any of it. 

If you’re like rest of us, this will all work beautifully through mid-January, at which point you will systematically begin falling off the wagon. However, when that happens the key is to remember this principle: Some is better than none. 

Let’s go over that again, shall we? Some is better than none. 

So you only managed to exercise once during a week. Some is better than none. 

So the only thing you got around to organizing by mid-April is your sock drawer. Some is better than none. 

So the kids’ schoolroom only gets tidied sporadically instead of daily, like you’d prefer. Some is better than none.

Keeping this concept in mind does several things. First, it lowers your stress and guilt level. If you’re like me, you continually fall short of your to-do list. If you’re like me, that stresses you and you feel guilty for every misspent moment of the day. I sat down with a cup of tea and chatted idly with a friend on Facebook for ten minutes—shame on me! I should have been organizing that stack of stuff on my desk! However, remembering that some is better than none lessens the pressure. The list might not get all done but we are not total failures if a couple of items are left over. We don’t have to run around in a guilt-laden panic all the time. Reality is reality and we seldom measure up to our own goals. Guess what? That’s life. So remember, some is better than none.

Second, acting on the idea that some is better than none actually enhances motivation instead of dampening it. Have you ever fallen short of your goal and become so discouraged that you didn’t even bother trying anymore? You couldn’t keep up that exercise routine so you stopped altogether. You didn’t have time for all the home-cooked nutritious meals you planned, so you went right back to the old habit of using pre-packaged foods from the freezer. You didn’t stay on top of the Bible memorization routine you were trying to do with your children, so you stopped altogether. I, at least, have been there and done that. We become discouraged because we set the standard to be “Absolute Perfection” and therefore even the smallest failure is a complete one.

However, if you believe that some is better than none, you keep trying. Sure, you’re not living up to the standard you’d prefer, but you don’t let that stop you. You know that even what you consider to be mediocre efforts bring benefits. One healthy meal a day is still healthier than a meal of junk food. Reading just one chapter a week with your kids from that biography you wanted to read together is still more informative and challenging than not doing it at all. Cleaning the school area every three weeks instead of daily still keeps the room cleaner more often than not doing it at all. It’s encouraging! Even if you’re not making the level of progress you want, you are still making progress! Looking at matters this way keeps you focused on the positive good you are doing, not on what you’re not getting done.

Of course, one might argue that the philosophy of some being better than none leads to all sorts of compromise. It could, if misapplied. There are some areas where anything short of excellence is sin. We wouldn’t want to say that some is better than none if we were discussing character issues like honesty or purity. For instance, Jesus never told us that hey, some truthfulness is better than none, or that some marital fidelity is better than none. There is a non-negotiable standard of excellence for certain things and to fall short is to break God’s law. However, if we step out of the realm of morality and into the world of sock drawers, exercise regimens, or math assignments, the standards are more flexible. Your inheritance in heaven is thankfully not determined by the state of your sock drawer. It’s okay to relax.

So as the new year begins, just smile and do whatever you can. It may not be all you would like to do, but it is accomplishing more and bringing more benefit than doing nothing. Aim high, but accept the fact that some days you’ll hit low. So be it. Even a low hit is better than no hit. Smile and try again tomorrow.

Written by Raquelle Sheen 

What Every Homeschool Grad Needs to Know

This week I’d like to address my column to the new homeschool graduates. You are probably receiving a lot of advice right now about your future. People may be giving you counsel about where you should attend college, what dreams you should be pursuing, and how to move into the realm of adulthood. 

Today I’d like to address how to deal with your past homeschooling experience, whether good or bad. Your homeschooling background is a part of you and has helped to shape you into who you are today. However, your experience can hold you back if you do not react to it properly as an adult.

Dealing With A Good Experience

Let’s say you had a fabulous experience being homeschooled. You had great relationships with your parents and siblings. You received an excellent academic education. You participated in many unique opportunities, thanks to the freedom that homeschooling offered you. That’s terrific! 

I hope that this will give you a deep appreciation for homeschooling and that it motivates you to repeat the experience with your own future children. However, with this appreciation comes a temptation to feel complacent and to assume that because you were homeschooled, you have a complete handle on life and have an easy road ahead of you. 

This is not automatically the case. The fact that you were homeschooled does not mean you know everything you will ever need to know as an adult. Just because you were homeschooled does not mean you have attained the utmost height of maturity. Just because you were homeschooled does not mean you will have preferential treatment in college, in the workforce, or in other areas of life. In other words, homeschooling gave you a great start towards adulthood, but you’re not there yet. Be humble and don’t rely solely on your past for your future.

Homeschoolers are not immune to the big fish/small pond syndrome. The homeschooling community is relatively small and very well-connected and it is easy to find a sense of identity based on who you know or what you (or your parents) have done within that community. However, as you move into the adult world, you’ll realize that most folks are probably not going to be impressed that you—yes you—did the puppet show every year for the children’s track at the state homeschool convention. People aren’t going to care what homeschool “big wigs” you rubbed shoulders with or that your mom founded your co-op or that your dad wrote a book about homeschooling that has sold a few thousand copies. 

Further, these are temporal and fleeting things. What really counts is who we are in Christ and what Christ has done for us, not what we have done for Him in our special circle of influence. The Apostle Paul listed off his credentials too—“[C]ircumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, in regard to the law a Pharisee, as for zeal, persecuting the church, as for legalistic righteousness, faultless” (Phil. 3:5-6). But he abhorred the idea of finding his eternal identity in his earthly credentials.

By all means, enjoy being part of the homeschooling community and appreciate whatever special place you have had there. I’m not advising you to turn your back or sneer at this unique part of your life. I personally cherish my homeschooled background and still strongly identify with the homeschooling community. However, we should resist the temptation to rest on the laurels of our homeschooling credentials.

Dealing With A Bad Experience

What if you feel like your homeschooling experience had strong negative elements? Perhaps you feel like you were not pushed as hard academically as you should have been. Perhaps you think that your parents did you a disservice by forbidding you to participate in certain social or extra-curricular activities that you think would have benefited you. Maybe you believe that your parents taught you to be legalistic, self-righteous, fearful, or elitist. Maybe the tension between your views and your parents’ views on life and homeschooling has fostered a bad relationship between you. What then?

First, realize that these problems are not unique to you or to homeschooling. Similar complaints can be found by graduates of government or private schools as well. These kinds of problems happen because people are human. They make mistakes. They have their own handicaps. They are sinful, just like you and me. 

You weren’t a victim of homeschooling. You were a victim of people—flawed people, who nonetheless loved you and were trying to do the best they could with what they had. Refocus your frustration by being thankful for what you did learn from your homeschooling experience—which is probably a lot more than you might think. Above all, do not let bitterness begin to overtake you. Anger and bitterness will poison your future far worse than a few missed extra-curricular opportunities will.

Second, keep the past in perspective and move on. If you’ve just graduated from high school, you statistically have at least three-fourths of your life left in front of you. The world lies before you. Your life can be what you make of it. 

Do you feel like you have gaps in your education? Besides the fact that you’re not alone—every graduate from every school has some kind of educational gap—you’re not helpless to remedy the problem. The Internet and the library are free and at your disposal. Go study and learn! 

Do you feel like you were badly prepared for the work force? Nothing like on-the-job training! Get a job—any job!—and ask all the questions you can of everyone you can think of. 

Do you feel like your interpersonal skills are inadequate? Start going to social events and practice the skills you think you lack. 

Do you feel like you were held captive mentally by legalistic trappings? Rejoice that God has shown you the light now and study the Scripture with renewed zeal to keep yourself from falling prey again.  

In other words, refuse to hold the future captive to the past. Keep in mind, if you can so much as read, you’re already much better off than many people in the world! Don’t fall prey to a victim mentality. Others have started from far less and achieved outstanding greatness. You can too.

You can either value the past or put the past behind you, depending on your experiences. But just remember: the past is in the past. You are responsible for the future.

Written by Raquelle Sheen