{"id":5906,"date":"2014-04-09T05:43:15","date_gmt":"2014-04-09T10:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markdroberts\/?p=5906"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:26:37","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T20:26:37","slug":"moving-beyond-mediocrity-its-hard-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markdroberts\/2014\/04\/09\/moving-beyond-mediocrity-its-hard-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Moving Beyond Mediocrity: It&#8217;s Hard Work!"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>I\u2019ve reflected a bit lately on how we often assume that if something is difficult, we\u2019re doing it wrong and need to change course. While that\u2019s true for some things, of course, we sometimes forget that many things are difficult because they\u2019re worth doing \u2013 work, projects, relationships.<\/p>\n<p>Over at The High Calling, Charity Singleton Craig reminds us of this fact when we\u2019re moving beyond mediocrity:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Recently, though, I decided to make a change. It\u2019s a small thing, really, but being thoughtful enough to remember and acknowledge these important occasions seemed worth my time. And a good way to invest in my closest relationships.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">I\u2019ve been doing better, but on a recent weeknight after a full day\u2019s work and making dinner and cleaning up, I found myself sitting at the dining room table for 30 minutes writing and addressing sympathy cards, packaging birthday gifts for the mail, and performing other \u201cthoughtful\u201d tasks. When I finally finished, I told my husband, \u201cNo wonder I\u2019ve never been a very thoughtful person. It\u2019s hard work!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehighcalling.org\/work\/moving-beyond-mediocrity-its-hard-reason\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Read the whole post here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve reflected a bit lately on how we often assume that if something is difficult, we\u2019re doing it wrong and need to change course. While that\u2019s true for some things, of course, we sometimes forget that many things are difficult because they\u2019re worth doing \u2013 work, projects, relationships. Over at The High Calling, Charity Singleton [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1478,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8560],"tags":[17494,17806,17804,21650,17805],"class_list":["post-5906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-high-calling","tag-charity-singleton-craig","tag-hard-work","tag-moving-beyond-mediocrity","tag-the-high-calling","tag-thoughtfulness"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Moving Beyond Mediocrity: It&#039;s Hard Work!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I&#039;ve reflected a bit lately on how we often assume that if something is difficult, we&#039;re doing it wrong and need to change course. While that&#039;s true for\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markdroberts\/2014\/04\/09\/moving-beyond-mediocrity-its-hard-work\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Moving Beyond Mediocrity: It&#039;s Hard Work!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#039;ve reflected a bit lately on how we often assume that if something is difficult, we&#039;re doing it wrong and need to change course. While that&#039;s true for\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markdroberts\/2014\/04\/09\/moving-beyond-mediocrity-its-hard-work\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mark D. 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