5 Choices In Our Life - Nick Saban

Nick Saban is the head football coach at the University of Alabama. With seven (7) National Championships, Coach Saban is arguably the greatest and most dominant college football coach in history. 
 
A few years ago, Coach Saban delivered a 50-second speech in a press conference that has since become famous. He talked about the 5 choices we have in our life.
 
Here’s what Coach Saban said . . . 
 
“We have 5 choices in our life. We can be bad at what we do. We can be average at what we do. We can be good at what we do, which is probably God’s expectation for whatever ability he gave us. Or we can be excellent. Or we can be elite. And everybody has a choice as to what they want to do and how they want to do that. But if you’re going to be excellent or elite, you got to do special things. You have to have special intensity. You have to have special focus. You have to have a special commitment and drive and passion to do things at a high level. You have to have a high standard all the time. It doesn’t matter what God-given ability that you have – that probably can make you good – but without the rest of it, I’m not sure you ever get excellent or elite.”
 
Something else that Coach Saban constantly preaches to his players, over and over again, is that they do not focus on their desired outcome. Rather, he tells them to focus entirely on doing their job and focus entirely on the process.
 
Coach Saban tells his players that if they do their job and focus entirely on doing their absolute best on the process, the desired outcome will take care of itself.

What kind of soul will you have?

One of Socrates' most enduring teachings was:

It is better to suffer wrongdoing than to do wrong oneself.

Socrates’ argument for his position is simple: surely suffering injustice is terrible, but what is worse is the corrosion of soul that takes place when one commits injustice. In other words, being unjust is far more damaging to the moral structure of a person’s character than enduring the slings and arrows of injustice.

So there’s the question, what kind of soul will you have? What kind of person will you be? Will you do whatever it takes to get what you want? Or will you accept even great suffering in order to do what is right? Everything else in your life will flow from your answer to that question.

Where could we find a clearer instantiation of the principle that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it than in Jesus crucified? Sinless, blameless, he nevertheless took upon himself all the sin of the world: hatred, cruelty, stupidity, violence, institutional corruption, betrayal, denial—all of it. But rather than lashing out in answering violence, he said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they do.”

I read this today in the speech delivered on May 13, 2023, at Hillsdale College’s 171st Commencement Ceremony, The Most Important Decision in Life, by Bishop Robert Barron.

Here's a look at the 15 U.S. cities with the biggest economic output.

 

Can A Machine Deceive You Into Believing It Is Human?

Great article: https://hum.byu.edu/00000187-7173-d436-a1e7-fff779370001/spring-23-magazine-01-deans-message-but-can-it-make-you-cry-pdf

Excerpt: "Most universities are currently engaged in discussions about the possible negative and positive impacts of AI content generation on the classroom. People weigh in on both sides, some seeing it as a tool to help students self-critique, while others see it facilitating cheating or depriving students of crucial fundamental writing and thinking skills. All are concerned about the fact that generated content can convincingly represent lies as truth. 

 The idea of the Turing test—can a machine deceive you into believing it is human?—will ever haunt us, but we must remember that the test is not of the machine but of the human. Can we be deceived, or will we soon note the absence of a distinct human voice in the digital conversation? Have we come to know another well enough to read his or her soul—or note its absence—between the texted lines of a crowdsourced appropriation? 

 If we allow a machine to write for us, we bypass the chance to grow through writing, which, in its most glorious moments, can be a kind of revelation. Sometimes, especially when we are writing journal entries for our own reading, or letters or talks to move others, we may find ourselves following a train of thought that is not of our own making, one that leads to a better place where we learn new truth. This thoughtful, creative mode of writ- ing trades prompts for promptings, and rather than being relieved of an onerous task, we instead find ourselves trans- formed through writing that can, and does, change our very souls.