18 - In the Quiz on your perfect score

A dose of God is in the Quiz on which you earned a perfect score

Transcript

Current Episode Introduction

This episode is informed by the verse of the poem representing the letter:

• Q

• A dose of God is in the Quiz on which you earned a perfect score

It includes a brief description of the verse, a personal reflection demonstrating how the verse has facilitated my own resonance with Doses of God in my life, a statement of gratitude, and a few guiding questions that may be considered for your own reflection.

Description

Here is description of the verse:

• A dose of God is in the Quiz on which you earned a perfect score

• When earning a perfect score on a quiz, you prove that you were adequately prepared for the test. You were aware of what needed to be done and you planned appropriately. Whether you knew it or not, you listened to God’s guidance and studied effectively to produce a flawless grade. You might identify quizzes in life that are administered far beyond the walls of a formal classroom. Every time you encounter a challenge, you take the equivalent of a quiz. If you are prepared to effectively overcome the challenges injected into your life, you receive a “perfect score” on the performance evaluations of those challenges. Even beyond easily recognized challenges, you are being quizzed throughout each day to evaluate your character and contributions to the greater good of the world. Though your score on such quizzes is not quantified, you can gauge your performance by the feeling you receive deep in your soul. God speaks at the core of your being to let you know how well you are performing. Be aware of His presence within you.

Reflection

Here is my personal reflection on the verse:

• To me, this verse is about demonstrating my ability to meet criteria that represent achievement of an outcome. The criteria may be either externally or internally established, and it may be either explicitly stated or intuitively understood. Externally established criteria are based on others’ interpretations of requirements for demonstrating my achievement of outcomes, whereas internally established criteria are based on my own interpretation of what’s required for me to achieve outcomes. In a literal sense of the verse, I had earned perfect or passing scores on a range of quizzes throughout my years in school, which demonstrated my achievement of outcomes representing specific knowledge or skill areas by meeting externally established criteria that were explicitly described by teachers who created the quizzes. In a broader sense of passing different types of quizzes in life, I have achieved positive outcomes by preparing for and demonstrating my ability to meet externally defined criteria, such as earning passing grades in various classes during my time as a student, completing high school and university degrees, trying out for a sport and being selected for the team, applying for a job and getting hired, submitting proposals for conference presentations and journal publications that were accepted through peer reviews, contributing the preparation of applications for grants that were awarded, and writing scopes of work that were approved for new contracts or contract extensions.
  
  In addition to earning achievements based on external criteria, I have allocated efforts toward outcomes based on my own internally established criteria. In terms of this verse, the criteria essentially represent self-designed quizzes that I administer to myself. Sometimes the criteria are intuitively felt, but other times they are concrete and intellectually understood. My intuitively-felt criteria include acting on inspirations, as I have found that such action often yields favorable outcomes even if intricate details of the results to be generated are unknown. In some cases, the feeling of rightness that I experience during an intuitively inspired action is, itself, a desirable outcome, which often leads to subsequent positive results that are more tangible and are based on internally or externally established criteria.
  
  Here is an example of how meeting internally established criteria for acting on intuition contributed to my achievement of desirable outcomes. I made a decision to apply for Graduate school because it seemed to make sense intellectually. The degree I intended to pursue aligned well with my job, my family and supervisor were supportive of me working toward the degree, the advanced education was likely to open other doors of professional opportunities for me, and much of the tuition would have been subsidized through grants and tuition waivers. Although earning the degree appeared attractive from my logically superficial perspective, my intuition connected with a strong sense that pursuing the degree did not feel right. I began to desire a deeper awareness of my career, my direction in life, and my essential being before making that type of commitment. Consequently, I declined my acceptance into the program and, instead, decided to spend time and energy on self-discovery by writing reflections and inspirations, which led to a more robust resonance with my place and purpose in this world. Approximately one year after declining acceptance, the same feeling of intuition that had steered me away from the program was now directing me back toward the program. I requested readmission, was accepted, and completed the degree in approximately four years. This time around, everything about the process felt right, including the learning, unlearning, liberation, transformation, and frustration encountered along the way. The knowledge and skills gleaned through the program better equipped me to follow a path that has since felt right professionally and personally. Although I am unable to say for certain, I tend to think that the outcome of feeling like I am on the right path might not have been as strong or sustainable if I would have ignored my intuition to engage in further self-discovery before committing myself to the degree. This is perhaps the first series of substantial events in my life that was guided by intuition, and the sense of rightness that I experienced when decisions were intuitively made helped validate the internal establishment of criteria to act on inspirations that are intuitively felt. I have since made several intuitively-driven decisions, and they usually, perhaps always, seem to feel right at the time, lead me to subsequent moments that also feel right, and result in other favorable outcomes--my “passing scores,” so to speak.
  
  As another example, the process of writing and sharing reflections that aligned with verses in “The ABCs of a Dose of God” poem demonstrates a merger of internally established criteria representing both intuitive feelings and intellectual expectations. An undeniably strong intuition to transcribe and disseminate reflections proved impossible for me to resist; thus, my intuition eventually served as the catalyst for pursuing the process. This initiative led to the development of a work plan with tasks, timelines, and progress indicators as a tool for clearly describing and tracking advancement toward intellectually concrete criteria as indicators of project manifestation. Throughout the process, I regularly monitored progress outlined in the written plan as a way to meet intellectually defined criteria, and I often responded receptively to inspirations for reflective writing as a way to meet intuitively informed criteria.
  
  This project also seems to be adequately meeting my internally defined criteria to synthesize attributes of capacity, passion, relevance, and presence. These are four key domains in the CPR Success and Failure Analysis framework, which also originated through inspired action on my intuition. This framework has had a profound place in my personal life since its creation, and it is beginning to weave its way into my professional life. The framework suggests a person is fit for a particular role when the domains of capacity, passion, relevance, and presence align or, in other words, when they are consciously doing something that they can do well and enjoy doing in a way that has a positive impact.
  
  In terms of my role as a writer and disseminator of reflections based on the scope of work outlined in the project plan, I seem to have sufficient intellectual, social, emotional, and physical capacity to meet my current expectations of the role. I have a passion for the role as it is something I like, find importance in, and am investing time and energy into. I see my role as undoubtedly being relevant to myself as it aligns with my passion for writing and reflecting, and it facilitates states of presence by positioning me to pay attention to what matters most in my daily life. Additionally, it is allowing me to practice and improve upon my intellectual capacity to think creatively, my social capacity to express ideas in written ways, and my emotional capacity to have a positive outlook on life. Furthermore, pondering thoughts, jotting notes, and synthesizing my internal and transcribed excerpts of contemplation into written reflections feels wonderful, as if I am on a writer’s and reflecter’s high. There have been a few glimpses that this may also be relevant to my immediate family members and a few peers, but time will tell if it happens to reach those and other potential audiences. In terms of presence, I feel like I have been able to maintain attention, present focus, awareness, and acceptance while engaging in activities pertinent to the role. Generally speaking, when interpreting my role as a writer and disseminator of reflections through lenses of capacity, passion, relevance, and presence, I seem to be meeting my internally defined criteria of being fit for the role. In other words, I feel like I have, thus far, been passing my self-designed quiz on being fit for this role.

Gratitude Statement

I am immeasurably grateful for:

• times I have been able to achieve desired outcomes and will attempt to remain aware of opportunities to appropriately balance my pursuit of outcomes based on externally and internally defined criteria that are explicitly stated or intuitively understood.

Guiding Questions

Here are a few guiding questions to consider that might facilitate your own personal reflection upon the verse:

• A Dose of God is in the Quiz on which you earned a perfect score

Take a moment to reflect on:

• times when you demonstrated your ability to meet externally and internally established criteria that allowed you to achieve positive outcomes, such as passing various types of quizzes you have encountered in your life.

For example:

• What are examples of positive outcomes you have achieved by preparing for and meeting externally established criteria?

• What are examples of positive outcomes you have achieved by demonstrating your ability to prepare for and meet your own internally established criteria?

• How do you feel when you achieve positive outcomes by meeting externally or internally established criteria?

• In what ways do you express gratitude for your ability to achieve positive outcomes by meeting established criteria?

• What strategies could you implement to maintain awareness of opportunities to pursue outcomes based on external or internal criteria?

Closing Statement

In closing:

• when you prepare adequately for a quiz and earn a perfect or passing score, you receive a Dose of God.

Next Episode

The next episode in this series will focus on the verse representing the letter:

• R

• A dose is there when you do what's Right and give to someone who needs more

Positive Vibes

Thank you so much for listening. May you consistently position yourself to accept and resonate with the Doses of God that are ever-presently here for you.