The Honors Program
Western Civilization was quite possibly my least favorite class in college. The sad thing is that I actually enjoy history, especially the history of the western world, but our professor was just horribly boring. I believe it was my first class in the honors program at the Mount. I narrowly snuck my way into the honors program, largely thanks to what I assume was affirmative action. There were kids with a 3.7 or 3.8 in high school that didn’t get the invite into the program, but somehow my 3.1 was good enough to qualify.
I really didn’t want to do it. They boasted of harder classes, a difficult senior project, and higher standards - and for what? It wasn’t like in high school where the harder classes were graded on a curve. Nobody would ever really know that I was in it after college. I felt like it would just lower my grades since the classes would be so challenging, and I didn’t actually belong in there. However, Mama Crank was very much into the idea that her son, who she worked several jobs to support going to private school for 13 years, would be in the Mount St. Mary’s University Honors Program. So, we compromised, and I was on my way to some serious learning.
The Honors Program turned out to be a huge catalyst for growth in all areas of my life, due largely to two major factors: the power of association and the idea of the Renaissance Man.
Part of what made Western Civ so unbearable was that the professor seemed to dislike Tommy (my college roommate) and me just as much, if not more, as we disliked her. Tommy and I would go on to frustrate several of the honors professors over the next four years, especially when we were together in the same room. The reason is that we were quite different from the other students. He was a track athlete and I was in Army ROTC. We had a lot of energy, liked to talk during class, and would procrastinate on our work. Over time though, I learned that these differences between us and the other students would be where my real education would take place.
Tommy turned me on to Eric Thomas (ET), the motivational speaker from Detroit, during our freshman year. He showed me an awesome video that I must have listened to/watched at least 150 times since then. I later found another audio recording of his titled Use What You Have. ET was a man from inner city Detroit who dropped out of high school. When he made it to his Masters’ program, he knew he was way out of his league, but he knew he had strong deductive reasoning skills. In reflection, he poses these two questions that ended up guiding my life in many ways from that point on…
What do I need to know? And who knows it?
He tells the story of his budding friendship with a man in his program named Todd. Todd had always been academically successful and was one of the professors’ favorite students. Knowing this, ET decided he was going to offer Todd some home cooked meals in exchange for some knowledge and insight on how to succeed in this new arena.
My story within the Honors Program was very similar. I didn’t have one specific person who showed me the ropes, but I did come to completely transform my behavior in, and in preparation for, my classes and professors due to this new association. The students in these classes simply operated wholly different from my peers in most of my high school classes. Through these new examples, I started to challenge myself and change my approach to my education. This ultimately led to me making Dean’s List all four years in college, improving my GPA almost every semester.
This taught me some powerful lessons in life, which can be summed up into four major categories: the power of association, the value of a growth mindset, the value of effort, and the rewards of accomplishment.
Power of Association
“Do not be deceived, bad company ruins good character” -1 Corinthians 15:33
There actually may not be a more widespread, and hypocritical, belief than this one. Parents of all generations preach to their kids about the importance of surrounding yourself with good people. We all know it to be extremely important, and yet – most people continue to spend time with people who simply bring them down. The idea of ‘good’ is so loosely thrown around that it essentially means nothing: “I have such good friends,” “I have the best parents in the world,” “My friends are literally the greatest.” These phrases are uttered constantly in reference to mediocre, or even harmful, people. Matthew Kelly breaks it down nice and easy for us when he shares the easiest way to judge whether someone is a good friend, spouse, parent, sibling, etc. It all comes down to one simple test:
Does this person make you a better-version-of-yourself?
If not, then all this talk about them being great is just you deceiving yourself and attempting to deceive those around you.
These kids in the Honors Program really showed me that the people you surround yourself with will either draw you to a higher self because of who they are, or they will drag you down. Zero people come in to your life and remain for any period of time without making a difference in it. Each person you choose to let speak into your life, influence your thoughts and decisions, and rub off on your character will either make you better or worse. More importantly, they are all taking you closer to either Heaven or Hell.
This isn’t news. We all know this. You can actually feel the difference when you’re with certain people. Some people challenge you to be the man or woman God is calling you to be. If they’re really good for you, they will do it both with their words and with their actions. They will correct, rebuke, and encourage you as necessary. They will never be perfect in doing so, but they will generally trend toward leading you closer to being a saint in this life. Anyone who is not doing so, must eventually be challenged to truly change, or left behind if they’re unwilling to move with you.
This isn’t easy. It’s not easy to leave people behind as you journey toward your purpose and toward God, but that is precisely what is necessary. Many times, we complicate situations because we buy the Enemy’s lie that to leave is to abandon. This is false. The reality is that we are moving somewhere God is calling us to and certain people won’t be willing to journey with us. All through the Scriptures there are stories of God commanding people to go on particular missions which also require them to leave certain people and things behind.
God doesn’t often call us to abandon those we love most, but He does want us to be ready to leave everything in order to follow Him. Being a Christian requires us to wholeheartedly attempt to put God at the very center of our lives. We are made to prioritize Him over all things. That is when God’s joy will be with you and your joy will be full. We get disordered when we allow other relationships to take priority over our relationship with God. We have to choose who we want the most. And sometimes we think we just have to make this decision once, but we have to make it every day. We make it many times each day.
This is quite literally the choice we have for Heaven.
I honestly believe that some people who are unwilling to remove negative, draining, ungodly relationships from their life would, given the choice, go to hell with them rather than spend eternity without them. If you choose a negative relationship over your relationship with God and the purpose He specifically created you for during your entire lifetime, why would that change in the afterlife? After all, God doesn’t send people to hell, we can only choose it for ourselves by removing him from our life. For most people, it’s a slow, gradual removal. God gets removed and replaced by a relationship, a hobby, or our own selfishness. Hell is the eternal, full emersion in centering our lives around ourselves or anyone other than God.
The choice for Heaven
This deliberate choosing of God, and Heaven, begins with the choice of who we decide to spend time with. It is truly one of the most important decisions we each make. The state of your current life is a compilation of your choices up to this point, and the quality of your life will be largely determined by the quality of your relationships. You only need to put yourself around the Honors Program type of people to be able to see how quickly and drastically things change in every area of your life.
To make this happen, you desperately need people around you who are smarter, holier, stronger, faster, wiser, and generally better than you. The problem with this, for most people, is that they don’t even know where to find such people. Finding the right people is the one of the most difficult parts of choosing the right people, it is a proactive search and effort. Often times, it will take you far out of your comfort zone along the way. Don’t be mistaken or discouraged – this is true for each one of us. Each time I moved to a new city, I had to seek out those people. After school, there was no Honors Program opportunity where I could just sign up and be surrounded by A players. Even in college, I often had to pursue mentors and friends who could guide me spiritually, militarily, and in my fitness.
I’m relatively confident in the idea that everybody arbitrarily likes the idea of trading their negative, stress filled relationships for uplifting, empowering ones. However, most are unwilling to do the hard work of pushing through the uncertainty, temporary loneliness, and discomfort it takes to make it from one side of the journey to the other. This same grit, intentionality, and fortitude is required to succeed in almost anything you do. For your life to thrive, you have to be willing to take action in spite of your fear, this is no different.
I encourage you today to reflect on your relationships.
Who in your life truly helps you to become a better-version-of-yourself? Who brings you joy and peace, not just temporary fun or happiness? Who is willing to challenge you and call you out on your BS? Nobody? Then you need to pray for, and seek out, those people. They exist, but your courage to find them and develop a relationship with them is critical.
Don’t let fear and weakness keep you from living a purposeful life with the people you are meant to journey alongside.
I've wanted to do this all along but never got around to it. My plan from the jump was to try and do a talk that would accompany each of my reflections. Here is the video that goes with this reflection! My Video on the power of association
I also want to share a little more content with you all during this time since it's a challenging season for each of us. Here is a great blog post from my good friend, Tori Sanders. Tori is an incredible writer and always has some great insights to share. This one is especially relevant right now as we are all forced to have more time to reflect on our lives and what's most important to us.
Here is Fr Mike on Coronavirus: Fr Mike video
And for laughs, here is my favorite Babylon Bee (a satirical Christian news outlet) article from this week:
If you have other great reads or anything, please let me know! I'd love to share them with you all.
Lastly, read Philippians 4 today. It's some fire.
"Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."
As my good friend Sarah Dougherty likes to say, God is really good at being God. He already knew this would happen. Seek out what He's trying to teach you during this time.
This reflection is a part of Seeking Excellence's EXODUS 90 series, which took place in the months leading up to Easter.