Geneva

How to Organise a Library / Why Technology is Important in the Library / How to Manage a Library

LIBRARY MANAGERS AND THEIR ROLES

Introduction

Any task requiring the coordination of a number of elements needs to be managed. 

Management is the process whereby a complex task is completed satisfactorily with and through the use of other people and other resources.

Management Functions

Managers have a broad responsibility to deal with resources – the people, capital, information and technology necessary to do the job – and the process – the procedures and practices for getting the work done.  In order to do this work effectively, managers need to undertake the following related activities:

• Planning
• Organizing
• Leading
• Controlling

Planning – both short and long-term goals – for the organization as a whole, for work units within the organization and for individuals.  Proper planning, in consultation with staff and client groups, will help ensure correct alignment between organizational practices, staff concerns and client or user needs.

Since long-term planning inevitably involves change of some description, consultative planning helps in the management of this change, leading to better outcomes for all concerned.

Organizing

Organizing is required to ensure resources such as staff, equipment, appropriate training or materials are made available when required in order to achieve the objectives of any plan.  Coordinating and prioritizing these activities are necessary parts of achieving goals and outcomes within given timeframes and budgets.

Leading

Leadership is necessary to motivate, encourage and enthuse staff in achieving both the organisation’s and their own personal goals.  This includes supporting and motivating staff, mentoring individuals, modeling appropriate behaiours and creating the right environment for the development of individual potential.  Without the encouragement and support of management at all levels, staff will lack a high level of personal motivation and involvement with consequent costs to the organization.

Controlling

Controlling is necessary to ensure that progress towards the desired goals proceeds as expected.  This requires the establishment of proper procedures, milestones and standards – again in consultation with staff expected to do the work – against which progress can be measured.

Quality standards and timeliness are important aspects of controlling any project or activity.

Management Expectations

• Deliver agreed outputs to agreed deadlines
• Reach agreed quality standards
• Accept personal responsibility for the outputs and deadlines
• Try to improve systems and processes
• Be a loyal, effective and contributing team member
• Participate in meetings and discussions
• Support management decisions once consultation and discussion are completed
• Share responsibility for personal development and training
• Assist other team members as required
• Bring concerns initially to their immediate supervisor
• Implement OH&S policy and practices

Staff Expectations

• Guidance and leadership to the group
• Respect for the team and individuals
• A safe, healthy and respecting work environment
• Opportunities for group or individual input to decisions that affect them
• Creative and innovative solutions to problems
• Negotiated deadlines and priorities
• Adequate resources to undertake the task
• Delegation of responsibility
• Adequate training and opportunities for career development
• Effective representation of the area to higher management and to outside organizations or peer groups
• A good two-way information flow between upper management and the work group
• Fair and proper recruitment and promotion practices
• The ability and will to implement ‘hard’ decisions

Planning

One of the most important tasks undertaken by any manager is planning, whether it is for activities to be done the next day or laying out the strategic aims for the organization over the coming five years.  A popular maxim says that

            ‘most managers don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan’ – be warned!

For all managers, some level of formal planning, involving strategic objectives and how they are going to be achieved, is an essential part of their role.  If it isn’t done, the organization will drift, changes will happen haphazardly, uncertainty will be high and staff morale will undoubtedly suffer.

All managers plan, even if only thinking about the next day the previous night in bed.  However, it is formal planning, where objectives are thought through, discussed with others and written down, that is considered here.

Why Plan?

Purpose and Direction

Planning is needed to give purpose and direction to an organization, to ensure that it has clear goals and objectives.  This is important as organizations increase in size and work is broken down into smaller parts.  Maintaining a clear sense of purpose, unity to common goals and commitment across a wide range of geographically or functionally spread units will be extremely difficult unless a well developed plan, with goals and milestones, has been developed.  The plan acts as a framework within which the work of a particular section is undertaken, and toward which its activities should be directed.

Conflicting Aims

Careful planning reduces the potential for overlap and conflict between sections of the organization.  By clearly defining a common purpose and targets, all areas should understand their role in helping to achieve these goals and thus limit occasions when conflict or disagreements arise.

Staff Direction

It is necessary to plan to ensure that staff are working towards commonly understood goals and not losing sight of the ‘big picture’.  It is easy for an individual to get caught up in the day-to-day of a job or in the practice of professional skills, forgetting what they are ultimately trying to achieve through their work.  A clearly articulated goal and purpose which staff have been involved in developing, and which is strongly promoted by senior management, will help ensure commitment and success for the organization and maintain focus at all levels.

Internal and External Environments

Development of a plan will encourage management to consider external threats and opportunities and the internal strengths and weaknesses of their organization.  This necessary step feeds directly into all types of planning in order to prepare realistic targets and goals that take account of the organisation’s environment.

Gathering and Analysing Information

Planning provides a discipline that encourages a logical and argued approach to decision-making.  In developing any plan, management are forced to gather and analyse information, reappraise priorities, consider resource availability and try to predict future patterns,  planning undertaken in this way will have more success than ad hoc approaches, based upon the hunches or feelings of a senior manager.

Big Picture View

Planning encourages a ‘big picture’ view by management committed to long-term prosperity of the organization.  Planning on the medium – to long-term (two to five years) maps out a future for the organization that reinforces for management and staff that long-term health and prosperity are basic goals.

Identifying Key Areas

Planning can help in identifying key areas that may help or harm the organization.  These areas should become evident through the sifting of information, both internal and external to the organization, which occurs when developing the longer-term goals.

Proactive, not Reactive

Planning discourages ‘fuzzy’ thinking and actions by management, limiting ‘knee-jerk’ behaviours and responses to situations.  This benefits both the organization (which is not misdirected from its path by irrational responses to situations) and staff (who can have confifence in the decisions that are being progressed).

Control

Proper planning is essential to allow measurement and assessment of the performance of staff, management and the organization as a whole.  Without a written plan and goals, comparing actual achievements with expectations will be extremely difficult.

The Planning Process

Planning is often understood as comprising two stages to support the global mission of an organization.  These stages are strategic planning, dealing with long-term objectives, and operational (also called tactical) planning dealing with day-to-day operations.  Both planning activities are inextricably linked, and are discussed in more detail in the following chapters.

How to Plan Successfully

All planning has to consider the basic steps described below:

• What is to be done
• When to do it
• How to do it
• Who is to do it

What is to be done

Whether long or short-term planning is involved, it is essential that proper objectives are defined.  These objectives are used as performance measures to assess whether or not, at the end of the cycle, the plan has been achieved.  Thus a plan needs to consider the product or service to be delivered together with measures to assess quantity and quality, within some sort of timescale.

Exercise 1.1

            Liz heads the circulation desk in a busy public library.  She has to ensure it runs smoothly and that it is properly staffed at all times.  Including part-timers, there are fifteen staff who do this work.  Some are casual and only work weekends, some work purely on the circulation desk and some work on the desk and do other duties such as shelve, answer reference enquiries etc.  The head of the library mentioned to Liz the other day that she was concerned that not enough staff were rostered to fill the evening shift on the desk: this appeared to be an increasingly busy time, now that the nearby supermarket was open until late.  She asked Liz to draw up a new roster that meant that two staff were on the desk at all times, but taking care not to increase costs or give people shifts longer than four hours.

Planning            Clarifying the availability of staff for particular times and duties

                        The actual timetable/roster

                        Staff recruitment if necessary

                        Changes in work practices and procedures that may be necessary

                        Budget implications and how to manage them long-term

Organizing        That money is available to meet the costs

                        That enough suitable staff are available

                        That appropriate systems are in place

           

Leading            Setting an example by working some evenings on the dest

                        Being available to meet and discuss staff concerns

                        Explaining the reasons for the change

                        Enthusiastically implementing the change, ‘selling’ it to staff

Controlling        Setting review processes in place to see how it is working out

                        Monitoring budget expenditure

                        Encouraging staff and user feedback

Exercise 1.2

            In the situation described earlier, Liz must undertake a number of tasks to reorganize the circulation desk roster.  Divide these tasks into the broad general skills discussed above.

Human skills     Exercising skills to meet staff concerns over the change

                        Keeping the balance between casuals and permanents

                        Ensuring that staff are not stressed and have the requisite skills for the                            work

Technical:         Budgeting skills

                        Rostering skills

                        Understanding of how circulation, reference duties etc. can be balanced

Conceptual:      Considering how long-term planning may impact on the system

                        Considering how long-term changes in the area may affect demand

           

Exercise 1.3

            In a large university library, consider each level of management and their responsibilities.  List some of the areas you feel may be of concern at each level.

1. The university librarian will need to plan for:

      Long-term growth

      Budgeting over the next five years, including revenue raising and related issues

      Accommodation

      Relations with the rest of the university

      Technological change

2. Middle management:

      Coping with increased demand and less stable staffing

      Developing smarter ways of doings things – getting more out of staff

      Need for ongoing staff training and development

      Fewer permanents, more casuals

3. Supervisors:     

      Concerns over job security; maintaing morale

      Increasingly demanding client base

      Expanding resources available, eg the Net

      Doing more with less

When to do it

A timescale is essential for proper planning, and again, to act as a performance measure.  In order to ensure the provision of the right resources at the right time, managers need to be clear on the timing of events and the order in which they will occur.  One common planning procedure identifies a ‘critical path’ to ensure that events proceed in a logical and efficient manner in order that a complex task is completed in the minimum time.

How to do it

This aspect is identified with operational planning.  It is usually missing from the bigger picture strategic planning activitiy, which concentrates more on outcomes than on the specifics of how to achieve them.  As in the previous steps, the ‘how to do it’ can be used as a performance measure to assess the quality of outcomes and appropriateness of this particular process.  It is thus useful in evaluating practices and procedures, leading to changes and improvements in systems.

Who Is To Do It

It is essential to allocate responsibilities to oversee the implementation of long-term, strategic goals and to identify individuals to undertake specific tasks in day-to-day operational plans.  Organizational structure and levels of staff abilities and training, together with an understanding of an organisation’s culture and ethos will help in making the correct decisions is this area.

Stoner (p.131) describes four basic steps in planning:

1. Establish goals that relate to the organisation’s mission, objectives and priorities.  This   will assist in ensuring that resources are directed to the most important aspects of its long-term strategy.
2. Define the present situation to assess how well-place the organization is to reach the goals.  Will additional resources be required?  Is the existing structure appropriate and helpful in achieving these goals?  Is the necessary information available to help in setting priorities and allocating resources?
3. Identify aids and barriers to achieving goals, both within the internal and external environments.  Is it possible to foresee problems or anticipate difficulties?  How vital are some issues in goal achievement and how can these critical items be monitored or assessed?
4. Develop an action plan that, ideally, provides alternative courses of action to achieve the desired goals.  Choose the most appropriate course and monitor progress.

STRATEGIC PLANNING

Introduction

Strategic planning is concerned with the long-term direction of an organization.  It deals with issues such as defining mission statements analyzing environments, considering alternatives and selecting a path to pursue.  It is a continuing, systematic process for any organization, forming part of an endless cycle that usually involves staff at all levels in planning, decision-making, team work and evaluation.

Strategic planning provides the framework for operational planning (the day-to-day running of a business).  Above strategic planning lies the mission or vision statement, outlining in very broad terms the business of the organization and where it is heading.  There is a hierarchy of management planning, as shown below:

Mission Statement

(defines the purpose of the organization)

Strategic Plan

(long-term plans to achieve the Mission)

Operational Plans

(short-term plans to support the Strategic Plan)

Mission statement

The mission statement is intended to provide a high-level description of the purpose of an organization.  Usually it is a short, concise paragraph or two dealing with the fundamental reasons for the organisation’s existence.  It lays down in extremely broad terms the overall aims or purpose of the organization.  While these will inevitably change, there is usually an underlying sense of continuity about the mission.

It is important that staff understand the mission statement and relate to its goals, which must feel are meaningful and achievable.  Customers and stakeholders should also be able to understand the purpose of the organization as expressed in its mission statement.

STRATEGIC PLANNING

Supporting the mission are a number of strategic plans or initiatives that focus the organisation’s direction in achieving its mission.  These are long-term strategies, yet are regularly reviewed  to ensure their relevance and appropriateness in a rapidly changing environment.  The strategies adopted will support broader organizational aims that may concentrate on growth or expansion, stability and maintainance of market share, or possibly downsizing and retrenchment.

Eg

Growth industries:         full text databases, electronic journals, digitizing images

Stable industries:           traditional printing and publishing, automated library systems

Declining industries       microfilm, microfiche technologies, printed encyclopedias

Developing the plan is usually done by senior management who must then ensure it is properly communicated throughout the organization to ensure ‘ownership’ of its objectives.  Focus groups may be used with staff – and frequently customers – to find out more about how the organization is performing, to gain ideas as to where it should be going and, importantly, to find out where it is not achieving.

OPERATIONAL PLANNING

Operational plans are for the shorter-term, providing the means to implement the longer-term strategy.  These plans give life to the overall strategy by spelling out very specific activities aimed at achieving the broader goals announced in the strategic plan.  It is through these plans and their related performance indicators that progress towards achieving broader aims can be measured.  Thus it is suggested operational plans must be:

            Specific

            Measurable

            Attainable

            Relevant

            Time-constrained.

Steps in developing a strategic plan

Once the mission statement has been developed into a clear statement of overall objectives, the strategic plan can be developed to achieve its goals.  This can be time-consuming and difficult, but is essential to provide direction over the medium term.  By building suitable control measures into the associated operational plans it should be possible to assess progress towards the strategic objectives.

• Ensure the mission statement is clear and concise and correctly summarises the role of the organization.  If the mission relates to a sub-unit of a larger organization, such as a library in a university, it must fit comfortable within the organisation’s culture and support the overall mission of the organization as a whole.  Thus a government department, school or university will all have their own broad mission statement that the library in these institutions will need to support.

• Evaluate internal and external factors using devices such as the SWOT analysis (Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) as discussed earlier.  Involve staff and users in this analysis in order to gain depth and breadth of input.

• Evaluate current performance level and availability of resource.  Assess existing strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, threats) as discussed earlier.  Conduct comparisions with like organizations and learn as much as possible about their strategic plans and concerns.

• Clearly define the organization philosophy that is supported by top management.  This relates to fundamental issues that define the shape and nature of the service provided.  Ensure there are no major policies that contradict each other, or will hinder achievement of the ‘big picture’ goals.

• Consider the values of the organization and how they shape its culture and activities.  These have usually developed over time and will have a big influence on organizational philosophy.  Planning needs to use these values as a basis upon which to build, rather than see them as a hindrance to future growth.

• Determine user demand by talking to users and non-users, conducting surveys and through literature surveys.  Reassess target groups and client needs.  Consider future trends.

• Using the information gathered, develop a set of objectives and priorities focusing on long-term success and growth for the organization.  Traditionally, these strategies have concentrated on providing value for money – eg the best product at the lowest competitive price; providing a clearly different product to the competition or concentrating upon one particular market segment or target group.

Strategic Planning – Why and Why Not?

Strategic planning occasionally goes out of fashion and, quite frequently, is not done to the depth and degree necessary to provide a solid base for the future growth of an organization.  Like all activities, there are benefits and costs in undertaking strategic planning.  It is important to consider these when deciding on the extent to which the organization will devote resources to the task.

Benefits

The benefits of strategic planning vary across organizations, depending on the nature of their business and the environment in which they operate.  Generally, however, strategic planning will:

• Motivate the management team
• Force management to consider its key objectives
• Provide a framework for operational planning and help keep that on track
• Act as a control on management going off on ‘hare-brained schemes
• Help maintain focus during periods of rapid change
• Stimulate awareness of strategic issues amongst management and staff
• Contribute to innovation
• Increase staff awareness of the business environment
• Promote better coordination of activities and resource allocation
• Provide staff with a vision for the future
• Help promote the organization to external organizations such as funding bodies.

Costs

The problems or disadvantages inherent in strategic planning sometimes cause it to fall out of favour as a management tool.  Most of these difficulties lie outside the organisation’s control, leading to frustration when carefully laid plans cannot be pursued.  The problems are:

• The difficulty of planning medium to long term in a rapidly changing environment which can be quite unpredictable
• The volume of information required to devise the plan
• The time taken to produce the plan
• The need for flexibility to meet unforeseen challenges and opportunities, and not be tied down to a plan drawn up months before
• The lack of support from staff more usually concerned with short-term, even day-to-day activities
• The possibility that resources may not be available when the time comes to implement the plan
• Unrealistic, impractical plans that do not match organizational resources, values or philosophy.

Why technology is important in the library?

 http://www.selco.info/download/attachments/31391874/trends-final-summary.pdf

How to Organise a Library

http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/vsolibrary.pdf

http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/vsolibrary.pdf

7 Habits of Highly Frugal People

http://moneyning.com/frugality/7-habits-of-highly-frugal-people/?

Seven Deadly Sins--Billy Graham (1955)

Pride
Anger
     Anger is one of man's most devastating sins.  This is one sin which everyone is capable of committing.  The tiny baby has a fit of temper and loses its dinner.  The little boy has a tantrum and upsets the family decorum. The wife loses her temper and develops a sick headache.  The husband gets angry and loses his appetite.  Every member of the family is subject to its blight.  No one is by nature immune to this dispositional disease of human nature.
     Anger breeds remorse in the heart, discord in the home, bitterness in the community and confusion in the state.  Homes are often destroyed by the swirling tornadoes of heated domestic anger.  Business relations are often shattered by fits of violent temper when reason gives way to venomous wrath.  Friendships are often broken by the keen knife of indignation, which is sharpened by the whetstone of anger.
     Anger is donounced by the church and condemned by the sacred Scriptures.  It murders, assaults and attacks - causing physical and mental harm to its victims.  Its recoil, like a high-powered rifle, often hits back at the one who wields it, doing equal damage to the offender and the offended.
     Because anger has brought so much unhappiness and confusion to the world, God loathes it.  In Psalm 37:8 we read, "Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; fret not thyself in any wise to do evil." Jesus condemned it in no uncertain terms and classed it with the heinous sin of murder.  He said in Matthew 5:22, "I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say. . . Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire."  The wise Solomon said in Proverbs 16:32, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city."  The Bible again says in James 1:19, "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger."
     Anger is a heinous sin because it reveals the animal nature of man.  Many people are charming, lovable and likeable until they become obsessed with a fit of rage, and then they are transformed into repulsive, irrational creatures more like wild beasts than civilized men.  Doctors tell us that when any human emotion is overstimulated, excessive amounts of adrenal are supplied by nature to replenish the emotional drain on our systems.  The person with a violent temper uses up this extra supply of energy to feed the flame of his passion rather than to put out the fire.
     Anger not only brings out the animal nature of man, but hinders Christian testimony.  Peter, angered at the Roman soldiers, grabbed a sword and cut off the servant's ear; but Jesus reproved him for his angry spirit and said in Matthew 25:52, ". . .they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."  Many a Christian witness has been ruined by carnal anger.
     A professed Christian woman was very anxious for her husband to find Christ.  One day her minister spoke to her husband about his soul, and the minister was taken aback when the man said, "I'm not particularly an irreligious man, but if Christianity should make me wrathy like my wife, I want no part of it."
    The minister went to the lady in question and told her precisly what her husband had said.  She had not realized that her temper had been so out of control, and she was repentant about it.  Together the minister and the woman knelt in prayer while she sobbed her heart out to God.
     A few days later the husband had been out fishing; and when he came into the house with his rod over his shoulder, he accidentally hit a costly lamp which went crashing to the floor.  He stood with his hands over his ears waiting for the second crash of his wife's anger--but it never came.  He looked up to see his wife smiling as she said, "Don't worry about it, dear.  Accidents happen in the best of families."
    "You mean you're not angry as usual?" he asked.
    "No dear, that's all a thing of the past.  I'm sorry I've been so impatient, but God is helping me to gain control of my temper."
     A few Sundays later the husband joined the church.  Her testimony had been strengthened by her anger being controlled by the Spirit of God.
     Anger also causes people to lose the joy of living.  In Genesis 6:2 God said to Cain, whose joy had been expelled by anger, ". . . Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?" The bad thing about losing your temper is that other things are often lost with it.  When temper rages, your good expression goes.  When temper rages, your reputation goes.  When temper rages, your friends go.  When temper rages, your opportunity goes.  When temper rages, your testimony goes.
     Anger is the parent of murder.  Cain was wroth before he murdered Abel.  It cocks the assasin's pistol, dispenses the killer's poison and sharpens the murderer's dagger.  It devastates, mutilates and destroys.  It kindles the fire of passion, fans the flames of envy and leaves the soul barren and desolate.  Here, of course, we are speaking of irrational, unjustifiable anger--the kind that goads the conscience, lashes out at the innocent and induces malice and discord in the home and in society.  This kind of anger God hates.
     Too many of us are guilty of this blighting sin.  Though we excuse ourselves by blaming our uncontrolled anger upon our natural disposition, down deep inside our conscience tells us that it is wrong.  There is the haunting conviction that we are grieving the Spirit of God when we are ruled by violent temper.
     What can be done about this dispositional sin?  Does the Christian faith have an answer?  Can Christ calm the tempestuous sea of anger as He did the turbulent Sea of Galilee long ago?  If there wre no way to overcome anger, if there were no way to bring it under control, God would never have said in Psalm 37:8, "Cease from anger and forsake wrath."  God never demands an action which is impossible of achievement.  there is a victory--in Christ--over sinful anger.  Even Plutarch said, "I have learned that anger is not incurable if one wants to cure it."
     The first step then in finding victory over unjustified anger is to want to get rid of it.  The will comes to the fore and says, "I will do something about this unruly temper of mine."  This means that you stop justifying yourself by saying, "My whole family is quick-tempered--I inherited it from my mother."  Or, "Everyone loses his temper some time or other--what's wrong with that?"  You must recognize it as an ugly, venomous sin both in the eyes of God and in your own sight.
     Secondly, we must confess this evil anger to God and ask His forgiveness for fits of rage and uncontrolled temper.  If anger is a sin and if being angry with one's brother without a cause brings the judgment of God, we ought to hate it, despise it and seek by divine methods to overcome it.  In 1 John 1:9 we read, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
     Anyone knows that hot, violent anger is unrighteous and unChristlike.  God, in love and mercy, has promised both to forgive us of the sin of anger and to cleanse us from it.  This does not imply that people become spineless, bland creatures without any spunk or spirit, but it does mean that our tempers which were used in wrath now become things of blessing.  The tongue which once was used for profanity now becomes an instrument of praise.  The hands which once hurt now become healing hands.  The feet which once walked the pathways of violence now walk the pathways of love and service.  The wild horses of passion are tamed by the Spirit and become our servants rather than our masters.  That is exactly what Jesus meant when He said, "Blessed are the meek."
     Remember Peter--before the resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit?  He swore in the camp of the enemy, denying his Lord, and became enraged at the soldiers who took Jesus into custody.  His angry spirit was a poor witness for a disciple of the lowly Galilean.  But after the Spirit of God came into his heart on the day of Pentecost, his temper was brought under control. Never again was his tongue employed in profanity.  Never again were his hands used in violence.  Never again was his voice raised in denial of his Lord.  Never again were his feet found in the camp of the enemy.  Peter's temper was not gone--it had been diverted to a constructive purpose.  It had been bridled by the Spirit of GOd.  Conversion to Christ had not made him weaker --it had made him a stronger man.  No longer was he sinfully angry.
Envy
Impurity
Gluttony
Slothfulness
Avarice

IFL Class

I had a wonderful privilege of attending the Integration of Faith and Learning class under the tutelage of Dr. Dolf Oberholster this 1st semester of 2012.  The class requires a lot of readings to do, journals, lesson plan demonstration, issues to be discussed through submitting after research, and presentation of media critique.  To learn how to integrate faith and learning in a specified class in challenging.  We are taught to always make a way to be able to integrate faith in learning.  Moreover, we are taught and admonished to think Christianly, act Christianly and speak Christianly.  It's not too late to renew my commitment with the Lord, strengthen my relationship with Him, family members, spouse, colleagues and friends.

Thank you God for sustaining me good health and strength in the entire course.  I had been guided by Him, making me strong and healthy and never skipping one meeting. To God be the glory.

Journal 1

Which elements of the competing worldviews confront me personally? To what extent have I noticed their influence on my life? How can I overcome their influence on the way I think and interpret events?

The elements of the competing worldviews that confront me personally are individualism, materialism, humanism or the secular humanist and the biblical explaination of reality. I don't have any problem with Theism.  I truly believe in God as the Creator, Sustainer, and Lord who personifies love and justice.  What makes me think deeply is about man's worldview of himself - as very selfish, conceited and being unfaithful to our Redeemer.The secular modernity has driven every human being far from our Creator. Pride, selfishness and love of self made their way into man's worldviews. Instead of loving, teaching and touching the unlovable (our fellowhuman beings) we succumb to loving our ownselves instead. It is very hard for us to apply the theory that we have learned in school. We are daily bombarded with situations in which we may be channels of blessings to our fellowmen. Sadly, we don't do extra miles showing our affection. Why is this so? Even our very own members of our family, feel they are outcasts. They long for our tender loving care. However, we do the negative way. We always see the bad of every individual and tend to compare to what we have done with ourselves when we too, were in their situation. We became proud by being able to handle and take care of our way out of an adverse circumstance. My heart really bleeds for embracing my propensities to sin. 

Generalized anxiety disorder - PubMed Health

Generalized anxiety disorder - PubMed Health

Important