Adult Pacifiers · 21 June 2025
I doubt that I am the first to think about it, but phones seem to be adult (and teen) pacifiers.
We did not give our children pacifiers when they were young. I am not exactly sure why, but it was something we were firmly against. Part of it was probably because we did not grow up with them. At least not too much. Every baby did not have them when I was a baby. Or at least that is what I tell myself. I do remember seeing kids (including my younger siblings) holding bottles with their hands and feet and sucking them dry. And even beyond dry. They kept sucking on the bottle until long after there was no more formula. Maybe that was where the idea for pacifiers came from in the first place. Hmm.
At any rate.
Fast forward fifty years and I see pacifiers all around me. But I am not around infants. I see teens and adults walking around with their eyes glued to their phones. They do not even look where they are going. They just keep staring at their phones. They might be bored. They might be tired. They might just be living life. But they are glued to their phones. Just like babies sucking on their pacifiers.
Which is an interesting word. Pacifiers. We give those pacifiers to toddlers because we want to pacify them. We do not want them crying when they are supposed to be quiet. But if they are hungry, they will just spit those things out and cry until they get the food they want. Or at least that is the theory. I think. I am not sure since we did not use them on our kids. We fed them when they needed to be fed and we let them play video games when they were bored.
Maybe you had to read that last line twice. Yes. I made a poor parenting decision. I let our toddlers play video games when they were bored.
I must confess that I am guilty of giving a hand-held video game to my two-year old son. I said it was his, and it was when he had it, but I am the one who wanted to play Pokémon. Sure, I was playing it with his older brother (who was seven, by the way), but I still gave him, the toddler, the electronic pacifier.
At any rate.
I have this strange picture in my mind of teens and adults walking around with pacifiers in their mouths. It is odd, but it is probably fitting. After all, is that not what we are doing when we walk around with our phones and ignore the world around us? Are we not pacifying ourselves? Giving ourselves soothing stimulation when we are tired, hungry, bored? It makes you think. Or at least it makes me think.
I am not sure that anybody thinks of phones as adult and teen pacifiers, but it might be an apt metaphor. For like the pacifiers that we use for babies and toddlers, adult pacifiers are there to take our minds off the things that we really want to think about. For whether they are for babies or teens or adults, all pacifiers just keep us occupied. Just keep us pacified.
© 2025 Michael T. Miyoshi
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Exhaustion and Exhilaration · 14 June 2025
Exhaustion and exhilaration are not mutually exclusive, especially when you are doing something you love.
We recently finished the 2025 Track and Field (T&F) season, and what a season it was. We finished second in our classification in our state! For the second year in a row! It was quite exhilarating, to say the least.
And it was exhausting. Quite the slog. Which means that there is a bit of relief that it is over. And yet… And yet I can hardly wait until it all starts again in nine or so months.
I know that sounds strange, but it really is not. One of my fellow coaches and I were talking about it. Michael said, “It is exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. And nobody gets that but other coaches.” He was driving us home from a meet, but I think I still just nodded. I was too exhausted to say anything.
(By the way, I was not talking to myself. In fact, if you meet a man of a certain age, you can guess that his name is Michael and you will be right about 50% of the time. Okay, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Try it and see. Next time you meet a man over about 40 years old, guess that his name is Michael. You have a good chance of being right. But that is another story.)
At any rate.
There are probably other people besides coaches who understand the notion that exhilaration and exhaustion are not mutually exclusive. Athletes for one. They can be exhausted at the end of a meet, but be exhilarated because they won or because they got a personal record or just because they have so much endorphins flowing through their bodies.
I think that people who love their jobs can feel it too. They understand that even though they are going home exhausted, they accomplished something great. So they are exhilarated and ready to get after it again the next day.
In my own case, I love my job as a teacher and coach. I am not necessarily exhilarated at the end of each day, but I am at the end of each season and the end of each year. I am exhilarated because I know that some of my students and athletes accomplished something that they may not have thought they could. Somebody in the classroom or on the track or on the field did something amazing. I am exhilarated because each of them is exhilarated. And that exhilaration gives me energy to start it all over again next year and next season. Even though the effort to get there was exhausting.
We all know that to accomplish anything worthwhile, we need to put in the effort. We need to invest our energy and ourselves into the great endeavor. We need to pour ourselves into what we are doing. And in the case of teachers and coaches, that means that we need to pour ourselves into our students and athletes. Which is exhausting. The mental and emotional energy stresses and strains our beings even though the rewards are exhilarating.
I know that not everything I do is both exhilarating and exhausting, but the endeavors that are are worth it. Teaching and coaching and even writing exhaust me, but they exhilarate me as well. Which is why I keep coming back. It is why I keep working with students and athletes. It is why I keep writing. I feel the exhaustion to the very depths of my soul, but I just recharge and get ready to come back for more. For I know that with the exhaustion comes exhilaration.
I hope that everybody has some endeavor that takes all of their energy and gives them exhilaration. I hope that everybody can someday understand that exhaustion and exhilaration are not mutually exclusive.
© 2025 Michael T. Miyoshi
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God’s Pleasure · 7 June 2025
One of our pastors quoted Eric Liddell in a sermon he gave recently. “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” I wondered to myself, “Is that why I write?”
Eric Liddell was a Scottish runner who won the Olympic gold medal in the 400 meter dash at the 1924 Olympic games in Paris. It was the actor who portrayed him in the movie, Chariots of Fire, who said the famous quote, but it is certain that those words were inspired by Liddell’s actual life. I would like those words to be how I live my life.
When I teach, I feel His pleasure. When I coach, I feel His pleasure. When I write, I feel His pleasure. When I draw, I feel His pleasure. When I live my life, I feel His pleasure.
I am not a pastor. I am not a missionary. I am just a mediocre man or at least somebody striving to become mediocre. I am not like Eric Liddell who knew God’s purpose for him was to go to China. (Actually to go back to China.) I am not that certain about my life. About my purpose. Not completely anyway.
I know that God made me for a purpose. I know that part of that purpose is teaching and coaching. I do not know that I always feel God’s pleasure when I am teaching and coaching, but there have certainly been times when I have. Times when I know that God is watching what I am doing and smiling. Maybe saying, “That’s my boy.” Or at least I am pretty sure that He is smiling and thinking those words. I am hopeful that He is.
It is funny though. There are times when I am writing when I feel like Eric Liddell must have felt. When I am getting some thought out there, I just know that God is smiling. I feel it. I feel the warmth of God’s pleasure. I can almost sense Him patting my back. “Way to go.”
I know that it is probably a silly thought. After all, do I feel it or think I feel it because I remember the line from the movie? Even though it is a movie that I am not sure I have seen? I remember the theme song. I remember some of the trailer. I know much of the premise. And I read or listened to a book about Eric Liddell’s life. About how he did go to China and suffer much hardship. About how he loved China and the Chinese people that he and his parents before him served. And I cannot help but wonder if I just imagine God smiling on me because it is something I want Him to do.
Now, I do believe that I am where I am supposed to be. I believe I am supposed to be a teacher and a coach and a writer. I am just not always sure why. I am not always sure that God’s message did not get messed up in translation. That I missed the message that I was supposed to get. Then I remember.
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:23-24 ESV)
It is my goal to teach and coach and write and draw as if God is my only audience. I may not be the best at what I do. I may not always do the things I do to the best of my ability. But I can strive to do it all for the Lord. Not because I am under obligation. Not because I can earn His approval. Just because I am grateful that He has adopted me into His family.
God made me the way I am. And even though it was a character in a movie who said it, I am going to continue to write because I can feel God’s pleasure when I do so. In fact, I feel God’s pleasure when I know (or at least am pretty sure) that I am doing what He wants me to do. I hope you do too.
© 2025 Michael T. Miyoshi
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