Mastering Self is a worthy goal in a culture preoccupied with self. It is a journey that consists of warnings to heed, pitfalls to avoid, hazards to shun, detours to seek, options to assess, precautions to take, opportunities to embrace, and lessons to learn. This journey requires convictionpurpose. Many adults lack the courage of conviction because they have no conviction: no colors to nail to their mast. Conviction has formed and fashioned this book in the context of 120 white papers: essays to describe issues, ideas, and ideals that intersect to inform, instruct, interpret, and inspire in the lifelong journey of mastering self.

The human condition, influenced by culture and politics, has a propensity to ignore or reject the lessons of history, practical philosophy, and basic theology. It replaces timeless virtues with temporary values. Consequently, mastering self has cultural, political, historical, philosophical, and theological implications for learning and understanding who and what you are. This discernment does not exist naturally in the human condition. It requires lifelong study. This book is for serious thinkers who want to clarify their worldview for wise living. It represents crucial truths, virtues, choices, and consequences for reference, reflection, or rumination. Understanding them fortifies relationships. Embracing them increases personal influence. Applying them benefits leadership. Practicing them sustains through difficulty. Cultivating them makes life worth living.

These papers provide perspective about what matters in life: written with concise, clear, cogent context and correlated for coherence and continuity. They result from my reading, teaching, writing, and pondering to keep my heart with all diligence regarding issues in life (Prov. 4:23). Collectively, they pertain to what the exceptional few consider. Some pinch the comfort zone, give pause, stretch the mind, or unsettle settled assumptions. Those politically incorrect come from old-school insight by a stubborn gadfly with stubborn ideas regarding stubborn facts and stubborn problems. The insight comes from twenty-four years as a police chief leading and managing police affairs in an urban area with a large university.