This is a post on minimalism
It’s easy to conceptualize sunk cost. It's hard to come to grips with it. We all possess gaps in knowledge and a propensity to defer blame. When Bob the project manager spends $50,000 on a machine, but the product line fails to turn a profit, Bob should not continue to expend resources because he made a bad decision. Sunk cost is unrecoverable. We've all been Bob at some point, and struggled to make the cut for a variety of reasons. Like Reason 1: Acknowledging sunk costs requires a lot of humility. Have you seen someone argue diligently about something when they know they're wrong? This is economically irrational behavior, and it happens all the time to some of the smartest people in the world. Sunk cost is hard to stomach. But that's a bad reason to keep going down the wrong road. That list up at the top there is what is keeping me from going in the right direction. Right now, I’ve sunk cost, time and energy, into numerous things without finishing any of them. I’m spending time re-watching shows and scrolling through social media because I feel overwhelmed at my inability to move forward with everything at once. To move forward I need to cut back. And to cut back I need to do some cost-benefit analysis. I need to take Dr. Henry Cloud’s advice and do some pruning. “Pruning is strategic. It is directional and forward-looking.” Because my emotions are scattered, and I am lacking vision I'm going to put my thoughts, dreams, goals and activities into a spreadsheet and measure them against my values. This weekend I will categorize things as Immediately relevant Achieve in the short term Achieve in the Long Term Let Go Then I will put these activities through the value filter, and will audit them against my current time expenditure. All of this helps me to see things with better long-term vision and it also helps to lose my hoarder mentality and the arrogant emotion preventing the release of sunk costs. Then I can do more with my hands and less with my brain. Here is an interlude of differentiation between wisdom/intelligence and extreme pragmatism vs. the feathery line of a good life. Sometimes it’s good for emotional decisions to take the place of rational ones. When I have vested emotion and effort in things that are purposeful, it’s good to carry that responsibility with tenacity. Value is measured in a variety of ways and profitability should never be a word used to justify selfishness. Back to today's lesson. “Great is the art of the beginning, but greater is the art of ending.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Here is what I am asking myself: Do you have the courage to close a book that you have not finished and make peace with it? Do you have the courage to say, “this is a good thing, but it is not for this season”? Do you have the courage to take the necessary action to deal with the things you need to care about? Do you have the vision to order today so it lines up with your values? These are my encouragements to you dear reader, and to myself. Answer all these questions with a YES. Because we do have that courage. It lives in us every day. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, perform whatever your version of a spreadsheet is. Talk it out with another human you trust. Do something to get the feedback and perspective to turn necessary endings into a beautiful life. For more help with this topic check out the YouTube clip posted below. It is a 45 minute talk by best-selling author Dr. Henry Cloud. Also, if you're feeling overwhelmed carve out a bit of time to hit your knees. God never promised your life would be comfortable and easy. He promised he would help. If you are not a subscriber, and you want to be, click subscribe and enter your email to get a weekly update. A share is always appreciated. SUBSCRIBE
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This is a garage sale post. I hope you find something you like I haven’t had a cohesive thought all week. Here is a mixed bag of raw notes in the last 7 days. Hope something sticks.
Dear Reader, everything here is free. But only take what you need for this week. Focus on it. And let the rest go. I solemnly swear to uphold the standards of creative content in next week's post. If you are not a subscriber, and you want to be, click subscribe and enter your email to get a weekly update. A share is always appreciated. SUBSCRIBE
Sometimes it feels like there is nothing left to give. In high school and college I didn't keep a lot of money in my account. It was my own doing; my parents had brought me up to work and save, but I wanted to impress people and my pants developed a good-sized hole in the pocket. A savings account was something I figured people started worrying about when their main income wasn't single digits/hour. It was a kind of a freeing feeling to have some independence and almost no money. I started this habit of filling my gas tank just a little bit at a time. From 16-22 there were a handful of times in a year where I'd fill all the way up. I ran out of gas a lot. The gauge was broken on my '92 F150 and the thing got like 7 miles to the gallon on a day when I was shifting properly. I'm not sure I ever remember feeling very stressed about it. Things worked out somehow. Being a person with more responsibility is different. Reliability is important and flexibility and spontaneity can be more challenging. But I am still in the habit of running out of gas. Metaphorically, of course. In life I have many roles to fill. These roles require energy, inspiration and time. Sometimes I'm running low and don't take the time to fill. The closer the meter moves towards E the more anxious I feel, the more upset I get, and the easier I trigger. The situations may be different but my solutions are still the same. Its an old habit. Things always work out. Reflections on Required Life in the Midwest Hands loose on a worn steering wheel Rolling through the mundane Finding poetry where it can be found -A local bookstore, the worn hoop in my parents' driveway, the hum and click of a fishing rod- Windows open to a chill October Fueling up on inspiration Running on coffee and sunsets, A fiery look and a sermon Nearing empty And then remembering What moves me And taking time to fill Or sputtering to a halt stranded Springsteen and Browne play a concert Til good friends or family bail me out. Occasionally, A gas can is in the back I make the trek to the local fillin’ station (As Papaw calls it) Splash enough to haul back It's time consuming, sure But, "you have to do it the hard way" Maybe in the future I won't go so long Without a poem, a sunset, a prayer Or the rhythmic flow of common purpose Propelling me forward Dear reader, my encouragement to you is to join me this week in remembering what moves you and create a pocket of time to fuel. If there is some artifact or practice you use for fuel/instruction, a verse, a song, a sermon, a poem, a prayer, a photo, a work of art, a meditation, a speech, a comedy routine, a workout, a playlist, whatever it is, feel free to drop it in the comments section below. If you are not a subscriber, and you want to be, click subscribe and enter your email to get a weekly update. A share is always appreciated. SUBSCRIBE
A post on sustainability Fieldstone: Loose stone separated from ledges by natural processes and scattered through or upon the soil. Methods of transport have changed over thousands of years of rock-picking, but the idea is still the same: look for rocks and pick them up. For farmers this back-breaking, eye-straining chore is a proactive requirement. Rocks harm equipment, rocks impede growth, must remove rocks. Farming is full of simple truths. Like, two things you need for successful rock-picking are a strong back and a good attitude. Rocks grow in fields for a couple reasons. A natural environmental reason: loose stone separates from ledges and becomes displaced and buried. As the ground freezes and thaws with seasonal swings the porousness of soil and the temperature-retaining rocks respond differently to the environmental changes. Ground shifts little by little pushing rocks towards the surface, where they are unearthed by a cultivator or break through by natural means. An industrial reason: spare resources are buried or drug into fields. An old foundation from a house or barn, excess asphalt from a pothole find their way into a field. These sections are notoriously rocky. Fieldstone is infamous in some rockier areas, like the northeastern parts of the United States. People have developed uses for them, stacking miles and miles of low stone walls that have been formed by farmers clearing fields, or neighbors looking to build a wall. There is nothing particularly exciting about scanning a field, telling a driver “one over here”, jumping off a truck, digging your hands into the dirt, bending down to lift a stone that weighs somewhere between 2 and 70 lbs. and chucking it onto a trailer. Except it feels like being human. The human element begins in the fingers as I brace them to hold the weight of the rock. Muscles tense and strain and wear with repetition. My blood begins to pump warmly and my nerves normalize the sensation of dirt on my hands and in my fingernails. The rock's cool, rough surface moves coarsely in my palm. And all the labor works its way into my heart. I internalize the feedback, it moves into my brain and from my brain to my soul. Participation in this primal activity starts to evoke compassion for millions of laborers over thousands of years who have subjected themselves to sun, wind, weather and all things elemental. In my heart there is a concession to the earth on which I tread; an acknowledgement to the dirt that it is my heritage, my sustenance, and my legacy. And as sweat beads, I feel the calming effects of effort producing immediate result. There is something satisfying when a cleared field lies where there was rocky soil. It's beautiful to see dark earth, ready and listening, freed to pursue its purpose, free to give life. And here, in an open field, in the perpetual flow of humility, subjection, confession, empowerment I’m cycling and clearing. Until the pink and orange hues of a brilliant October sunset fade into a hazy dusk, all the colors bleed into one, and the low rumble of the engine and faint calls of geese play the recessional. We’re going home. This is my encouragement to you, dear reader, and to myself. Clear the field. Put in the effort to hear, to understand, and to grow. Lord we pray we cultivate a mindset to accept your word Lord we pray we possess the vulnerability to accept your word Lord we pray we are filled with the courage to enact your word Lord we acknowledge it is you who gives Lord we acknowledge it is you who takes Blessed is the name of the Lord If you are not a subscriber, and you want to be, click subscribe and enter your email to get a weekly update. A share is always appreciated. SUBSCRIBE
A post on minimalism: and letting go Reality doesn’t seem to care too much about my feelings. February 12, 2016, two months into engagement, I crafted what I hoped would be the most romantic valentine’s day in history. St. Valentine would applaud from beyond; Nicholas Sparks would write a book about it; Netflix would pick up the movie rights; and my new fiancé would melt into a puddle of adoration, thrilled at the thought of spending the rest of her life with me. The photo above is my college bedroom flipped into an Italian restaurant. Framed photos of Rome hang on the wall. Candles, Christmas lights and DIY pendants illuminate scattered roses and a homemade dinner tops a white cloth covering a handmade table for two—built specially for this occasion. Cole, Wonder, Fitzgerald, Sinatra and Crosby were serenading from the hidden speaker. It all came together as I’d hoped. You may be thinking, “wow that is so sweet.” Or “wow, this dude is crazy.” I was thinking, “she is going to think I am amazing.” The rest of this story doesn’t follow my script. It wasn't logged as the most romantic valentine’s days in history. It’s archived as one of my greatest failures. You see—expressions of love are not about me. I had fixed in my mind a vision of the outcome. I pictured her exact face and I wrote and recited her lines. But reality isn’t a play or a story. And I am not the author. If I had been planning this romantic night with some empathy it may have occurred to me my fiancé was coming off a difficult week of classes. I would have thought about her attempts to deal with the logistics of planning a wedding that successfully fulfilled the dreams of people she loves dearly. I may have remembered formalities signify expectations to her and lead to initial discomfort that softens as an evening becomes more relaxed. I may have even realized her greatest wish for Valentine’s day weekend was to just spend time with me. But all of this was lost. I had blinders on. I didn't just have a vision of environment, I had a required result. And when her first words were not, “You are so amazing!” and her first action was not a leap into my arms, my response to her off-script behavior is etched in my memory as one of the most sad and embarrassing things I’ve ever done. I looked at her with disappointment and said, “Seriously??” This one word took all the labor and thought I put into creating a lovely evening and spoiled it. Like bad yeast working through bread. My sacrifice was martyrdom. My love language was selfishness. I was a sham. Remember this folks: If you try to manage outcomes you will always be disappointed. That is not your job. I have this script with God sometimes. I barter for blessings. I question why I don’t receive what I’ve “rightfully” earned. I say things like, I did this right, I made my sacrifice, why aren’t you holding up your end? And just like that I’ve spoiled all my love. Shakespeare said, “love is not love which alters when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove it is an ever-fixed mark…” There is wide discourse on the meaning of this poem, this is my take. My expressions of love are not dependent on the world following my script. Love is not my story. It is not a story of my success and things going according to my plans. Love is a story of human error and uncommon grace and unnatural kindness. Here is an interjection of common sense. If my then fiancé, and now wife, would have burned down my dream or insulted me for trying to show love, there would be cause for a boundary. There are base expectations we must have and real consequences when these expectations are breached. Her only fault was failure to respond how I desired.This is not a fault at all. This is selfishness stemming from my desire to control her feelings towards me. Managing outcomes leads to a failure to recognize the importance of the process. It can mean anxiety when faced with variables (like humans being humans). And it sometimes means people ignore reality altogether and pretend things are how they want them to be. To sum up: focus on the means and let the ends be organic and real. I got great advice from some people I respect a lot about how this applies to parenting. Love is not setting an expectation that your child will follow your script. It is putting effort into guidance and training and then letting them travel their own path. For spouses, love is not kindness and sacrifice pending perfect adherence to an expectation. Love is action with the other person in mind. For children of God, love is not submission, pending the God of the universe gives us what we want. It is dedication to follow a path and have faith in His sovereignty and goodness, even when it doesn’t turn out how we planned--even when we don’t have answers. And now, dear reader, this is the encouragement for the week (for you and for me). Let the outcomes manage themselves. Love is made perfect by its continual existence in an imperfect world. When I love only the results I planned I keep my love limited. But when I commit to serve what I cannot control—love has limitless opportunity to expand beyond my reach. This week I will manage what I should manage, and, in love, let the rest go. If you are not a subscriber, and you want to be, click subscribe and enter your email to get a weekly update. A share is always appreciated. SUBSCRIBE
A post on joy 4:48 PM Tuesday October 1, 2019 I currently have 31 applications on my phone. I've slept for 13 hours so far this week and watched approximately 10 hours of TV (not a fun confession). It is Tuesday Oct. 1, 2019 and it is 88 degrees, an unseasonably warm temperature. The Cubs did not make the playoffs. I follow the sun on my morning commutes, going due east 27.3 miles to work for 42 minutes. My commute home will be the same distance in the opposite direction and likely take the same amount of time. I worked 8 hours and 4 minutes with a 27-minute lunch. I wrote 7 notes, including this one. 2 pages in a journal and the remainder in applications. I read 2 chapters of the new testament, 14 pages of Homer's Odyssey, 2 essays by Giamatti, 5 entries in A Baseball Fan's Bucketlist, 2 articles about Mitch Trubisky and one about Joe Maddon. The Cubs did not make the playoffs. I listened to music for five hours, a sermon for 35 minutes, other people talk for 90 minutes, and spoke for about 70 minutes. I sat outside for 43 minutes and have walked 1 mile and climbed 2 flights of stairs. I’ve eaten 2 meals, roughly 1800 calories, had two 8 oz cups of black coffee, six 16oz mugs of water, and I feel hungry. I checked my email 17 times. My text messages 12 times. My Instagram twice. My Facebook Messenger 5 times. My maps once. Twitter once. Snapchat once. Pinterest twice, banking apps twice, my ESPN Fantasy Sports App once, and the weather app once—so I could write this post. I don’t like the weather app. I am wearing the pants I bought with my wedding suit, a dress shirt and tie purchased as a gift for me last birthday/Christmas, an Enso ring from Amazon, shoes purchased as a gift when I was 20 and resoled by a cobbler last year. I wore these shoes on my wedding day. My belt is from a liquidation sale at Joseph A. Bank. I went with my brothers. My face was hot the whole time because I thought I was going to miss a great deal. The savings were unreasonable. I ended up with six dress shirts and a belt for about $30. I've thrown out the shirts slowly over the last three years. They fit weird. I know why they were closing the store. The belt is still good, and it was only $8, but I have to wear it on the last loop. The Cubs did not make the playoffs. I have 9 pieces of plastic in a wallet I got when I was 17, $0 in cash and a card from Code Names that my brother returned to me a few months ago. His son had dumped out the box when we were at their house visiting and it slid under the couch. I miss my brother. I'm carrying my soft cooler lunch box made by Lifewit (thank you Amazon), a flash drive, a book gifted to me by another brother, and a journal made in South Africa (a gift from another brother. He started school this week.) The Cubs did not make the playoffs. There are 162 games in a baseball season. I think baseball is the reason, “the dog days of summer” is a thing. 162 games can be mundane. But when it comes down to the end it’s easy to see why each of them mattered. The muffed grounder on June 7; the poor choice in the weight room; the 110th pitch and subsequent tweaked nerve; the small lapse in focus; the poor judgement; the mass of mistakes leading to, just short. They say the Devil’s in the details and baseball’s a game of inches, and I wonder if Hendricks is choking the ball a little more this year, and what made such a dramatic difference in Yelich’s power, and why Kimbrel left the ball over the plate, and what would have happened if Javy’s hands were an inch higher on his slide. But there are too many variables. Too many things to review, so all I’ll say is maybe next year, and “Maddon’s time is up” and I’ll wait patiently for next spring. The thing about baseball, like Giamatti says, is “It is designed to break your heart.” What a potent word, “designed”. It was engineered for emotion—Created for feeling. It’s what we love about baseball, and what we love about life. We obsess about the numbers, the boundaries, the strike zone, the foul line, the 90 feet between happiness and despair. The 60 feet six inches of tension hanging between a hitter and a pitcher and the split-second reaction time that differentiates a career in the big leagues and a double-a dropout. It was designed, a quantitative, orderly verb. To break your heart. A complicated and emotional prepositional phrase. Like, made for more. Or, hardwired for connection. All the data, all the engineering, it draws itself to a moment where players stand and move habitually, and fans watch or listen intently. And we feel the sinking feeling and wonder why we care so much, why it matters so much. It’s just a game. It's a construct and a rule. They had the better numbers. It was just wins and losses. It was just data points. And so are we. We are data points. I am, and you are. We are a mass of arm angles, load patterns, habits, roles, morals, decisions and thoughts moving base to base and living pitch by pitch. My nuanced patterns and routines turn habits to idiosyncrasies, to necessities, until something breaks down and I try something different. Advertisers study me, employers’ study me, churches study me, other humans study me. It is an existential necessity. I am always observed and assessed. They observe my stat-line, my composition, and they craft a response. They’ll assess my next move. 60% sliders, 35% fastballs, 5% changeups. 61% strikes. 42% in the zone. 90% middle away. I’ll touch the hat, wipe the hand, dangle the arm, shake the wrist, set, load, release. And then let it all go. If you have arrived here, dear reader, my encouragement to you this week is to be a human. You are doing excellently so far. “Everyday do something that won’t compute.” ~Wendell Berry If you are not a subscriber, and you want to be, click subscribe and enter your email to get a weekly update. A share is always appreciated. SUBSCRIBE
This is a post on minimalism As part of an incremental shift toward sustainability my sister purchased biodegradable forks. It reminded me how to eat an elephant. There is this term in academia called the value-action gap. Its a term for failure to act in ways that align with what one claims to believe. Example: I hear a great talk and say "yes, yes yes. I will save money and get in shape and love all my neighbors." and then I go for lunch (instead of going for my run) and order an extra burger and complain about the time, the crowd, and the lack of pickles. In short, when I know what I want to be but don’t act in line with my value, there is a Strahan sized space between my professed belief and my reality. This gap gives breathing room for things like: guilt, shame, denial, insecurity, self-deprecation, hypocrisy, anger, etc. I stumbled on this phrase after searching Why do people buy things they don't need? I dove in head first. There was a name for my problem and I got excited to come up with the easy fix and three-step method to solving the world’s problems (and subsequently my own problems). Guess what? In the history of the human condition Utopia, the idea of a perfect society, has always failed. We can idealize, but there are always issues with execution. In a shocking turn of events, humans are imperfect. And there is not a three-step method for fixing our imperfections. My research quickly veered into a bottomless pit of opinion. And after hours of research and pages of writing I had nothing good. In desperation I quieted myself and came to the still small voice and heard a perfect metaphor. "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world."~Jesus "To eat an elephant take one bite at a time." This eureka moment came in a text from my sister about biodegradable forks--a small action in line with her greater value. It was movement in the right direction. When I told her about the eureka moment she sent me a video clip about the book The Principle of the Path by Andy Stanley. With a new sense of direction I again set about to solve my problems (and subsequently the world's). Here is a simple way to, as Andy Stanley said, know that direction, not intention, determines destination. Intention is where I want to go. Direction is what I am doing to get there. Direction is how and what. So here is the not so easy -but concise- way to bridge the value action gap.
For personal reasons I am going to add a list of things to remember in recognition of my own humanity. 1. Do frequent audits: when I was living most closely in line with my values I was consistently journaling my thoughts and my minutes. Accounting for my time, assessing and making adjustments as needed. This is a good thing to do with money, food, content consumption etc. It puts me in tune with reality. 2. Celebrate the victories: Have a celebration, smile, make ceremony, pass out medals and balloons (thanks, Bob Goff). There is joy in the journey and what's rewarded is repeated. 3. Say thank you: Thank you is a posture of submission and humility and consideration. It keeps me going in the direction of gratitude, not arrogance, when I succeed. It is a lighter burden than all the pride of, "going it alone" 4. Find iron: Humans go farther together than they do alone. Humans go farther together than they do alone. Humans go farther together than they do alone. Iron sharpens iron. Stay sharp. Find iron. 5. Keep the faith, stop stopping: Here's the simple gospel. The Kingdom of God is here, Christ died to bridge the gap and provide grace for my weakness, he was raised to life to give me hope and wholeness, and sent the Holy Spirit to be everyday sustenance. This gives me not just a goal, but the courage, hope, warm blood, and gumption to keep going when I fall short or lose sight. I'm not building my own bridge, He built the bridge. I'm following Him over the gap. And now, dear reader, I want to encourage you, don’t let the immensity of your destination stop you from starting your journey. If it is biodegradable forks, 30 minutes of walking, removing white flour and white sugar from your diet, cutting that credit card, deleting that app, avoiding that mall or that restaurant, altering the dynamic of that relationship, make the incremental and sustainable change to step in the right direction. Dive into the process. And explore one of the things down there. They heavily influenced this post. My action step is to start including data in my posts. I am going to get concise, numerical and specific. Journalism can still be prose. I am social media free, which means this blog is sent via email only. If you are not a subscriber click subscribe and enter your email to get a weekly update. A share is always appreciated. SUBSCRIBE
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." A post on sustainability I’ve been reflecting on love. It’s a bucket word for desire, adoration, compassion, control, connection, commitment, congeniality, familiarity. It’s something we have and something we do and something we are. I’ve been coming back to this phrase. The Apostle Paul, with his extra feathery pen and the scented scroll he used when he wrote prose, said the words you’ve heard at a wedding at some point in your life. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” Love is this piece that turns a house into a home. Love makes service compassion not control. Love makes sacrifice genuine instead of martyrdom. Love makes your advice wise counsel instead of pompous preaching. Love makes your praise pure rather than forced finesse. Love is everything. Baseball is my barometer. It helps me measure things, explain things, understand things. And baseball and love are the tandem that make the game poetry for me. You see, in baseball you can’t just love the action or the thrill, you have to love the game—the sounds and the smells and the people, and the culture and the language. You have to love playing flips and two ball and categories and first name last name and saying, “hum now” and swapping stories and doing dances. You’ve got to love the eccentricities. You’ve got to love wearing a bullpen jacket over a hoodie over a jersey over long sleeves over short sleeves and still feeling the sting of your toes going numb. You’ve got to love 4-hour bus rides and taking your turn doing bucket and sitting for 8 hours in the bullpen. You’ve got to love tough love and mind games and the frustration of losing “the feel” and throwing 8 straight balls when your team desperately needs an out. You’ve got to love even when it doesn’t love you back. You’ve got to love even when you hate it. It’s what the game gives you. Something deep to connect with and hold onto, and when it’s time, walk away and allow the relationship to change. It gives the opportunity to suffer, to watch your team slipping out of the wild card spot and be helpless, but still in love. The deep, loyal, faithful, poetic, romantic love of warriors and poets and prophets. That’s what the game gave me. And I’ll never give it back. The seams of the baseball seeped their way in. It’s primal now. It’s in my blood and sweat and in my eyes. It’s not love for the action or the thrill. It’s just love. And that doesn’t go away. There are a lot of well-researched things about love in a more practical and less romantic sense. You should investigate the resources below. For now here's the big thing I am stamping on my own forehead to remember when I look in the mirror. Love, real love, has the capability to persist through difficulties, because love goes beyond the edge of our understanding and into something we can’t explain. It makes the change that needs to happen. Love is not an enabler, and in its great capacity love makes forgiveness possible. Love is a practical compassion that esteems others and brings them respect and dignity. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above; For love is heaven, and heaven is love. ~Sir Walter Scott Dear reader, go and love with action. Even when it is difficult. Go and love with resolve. Resources: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People The Four Loves Better Lovers: eclife.org/watch Everybody Always I am still social media free, which means this blog will be sent out only via email. If you are not already subscribing you can click on the word subscribe below and enter your email to get a weekly update. If you think, “Wow! More people should hear this” and you want to share that would be pretty neat. SUBSCRIBE
A post on minimalismHenry David Thoreau was not a recluse, and he wasn't like the unabomber. He probably had more visitors than you do. I'm two weeks into my withdrawal from social media, and this is the main thought coursing through my brain "humans are made for connection." Walden is a favorite of mine. It's a social experiment conducted by an author and philosopher who takes to the woods because "he wished to live deliberately". He builds himself a small cabin on Walden pond and starts to journal about life and nature and economics and society and government. It's an iconic piece in American literature and thought. While summarizing (poorly) the book for a friend he remarked "sounds like the unabomber". This reference, too recent to be in my history lessons and too far away for me to remember it, went over my head until I did some research. While there were some similarities like a, "return to wild nature" and a desire to be against the grain, there was one glaring difference. Thoreau wasn't a recluse. In fact, an entire portion of Walden is titled "Vsitors", and in this section he states he had as many as "twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once beneath my roof. . .". Truthfully, Thoreau's wilderness existence occurred about a mile outside of town. This distance put him exactly where he wanted to be--out of the fray just enough to avoid being swept up into the main street current. From this distance Thoreau had the solitude and the interaction to assess things more clearly. Two weeks into my social media abstinence I'm noticing more apparently when I feel the pang inside my brain to "numb or distract" (credit to a wise person for the perfect verbiage) with my phone. It is a quick cure for boredom, loneliness, guilt, despair, anxiety. At best it's apathetic. At worst it's avoidant. This sort of medicating does little to change my reality. It shortchanges it. It quells the words “I miss you.” with the partial satisfaction of a low-value input from someone else. It is a reality—a virtual connection. I am sharing photos, taking in photos, sharing lives, sharing stories, sharing information. I am spreading awareness, delivering news, providing humor. But I can never be tricked into believing it is an adequate substitution for swallowing whole the feeling of longing to see, speak with, hold, or interact with another person and the satisfaction of being present when that occurs. Leaving social media leaves me with no medication or pretending, just the reality of being alone when I am alone or bored when I am bored, and the burning question "what are you going to do about it?" And the response. I will say I love you. I will plan a visit. I will write a note with real paper. I will make a call. I will embrace a person when I see them next. I will say the encouraging word with my eyes and my mouth and not just my fingers. I won’t let low-value inputs shortchange the wonderful feeling of longing to see a friend. I won't let a thumbs up replace an “I love you.” I won’t let knowing what a person's up to stop me from saying “let’s get dinner,” or “I’m coming to see your baby.” I won't let scrolling through the Prime Library replace the smell of old paper, the crisp feel of words in my hands, the crushing weight of millions of books. “1-100 of 1,500,675” does not carry the same gravity as standing among rows on rows of human thought,, keenly aware my mind could never contain the knowledge and experience of billions of humans over thousands of years. Yet, standing small in a garden of words I feel a commonality, a thirst for understanding and connection. It is with this light weight of being among what is real that I sally forth into existence, believing fully the light of the world may live in the person driving in the other lane, the person sitting behind me, the girl waking sleepily next to me, stretching, warm and lovely, her mouth opening slowly like a gate to a beautiful city, uttering gently three words that ignite my soul. “Good morning, handsome.” My dear reader, take hold of what is real and eternal. The beautiful, natural, every day wonder existing in us, around us, next to us. It is your noble duty today to be. Know technology for what it is, value added, not value replaced; a gateway to connection, not an excuse to withdraw. And maybe check out my list of 50 things to do in 5 minutes (besides check Instagram). Life is real, life is earnest and the grave is not it’s goal Dust thou art to dust returnest was not spoken of the soul ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow I am still social media free, which means this blog will be sent out only via email. If you are not already subscribing you can click on the word subscribe below and enter your email to get a weekly update. If you think, “Wow! More people should hear this” and you want to share that would be pretty neat. SUBSCRIBE A great share from Grace Mitchell
A post on joySometimes, when I am feeling vulnerable, I collect items. Tangible items make me feel (for a minute) like my life is tangibly good or like my striving is all worth while because I own more than so and so. Unfortunately, this isn't the type of joy I am looking for, and it results in a lot of anxiety from trying to maintain, protect, compete, and sort. Like Andy Stanley informed me in a podcast on contentment, "There is no win in comparison." Gratitude, not materialism, is my antidote when I venture into the unknown or uncomfortable. To prevent my imagination running amok and bypassing reality for a fake and glossy vision, or believing reality is the negativity I feel in a bad season or a bad moment, I take inventory. This gives me a sharper perspective of what's real, and it helps me systematically counteract my negativity bias. Here is an inventory of good things.
This list is not exhaustive, just a quick exercise. I am sure you know, dear reader, what I will encourage you to do this week. Make a list. It will help you see your life for what it really is. Life is no hollow imitation. It is real, and it is beautiful. Lay your hands on it. Listen to its heart beat. I am still social media free, which means this blog will be sent out only via email. If you are not already subscribing you can click on the word subscribe below and enter your email to get a weekly update. If you think, “Wow! More people should hear this” and you want to share that would be pretty neat. SUBSCRIBE
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I'm a Hoosier. I like the outdoors. Taxes are my job. I write for a living. This Blog
Writing my way to an adult life of minimalism, sustainability, and joy rooted in Truth. I'm learning, unlearning, and relearning.
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