choose your own adventure

or, "leaving/staying pt. 2"

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these are words i've been meaning to write for a little over three months now. unfortunately, they haven't formed themselves into complete sentences until tonight.

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some of my fondest memories as a child revolved around the regular trips my mom took my sisters and i on to the quaint, local library of our little town. the reason for the trips were usually school-based in nature, but the undoubted highlight for my pre-adolescent mind was picking up the latest offering from the keenly-titled "choose your own adventure" series of books. i devoured every copy i came across within mere hours. i became engrossed in every turn of every story and was incredibly curious about every possible conclusion that the book could lead me to. so much so, that i think my ardent wonder might have developed into something of a character flaw. 

because, somewhere along the line, i started bookmarking every decision i came to.

that's right, i bookmarked every single decision and when that decision ultimately led to some grotesque demise, which it was most likely to, i retraced my steps back until i made the right decision. now, i'm sure most of the kids reading "choose your own adventure" books along with me in the early 90's did something along the same lines. after all, to get the most bang for your buck (or my 2-week library checkout, rather) you had to go through quite a few redo's. i might have just taken those redo's a bit too far by redoing every single decision i made until i came across the best possible outcome. those of you who are familiar with "choose your own adventure" know this was no easy task.

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i think it's safe to say that i've had a fairly enlightening year. in fact, i may have learned more things about myself in the past year or so than i have in any other combination of years in my life. it's possible that some of these things were readily seen and known by those around me, but it's taken me roughly 28 years to let them sink in. you shouldn't have to wait so many years to learn so many truths about yourself. i feel like God should sit us down the moment we're born and fill us in, "these are the things you'll be good at, son, do them and do them often." 

i guess maybe we need that time, though. we need to go the long way around. maybe we couldn't handle a deluge of revelation all at once. we need that slow succession of seconds, that stacking up of lessons over time. we need maturity to do it's faithful work, bit by bit, everyday.

all i'm saying is it isn't fair.

so what have i learned? well first off, i've learned that on the whole, i lack motivation. all this reading about motivation and i honestly don't have much to speak of. i did at one time, i know that. back when i was young and reckless. back when i had only the next four years of my life planned out. when i set broad, mountain-esque goals for myself but put no realistic structure in place for how to go about reaching them.

so naturally, i sputtered out. i hit a dead-end. i was stagnant. breathing, yes. subsisting, sure. but not moving. not working towards something. not heading anywhere. those who know me best would say i was "spinning my wheels" or "stuck in pause".

i guess i was waiting on something. waiting on something to happen. waiting on opportunities? waiting on God? i guess. i suppose i was stuck at a bookmark. but one key lesson i've learned from all this reading/revelation is that we should take stock of the things God has given us. the talents, the gifts, the abilities, the connections, the friends, the family. whatever we have that is supernatural. whatever is divinely ours and no one elses. and we need to use them. and use them now. appreciate them severely. we can't wait for something we think should be coming around the bend. because, honestly, it may never come. 

and so, it was time for a drastic decision to be made. it was high time to awake out of sleep. time to do something because now is the time to get something done.

"why sit we here til we die?"

unfortunately, that's where my previously referenced, childhood character flaw begins to set in. i fear commitment. i've always been indecisive and figured that it's just how i am. but i believe now that it goes deeper. i fear whittling down options until i'm locked into one singular path. because then, there's no looking back. there's no redo. there's no backspace or ctrl+alt+delete. it's just me, my decision, and God.

i have to own it.

and i hate that. i hate not having options. i pack twice as many clothes as i need on a trip because i like to have options. i don't like making concrete plans because then i can't change my mind later. i resist releasing music that i've recorded because then i won't have the option of editing it later. i've even passed up relationships because something in me says that i have to hold out for something better.

and i've stayed put in the town i was born in because i know my options for living elsewhere will always be limitless. they'll always be out there. and they'll always be an excuse for not living an adventure now.

like the great philosopher, pedro the lion, once said, "it's good to have options".

at this point my decision became more than just my decision. it left the scale of the common, ordinary "what will i eat for breakfast?" minutia to a whole other stratosphere. the decision took on a life of it's own. i would say that it's possible that i was not even the one making it.

i just knew that something needed to change and it would have to be soon. so i began heeding my advice. i began taking stock of the things God had given me. the relationships, the talents, the gifts, the abilities, the connections; i started making a list. started weighing pro's and con's.

and increasingly the lot began to fall to kansas city.

my ties to kansas city have been oddly vast over the years. from the youth camps i led worship at in high school to the post-college years when i toured through there as apart of an indie-rock band. there's the close friends who have recently moved there to the recently-acquainted friends who have lived there all their lives. something was beginning to pull me in a westerly-facing direction. and that something was not me.

so i prayed. and prayed. and sought counsel. i fasted a month from facebook. i wanted to know for certain that this something wasn't me or some airy notion i picked up from someone else. i wanted to make sure that God knew what he was doing.

because moving to kansas city sounds completely crazy.

leaving a very good job with no certain means of employment waiting for you in a foreign state is crazy. quitting a worship band that you love playing on week-in-and-week-out is crazy. moving 13 hours away from the only friends you've known and the dear family that you've come to love more and more with every passing year is absolutely crazy. leaving everything you've ever known is crazy.

but i think i'm ready for crazy. i think i need crazy right now. i think what i've needed most of all to push me past this rut in life is a fresh step of faith. i'm two years from 30. my hairline has begun receding (with no hope of it moving in the opposite direction) and my body certainly aches more than it used to. i need to get out and live now or i never will.

what i've needed most is an adventure.

an adventure of my own choosing. a decision that i can't bookmark. an option that i can't go back and change. a single point that i must cross and not turn back.

and so i am doing just that. i don't know exactly what i'll be doing there. or even where i'll be living. but i do know that it's now after 2:00am on monday, july 5th, 2010 and i am moving to kansas city tomorrow.

and there is no turning back.

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will you choose to sit here until you die? turn to page 54

or will you choose to get up and live? turn to page 73

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It's interesting how you sometimes have to leave home before you can ask difficult questions, how the questions never come up in the room you grew up in, in the town in which you were born. It's funny how you can't ask difficult questions in a familiar place, how you have to stand back a few feet and see things in a new way before you realize nothing that is happening to you is normal. - Donald Miller

motivation/hesitation

i know i promised to write more. and i haven't. but i fall back on my previous promise to not spend as much time on the internet as my sole defense.

so there.

speaking of wise uses of my time, i've been reading a few stellar books lately. last fall, my interest was piqued on the topic of motivation and relatedly, of success, by a really superb ted talk i happened upon. so piqued was i, in fact, that i decided to fork over nearly $25 for a newly released hardcover copy of the speaker's own book on the subject while i was on vacation. i then spent additional monies on another book i had been hearing a lot of buzz about, "outliers" by malcolm gladwell. both were excellent, informative reads and i would highly recommend both to anyone as intrigued by these subjects as i am.

in looking into all this, i was most interested in learning just what it is that seems to determine our success in life, specifically, is it more influenced by our own motivation/hard work/grit/determination/etc. (as we are all told growing up, i.e. the epitome of "the american dream") or more by the amount, or lack, of opportunities we are afforded? as a person who believes wholeheartedly in the practice of temperance/moderation, i know the argument can be made that a healthy balance of both will undoubtedly get you where you want to be in life. i think it's a fair point, but i wanted to dive deeper.

in "outliers" (which i read first), gladwell talks mostly about the unique circumstances behind some of the most successful people we know of today. a few examples: bill gates. he was exposed at a very early age to one of the first commercially available computers. he had the opportunity to spend many, many hours working at it due to a combination of exceptional events. he also proved (many times over, actually) the infamous 10,000 hour rule, which is said to be the threshold for obtaining mastery (the 2nd book discusses this concept further). the beatles also helped to prove the 10,000 hour rule. before they hit it big, they spent several years playing seedy clubs around hamburg, germany. by gladwell's calculations, they played roughly 10,000 hours together as a group before their american invasion. these unique "practice" years undoubtedly honed their sound, their songwriting, and most would say greatly contributed to their success later on.

so with "outliers", the conclusion can be drawn that yes, success is determined by hard work and motivation to succeed, but without favorable opportunities to sieze hold of, the hard work is essentially meaningless. we can scratch out a living, sure, but we can't scratch out true success without a few "lucky" breaks first, i.e. no one truly pulls themselves up by their own bootstraps. we need a few little "nudges" to help us on our way.

take that, 'merica.

daniel pink's "drive" (the ted speaker's book), expanded more on the idea of motivation and just what it is that actually drives us. he mainly pitted outdated notions of extrinsic motivators (i.e. "carrots & sticks") against newer findings on intrinsic motivators (our own internal drives) and proposed that there is a mismatch between what science knows and what businesses actually do. specifically, the science that he cites proves that we are much more likely to respond better to our own internal drives when encouraged properly then to external drives from bosses, supervisors, etc. he also posits that humans are needing "management" less and less to prosper in business today. mostly because management is a man-made concept. it's technology, not something that's replicated in nature so thus, it will eventually become outdated. and it may already be for most of today's current job functions. it may have worked well in the 20th century for mostly left-brained, mechanical tasks but it doesn't make sense when dealing with more 21st century, right-brained, out-of-the-box type problems.

he further breaks down our internal drive into the three things that all humans desire in life: autonomy, mastery and purpose. we all want to direct our own lives, we all want to be great at what we do and we all want to be apart of something bigger than ourselves. no-brainers, really. so why don't our jobs and businesses play to these inherent motivators that we all already have? as pink states, if you want compliance, you manage, or dare i say, micro-manage. but if you want engagement, you encourage self-direction. we are our own greatest motivator.

but we already know this, don't we? i think it's innate in all of us. if you're not so easily convinced, i would simply point to all those who dream of starting up their own businesses or who want to work for themselves someday. this is the land of entrepreneurship after all, isn't it? so why aren't companies adopting more of these ideas into how they approach their employees? it's a fair question. the data proves that productivity and general employee wellbeing goes up and turnover goes down when they do. and as a result, many more companies are implementing some of the practices that pink discusses in this book. it's the wave of the future.

and something worth pondering, that's for sure.

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well, i was planning to get more into how these ideas were showing up in my life personally (or how frustrated i am that they're not more of a reality in my life) but alas, this post has drug on long enough. i'll divulge more at a later date, i promise...i hope.

next up on my reading list: freakonomics. yea, i've kind of turned into a geek for these sorts of books now. but this one was a goodwill find. no more new release, hardcover copies at full price, thank you very much.

and thank you very much for stopping by and reading this latest winding entry of mine. may the next post make its way to your screen much speedier than the last.

social lent-working

it's time.

i'm preceding to phase two of my plan to redesign how i view my time. in what i'll call "phase one" (covered in my previous post), i talked about wanting to get out and actually live a life i'm proud of rather than wasting time on the internet. i feel i've done a fairly decent job. i biked as much as i could last fall (and am dying to get back out there at the first hint of spring), i recorded a song, i spent a lot of time with my family and am making plans for as much travelling this year as possible.

phase two, however, has more to do with how i am planning to constructively spend my time while actually on the net. and what that means for me is giving up facebook for a little while.

yup, that's right. i'm giving up facebook.

ok, ok, i'll go ahead and concede: i'll most likely be back. as for now, i've simply had too much and it's time to pare back things that are crowding my consciousness. there are many big decisions lurking around the corner in my life. and i only want to hear the truest voices and most sincere. i only want to hear Your voice.

it's funny, though, because i've recently reached the 600 "friend" mark. the mere cacophony of so many statuses and events vying for my attention each night as i scroll through them is astounding. i sit in a daze awaiting interaction. i sit amazed at how i ever kept in touch with anyone before it's existence.

it truly is a marvel to behold.

i'm not here to cast judgment. only to call out myself. i need a change. i want to be ignorant to the current trends. i don't want to know what people are doing. i want to find out the old fashioned way. facebook has become the alcohol of the internet for me. something to sip between breaths of life. something i do because there isn't anything else to do. something to kill time.

but i'm sick of killing time. i want to bring it back to life again.

i've never observed lent before. this year i've finally realized its worth: it is, at its core, freedom. it's giving up something that we don't have to give up simply because we have the power to do so. we have the choice. we don't have to be a slave to anything, no matter how good. lent is the act of giving up something unsinful for a time to renew your focus on God. i can think of many things much more sinful than facebook that i need to give up (though i should be working to give them up anyways), but i can think of nothing more lent-worthy than facebook.

my goal is not to give up on the internet entirely. this isn't my "going hermit and moving into the woods" moment (though the ridiculous things people say on facebook make the thought of it very tempting at times). i'll probably check twitter now and again, maybe tumblr, but my facebook is going to be defunct until at least easter. that's how i'm limiting myself. we'll see what happens. i, myself, am very excited.

i'm also excited to get back to blogging regularly. i used to be very faithful at it back in the day. i loved it and looked forward to it. it used to be my chief online activity. now i cheat myself with 140 character clever turns of phrase. with snarky comments on other people's ideas. i desire to wholly give myself to one concise avenue of mental release, instead of parsing my thoughts across so many different mediums.

and this will be that place. i'll upload pictures, update everyone on life (if you so wonder), and all that. i'll also be checking my email. my phone still works. life goes on.

in related news: i just received my fully licensed (a.k.a. legal) version of cubase 5 in the mail today and plan to begin recording almost immediately. i have to make a quick detour to the wonderful, friend-filled land of missouri for a few days. but after, music-making to it's fullest.

it's just time.

less net/more gross

there just aren't enough hours in the day.

if i have learned one lesson in this my 27th year of life it is that the older i get, the shorter the days become.

i have so much in my head that i'd like to accomplish everyday. i make lists while i'm at work. i run them over and over in my mind. but when i finally have time to get to said lists, the sun has already fallen behind the hills. it's time to rest and reset. time to do it all over again tomorrow.

i'm coming up on 28 in a couple weeks. and i can't help but feel...well, old. i know, i know...i'm still young. i get it. but old is just around the corner. the reality that i'm not going to live forever is finally setting in. you know what i'm talking about, right? the fact that we all know that we're temporal creatures but we don't all believe it. that is, until we're staring at 30 from arm's length. 30! geesh, i was supposed to have everything figured out by then.

i'm running out of time.

which brings us back to where i started this stream-of-consciousness post: time. i've never been a very good manager of it. i do a real bang-up job of managing just about everything else. but time? time has always been elusive. for some reason, my mind has always been able to trick me into thinking i have so much of it available. it's probably why i push things off like there's no tomorrow, or--more correctly--like there are many of them. i just haven't been able to convince myself that there are limits to the length of each day.

about a year ago i began living on a budget. it was a struggle at first, but i feel like i've truly gotten to a place where i've reigned in my finances. i keep track of every single purchase i make, so thus, i have to think about every purchase i make. and mentally note how much money i could've saved rather than spent.

i'm declaring that 28 is the year that i start budgeting my time. taking note of where i could be investing time instead of wasting it. using it for constructive and creative things, rather than things i can't remember at the end of the day.

example: one activity that wastes a good bit of my time during the week is working out in my parent's basement. i don't enjoy it but i do it because i sit on my arse for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 230 some-odd working days a year (that's about how many there are, if you ever wondered). so running on the elliptical is my equalizer. recently, i decided i kind of hated being trapped in the basement on beautiful fall & summer days. so i started running outside. my knees, however, decided they did not like running outside. so i decided to turn to a more "knee-friendly" option: cycling.

first i started on a schwinn i bought at walmart last year ("you think that's a schwinn?!?" sorry, movie quote). well, that wasn't so fun. i made it probably 10 miles each time before i realized that the schwinn wasn't going to do the trick. so i figured i might as well just dive in head first and i wound up buying a legit all carbon fiber road bike, to the tune of about $1000 (not that much for a good road bike, by the way). it was a purchase that didn't sit so well with my aforementioned squeaky budget, but did sit well with my aforementioned squeaky knees. so, i deemed it a worthy investment.

next, i bought a helmet and some gloves. then some pedals. and then a tire pump. and then, the kicker...bike shorts. which, i guess, makes it officially official. but i don't mind since it's something i'm doing that's not a complete waste of time. i'm not cooped up in a basement working out. i'm not at home on the weekends watching the browns implode, or building up a parallel universe browns team on xbox, or venting frustration at the epic failures of my weekly fantasy football matchup. no, i'm out in nature, usually with friends, enjoying creation and getting in shape at the same time.

of course, winter is coming. and with it, not much cycling. but i've started making more lists of things that i can do to budget my time wisely. here are a few:

• get back to writing & recording music
• learn how to actually play guitar (instead of cleverly guessing every week)
• spend more time reading/less time surfing
• write thought-provoking things (maybe in a blog post now & again)
• spend quality time with quality people
• become my niece's favorite uncle
• always find time to help friends (and strangers)
• figure out what the heck i'm doing with my life before 30

i suppose if i've learned one thing in my 27 years, it's that i still have a whole lot left to learn.

maybe i'm not so old after all.

a new adventure in blogging

in the hopes of keeping things fresh(er) on this site, i'm launching a new little page on here i'm calling "notes to self" (see top bar for the page conveniently titled, "notes").

in it will be short blurbs that i think of throughout the day that aren't quite 1,000 word post worthy. some might be funny, others might attempt to be funny but fall horrifyingly short. i guess you'll be the judge.

until my next ridiculously long entry...