Day 21–Jimmy Johns and Cancer

 

I had two interesting occurrences today. I had dinner at Jimmy Johns with a friend ($7.20 for those keeping up). I always love hanging out with this friend because she keeps me honest. I doubt she really understands how valuable her friendship is to me, but I always deeply value our conversations and time together. When I left last night, I felt reinvigorated to continue with this quest to become the kind of man I believe I have been called to be. My unnamed friend tends to do that without even knowing it, so thank you.

Second, I found out about a fellowship in epidemiology dealing with social behaviors and life and cancer. I had never thought about doing cancer research before, but given the way the disease has impacted my life, my interest was piqued. Then I heard I might be able to do research in the Black Belt if I got the fellowship. My interest was further piqued. I’m meditating on this idea, because even though it has nothing to do with what I was thinking of doing for my dissertation, it might be more important. The question I’m struggling with is whether it is more important for me to make a significant contribution to sociology, or use sociology to do research that might have a shot a helping people. I’m leaning towards the latter, but I’m going to be patient with my decisions and see what actually happens.

Day 20 - Vision in the Church

I have been on a couple of church committees since I arrived back at Huffman, and I have noticed an interesting/potentially disturbing trend. The Church, and by that I mean both the local church and the Church Universal, are thinking about the details without any idea of the big picture. We think about need little gimmicks to get people in the front door, small things we can do to convince the community we matter, and a plethora of other things that, in the big picture, no one is going to remember.

If the most important decision we grapple with as a body of faith is how/whether or not to process, we have utterly failed to be a church. If we spend all our time on little details without talking about who we should be in our community, who the world needs us to be, and what God would want us to do, we don't deserve to be the Church. It really is that simple.

People who have a vision and are passionate about that vision will see it carried out or die trying, and that is what we have to strive for. I say this not simply to be critical, but because I believe that God's work is much more important than any one church or group of people's interests. I know people in my faith community, both within the local church and outside of it, who have oodles of vision to serve people and make a difference, and that has to be celebrated and supported. There is no room for egos in the work of the church. There is no room for making ourselves look good or right at the expense of loving one another and the community we live in. This is not difficult to understand, but it takes a lot of pride swallowing to commit to. That's why I am calling out myself on this.

I say things to sound smart a lot, and I need to get over that sometimes. I really do. But I think I've gotten a lot better at catching myself at it and trying to hear what other people have to say all the way through. And what I most often hear is that people wish everyone else would get over themselves. If that's what you think is needed in the church, then start with yourself. Period. Staying focused on petty things is not going to accomplish anything besides making us bitter and ineffective people.

Deciding what we are about as Christians and then prioritizing our lives around that is much more important to being the kind of people we dream of being than "getting ours" or winning any one argument. I am so encouraged that many of the people I know my age and slightly younger really seem to get this, and are making important life decisions around it. But we all have to be in. You are not the most important thing in your life. This world is not yours alone. But you do have work to do, and it is greater and more wonderful than anything you can imagine. Peace and Love.

Money Spent Today - $5.94

Minutes run - 20 running/10 walking

Work accomplished - emergency literature for professor/discussing game theory principles

Positive attitude - Getting There

Better approach to situations - I need to work on more listening, less talking. Was reminded of that both in class directly and indirectly by Rev. Adam Hamilton during a video on Christians getting it wrong. It would seem the wisest people also speak less... so do I speak less and become more wise, or become wiser and begin to speak less...hmm...

Days 18 and 19 - Dreams, What ifs, and Now

As I did a few days ago, I'm going to hold the housekeeping to the end.

Yesterday was kind of a weird day. I used to work for this really wonderful organization, but it didn't work out. A lot of stuff happened, some of it in my control, some of it out of my control, but the long and short of it is that I left Birmingham in the Summer of 2009 sure I was following the grand plan God had set before me. I had my dream job, my dream girl, and I was certain I was where I needed to be. Fast forward to the fall, and my life was kind of falling apart. I was angry, depressed, confused, and mostly felt lost. It was kind of a dark time. There are a lot of details I'm leaving out, but the important thing to understand is that I was not the person I had convinced myself I was. My relationship with God was strained to the point of breaking.

It was one of the most important experiences of my life. I don't know if this is true of other people, but for me learning how low I could sink was important to understanding where I wanted to go. I've spent the last year and a half scratching and clawing to become more like the person I dreamed of being and less like the self-absorbed jerk I know I am capable of being (and everyone is capable of being). It's been a slow process, but I'm getting there. And that's why yesterday was weird.

I went to do some promo work for the aforementioned wonderful organization yesterday, and it was great. I remembered all the good things about the people there, and what it stood for. And I wondered, why didn't I get it back then. That's the danger of hindsight. We wish we had known what we know now back then, but we wouldn't have learned what we know now without turmoil. I learn more from failure than I do from success, and I'm gradually learning to accept that there is a blessing in our struggles if we can only see it.

I still dream of what might have been, but I'm learning to have new dreams, to expect the unexpected. Slowly. Very Slowly. But surely, I'm learning to trust that God is not an idiot, that He knows who I am, and what I can become.

On to housekeeping:

Running resumes Tueday.

I spent $20.72 yesterday (gas) and $5.50 today (food)

Finished editing that article for publication yesterday and today.

Day 17 - Day of the 5k

Ran the 5k today, 28:50. There I was successful

Spent $5.89 today, also a success.

Didn't work on school stuff at all. Not a success. Just being honest.

Tomorrow I'll be super busy all day and should have done some work tonight, but it wasn't happening. So I'll be working pretty late tomorrow on this article I need to finish revising by Sunday.

But I'm still pretty psyched about the stuff I did right today.

Days Fifteen and Sixteen - Becoming Integrated

I'm trying something new today. Instead of rambling about my checklist of things I've committed to do first, I'm saving it for last. I want to talk about integrity today.

I read a chapter in Stephen Covey's "The Speed of Trust" today, and while I'm not big on self-help literature, I did find something valuable in his chapter on integrity. Covey suggests that the reason we have so many little laws and rules in society and our everyday lives has to do with the degree to which we do not trust ourselves or one another to make the right decision and stick to it. Instead, we comply with the rules we have to to avoid completely screwing one another over, but it kills a lot of time and energy to do so. If our word was our bond, we could get so much more done.

So Covey starts talking about being a congruent person, that is, a person whose actions and words are reflective of their intent and belief. It's not a novel argument, but I like that he talks about the positive side of integrity rather than focusing on hypocrisy, which is a lack of self-congruency. My experience tells me that focusing on the problems with ourselves and others usually ends with an increased sensitivity of our failures, but little in the way of progress. I know this because, for most of my life, I have been both incredibly negative to myself, and have not been particularly good at enacting the changes in my life that I want to see happen. Even during this time of Lenten Commitment, all I see sometimes are the ways I fail to live up to my expectations. It feels like I should be running more, spending less, and studying more. But this kind of thinking is not helpful at all.

I am not a terribly self-congruent person. I've been prone during my lifetime to lie or fudge the truth to make myself look better, especially when lying to myself, and all it has ever done is make me feel like crap. No change, no improvement, just self-pity and self-criticism. I won't say that is completely a thing of the past, but it is something I'm working on everyday, particularly right now.

One of my reasons for blogging is that I want to be more real, on paper, with myself and others about who I am. What I do not want to do is spend my time focusing on how bad a person I am or can be. Instead, I want to talk about what I'm doing to work on it. First, I'm understanding that I do not control the universe. I am not the center of the universe. How I act affects others when they are dealing with me, but it would be narcissistic to think that I am the most important person in everyone's story. With that said, I am looking at becoming the person I see myself becoming rather than trying to convince people I am that person. I want to have a good marriage to a woman I love one day. It is a deep desire of my heart that is unrelenting. I used to worry about trying to get a relationship and keep one, but that's the wrong approach. Instead, I need to work on becoming the kind of man that would make a good partner. I am doing that, and I'm trying not to base my progress on outcomes, but rather on whether I feel comfortable with how I conduct myself with others and by myself. I'm still not great at it, but I can be honest that I don't have it all together. I make impulsive decisions with money sometimes, but I'm thinking about the decisions I make with my money everyday. I brood about what I'm angry about instead of confronting the person directly, but I'm starting to ask myself whether it's worth it to hang on to things. I'm fighting to not beat myself up about every little thing, even though I want to tell myself I'm not good enough every day.

With that said, on day fifteen I worked on a journal article I'm resubmitting, ran a full thirty minutes, and spent $0.

On day sixteen, I took a break from running, I spent $28 (bought gas today), and I'm about to keep revising my paper (on a Friday night, no less).

Day Fourteen - Short and Sweet

I spent $16 today because I went out with some wonderful people. No money spent on food today, just the cost of going to karaoke night with some wonderful people.

Ran my full thirty minutes today, it was tough but I was proud of myself for making it through.

Did a lot more than thirty minutes getting my head around negative binomial regression again. Statistic procedures are difficult to fully grasp to the point of real understanding.

Thought for the day: sometimes you just need to show up regardless of whether you are feeling social or not. You never know what may come of it, and the fruits may not present themselves until much later.

Day Thirteen - Just Doing Work and Hanging Out

Today was my off day for running, I'll be back up to a full three miles tomorrow.

Worked on the game theory portion of my dissertation for thirty minutes today, and came up with some interesting ideas for the actual experiment portion of the project. I think I'm making progress slowly but surely.

I spent $12 today. I would have spent $3.50 but a friend wanted to have dinner at Al's, and I haven't seen him in a good while. My goal tomorrow is not to spend money on meals. I have plenty here to eat on and just need to get it prepared before I head to school.

Tonight at Wesley we talked about hypocrisy, and why we as Christians don't want to let down our armor and show who we really are. I think the truth is that we want to meet that ideal of being Christlike, but when we aren't, it's easier to hide that part of ourselves from others for fear of rejection. I also think that sometimes having an image of ourselves as better than we are is easier than the process of slowly getting where we want to be as believers. The real path we walk is a fine line between pushing ourselves to be better and being gracious to ourselves when we fall. I don't think God expects us to be absolutely perfect, but I do think we should make being Christ-like our full time goal without destroying ourselves when we fall short. If failure leads us to give up on working towards who we believe we can be, then we sell ourselves short. Our walk has to become one of both patience and determination, where we don't expect perfect results all at once, but maintain the hope that every day we wake up we can keep moving forward, enjoying the little successes we experience and learning from the failures we deal with without dwelling.We have to accept that failure is inevitable, but is not an excuse for abandoning our journey. Its a process, and there is no absolute shortcut to get where we want to go.

Be gracious to others as well as yourself while remembering that life is a marathon, not a sprint, and we never know who someone will be tomorrow for good or for ill. The person we judge today could be the most important person in our lives tomorrow. The things we struggle with today may seem like just another patch in the road in a week. If we define ourselves by a single action, by what has happened in the past, we limit who we can be tomorrow. We limit who we allow others to be tomorrow. We put boundaries on what is possible when we know absolutely nothing about the future and how things might change if we simply move forward with hope and humility.

Just a few thoughts, and with that, a good night to all.

Day 12 - Back in the 'Ham

I spent $4.80 today, and it felt good to get back to a normal life. Vegas was a lot of fun, but I felt pretty out of touch with reality the whole time I was there. There is something to be said for a simple night at the house eating food you prepared with your own hands. Exactly what I needed.

Sometimes when I'm by myself I think about what I might be missing out on, but that has been less and less the case recently. This is part of my whole adopting a more optimistic perspective on things experiment. When I'm by myself I can take some time to relax, charge the batteries, and get ready for what tomorrow will bring. That was tonight. Other nights I feel like I need to get more work done. Tomorrow, for instance, I need to get everything in the house reorganized after being gone for a week and coming home with a suitcase full of dirty clothes. I sound so old, but I really am just trying to get used to enjoying the little things in life instead of demanding more entertainment, more satisfaction, more everything.

I went running for about 25 minutes today. Not up to where I was before last week, but that's to be expected. I worked on getting materials ready for my graduate review, including an article I just found out got accepted for publication in a sociology journal. Didn't do much on the dissertation, so I need to kick that back up into high gear tomorrow afternoon.

Still getting back in the swing of things, but getting there.

Days Nine-Eleven - The long road home

This one will be short as well. We just got back from a two day drive back from Vegas and I am feeling really pooped.

All in all, I spent $107 the last three days, which is quite good considering one of those days was a full day in Vegas and another $26 was spent on a tank of gas in our trek back, so all in all I think I did ok. Things will be a good deal stricter over the next week, now that I'm off vacation.

No running til tomorrow. Walking Vegas was quite a workout and driving in a car for 30+ hours is not conducive to running, but we'll be back to a regular schedule this week in preparation for the 5k next Saturday.

Finally, I got all of the Weber book done, and i plan on working on graduate review stuff tomorrow as well as about 30 minutes of reading game theory literature for my dissertation.

Tomorrow will bring a more reflective journal entry I promise. I'm just too wiped from this trip to do anything productive tonight.

Day Eight - Everything Costs a Lot

I spent $67 yesterday. I'm not completely happy with it, not even really a little, but this entire town conspires to take all your money. I didn't lose any money on gambling, even though we all played a dollar on one machine in each casino we visited. The big thing is that food and drinks are ridiculous here. $21 dollars for a buffet, $8 for a Wendy's value meal, and $16 for a hurricane. That adds up in a hurry. I don't think I'll be spending as much the next few days, but needless to say, I think a few nights in Vegas goes a long way.

I finished working on the Weber book yesterday and did my final note taking. Today or tomorrow I'll go back and try to come up with summaries for the first few chapters from my notes, but I've got to look over my presentation for this conference I'm presenting at.

No running here. It's actually kind of impossible. There's just no where on the strip to do it. I'm a little disappointed, because it just seems impossible to carry out everything I'm working on here without setbacks at every turn.

On the up side, I'm having a good time. There are people from all over the place here, and they are a lot of fun. I can't wait to meet some other sociology folks at the conference today, and then maybe we'll have some good people to hang out with tonight.

Peace and Love

Day 7 - From the Grand Canyon to Vegas

Before I say anything else, let me point out that the Grand Canyon is one of the most majestic, beautiful places on this planet. The End. I literally cannot describe the view from the southern rim, other than to say that beyond the first mile of space, it looks like someone took some red, yellow, and green paints and laid out the most incredible landscape they could. The human eye cannot perceive the distance that you can see from one end of the canyon to another. And I was lucky enough to hike upwards of four miles (I ran one of them) literally 10 feet from the edge. It was absolutely surreal.

I spent $8 to get in, and that was it for the day. I am now in Vegas, and am thus adjusting my financial expectations such that anything under $50 a night will be considered a win. I want to enjoy my vacation here without going completely nuts. I've committed to not gambling, so anything I spend here will be one pure entertainment without the delusion that I can win money from this place. I'm struggling to define being responsible in this place, so any comments on what I should expect of myself are very welcome.

Finally, I got some great work done on Max Weber's theory in the car this morning to the tune of two pages worth of summations on the values of different Protestant groups. I think this book may actually help my dissertation, but I won't bore people with the details here.

That's it tonight. I'm going to write something more in depth soon, but tonight is not the right night for it.

Day 6 - This Land is Beautiful

Alright, so it is borderline impossible to be in a bad mood in Arizona. There is no way to describe just how beautiful this state is, other than to say that the desert based lyrics and music of U2's "The Joshua Tree" comes closer to capturing the experience of being in this land than anything else I can think of. It is both so ascetically incredible and completely desolate.

I did about an hour of good work on my dissertation and theory writing this morning. I doubled my reading of Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism to both get my work for next week's class done and to inform my writing about my thesis topic. The more I do it, the more I am in love with the idea of getting a bit of the work I need to do over the long term done at a time. I feel no stress whatsoever, and that is a real accomplishment for me.

I ran three miles in Tucson. Once again, this place is gorgeous, and I loved breathing the light desert air and watching the changing scenery go by as I got my workout in for the day. The whole morning run got me energized and ready for the day.

I spent $19 today, of which $7 was spent on some groceries for the next couple of days. While I've been budgeting pretty well, I can't get under $10 on a day. It seems travelling makes it really hard to keep from spending money, but this will probably only get worse in Vegas. All I can say is please pray for me.

That's all I have for the night, and I'm going to go enjoy a good night's rest and get back to it in the morning.

Peace and Love.

Days Four and Five - Intermittent Communicae

So last night we stayed in a Motel 6, and they will leave the lights on for you. That's about all they will do, but still, it was a place to lay my head for the night. So, I didn't get to post an update yesterday.

I have to admit, Being on the road does test the being patient, seeing the positive, and staying kind thing to the max. I've managed not to snap at all, but instead of being joyful, I've been more emotionally flat, which may be good for a long trip, but not necessarily enjoyable for everyone else. I am happy with the extent to which I've been able to stay level headed though, so we'll see how the trend develops over the next few days.

Yesterday I went running for two miles, as noted in the day three entry, and I am planning to go running again when we get to Sedona tomorrow, although Tucson is so pretty I may make a running tour tomorrow morning before we leave.

I spent $16 yesterday between a 12 pack of dr pepper, transportation in Dallas, and get ripped off by some guy's street trick for $2.

Him: I bet I can tell you where you got your shoes.

Me: You're on, but I'm sure I am not gong to win anyway.

Him: Well, you got one on your right foot, and the other on your left.

Me: Here's your two dollars. (And that was neither funny or impressive)

Today I spent $12 on a Subway sandwich meal and helping to replace my headphones (a travelling mate accidentally broke them in the door two nights ago, and graciously offered to help me replace them). We are eating out tonight, and I've set a budget of $15 for the meal.

I've also done darn good with working on the dissertation stuff. I've managed to read and organize notes the last couple of days on a theory book while on the road, and I like having small chunks to bite off instead of dealing with a lot at once. Hopefully this will continue when I am not on the road for eight hours a day.

I'm practicing patience and delayed reactivity right now. I think it's really helpful to do what is necessary to navigate the situation at hand without reacting inappropriately or counter-productively. Today for instance, I can't count the number of times someone cut me off in traffic. Normally, I yell and get angry for at least five minutes about this kind of thing, but it doesn't change anything about the situation. The important thing is to make sure that I get out of the way safely and effectively, then go on about my day without turning someone else's road rage into my attitude issue. I think the phrase is "Let him have his wreck somewhere else." So, I guess I'm learning today not to internalize things that are completely external to my control. I think when I waste my efforts dealing with things I have no role in determining, life becomes more stressful and I am less able to do the things that have been put in front of me to impact.

Peace and Love.

Day Three - Go West!

We drove eight hours yesterday from Birmingham to Shreveport and made it into a Super 8 motel at about 1:30 this morning. Lots of good conversation and laughs to be had, and I think the trip is off to a good start.

This will be short because we are pressed for time.

Yesterday I spend $26.50 at a gas station to go ahead and fill up my car since gas should be more expensive when I get back. Also spent $12.50 on a bottle of whiskey from the abc for Vegas. Not really planning on drinking very much, but it'll end up being cheaper to have a drink at the hotel to cap off the evening than to go out for one.

I read a theory book for at least thirty minutes yesterday in the car, and the day before I did some summarizing and reviewing of game theory articles for my dissertation.

This morning I finally returned to running, and did a solid two miles in just under twenty minutes. FYI, it's really flat and bland near the Super 8 in Shreveport.

We're about to head out so I'll cut this short. Thanks for tagging along!

Day Two - And you thought I forgot.

So day two is in the books. I'm leaving for Vegas tomorrow so The next week of posts may be more sporadic but no less comprehensive.

Financially I made a bit of a splurge and spent $25 on a garment bag and duffle bag for the trip to make sure there would be enough room in the car for everyone's stuff. Also, I spend $5 on fod for the day, but ate breakfast here and made a lunch to save money (by made lunch I mean packed a lean cuisine, which was surprisingly not awful).

I still haven't recovered enough to run, so I'm going to try and run in the morning before we head out tomorrow afternoon. It sounds like I'm slacking, but honestly the sudden fever Tuesday night wiped out all my reserves. I even packed running clothes for the trip, and plan on making one good run near the grand canyon. And yes, pictures will be involved.

I didn't really encounter any situations I could approach negatively, but I did have some opportunities to practice patience in my interactions with others, and I think I did pretty well. I didn't try to maneuver or manipulate anyone into getting my own way, at least not that I was aware of, and there are at least a couple of times I could probably have done so. I'm thinking tonight about the idea of putting others first vs. being a doormat.

I have been accused of being a doormat a lot in my lifetime, but I've always wondered how that was different from just being nice to others. I've realized recently that being a doormat and being kind are actually mutually exclusive. Demanding your own way and letting people walk all over you, on the other hand, involve similar emotions. In both cases you are angry that someone might get their way instead of you, but in the former, you are proactively a jerk about it, while with the latter, you're just quietly pissed and resentful about it, which is no less being a jerk because you are not being honest with people. Instead, you hold resentment towards someone but try to pretend you are a bigger person. That is not true.

When we put others ahead of ourselves, it should be because doing so gives us pleasure, or I daresay, some sense of joy. It is difficult at times, but I think that it is better to step away from a situation than to let someone walk all over you and then be upset about it. When I am at my "doormat best", neither the people around me or myself are actually very happy for very long. It creates tension in relationships and sooner or later than turns ugly.

So what should happen when dealing with my wants/needs and those of others. I think the "you can't be all things to all people" maxim is actually pretty true. To be able to serve others, I have to know when I can commit to the needs of others and seize the moment and know when I'm just giving in to someone else's whimsy. There is a difference between willingly giving yourself to another/others and just capitulating to demands to keep the peace. To paraphrase the late and brilliant Thomas Merton, acts of love done simply to keep the loyalty of others are not love, but selfishness. That is a haunting revelation but also a helpful one. It is not just what we do, but the attitude driving it that determines how well we deal with others. I'm not saying that waiting until you are a saint to be unselfish is a good idea, but I am suggesting that understanding that there may be no visible reward for good deeds is important.

So what have I learned today? As always, I am learning that this spiritual journey is also a practical one, and that it is not clearcut. I know where I want my heart and hands to be, but I'm working on getting there and learning to enjoy the journey there.

Peace and God Bless.

Day One - I got the Fever. Literally

So Lent has not gotten off to the most fantastic start. Last night I took a fever about the same time I went to bed and I'm still trying to break it, so there is that.

At least for today my financial goals were pretty easy to meet. Considering I never went outside I never got to spend any money. Fortunately I stocked up on groceries this weekend so cheerios have been my best friend today.

My running schedule is supposed to consist of Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, so we shall see how I feel tomorrow and hopefully I'll get to stick to my regular schedule. The last few times I'm stuck 3 miles in under 30 minutes, so hopefully this bug I caught won't put me back too much.

As for my dissertation, I regret that I didn't do a stinking thing today. In hindsight I probably could have read in bed for a while, but when you have the shakes and spend half the day wondering how all that mucus managed to come from your nose, working is probably the least of your concerns.

I did have a chance to reflect on how I am handling some uncertainty regarding this Las Vegas trip. The plans keep changing as we keep finding out that there are some things we simply didn't plan very well for. However, I'm considering this an opportunity to realize that there are times when being cooperative is all you can really do. I think this trip is going to be interesting especially since there will be three of us in one car for a grand total of 70 hours there and back. I'm thinking this is a good chance to work on a)not sweating the small stuff, and b)taking a deep breathe before reacting to people. 3 full days is a lot of time in a small hunk of metal together, and in similar situations past I've been known to be an irritable guy. I'm not saying that things won't get on my nerves, but I'm going to do my best to be aware of how I react to cabin fever and be cool.

Tonight I apologize for the brevity of this update. Hopefully I'll be back at full speed in the morning with much more interesting insights to share and a day that does not involve me staying in bed coughing up a continent.

Fear/Hope

Appropriately, I was reading a piece by the classic social theorist Max Weber on politics when I came across a gem on an insight. In the middle of the lecture, Weber pointed out that people are motivated to act by either fear or hope. Fear of the consequences of disobedience, or hope in the possibilities of tomorrow. Weber was of course talking about politics, the state, and the ability to control people's behaviors, but I think the emotions of hope and fear are influential in any context.

As I've been thinking and preparing for the next forty days, I think it is important to meditate on the idea of fear and hope as powerful forces in daily life. I've been experiencing a little of both, though I think eagerness and anxiety would be the particular flavors I would pick to describe my own mix of emotions. I'm eager to find out what I'm really made of when I try to live every day as the kind of person I admire, but I am also anxious that if I fail, I will be deeply disappointed in myself and move towards cynical apathy. I am tempted to think that simply focusing on the hope of success and fulfillment is the one side of things I should focus on, but it seems that would be the same thing as putting blinders on and pretending some experiences aren't happening.

Perhaps fear should be the constant companion of hope, but not the debilitating kind. Being afraid to try something because you might fail can only lead to a metric ton of missed opportunities. Fear that you might miss out on life, that you will never know if you could be more, seems like a good companion for hope. I'd like to think that syncing the two towards a common goal of becoming a better person and genuinely engaging with the struggles of others can be a powerful weapon. I need to hope that what I do matters, that I can be about something greater than myself and my immediate concerns. With that comes a fear that this has no chance of coming true, but perhaps the more useful fear is that if I sit on my ass and accept that things never change, I will guarantee that they will never change.

Hope for joy, fear apathy. Perhaps that's the best way to begin living intentionally every day.

The Plan.

So Lent starts in two days, and I'm starting to realize just how disciplined I am going to have to be over the next month or so to meet the goals I set a few days ago. On one hand, I am excited about Lent because I deeply believe in the value of everything I have laid out to accomplish. These goals essentially represent five principles I want to work on.

1 - Productivity
2 - Care for Self
3 - Responsible stewardship
4 - Intentional Joy
5 - Care for others

These ideas sound great, right? They sound like things that anyone would benefit from. However, I am also going to be brutally honest about my feelings on what is about to happen. It scares the shit out of me. I have never done anything that requires this level of commitment before in my life. As I said last post, I've mostly been able to make it by on pure wit and improvisation, so this whole living every day with an intention to be the absolute best I can is pretty horrifying. Exhilarating, but also absolutely horrifying. I keep asking myself about what happens when I lose interest, get bored, or just get frustrated. I don't think I can do Lent by myself. I've tried going it alone before, and even when it works, it sucks. So I want have decided to put some measures in place to make this process more transparent. It's going to make things hard in the sense that I can't cheat and skip a day of work on this project, but i think I will be happy with it in the end.

I want you, the Internet community, to help me out by keeping up with my progress. I have committed to post a new blog every day to keep a public record of how things are going with my Lenten commitments. Every day starting Wednesday, you can expect to see the following-

1) A basic record of what I spent money during the day. I am not going to provide a line by line report on the Internet, but I will keep such records myself everyday, and give you the overview. Feel free to comment on the wisdom of some of my purchasing choices or make suggestions. The intent here is that if I know people are watching what I spend, I will be less likely to make poor financial decisions.

2) I will keep a record of my running schedule and results. This will be somewhat difficult since i don't have a fancy dancy device to keep track of this kind of stuff, but at the very least I will tell you how many minutes I ran, about how far I ran (in laps around a location if I can't estimate the actual mileage)

3) I will post what part of my dissertation I worked on, and in the case that I absolutely have nothing to do on the dissertation itself, I will report what I did instead.

4) I will write a brief reflection on how I experienced the day, including insights and how I tried to approach the day as a whole. I will not keep records of specific conversations between others and myself, because I feel that while I am making my journey public, I have a responsibility to those in my social sphere to guard their privacy.

OK, so that's the plan in short. I do hope that a few people at the very least will take part in this process with me. I forewarn anyone who wants to keep up with me that for the week of spring break, I will be on a road trip to a sociology conference in Vegas. I am not sure how I am going to make daily updates during this time, but at the least I will keep a good record of every day's work and find a way to post it regularly during that time.

Well, here we go. I hope something good comes of this.

Lenten Commitments

I didn't really make any noticeable New Years resolutions in January. it's not that there aren't things I need to work on, I just wasn't focused on any of them. I've been thinking a lot this year though about focus. It has never been a strong suit of mine no matter what I do. Frankly, I've just always been good enough or lucky enough to get by, but that isn't satisfying anymore. I want to excel. I want to see just how good I can be at a few things and latch onto doing my absolute best at them. my friend Chris (and a few others) pointed out that I go through stretches of interest in things then just move on, which isn't a bad thing, but it does keep me from being really awesome at something. I want to make my mark, like a friend of mine from high school, Nathan.

Nathan is into turtles. Really, really into turtles. Since middle school, virtually all of his working effort has gone into getting where he is today, finishing graduate studies as a marine biologist to become the turtle expert. I heard an interview of him with NPR today, and I thought about how incredible it is that Nathan took a dream, as simple as it was, and has turned it into a way to make his mark in the world. It got me motivated, just a little bit. So I decided that starting in Lent, I'm going to pick five things and spend the rest of the year committing to them. The forty days is a test run, and I hope my friends will keep me encouraged and accountable to hold to them.

1) I will work on my dissertation topic every day, for at least thirty minutes, and for at least an hour once a week. I have an idea, but I need to hone it and develop some serious goals to get it started. I'm looking at social perceptions of self and other, specifically how we compare our own needs and value to that of others, and how this effects either healthy or destructive social behaviors. I need to make this idea clear and start becoming an expert on everything there is to know about the subject. Then I need to start working on making a real contribution that can help people. I think it's a good subject, I've always been interested in how we perceive ourselves and how it either helps or hurts ourselves and our communities/relationships. But I need to work on it hard and joyfully.

2) I will run three times a week. This has nothing to do with the task itself. The point is not to become an awesome runner or super fit. The point is to commit to doing something for the sake of self-improvement long term, and hold myself accountable to sticking to it even when I don't feel like it. The big reason I picked running in particular is because my Sunday School class are really into it, so I think I have a good support group built in to hold me to it.

3) I will spend less to entertain myself, and do more to find enjoyment in things that are free. This one is really hard for me. I love being lazy, and am easily distracted by anything. I also hate being bored, and usually fix that with blind, dumb, American entertainment. which usually costs money. Part of this I think involves doing things with people other than going out places. It's all well and good, but sometimes it just feels like I'm spending money to go out and see people. More hanging out, less buying stuff to do it.

4) I am going to practice positivity. This one sounds cliche, but I am well practiced in negativity, and it has never helped me. I can be really cynical in the name of healthy skepticism, but I have yet to encounter a situation where it has made my life better or been a benefit to the people around me. This one is going to be hard, because my main defense for doing something I don't feel like doing is to naysay it, but I've noticed that people who find the best in situations tend to get the best out of themselves and others.

5) I am going to love people actively. I do this sometimes, but a most of the time I just say whatever sounds clever without thinking about how it affects people. What I think is funny sarcasm is actually damaging to others and my relationship with them. This one is going to be really hard I think, but I am going to make the best effort I can to practice the art of encouraging others whenever I have the opportunity.

So that's it. I feel like these are all a tall order and just filling them could take up every waking hour of every day, but starting next Wednesday, this is my plan. To really specify them down, here are my simple goals.

1) Work on my academic career outside of what is required for the immediate future thirty minutes a day or more.

2) Run for thirty minutes three times a week

3) Spend less money this month on myself than I did last month

4) Find at least one positive thing in every situation I encounter, especially if I find something negative to say.

5) Be kind and encouraging to each person I talk to every day.