A Haiku (edit: after review, an edit resulted in this being a near-haiku. oops!)
Coffee tastes great.
It is my first smile of the
day. More caffeine, please.
Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.
Interesting.
We were working around the house rampantly last night in advance of house guests. Why is it always that way? I don’t know. I mean, sometimes are obviously worse than others, but even the “good” times require some clean up. Anyway, as we cleaned, it occurred to me again how little good I am around the house when it comes to fixing things. Some guys have more aptitude that way than others. I had a moment of sadness for Luke, because, well, he’ll grow up not learning how to fix things well either (unless he spends a lot of time with Rebecca’s dad). That really kind of stinks.
But then I realized that I was just falling into the ever-so-common “Grass is Greener” way of thinking. I may not be able to raise my boy to be a fix-it-all like Bob Vila (heck, even Red Green would be a step up!), but then, Bob Vila probably wouldn’t be able to raise a child to understand computers, economics, and english like I can. That might not be fair to Bob, but the point is, I can’t raise a child the way he can, but he can’t raise a kid the way I can, either.
Kinda comforting. But not in a “my dad could beat up your dad” way.
At this point, I think we’ve all heard Malcolm Gladwell’s statement that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become great at an activity or hobby. It resonates with me.
The problem is, I’ve started to ask myself, without any alterations in how I spend my time, what am I becoming great at?
The answer, unfortunately, is that on my own I am becoming great at wasting time on the internet. Now, 20 years ago, that would’ve maybe meant something, but today, it means that I am one of many. Maybe even one of most.
Which is really pretty lousy. I mean, people who are good at wasting time on the internet today are like people who were great at following instructions during the industrial revolution. No, wait, those people actually provided something of value to society. People who are good at wasting time online don’t even do that.
I’m going to try to pick a couple of things to get great at that are beneficial–if not for society at large, then at least for me and my family.
What are you becoming great at naturally?
True or false? I’m not sure, particularly about the first half of the quote. Discuss.
You know, the internet blew up the other week when Anne Rice announced that she was leaving organized Christianity. She sliced that pretty well, actually, saying that nothing changed about what Jesus did for her life, just that she was sick and tired of being associated with a lot of the things done by organized religion. There’s a pretty in-depth story at Christianity Today about it. Now, it’s clear from her statement that Ms. Rice and I are about as far apart on a lot of issues as two people could be. But…
I guess what gets me is that some days, I understand where she’s coming from. Some days, the dialogue that Christians are trying to have with the world really does seem hateful, arrogant, and… I’ll say it… dumb. Really dumb. We have the Gospel, and instead we share our twelve (hundred) points (stated negatively) for transforming culture, or politics, or whatever.
We do not transform anything. The Gospel transforms everything. Man, some days I wish we acted like we believed it.
Sometimes it’s awfully tough to know exactly what your creative output is supposed to look like. That’s where I am right now. Having just had a brilliant weekend at the Hutchmoot, I’m more encouraged and challenged than ever by my love for story (and The Story). I want to put that to good use. I’m just not certain what that’s supposed to look like. So of course, being the very private person I am, here I am processing that in front of an audience. How fun!
Life, of course, has its stages. I’m still learning how to be a good dad; I’m still learning how to be a good businessman / employee. I’m still learning how to juggle all the requirements on my time. I’m still learning how to be disciplined. Those are hard processes.They are time consuming. They are sometimes frustrating.
But, one thing I’m learning is that it doesn’t get easier. It probably gets harder. It definitely takes on different looks as life progresses, but if I don’t learn how to master my time and my output now, I won’t have any easier time later.
I’m thinking of combining a few pieces of advice I’ve heard and read lately. Chip MacGregor offered great advice on taking writing seriously the other day. I think I’m going to combine those thoughts with “Start small” and maybe go back to trying my hand at short stories.
I’ll let you know how it works out!
I got to spend some refreshing time with my favorite person in the world yesterday evening. I married her, so we spend a lot of time together, but yesterday was a particularly great time, involving dropping the kid off (did he have the best time of all? From the way he talked about it, possibly).
One of the great benefits of taking an evening to go out together is getting a chance to catch up. My wife is my best feedback loop. She sees things that I can’t identify, both problems and strengths. She’s not the type to make things up just to make me feel better (Proof? Final mini golf scores: Rebecca – 57 (2 over), Andrew – 60 (5 over)… definitely no problem beating me).
But, when we talk, it’s not a dispassionate discourse. It’s not neutral. She’s invested. She cares (Even when it’s stuff that she wouldn’t have cared about before she married me). That’s what makes the conversation so valuable. I get interaction at a level that is in direct proportion to the love Rebecca has for me.
So, sometimes maybe there’s a value to getting feedback from a dispassionate source. But, there’s a lot more value (when you have the right sources) to getting feedback from people who are invested in you.
Yep, all the cool kids are doing it. I’m going to take from now to the end of July off.
See ya around… in August.
Oh PB and J, how you are adored in this household. I just spent 3 minutes crafting the world’s easiest sandwich for my little boy while suggesting possible alternatives for him… it turns out that he is not interested in pb and tomato, pb and pickles, pb and water, or pb and anything else. With the possible exception of banana, of course, because like his dad, he realizes how awesome that is.
It’s great to be able to cause happiness with 20 cents of bread, peanut butter and grape jam. (American grape jam is much more like jelly than it is jam, but I digress.) I’m not often happy about simple things. PB&J doesn’t make me smile the way it makes my boy smile. Neither does loading the dishwasher.
Maybe I’m missing something? I’ve gotta go help a little boy load the dishwasher.
