Wild at Heart {Recommended Reading}

I don't claim to be an avid reader by any stretch. Actually, that's not true. I'm not an avid book reader. Blog posts? Love 'em. Magazine articles less than 6 pages? Sign me up. Anything photography related with a couple diagrams thrown in? I'm your guy. But when it comes to books, my attitude has generally remained the same since 4th grade... the fewer the pages and the bigger the pictures, the better the odds are I'll actually finish it. And those kinda books have gotten me to where I'm at so far. Those that know me are probably thinking, 'Hmmm... yah, that explains a lot.' Well, I finally agree.

I've seen patterns in my life lately that are difficult for me to wrap my head around, and these are opportunities for growth. We all have things we struggle with, and for me personally those things have hindered where I want to go and what I want to do with my life, and I'm trying to address those things and grow beyond them. Through the grace of God, I'll get there one day.

I don't want the blog to become a soapbox or a platform for me to preach, but every once in a while I experience or see things that I think can really help people, and I want to share those things. Enter Wild at Heart by John Eldridge. This book was given to me by someone special quite a while ago, someone who knew better than I did that this book could help me. I picked it up at one time or another on several occasions but never really committed myself to reading it, always putting it off telling myself "I'll get to it some day'. We all know what happens to 'some day', and so it sat on the night stand collecting dust. A series of circumstances over the last week and a half have caused me to take a 2nd look. All I can say is I wish I'd read this book years ago. I'm only half way through it, but it's enough to know I'd recommend it to others.

Wild at Heart deals with every man's struggle to live a life that's real and meaningful and in the image that God created him to be. We as men are taught at an early age by society and even in most churches that we should strive to be "really nice guys". If you think about it, almost every image you have ever seen of Jesus (maybe with the exception of the movie The Passion of the Christ) is one of a perfectly pleasant looking man with a mild and accepting demeanor. In reality, while Christ may have been this way, he was also very much a warrior and a protector demonstrating strength and passion. This is the image of God that most men - myself included - don't live up to. In fact, we're more afraid of what we're not and we will do almost anything to protect those insecurities. Ultimately in being molded into nice guys, we become bored and boring to others. Here's just a few lines form the book that really hit home with me.

"They may be misplaced, forgotten or misdirected, but in the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue."

"We are hiding, every last one of us. Well aware that we, too, are not what we were meant to be, desperately afraid of exposure, terrified of being seen for what we are and are not, we have run into the bushes. We hide in our office, in the gym, behind the newspaper or computer, behind our personality. Most of what you encounter when you meet a man is a facade... an elaborate fig leaf, a brilliant disguise."

"The truth is, [we] feel like [we're] just bluffing our way through life and someday soon [we'll] be exposed as an impostor. ...Truth be told, most of us are faking our way through life. We pick only those battles we are sure to win, only those adventures we are sure to handle, only those beauties we are sure to rescue."

"Until a man knows he's a man he will forever be trying to prove he is one, while at the same time shrink from anything that might reveal he is not. Most men live their lives haunted by the question, or crippled by the answer they've been given."

"[As a result of their unhealed emotional wounds,] so many men feel stuck – either paralyzed and unable to move, or unable to stop moving."

"Are we willing to live the level of risk God invites us to? Something inside us hesitates."

These are just a few of so many statements that I have read and felt like this guy knew me. This book deals with discovering the essence of a man's soul and what it looks like to truly live as God intended us to live. If your not a spiritual person, I'm confident you'll still find this book intriguing and inspiring and helpful.

Finally, this quote from Albert Schweitzer is so simple and powerful to me - "The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives".

I encourage you to pick up a copy today and see if you don't learn something about yourself, or ladies in your case, something about your man.

And now, back to regular scheduled programming.

10 Reasons You Aren't Getting Anything Done

The following text is from a post penned by the good folks at lifehack.org. If you haven't checked out their site, give it a try. It's been rated as the #38 most popular blog in the blogosphere by technorati with a self-described goal of helping you get thins done faster and more efficiently.

This post really hit home with me because I sometimes get frustrated and/or overwhelmed with where my life is or isn't going, and I'm guilty of several things on the list. Ideally none of you need to read this post and you're lives are progressing exactly how you desired/planned. If not, though, I hope this post inspires you to take back control of your life. Enjoy.

If you’re not reaching the kind of success you imagine in the areas that are important to you, one or more of the following things might well be true of you:

1. You don’t have a goal.
A lot of time we find ourselves “spinning our wheels”, struggling through a day-to-day routine that isn’t getting us anywhere because we don’t know where we want to go. Sometimes we had goals when we set ourselves on a particular path, but we’ve changed along the way and those goals are no longer that important. Sometimes we simply did what was expected of us without ever stopping to think about what we eventually wanted to accomplish for ourselves. Whatever the case, figuring out what your goals are and, just as importantly, whether your current actions are helping to achieve them, is important.

2. You don’t have a vision.
Setting goals is important but isn’t enough to drive you to the finish line; it’s important, too, to be able to imagine yourself as the achiever of your goals. How will you feel, what’s the payoff, why is it worthwhile to follow these goals and not some other ones? If goals are the end result of a journey, your vision is the fuel to get you there.

3. You don’t have a plan.
If goals are your destination and a vision is your fuel, your plan is the map to get you there; without a plan, you have no idea what immediate steps to take to achieve your goals. Planning means taking stock of the resources you have, the resources you need, and the steps you have to take to put those resources into action. The world is full of people with goals they have never accomplished because they didn’t have a plan — don’t you be one of them.

4. You’re too certain.
Too much certainty creates inflexibility. If you’re sure that your plan is correct, and refuse to accept the possibility of error, you may well find yourself stuck when an unexpected change comes about, or when your plan takes you in an unexpected direction. However strong your plan and however sure you are of your goals, make room for periodic reassessment.

5. You’re not certain enough.
At the same time, too little certainty will paralyze you. If you refuse to take a step because you aren’t positive it will move you towards success, you won’t make any better progress than if you had no goals at all. Keep your eyes open and be willing to change, but have faith in yourself, too.

6. You don’t learn from your mistakes.
A lot of people take their mistakes as signs of their unworthiness. They take setbacks as proof that they were never meant to achieve anything in the first place, and that they were stupid to even try. Mistakes are crucial to success — if we take the time to analyze them and learn from them. Even when they bar us irrevocably from attaining a goal, the lessons we learn from our mistakes help us to make new and better goals.

7. You reject outside influences.
A lot of people see the influence of others as a weakness, or worse, a restriction or even “pollution” of their innate creativity. This is, in a word, hogwash. We are first and foremost social beings, none of whom has ever accomplished anything without the help of others. Welcome and accept other perspectives on your strengths and weaknesses, your successes and failures. Accept help graciously when it’s offered. This doesn’t mean you should take every piece of advice offered you, but you should listen seriously and openly and weigh carefully the input of others. And learn from their mistakes, when you can.

8. You worry about being copied.
Often we close ourselves off from other people not because we’re afraid that they will influence us but that we will influence them, that our brilliant ideas will be taken up by someone else and no longer be solely ours. So we avoid sharing our passions, and spend our energy jealously guarding our “secret” rather than simply moving forward. In the end, we turn our passions into burdens that become difficult to carry instead of a joy.

9. You use up your reserves.
When I’ve found myself at my lowest points, it’s always been for lack of a reserve — whether of money, of time, or most crucially of energy. In part this was the fault of inadequate planning and over-certainty — I should have reassessed my situation more realistically before exhausting my resources — but whatever the cause, it’s a dangerous place to be. A mistake that could be easily recovered from under normal circumstances becomes overwhelming when you’re too broke or too exhausted to respond adequately. Keep track of where you are financially, materially, and emotionally before you find yourself too worn down to continue.

10. You fear success.
Forget fear of failure, it’s fear of success that kicks us the hardest. It’s the darnedest thing, too — the kind of thing that you don’t imagine possible, until one day you realize that you really don’t know what to do with yourself if you ever accomplish your goals. On the other side of success is the unknown, and believe it or not, the unknown is often scarier than the known world of struggle and unfulfillment this side of success. When I realized this, one night as I drifted unhappily to sleep, it jerked me straight up in my bed!

Time to Downsize?

If you haven't checked out Escape from Cubicle Nation, give it a test drive. Pamela Slim writes some really good stuff on this blog mainly about freeing yourself from the corporate/work chains and experiencing a more meaningful life. There's lots of great resources there as well. BTW, I'm not being paid to advertise this blog (unfortunately). In fact, Pamela doesn't even know my name or that I even exist. I just think anytime someone is creating quality stuff that might benefit others, it should be passed on. You might call it sort of an unwritten civic duty.

She posted an article today on downsizing your life to get more out of it. We see so many people trying to live the "American dream" these days, and there's nothing wrong with that, but at what cost (financial and emotional) is this worth it? And is the American dream really your dream, or just what society and advertising leads us to believe we should be chasing after? Check out this latest article.

Dream On

I'm not a huge reader which is to say more often than not I have the attention span of a 3 year old when it comes to reading books. I'm trying to get better about it, though, and one book that even I really enjoy reading and highly recommend is Leadership Promises For Every Day by John C Maxwell. It's perfect for quick, easy reads each day (ideal for limited attention spans like mine) with great insights, suggestions and motivation based in biblical principles for becoming a better leader.

Here's a little excerpt from May 5th's reading titled "Dream On":

"Many people discover their dream in a flash of insight after working in an area for years. Some receive it in a time of prayer. Others are motivated by an event from their past. If you haven't already discovered your dream, read the following five steps that will help clear away the clutter and discover your dream:

1. Believe in your ability to succeed. You must believe in your ability to succeed if you are to succeed.

2. Get rid of your pride. People full of themselves usually don't have much room left over for a life-changing dream.

3. Cultivate constructive discontent. Discontent is the driving force that makes people search for their dreams. Complacency never brings success.

4. Escape the habit. Don't accept what is without considering what could be.

5. Balance creativity with character. When it comes to their dreams, truly successful people have enough creativity to think it out, and enough character to try it out."

Now go start dreaming.

Don't Be the Box

I read an article by D. Keith Robinson today titled "Don't Be the Box", and it was right on cue for the way I've kinda felt today.

Here's a little excerpt that I really relate to:

"It can be horribly stifling to define yourself by those rules, guidelines, prejudices and constraints that surround you. When you become the box you lock yourself into a way of thinking that doesn’t allow you to adapt at all.

Have you ever worked with someone who questions everything, or someone who sees everything though one very narrow point of view? What about someone who has to have everything around them defined for them? These kind of people have become the box, and it’s not a healthy way to work. For them, or for their coworkers. Especially when creativity is involved."

We have all known and likely worked with these type of people, and I really encourage you not to let them be road blocks to your goals and ultimate success. Also, don't be the box that constrains other people's passions either. I love some of the quotes from George Bernard Shaw, and a couple of them that come to mind here are:

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man."

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them."