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01-16-12

5 reasons why commitment and responsibility trump the independent life

Most young peo­ple (and even older adults) run from things that might tie them down. A full time job, buy­ing a house, mar­riage, etc. They want to live a life that’s free. A life where if their desires change, there’s noth­ing hold­ing them back from fol­low­ing through on them. At a quick glance, peo­ple might say that inde­pen­dence is the sim­pler life. There’s less respon­si­bil­ity and there­fore more joy (after all, that’s what this blog is about, get­ting the most out of life through simplicity).

How­ever, I’m going to argue against that premise and lay out 5 rea­sons why hav­ing com­mit­ment and respon­si­bil­ity are more free­ing and enjoyable.

1. In order to build a life of sub­stance, there needs to be a solid foun­da­tion. You can’t build a sky­scraper on sand, nei­ther can you move up in life if you never set­tle down and take on respon­si­bil­ity. I’m not speak­ing of only mov­ing up finan­cially. In all areas of life, there’s room to grow, and growth requires a firm foun­da­tion (phys­i­cally and emotionally).

2. Per­ma­nence allows for you to invest. Whether it’s invest­ing in rela­tion­ships, the com­mu­nity, your church, etc. Not that you can’t make a dif­fer­ence in a person’s life in a short time period, but some of the most reward­ing moments in life are see­ing your hard work and invest­ments grow and mature over time.

3. Rou­tine takes away the stress of the unknown. Some could argue that hav­ing bills, a fam­ily, and a full time job can be stress­ful. On the other hand, it can be just as stress­ful when you’re always won­der­ing if you’ll get enough hours this week or if the you’ll have enough free­lance projects, your retire­ment, when that spe­cial some­one is going to come into your life, and liv­ing pay check to pay check can be rough when your car unex­pect­edly dies.

4. Sta­bil­ity and reg­u­lar­ity build cred­i­bil­ity. As you invest in those rela­tion­ships, your net­work grows, and assum­ing you’re a per­son of char­ac­ter, so does your rep­u­ta­tion. This is another aspect of mov­ing up (from point 1). A good name is to be more desired than pre­cious met­als (that’s what the Bible says). And as a Chris­t­ian, a good name is what you want because it implies an abil­ity to more effec­tively min­is­ter to other peo­ple and have influ­ence in their lives.

5. Per­ma­nence in the begin­ning allows for more inde­pen­dence in the long run. As you work that full time job, as you put in the years in one place, and as you build your sav­ings account, the oppor­tu­ni­ties abound. Per­haps you can’t take week­end road trips all the time in the begin­ning, and maybe you can’t spend the sum­mer back­pack­ing through Europe, but a well planned and invested life will give you more oppor­tu­ni­ties in the long run to do just as many, if not more, amaz­ing things that your friends did in the first few years of their young adult­hood. Because when you reach your 30s and you find your­self well estab­lished, your friends who didn’t want to set­tle will find them­selves fac­ing a harsh real­ity that they’re 10yr behind the eight ball hav­ing to start a career, and their days of inde­pen­dence will for the most part have ended, while yours are just beginning.

*Side note: If God’s called you to live a life as a missionary, evangelist, or mil­i­tary per­son­nel, that’s a dif­fer­ent story. I’m talk­ing about the peo­ple who aren’t nec­es­sar­ily look­ing to God’s leading.

11-18-11

The Simple Guide to Finding God’s Will

So the end of the mat­ter is this: Live for God. Obey the Scrip­tures. Think of oth­ers before your­self. Be holy. Love Jesus. And as you do these things, do what­ever else you like, with whomever you like, wher­ever you like, and you’ll be walk­ing in the will of God.

Occa­sion­ally I like to read through the whole book of Eccle­si­astes in one sit­ting. At first it’s pretty depress­ing as you read about how every­thing we do is all in vain, but at the very end of the book, the author brings it all around and leaves the reader with a very sim­ple and some­what inspir­ing (depend­ing how you look at it) mes­sage. In Eccle­si­astes I believe I have found an answer to the age old ques­tion of find­ing God’s will for our lives.

Life is pointless.

Van­ity of van­i­ties, says the Preacher,
van­ity of van­i­ties! All is van­ity.
What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
A gen­er­a­tion goes, and a gen­er­a­tion comes,
but the earth remains for­ever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and has­tens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its cir­cuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
All things are full of weari­ness;
a man can­not utter it;
the eye is not sat­is­fied with see­ing,
nor the ear filled with hear­ing.
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is noth­ing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
There is no remem­brance of for­mer things,
nor will there be any remem­brance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.
(Eccle­si­astes 1:2–11 ESV)

Your life sit­u­a­tion is not unique.

Did you see that part in the pre­vi­ous pas­sage where it says “there’s noth­ing new under the sun?” So often we like to think we’ve got a prob­lem that no one else can relate to. The truth is, all prob­lems can be cat­e­go­rized and boil down to a few things. Stop think­ing your prob­lem is this huge thing that can’t be solved. When you think your prob­lem is unique, we tend to down­play the advice we receive, even of those who are much older and wiser.

The first step in find­ing God’s will is rec­og­niz­ing that His will is sim­ple and so is your prob­lem (in one sense). Don’t over think.

Do what­ever you love.

So every­thing is point­less and noth­ing we do is new. We just keep rein­vent­ing the wheel and think we’re doing some­thing novel when in real­ity we’re not. So, the author boils his con­clu­sion of life down to this.

I per­ceived that there is noth­ing bet­ter for them than to be joy­ful and to do good as long as they live; also that every­one should eat and drink and take plea­sure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. (Ecc 3:12–13)

The author con­tin­ues to say this:

There is a van­ity that takes place on earth, that there are right­eous peo­ple to whom it hap­pens accord­ing to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked peo­ple to whom it hap­pens accord­ing to the deeds of the right­eous. I said that this also is van­ity. (Ecc 8:14)

Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. (Ecc 11:9)

Basi­cally it’s knock­ing the idea of karma. Good peo­ple some­times suf­fer what we think bad peo­ple deserve and some­times bad peo­ple enjoy the ben­e­fits that we think are befit­ting of good peo­ple. There­fore, the sec­ond quotes con­cludes that the whole mat­ter is van­ity and there­fore we should just do what­ever we enjoy doing. Whether it’s morally good or bad, it doesn’t humanly matter.

You will be held accountable.

Chris­tians might freak a lit­tle bit at the thought the Bible would tell us we can do what­ever we want. Don’t get too hung up on that. The point is that it’s all van­ity. In real­ity, the author says in the very last sen­tence of the book, “For God will bring every deed into judg­ment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” Here on earth, what you do doesn’t hold much weight, but that’s not to say it doesn’t count for some­thing in eternity.

The bot­tom line is to fear God and keep His commandments.

“The end of the mat­ter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his com­mand­ments, for this is the whole duty of man.” That’s it, that’s all there is to say. You can share your story with me and make out your life sit­u­a­tion to be as com­plex as you think it is, but my response will always con­clude the same way. Are you fear­ing God and keep­ing his commandments?

What are the commandments?

Let me gen­er­ally list off the com­mand­ments for our life.

1. Live/​pursue a life that mir­rors God’s holi­ness (Look at Exo­dus 20 and Gala­tians 5)
2. Be involved and actively serv­ing in a local body of believ­ers. (Hebrews 10:25)
3. Evan­ge­lize and dis­ci­ple peo­ple around you. (Matt 28:19)

Bring­ing it all together.

As an exam­ple, you may ques­tion if cos­me­tol­ogy is some­thing you can jus­tify doing as a Chris­t­ian for a liv­ing and how that fits into God’s plan. Well, my first ques­tion is if you ‘re actively being faith­ful in keep­ing the 3 com­mand­ments above? If you are and your desire to do what­ever it may be isn’t sin­ful, then that’s all I want to know. In fact, I encour­age peo­ple to be inte­rior design­ers or cos­me­tol­o­gist (often thought of as vain occu­pa­tions when in real­ity every­thing is vain) because you have an oppor­tu­nity to relate and there­fore min­is­ter to other peo­ple in those occu­pa­tions whereas it may not be as easy for me.

Fear God, keep his com­mand­ments, and do what­ever you desire. This is the chief end of man. You don’t need a writ­ing on the wall. God has given us the lib­erty to do what we love and it doesn’t have to be directly spir­i­tual, we just have to be inten­tion­ally spir­i­tual wher­ever we are, doing what­ever we’re doing.

09-06-11

6 people who taught me how to be happy

I had a friend recently com­ment that I seem sat­is­fied and happy with every­thing in my life. I responded by say­ing it wasn’t always that way, but through life expe­ri­ences I came to a place a cou­ple years ago where I am truly happy. It made me start reflect­ing on some of the most influ­en­tial peo­ple that have brought me to that point. Here’s my list.

Ricky Hill — “Don’t worry”

This was my col­lege room­mate who hailed from St. Vin­cent. He embod­ies the laid back cul­ture of the Caribbean. We’d have long dis­cus­sions in our room about life and per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity. He walked around cam­pus seem­ingly with­out a care in the world. I use to despise that atti­tude until one day it hit me that life is what it is and there’s lit­tle you can do about it, so don’t worry.

Jacques Paganel — “Enjoy it!”

Jacques Paganel is a char­ac­ter in the old Dis­ney film “In Search of the Cast­aways.” Don’t know why but there’s a scene that’s stuck in my mind. They were in this huge tree and trapped by flood waters. Jacques begins singing a song enti­tled “Enjoy It” which talks about see­ing the sil­ver lin­ing. Here’s a few of the lines, “A hur­ri­cane comes your way, enjoy the breeze. You’re stranded in the jun­gle, enjoy the trees. Voila, that’s life, enjoy it!”.

William Bor­den — “No reserves. No retreats. No regrets”

I read this guy’s biog­ra­phy in mid­dle school. It has had a pro­found affect on my life as I learned about a man who had incred­i­ble ambi­tions in life and died at the age of 29 before accom­plish­ing what he set out to do. In his Bible he penned, “No reserves. No retreats. No regrets.” Was he per­fect? No. I resolved a long time ago never to have regrets but to real­ize that expe­ri­ences, good or bad, are all good ulti­mately, depend­ing on what you do with them. I have no regrets. To me, what doesn’t kill me, only makes me stronger. One of my tag lines is, “Life is what you make it to be, and I choose to live extraordinarily.”

Mary Pop­pins — “Make life a game”

Another Dis­ney char­ac­ter we all know well. If you know me per­son­ally, you might have heard me say that life is a game or one big joke. It’s not to say I don’t take life seri­ously but I try to be light hearted as I make my way through life. Mary Pop­pins taught the chil­dren a les­son one day while they were clean­ing their rooms how to make it a game. I’ve tried to employ that prin­ci­ple by mak­ing the most out of what I do and make it fun.

Reepicheep — “This is an adventure!”

Another char­ac­ter who’s atti­tude has affected me is Reepicheep from the Nar­nia movies. His high spir­its and knack for adven­ture have become some­thing I try imper­son­ate. I try to look at life as one big adven­ture, never know­ing what the next turn will bring. I’ve come to appre­ci­ate the lit­tle things and get excited about them whether it be meet­ing a new friend or hav­ing a new expe­ri­ence. Every­day is an adven­ture because every­day is a blank canvas.

Paul (the apos­tle) - “I have learned in what­ever sit­u­a­tion I am to be content.”

Paul is an awe­some exam­ple to me. My favorite book in the Bible is Phillip­i­ans and it’s writ­ten by Paul who is in jail. He says, “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every cir­cum­stance, I have learned the secret of fac­ing plenty and hunger, abun­dance and need. I can do all things through him [Christ] who strength­ens me.” That’s ulti­mately the “secret” to my hap­pi­ness. I have Christ and he is all I need.

02-24-11

Observations of Paramedic School and Life Thereafter

I’m about 2 out of 12 months into my para­medic pro­gram. It’s bit­ter sweet because it’s some­thing I’m pas­sion­ate about and yet it’s incred­i­bly hard. I just wanted to point out a few things about the pro­gram to help friends under­stand what I’m going through or for those of you who may know some­one in medic school or other med­ical schooling.

Lim­ited Time

Here’s a break down of what my time looks like each week.

• 18hr — class (8hr 2x a week)
• 40hr — work
• 10-​​20hr — clinicals
• 12hr — studying
• 12hr — driving

That totals 92–102 hours per week of set time. That’s not includ­ing vari­able essen­tials like sleep, hygiene, and eat­ing. It’s also really dif­fi­cult to get other things done like car main­te­nance or other needs that can only be done dur­ing nor­mal busi­ness hours, but I’m usu­ally occu­pied every day of the week dur­ing those hours.

Social Life

I would say deal­ing with peo­ple not in medic school or the med­ical field is just as task­ing as school itself. Para­medics have only been around offi­cially for 30yr, so not as much is known about them as say a nurse or doc­tor. How­ever, a paramedic’s school­ing is just as intense as nurs­ing or med school. The dif­fer­ence is we spe­cial­ize in emer­gency med­i­cine and it’s only 1yr.

I’ve heard from some nurses who have also gone through para­medic school that it’s harder than nurs­ing school. There’s peo­ple in my class with master’s degrees and say that that doesn’t com­pare to what they’re going through right now. Cur­rent mil­i­tary who say this is harder than boot camp. I’ve grad­u­ated with a BA in 3yr and taken a grad class and gone through EMT school in that time, and this is infi­nitely harder.

Hav­ing said all that, peo­ple just don’t under­stand. So, there’s expec­ta­tions they have for things to be rel­a­tively the same, and when I don’t meet those expec­ta­tions that’s when things get messy. Peo­ple start think­ing there’s some­thing wrong and some take it personally.

Then there’s the peo­ple who want to know what I’m learn­ing and how things are going. My answer is pretty much the same to them because how do you explain some­thing in a few min­utes that’s so com­plex that you don’t even under­stand after hear­ing a lec­ture on it for 4hr?

It’s like talk­ing to a brick wall when I try to explain what I’m learn­ing in school or how intense it is. Peo­ple don’t get it and there­fore the expec­ta­tions still remain.

Per­sonal Affect

How does this all effect me? Well, I’m being worn down on all sides. It dri­ves me to seek iso­la­tion because of the above fac­tors and because I need time to study. On the rare occa­sion I get free time I nat­u­rally grav­i­tate to hang­ing out with oth­ers who can relate at this point in my life.

Let’s not for­get that I’m also still work­ing on an ambu­lance, so I’m faced with the real­ity of life and death every­day. It does 2 things para­dox­i­cally. First, it is very sober­ing and has a life alter­ing affect on my per­son­al­ity the more I’m involved in this line of work, and sec­ond, I see so much of it that it begins to numb me and being numbed to such stark real­i­ties has pro­found influ­ences on how I relate to all other aspects of life.

Life After Para­medic School

So, after going through such an intense pro­gram and deal­ing with the stuff I do at work, I develop a unique coping/​stress man­age­ment sys­tem. I use to won­der when I first started work­ing in the EMS why med­ical peo­ple seemed to revolve around their job and other med­ical peo­ple. Now I’m begin­ning to under­stand. It’s because almost every­thing else seems so fake and super­fi­cial in com­par­i­son (with the excep­tion of my faith).

I’m not say­ing I’ll be a her­mit and won’t be socia­ble. I’m intrin­si­cally socia­ble and I don’t think that will ever change, but I can def­i­nitely feel things chang­ing and it’s very clear to me that by the end of this year I won’t be the same per­son. Granted, every­one changes, but this change will be sig­nif­i­cant for such a short period of time.

Those are my obser­va­tions in a nut shell. I’m curi­ous if oth­ers in the med­ical field have sim­i­lar con­clu­sions, or if you’ve made those obser­va­tions of oth­ers in the med­ical field.

01-25-11

Stop Calling Me a Minimalist

I just fin­ished read­ing Everett’s lat­est blog post “F*** Min­i­mal­ism”. He’s come to some real­iza­tions that min­i­mal­ism isn’t the end all. It’s a good reminder to those of us who’ve claimed the hip tag of “min­i­mal­ist”. I specif­i­cally chose Live [Sim­ply] Free because my life isn’t just about min­i­mal­ism. That was just one part of liv­ing free through sim­plis­tic means.

Unfor­tu­nately, some­thing about the reck­less aban­don­ment of min­i­mal­ism attracts the most atten­tion. Well, min­i­mal­ism is part of who I am, but I’m done min­i­miz­ing. I can’t go any fur­ther. I’d like to think there’s a lot more to my life than just get­ting rid of stuff. That rep­u­ta­tion needs to change.

My blog’s name is Live [Sim­ply] Free. If we’re to be known as any­thing, let it be this.

Live. I’m a Chris­t­ian and there­fore am com­pelled to live by a dif­fer­ent set of stan­dards found in the Bible.

Sim­ply. To keep my eyes on the cross, it takes get­ting rid of dis­trac­tions (mate­r­ial and mental)

Free. True free­dom is found in Christ. And free­dom equals hap­pi­ness. And when liv­ing for Christ, life’s adven­tures are lim­it­less, and the mun­dane becomes extraordinary.