5.28.14

Breakfast - two blueberry poptarts
Lunch - 3 cookie butter rolls on honey wheat
Dinner - Chickfila

I've been writing about a lot of heavy stuff lately so I figured I'd switch it up this week.

Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping is my 4th favorite thing to do. I love it. My first job was bagging groceries in a grocery store. There's just something about the smells, colors and community.

I usually grocery shop every Sunday or Monday night; it's my routine. I'll make a list from time to time, but for the most part I don't really know if I'm going to want something until I see it. So that's why I have to walk up and down every aisle. It's part of the experience. Plus, when you walk the aisles you come across the BOGO deals, and I'm always a sucker for those.

"Buy One Get One Kleenex?! These will totally come in handy if I ever invite a girl over to watch The Notebook!"

Grocery shopping just makes me feel like an adult. Even more so than paying bills. It's this tangible thing where I get to decide how I'm going to sustain myself for the next week. It gives me a sense of power. When I was growing up I had to eat whatever brand my mom would buy, but now, I call the shots. Jiff peanut butter vs. Reese's peanut butter. You get the picture. So independent. So adult.

There is nothing in my life that screams "I'M A BACHELOR!" more than the contents of my shopping cart. Sometimes I think about throwing a box of tampons in there just to screw with the cashier.

"Pop tarts… Oreos… Milk… Potato Chips… Dog Food… Bacon… Tampons… Ice Cre… TAMPONS?!" 

For real though. Remember when you were in elementary or middle school sitting at the lunch table, and you'd start to compare lunches with your friends? There was always that one kid who just had the bomb lunch and everyone wanted to trade stuff with him? I am that kid. My cart is full of string cheese, fruit snacks and Little Debbie, while yours is full of kale chips and salad. Gross.

I just love grocery shopping. The music playing is always adult contemporary stuff that is totally acceptable to dance to. I'm gonna go ahead and say that the aisle #4 mambo is definitely in my top 5 favorite dances. And if Michelle Branch is playing then it's probably in my top 3.

Some closing thoughts.

1. The hygienic aisle and I have a bittersweet relationship. Choosing a scented body wash, shampoo or deodorant is near impossible. Mainly because your nose goes numb after 2 whiffs from sensory overload. And this drives me thru the roof, but at the same time I just love hygienic things.
2. Having worked at a grocery store, the employees usually have a special place in my heart. Often times these stores will hire mentally handicapped or physically challenged individuals and that just brings the biggest smile to my face. It's such a good thing. There's goodness in that and there's goodness in the community interacting with them in a place of business.
3. No matter how old I get, I will ALWAYS ride on shopping carts. In fact, the older you get the better the ride becomes. When you're 11 it's, "Little boy don't ride on those shopping carts!" but when you're an adult it's, "Have a nice day, Taylor! See ya next Monday!"

I love grocery shopping.

5.19.14 GUEST BLOG

I'm excited to share with you guys a very special guest blog from a Brother of mine, Brodie Webber. Brodie is a natural born doer with a high functioning capacity, two of my favorite things. Love this dude and respect him tremendously. I hope you enjoy what he has to say and give him a follow on Twitter and Instagram (he makes incredible Insta Movies) @BrodieWebber.
                                                                                                      

Breakfast: Lucky Charms

Lunch:  3 PB&J

Dinner: Spaghetti and Meatballs, a lot of ice cream

Growing Up

I hate the idea of growing up. I absolutely despise when people tell me to grow up. 

I don’t want to grow up for a lot of reasons, all of which can be traced back to my personal manifesto of never losing a childlike enthusiasm for each day. To wake up and absolutely max out each twenty four hour block we're given for all that it's worth. It's an idea I believe in, and it serves as my biggest motivator in every aspect of my life.

When you’re a kid, everything is looked at with immense wonder, curiosity, and excitement. You have enough energy to run through, around, or over any obstacle in your way, going to sleep exhausted just to wake up and do it all over again. I’m not sure where this excess energy and excitement goes as you get older, but the majority of people lose it. They get caught up with work, emails, and bills, and somewhere along they way they forget what it's like to just be a kid. 

Becoming a responsible adult, and maintaining a childlike enthusiasm is a challenge. I think Brad Bird, a Pixar director responsible for the Incredibles put it best, "The conundrum is how to become mature and become reliable while at the same time preserving your childlike wonder.” I wish I had a clear solution for finding that balance between becoming a mature adult and not losing sight of what it was like to be a kid, but I don’t. I’m not sure anyone really does. What I do know, without any illusions, is that it is not your responsibility to become a well behaved employee within a company. It’s your responsibility to find what gets you excited to wake up each morning, and follow that with the same enthusiasm as a child towards the first day of summer break. 

Work hard, be bold, but please never grow up. I promise I won't. 

5.15.14

Breakfast - 2 frosted blueberry poptarts
Lunch - Swanky Tacos chicken quesadilla
Dinner - it's midnight and I just realized I didn't eat dinner...


Relationships Are Secondary

I think a lot these days. I wouldn't say I over think. I'm definitely not an over-analyzer. But I'd say I've begun to think critically a lot more lately (which may or may not exhaust some friends of mine, sorry).

My brother and I were talking yesterday and he said something that… got me thinking.

Me - "What do you want? What's your purpose?"

Brother - "I just want to be in love and in a God honoring relationship"

Me - "But what after that?"

Brother - "Not sure it matters…"

Not sure it matters… How depressing?

What happens after relationships? I feel like we are raised to believe that marriage is an endgame goal; like landing that perfect job or achieving the American dream. Our youth is saturated with Disney and rom-com daydreams where happily ever after is all you need. Just get to the happily ever after and nothing else matters after that.

The problem is that I'm watching a lot of relationships that made it to the happily ever after crumble right now. And I think that has to do with an imbalance of priorities.

I'm single and I don't eat vegetables so obviously I'm no expert, but since I've been thinking a lot lately, I started to approach this idea of relationships, priorities and endgame goals from a new perspective.

I believe relationships are secondary.

God put you on this planet for a very unique and specific purpose. As Christians, our highest calling in life is to pursue that purpose. That's priority number one. Which means the highest that relationships can be on the priority list is number two. Relationships are secondary to purpose.

Now before you get all lame and technical on me saying "What if my purpose is relationships!?" let me explain.

Relationships are secondary because they are facilitative. This is a good thing. Whether romantic or friendly, I believe in relationships, I do. But they should not be viewed as the end goal. They should be viewed as a tool of encouragement and support in helping your counterpart to pursue their purpose. To me, being "in love and in a God honoring relationship" looks a lot like acknowledging your position on the priority list of your partner as secondary. Owning your role of supporter, encourager and sacrificer so that someone else can pursue their purpose. The flip side of this, of course, is that you too should be pursuing your own purpose and intentionally allowing people into your life who facilitate that process for you, not hinder it. Which I'm sure gets complicated and is best answered by the concept of finding balance.

Ambition is attractive. I hope to find someone really ambitious someday. And maybe this is wishful thinking, but I would hope that that attractive ambition would continue after "I do." Which means I need to be ready to be secondary.

Don't pursue a partner as if they are an endgame goal. Pursue a partner that challenges you to fully achieve your purpose and will continue to challenge you to pursue your purpose for the rest of ever. Pursue someone who is ok with being secondary, someone who will be an encourager, supporter and sacrificer. And when you find that person, be inspired by them to turnaround and do the same thing for them. Lift each other up. I think that's part of what it's all about. I think that's part of what happily ever after is.

5.11.14

Breakfast - two blueberry poptarts
Lunch - ritz crackers and cheese
Dinner - greek yogurt, honey and granola

Lean In

Lately I've been hearing this phrase a lot at church and in my readings. I've somewhat started to meditate on it and I'm loving it. Lean in. It's so simple, yet powerful.

On a physical level, it calls for you to come closer; to shift your weight and allow your stance to be dependent on the strength of something else. It's a challenge to surrender. In order to lean in you must give up your position and become vulnerable, exposed. It is a posture of humility.

On an internal level it suggests you elevate your focus from interest to engagement. Give it your energy, effort and investment. Commit. No more casual caring. Engage yourself in this spiritual experience at hand and allow your mind to be captivated. Lean in. Open up. Believe.

I once went to a concert series called Heavy and Light. The host of the evening was spoken word poet, Anis Morjgani. He opened with this poem, Come Closer. It's wonderfully abstract and way over my head but for some reason I love it. 

"Know that something softer than us but just as holy planted pieces of Himself into our feet that we might one day dance our way back. Know that you are almost home, come just a little bit closer."

I think that's what leaning in is; it's a glimpse of home. When we lean in we physically surrender and mentally engage ourselves with the idea that our time here on earth is but a dance on our way home, back to Him.

Come closer, lean in.

5.2.14

Breakfast - what do you think? Blueberry Poptarts
Lunch - Wendys Jr Bacon Chee
Dinner - probably crackers & cheese and wild cherry pepsi


Eraser

I bought a new computer a year and a half ago. I have maybe 50 documents saved to the hard drive, a couple pictures and some music. But somehow the startup disk is full. It's really pissing me off because I intentionally use this thing sparingly to avoid this exact problem.

So I did some research and downloaded a program to help me sweep my hard drive. Turns out my computer has automatically been saving old versions of itself and old versions of my iPhone nonstop. Like it's constantly backing itself up and saving these old memories somewhere deep in the recesses of it's hard drive. This action has an extremely negative effect on my computer's function and capacity. Dumb.

The program I downloaded helped me clear up this problem. It helped me erase the bad, keep the good and get my computer back to it's high functioning capabilities.

Similar to a computer, humans are extremely vulnerable to falling into the habit of practicing automatic backups. We store old versions of ourselves, old memories, that often times serve no purpose other than to hinder our functionality.

You can really torment yourself if you allow yourself to live in those old memories. You can reread every email and text, or maybe stare at an old picture for way too long. A self-inflicted haunting, if you will.

I've admitted before that I'm an avoider and a runner. Another thing I'm happy to admit is that I'm an eraser.

I say I'm happy to admit this because it's actually a healthy thing for me. Erasing the right things allows me to function at a higher capacity, just like my computer. For me, when something is over it's over. Texts, emails, pictures, letters. Boom, gone. Whether this is an innate personality trait of mine or if it's something I downloaded to my brain along the road of life, I have no idea. But I'm glad it's something I do.

Right now you might be thinking that I'm an arrogant jerk. That I don't understand what you've been through and that it's inconsiderate of me to suggest that you are capable of simply erasing your past. Bear with me, that's not what I'm saying at all.

Over the past year and a half of my whirlwind-changing life, I've learned through the practice of erasing that some bad is in fact good. Some of the crud is necessary and should be kept. For instance, there are a few pictures that I've left. Pictures I wanted to erase or delete but didn't. Why? Because of what I see in that memory. I look at my face and can see things in my eyes, things that remind me of how I felt at that exact moment, which in turn reminds me why I made the decisions I made. These memories, these backups, reaffirm me that the path I took to get to where I am today was in fact the right path. And that is a good thing, so it should not be discarded.

I don't keep old pictures or letters to look at them and haunt myself. I keep them to remind me of who I was and how close I was to being someone I didn't want to be. I use them as motivation to push on thru to the next level and enhance my high functioning capacity.

Erase the bad, keep the good and move forward.