I can't believe I am reposting this, but I am closing out my other blog and thought this would be appropriate here.
After the birth of my second daughter I began a discussion on the things I learned since becoming a father of a daugher. Here is an excerpt:
1. Puke that wasn't my own has been on every part of my body, sometimes without clothes to protect them.
2. My face has been very very very close to poop.
3. I now call it poop.
4. Barbie has flesh colored panties. Ken doesn't.
5. You would be surprised by the diversity, variance, and texture of boogers.
6. Speaking of texture and variance, poop is pretty much an over achiever in that category.
7. The ability to rapid fire spell any word in the dictionary.
8. I can pee while a two year old holds my leg after breaking and entering the bathroom to exclaim, "Good job daddy, you go peepee in the potty."
9. Sometimes, I look forward to going to work on Monday to get some rest.
10. A toddler can run out of the tub and pee on the floor faster than you can chase them.
11. I have had to clean up pee from a feaking doll that pees! Whoever created this doll should know there is a special place in hell reserved for him.
12. The weight limits for diapers refer to the size of kid you put in them and not how much they hold.
13. Children look adorable until the JC Penny camera is pointed at them.
14. If it squishes it can be squeezed between the fingers of an toddler.
15. If prepared correctly a properly vibrated infant can spit up on anyone you wish.
16. The most fasinating toy is the one your child doesn't have.
17. If you pull your childs bed away from the wall, you are guaranteed to find something gree stuck to the wall.
18. It takes a six year old, 30 seconds to put clothes on a Polly Pocket. It takes a father 30 minutes to put clothes on a Polly Pocket. It takes a four year old 2 seconds to loose their mind when they rip the Polly Pocket clothes.
19. Glue doesn't work on Polly Pocket clothes.
20. The only toy that ever gets lost is the one that is your daughter's favorite color.
21. The moment you buy the last Snow White doll, clothes, game, video, etc.. is the moment your daughter embraces Cinderella.
More to come . . My newest daughter has forced me to add to this list.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Saturday, August 09, 2008
I figured me out . . . . somewhat . . . .
Ok, I figured something out. This blog is for my friend, we’ll call him “Doug”. You see, I’ve written several blogs about drinking. As a good friend and Christian, he is concerned for me. I can’t blame him, sometimes I’m concerned for me too. I think I’ve figured it out. It’s 80s rock videos. When I slip and start watching 80s rock videos, I find myself dropping a lime in my coronoa. So apparently there is some odd symbiosis between 80s rock videos and beer.
I don’t know, have you watched an 80s rock video in a while? I’m talking big hair, big riffs, big exploitation. There is just something about it. I actually think it has more to do with missed opportunities. Probably like anyone aging rock star wannabe I play too much Guitar Hero and not enough guitar. So watching those videos takes me back to another time. But of course, when I go back there in my mind I remember what a good boy I was. Knowing now what kind of life I have, I realized I could have done more while still young and maybe I wouldn’t feel like I missed something.
Of course one could argue, that my life turning out so well was becase I didn’t get too crazy in my youth. But let’s face it, I’m not running for President, or Senator. I’m never going to be ultra rich. So who is going to go digging into my background to dig up my my dirt? No one! So having no dirt back there isn’t doing me any good.
On the other hand, I will never have to tell my kids to do as I say not as I did. I could never quite figure out how people could sit down with their kids and say, “well sweety, I don’t want you to smoke pot because when I toked up the dubbie, I really was regretting it inside, and I don’t want you to enjoy, I mean, make the same mistakes I did. . . .” I also wonder if when these parents find a quarter bag in their kids room, if they don’t want to roll one for old times sake?
Anyways, as I watch Night Ranger, Britney Fox and Damn Yankee videos here on my playlist, I find that they go down much better with some amber wheat and malted hops.
More to come
I don’t know, have you watched an 80s rock video in a while? I’m talking big hair, big riffs, big exploitation. There is just something about it. I actually think it has more to do with missed opportunities. Probably like anyone aging rock star wannabe I play too much Guitar Hero and not enough guitar. So watching those videos takes me back to another time. But of course, when I go back there in my mind I remember what a good boy I was. Knowing now what kind of life I have, I realized I could have done more while still young and maybe I wouldn’t feel like I missed something.
Of course one could argue, that my life turning out so well was becase I didn’t get too crazy in my youth. But let’s face it, I’m not running for President, or Senator. I’m never going to be ultra rich. So who is going to go digging into my background to dig up my my dirt? No one! So having no dirt back there isn’t doing me any good.
On the other hand, I will never have to tell my kids to do as I say not as I did. I could never quite figure out how people could sit down with their kids and say, “well sweety, I don’t want you to smoke pot because when I toked up the dubbie, I really was regretting it inside, and I don’t want you to enjoy, I mean, make the same mistakes I did. . . .” I also wonder if when these parents find a quarter bag in their kids room, if they don’t want to roll one for old times sake?
Anyways, as I watch Night Ranger, Britney Fox and Damn Yankee videos here on my playlist, I find that they go down much better with some amber wheat and malted hops.
More to come
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
I'm a Rockstar
I like Jack Daniels. I also like beer. This isn’t the alcoholic in me, this is simply a fact. Part of my problem is that in my mind, I am Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Slash or some other 80s band member. Its too bad I lack any and all musical talent.
Its the total debauchery that intrigues me. I’m reading two books right now, The Dirt and The Heroine Diaries. These books chronicle the lives of Motley Crue and Nikki Sixx respectively. When I read them I get somewhat absorbed in their lifestyle. The drugs, the alcohol, the girls and the total lack of anything socially acceptable.
I have lived a very socially acceptable life. In fact, I would say the only real risks I have taken were my recent business risks which, have hurt me financially but again have left me more or less normal.
I have kids a wonderful wife and a wonderful home. The only stress I have is the stress of trying to walk the road between family, work, and household. In fact I think I try to make conflict where there is none. I just only see myself as the rockstar that never was. The closest I get to being a rockstar is playing Guitar Hero late at night standing in front of the TV with a beer on the table and my feet wide apart the rock and roll grimace spread around my face.
Its probably the knowledge that I could have chosen a life like that. Not that I would have been a rock star, but the sensationalized idea of a life of debauchery. I, like many people my age, feel trapped in a self created prison and whine about it to anyone who will listen. Not all people do well in this prison. Therefore we live in a world with a 50% divorce rate and huge percentage of cheating husbands and wives. Still more are permanently attached to their TV in the hope that following the tragic or terribly fictitious lives of others will take them away from their own. Maybe its why dozens of camera wielding leeches follow around the next latest and greatest sob story hoping to sell their pictures to an audience that can’t wait for the next teen star to self destruct publicly. Maybe its just that high school never really ends. (Love the song too.)
I don’t think I’m going to age well. In fact I am sure that age will have to sneak up on me, because I intent do become old kicking and screaming. I am going to continue to engage in body piercing, tattoos, etc... until I’m either out of places or dead. I figure if I can’t get control over my own life and career, I simply find a way to keep it from catching up with me. Or worse, I’ll just get so wrapped up with my kids that I won’t notice age creeping up. I already think thats happening. I looked in the mirror this morning and didn’t recognize myself. My face is puffier than ever and my eyes, which I used to believe were piercing are more vacant and surrounded by skin with deep creases making them look weathered and torn. I feel myself sinking into my feet, and I feel myself more and more trying to compel my body to do what it would do willingly just a few years before. I can’t get it totally into focus, but more and more, I see myself as a caricature of someone else, as the real me drifts farther and farther away from my idealized version.
Its the total debauchery that intrigues me. I’m reading two books right now, The Dirt and The Heroine Diaries. These books chronicle the lives of Motley Crue and Nikki Sixx respectively. When I read them I get somewhat absorbed in their lifestyle. The drugs, the alcohol, the girls and the total lack of anything socially acceptable.
I have lived a very socially acceptable life. In fact, I would say the only real risks I have taken were my recent business risks which, have hurt me financially but again have left me more or less normal.
I have kids a wonderful wife and a wonderful home. The only stress I have is the stress of trying to walk the road between family, work, and household. In fact I think I try to make conflict where there is none. I just only see myself as the rockstar that never was. The closest I get to being a rockstar is playing Guitar Hero late at night standing in front of the TV with a beer on the table and my feet wide apart the rock and roll grimace spread around my face.
Its probably the knowledge that I could have chosen a life like that. Not that I would have been a rock star, but the sensationalized idea of a life of debauchery. I, like many people my age, feel trapped in a self created prison and whine about it to anyone who will listen. Not all people do well in this prison. Therefore we live in a world with a 50% divorce rate and huge percentage of cheating husbands and wives. Still more are permanently attached to their TV in the hope that following the tragic or terribly fictitious lives of others will take them away from their own. Maybe its why dozens of camera wielding leeches follow around the next latest and greatest sob story hoping to sell their pictures to an audience that can’t wait for the next teen star to self destruct publicly. Maybe its just that high school never really ends. (Love the song too.)
I don’t think I’m going to age well. In fact I am sure that age will have to sneak up on me, because I intent do become old kicking and screaming. I am going to continue to engage in body piercing, tattoos, etc... until I’m either out of places or dead. I figure if I can’t get control over my own life and career, I simply find a way to keep it from catching up with me. Or worse, I’ll just get so wrapped up with my kids that I won’t notice age creeping up. I already think thats happening. I looked in the mirror this morning and didn’t recognize myself. My face is puffier than ever and my eyes, which I used to believe were piercing are more vacant and surrounded by skin with deep creases making them look weathered and torn. I feel myself sinking into my feet, and I feel myself more and more trying to compel my body to do what it would do willingly just a few years before. I can’t get it totally into focus, but more and more, I see myself as a caricature of someone else, as the real me drifts farther and farther away from my idealized version.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Faith in Electronics
I have faith in electrons. So should I worship at the alter of engineering? Why do I go to church? I seldom feel spiritual there. I spend most of the ceremony in complete service to my children. In fact, I spend most of the mass actively engaged in damage control so that others around me might be able to have a spiritual experience.
I want my children to explore their faith and I speak of faith with them frequently. That gives me a chance to work out some of my own thoughts. Yet, I can’t help shake my own sense of the concrete and real. I am fully attached to this world and it is hard for me to see paradise beyond in the adjectives used to describe it.
The rules that explain the universe however complex portray elegance and beauty. Although these rules are not fully known, they are often absolute and without exception. The architect has left us clues and endowed us with intelligence. The puzzle pieces of the universe are scattered all around for us to discover. Although it may be an impossibly large jigsaw, we continue to identify and place pieces as we discover them.
Being a man of science I believe God would create a universe that is perfect, and by perfect I mean adheres perfectly to a set of physical laws. As we discover these laws we are led to Him. This has been a cornerstone of my faith so that I can attend to the dichotomy of spiritually and scientific curiosity.
I don’t look to religion to explain science, but I have stopped looking to science to explain religion or existence. Organized religion is too concerned with self preservation to incorporate new ideas within the fabric of its teaching. So I cannot expect the church to be compelled to study science. However stretching the laws of science to help explain the teachings of Christ also seems to demean both. For example consider books with titles like The Physics of Immortality, or The Physics of God, etc. These books attempt to explain specific parables of Christ. From these books, the bottomless bowl of fish and bread are an amalgamation of quantum mechanics and general relativity. This just seems to be condescending to God and to me.
If God is the architect, then the universe must have been constructed using the rules that govern His architecture. God set up the rules of the physical universe and since I believe those rules are perfect and absolute, they could only exist in the way that God created. A glancing look at any area of physics will tell you that if the rules were any other way, the universe would cease to operate.
Using this reasoning, God must also feel (editor note: I thought of what word I should use there. Feel is emotive and I am going to stick with it. If God can love then He can feel) that he must be bound by these rules. Why would he create rules that were perfect but not to be bound by them as well.
By rules, I am talking about the physical constructs of nature. Not governing rules. I don’t want to suggest that if God set up some arbitrary rules for man to follow that He must follow them as well. That is like saying the a father must obey the rules he sets for his children.
The rules of nature are not so easily disobeyed. God’s rules are complete and necessary; the universe unfolds in the only way it can based upon those rules. Would not God be bound by nature? Changes in these rules could have disastrous consequences for the universe.
I am sure that He could or would change those rules arbitrarily if He found it necessary; and unlike man, would understand the full effect of those changes. His perception of these rules must be extraordinary, but being made man, in Jesus, would also have given Him man’s perception of these rules as well.
So this brings me to my dilemma, and the root of my spiritual turmoil. Faith. As a Christian, I am to believe in Christ as the only way to enter the gates of Heaven. The scientist in me wants to see God as the architect of Nature. His gift of Son not only gave us a symbolic lamb, but also gave Him a way to communicate with us in a way our senses could understand.
But its the specifics of the story that is at odds with my desire to understand the concreteness of the details. I can’t easily believe topics of Christianity without evidence, especially Biblical topics that fully contradict the assessments of science. Creationism versus evolution is probably the most current and obvious example. I am not at all engaged in this argument. I simply see it as a part of the larger science versus religion debate.
Someone explained to me that Satan was responsible for all the clues left in science that contradict biblical accounts. This was his way of leading us off of the path of righteousness. I believe this argument imbues Satan with more credit than is deserved.
So I come back to faith. I often tell friends who ask, that I am bringing up my children to have faith. But faith isn’t something I can give them. I try to be an example and answer their questions truthfully and honestly, but when do I know I have faith. Is it when I tell everyone else I believe? Is when I adorn myself with Christian symbols? Is it when I proselytize on the street or to my neighbors? Is it when I give my tithe to the church? Is it when I listen to Christian rock and read my bible more frequently? Is it when I bring my family to the church and attend regularly myself? When do I know I have faith? I am spiritual, but being spiritual doesn’t require faith. I am moral and ethical. I am empathetic and compassionate. I am generous and selfless. Does this prove I believe?
I totally and completely believe in the presence of electrons. I can’t see them, but I can see what they do. Of course, I can’t see God, but I can see what He has done. I can see him in my children, in the sunrise, in the beating of the waves on the sand, in the power and fierceness of a hurricane, in the love I have for my wife, and in the gift that is my aptitude. However, I can measure electrons. Do I believe in the presence of God with the same faith that I believe in the presence of electrons? I want to. Belief, Faith. It was much easier to be a child and believe. It didn’t require self reflection and honesty with oneself. I want to believe. Will I recognize it when I actually do?
Back to my original question. Why do I attend church? I don’t have a great answer, except, I feel better when I do. What I have begun to find is that I feel a bit hollow inside when I don’t. Whatever fills me up when I am in church must be spilling out when I am away. Makes me think of the bucket parable.
I want my children to explore their faith and I speak of faith with them frequently. That gives me a chance to work out some of my own thoughts. Yet, I can’t help shake my own sense of the concrete and real. I am fully attached to this world and it is hard for me to see paradise beyond in the adjectives used to describe it.
The rules that explain the universe however complex portray elegance and beauty. Although these rules are not fully known, they are often absolute and without exception. The architect has left us clues and endowed us with intelligence. The puzzle pieces of the universe are scattered all around for us to discover. Although it may be an impossibly large jigsaw, we continue to identify and place pieces as we discover them.
Being a man of science I believe God would create a universe that is perfect, and by perfect I mean adheres perfectly to a set of physical laws. As we discover these laws we are led to Him. This has been a cornerstone of my faith so that I can attend to the dichotomy of spiritually and scientific curiosity.
I don’t look to religion to explain science, but I have stopped looking to science to explain religion or existence. Organized religion is too concerned with self preservation to incorporate new ideas within the fabric of its teaching. So I cannot expect the church to be compelled to study science. However stretching the laws of science to help explain the teachings of Christ also seems to demean both. For example consider books with titles like The Physics of Immortality, or The Physics of God, etc. These books attempt to explain specific parables of Christ. From these books, the bottomless bowl of fish and bread are an amalgamation of quantum mechanics and general relativity. This just seems to be condescending to God and to me.
If God is the architect, then the universe must have been constructed using the rules that govern His architecture. God set up the rules of the physical universe and since I believe those rules are perfect and absolute, they could only exist in the way that God created. A glancing look at any area of physics will tell you that if the rules were any other way, the universe would cease to operate.
Using this reasoning, God must also feel (editor note: I thought of what word I should use there. Feel is emotive and I am going to stick with it. If God can love then He can feel) that he must be bound by these rules. Why would he create rules that were perfect but not to be bound by them as well.
By rules, I am talking about the physical constructs of nature. Not governing rules. I don’t want to suggest that if God set up some arbitrary rules for man to follow that He must follow them as well. That is like saying the a father must obey the rules he sets for his children.
The rules of nature are not so easily disobeyed. God’s rules are complete and necessary; the universe unfolds in the only way it can based upon those rules. Would not God be bound by nature? Changes in these rules could have disastrous consequences for the universe.
I am sure that He could or would change those rules arbitrarily if He found it necessary; and unlike man, would understand the full effect of those changes. His perception of these rules must be extraordinary, but being made man, in Jesus, would also have given Him man’s perception of these rules as well.
So this brings me to my dilemma, and the root of my spiritual turmoil. Faith. As a Christian, I am to believe in Christ as the only way to enter the gates of Heaven. The scientist in me wants to see God as the architect of Nature. His gift of Son not only gave us a symbolic lamb, but also gave Him a way to communicate with us in a way our senses could understand.
But its the specifics of the story that is at odds with my desire to understand the concreteness of the details. I can’t easily believe topics of Christianity without evidence, especially Biblical topics that fully contradict the assessments of science. Creationism versus evolution is probably the most current and obvious example. I am not at all engaged in this argument. I simply see it as a part of the larger science versus religion debate.
Someone explained to me that Satan was responsible for all the clues left in science that contradict biblical accounts. This was his way of leading us off of the path of righteousness. I believe this argument imbues Satan with more credit than is deserved.
So I come back to faith. I often tell friends who ask, that I am bringing up my children to have faith. But faith isn’t something I can give them. I try to be an example and answer their questions truthfully and honestly, but when do I know I have faith. Is it when I tell everyone else I believe? Is when I adorn myself with Christian symbols? Is it when I proselytize on the street or to my neighbors? Is it when I give my tithe to the church? Is it when I listen to Christian rock and read my bible more frequently? Is it when I bring my family to the church and attend regularly myself? When do I know I have faith? I am spiritual, but being spiritual doesn’t require faith. I am moral and ethical. I am empathetic and compassionate. I am generous and selfless. Does this prove I believe?
I totally and completely believe in the presence of electrons. I can’t see them, but I can see what they do. Of course, I can’t see God, but I can see what He has done. I can see him in my children, in the sunrise, in the beating of the waves on the sand, in the power and fierceness of a hurricane, in the love I have for my wife, and in the gift that is my aptitude. However, I can measure electrons. Do I believe in the presence of God with the same faith that I believe in the presence of electrons? I want to. Belief, Faith. It was much easier to be a child and believe. It didn’t require self reflection and honesty with oneself. I want to believe. Will I recognize it when I actually do?
Back to my original question. Why do I attend church? I don’t have a great answer, except, I feel better when I do. What I have begun to find is that I feel a bit hollow inside when I don’t. Whatever fills me up when I am in church must be spilling out when I am away. Makes me think of the bucket parable.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Nice Guys Finish Last and other Musings From the World
I own my own business. And like all good businesses, mine is hemorrhaging cash as a tax write off. Luckily I have a full time job that I can devote my spare time to, and earn enough money to feed my business. Sometimes there is a little left over to feed my family.
The problem; I’m weak. I want to appear calm and in control. So I smile while I bend over and take it up the ass. In truth, I thought that running a business would land me in control. I let some people shower me with compliments and I began to work my heart out, neglecting my family and taking my aggression out on my wife. I let people lead me believing that the big payout was just around the corner.
Well, people will use you when there’s money to be made, and if they can make it on your back, they will. I don’t so much believe that these people are intentionally mean or dishonest. They simply look out for their best interest first. If you can help them with their bottom line, they are happy to enlist your help.
I’ve also leaned another valuable lesson. Beware of Christian companies. If they are wearing the banner of Christ on their sleeves, then they don’t have Him enough in their hearts. It is far more difficult to be a Christian than to use the Cross to sell your product or service. They too are out for their bottom line first and the service of Christ second.
What it comes down to is you can’t be a nice guy and run a business. You can be nice, but not in the service of your business. When it comes to your business you have to look out for it’s interests.
Now enough of that. I won’t make that mistake again. Either, I will fold up shop and turn in my License or I’m gonna find that million dollar idea and ride it as long as I can. God willing.
My next post is on faith. I’ve been working on it for a while. I hope I can finish it in time.
The problem; I’m weak. I want to appear calm and in control. So I smile while I bend over and take it up the ass. In truth, I thought that running a business would land me in control. I let some people shower me with compliments and I began to work my heart out, neglecting my family and taking my aggression out on my wife. I let people lead me believing that the big payout was just around the corner.
Well, people will use you when there’s money to be made, and if they can make it on your back, they will. I don’t so much believe that these people are intentionally mean or dishonest. They simply look out for their best interest first. If you can help them with their bottom line, they are happy to enlist your help.
I’ve also leaned another valuable lesson. Beware of Christian companies. If they are wearing the banner of Christ on their sleeves, then they don’t have Him enough in their hearts. It is far more difficult to be a Christian than to use the Cross to sell your product or service. They too are out for their bottom line first and the service of Christ second.
What it comes down to is you can’t be a nice guy and run a business. You can be nice, but not in the service of your business. When it comes to your business you have to look out for it’s interests.
Now enough of that. I won’t make that mistake again. Either, I will fold up shop and turn in my License or I’m gonna find that million dollar idea and ride it as long as I can. God willing.
My next post is on faith. I’ve been working on it for a while. I hope I can finish it in time.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
New Year’s Resolution
There are lots of things I would like to change about myself, but as often as I think of them, I recognize the futility of it all. I want to make myself better and improve, but I also feel that so much of the things around me that need changing are out of my control.
I am not suggesting that I don’t have room for improvement. Far from it, I am suggesting that the things I want to have different in my life are not within my ability to change. I want to reduce my debt, but I am merely paying my bills as it is. I want a happy home life, but that often relies on the actions of others whom I cannot control. I want more courage to make decisions and more self control in dealing with my own vices, but courage and self indulgence aren’t things you can merely decide to be better. Often it takes being in a position to truly expose the limits of these qualities for them to grow, and I don’t want to opportunities to experience great courage, or see my vices exploited. in order to provide me with opportunities for growth.
In terms of tangible goals I am sure I can rattle off long lists of things I would like to do better to serve in the interest of a resolution. I want to update my blog more often, I want to be more frugal with my income, I want to exercise more and eat less. I want to go outside more. I want to grow my business. I want to keep better records.
Of course, I could also begin listing the esoteric resolutions. Things that have no easy measure. I want to be a better father, I want to be a better husband, I want to be a better son etc... But how does one accomplish this task and know that you have succeeded? Well the kids didn’t enter rehab this year, so I must have been doing better as their father. . .
I think the whole resolution idea is a crock. Of course, that is probably why Lent is so close to the beginning of the new year. You realize that you can’t keep up with your resolution, so you involve God.
I don’t have a New Years Resolution. I am not going to write one down. Here is an analogy for how my life feels right now. I am swimming in a river. I need to reach a point upstream. As I swim, the water becomes rougher and faster. Sometimes I swim as hard as possible and notice that I am still loosing ground. Once and a while, small boat comes by and lets me hold on as it moves upriver, but it only lasts a short time and although I make some progress, my ultimate goal isn’t much closer. Then I find out that the point that I am swimming to, is actually not where I need to be, and the actual point is farther up stream. So when new years resolution time comes around, I feel that there is someone on the bank yelling to me to try harder at swimming upstream and that the only reason I am still in the same place I was last year is because I was simply treading water. I want to yell at that person that I am swimming as fast as I can, but they don’t know what the river has been like, they only see that I am in the same place I am now.
So what I need to do is find a way to get out of the river and walk upstream. Although I will still have a journey, at least it won’t require me to swim against the current. There has to be a way.
I am not suggesting that I don’t have room for improvement. Far from it, I am suggesting that the things I want to have different in my life are not within my ability to change. I want to reduce my debt, but I am merely paying my bills as it is. I want a happy home life, but that often relies on the actions of others whom I cannot control. I want more courage to make decisions and more self control in dealing with my own vices, but courage and self indulgence aren’t things you can merely decide to be better. Often it takes being in a position to truly expose the limits of these qualities for them to grow, and I don’t want to opportunities to experience great courage, or see my vices exploited. in order to provide me with opportunities for growth.
In terms of tangible goals I am sure I can rattle off long lists of things I would like to do better to serve in the interest of a resolution. I want to update my blog more often, I want to be more frugal with my income, I want to exercise more and eat less. I want to go outside more. I want to grow my business. I want to keep better records.
Of course, I could also begin listing the esoteric resolutions. Things that have no easy measure. I want to be a better father, I want to be a better husband, I want to be a better son etc... But how does one accomplish this task and know that you have succeeded? Well the kids didn’t enter rehab this year, so I must have been doing better as their father. . .
I think the whole resolution idea is a crock. Of course, that is probably why Lent is so close to the beginning of the new year. You realize that you can’t keep up with your resolution, so you involve God.
I don’t have a New Years Resolution. I am not going to write one down. Here is an analogy for how my life feels right now. I am swimming in a river. I need to reach a point upstream. As I swim, the water becomes rougher and faster. Sometimes I swim as hard as possible and notice that I am still loosing ground. Once and a while, small boat comes by and lets me hold on as it moves upriver, but it only lasts a short time and although I make some progress, my ultimate goal isn’t much closer. Then I find out that the point that I am swimming to, is actually not where I need to be, and the actual point is farther up stream. So when new years resolution time comes around, I feel that there is someone on the bank yelling to me to try harder at swimming upstream and that the only reason I am still in the same place I was last year is because I was simply treading water. I want to yell at that person that I am swimming as fast as I can, but they don’t know what the river has been like, they only see that I am in the same place I am now.
So what I need to do is find a way to get out of the river and walk upstream. Although I will still have a journey, at least it won’t require me to swim against the current. There has to be a way.
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