Propellant

I have survived. 2015 is drawing to a close. I made it past the Christmas mayhem, without as much mayhem and a little bit more peace and joy I think, and now I am riding into 2016 without a hitch. 

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I will ring in the new year with friends and hopefully in a little better spirits than these past few years. Generally, my new years celebration means I am being woken up by my wife on the couch for the last ten seconds of the ball dropping to drink my drink, get up off the couch, get in the car, and make the long cold drive home. Apparently, midnight comes too late for me and grumpy comes a little too early for me. 

This year I am still holding true to my ‘Make No Resolutions’ policy. Not because I think Resolutions are bad, but because I have goals already. I am working toward goals, some of which date back to 2014. I do not think I need new goals on top of my old goals to muddy up the target I am trying to hit.

What I love about my goals is I have friends helping me achieve them. I have people who know me and love me helping me get farther down the path of the goals I have set for myself and I do not need the harking of a new year to remind me to set my goals. I need to continue to work forward. I need to continue to grind up against my friends and family as we work forward, encourage each other, sharpen each other, and propel each other forward.

Who is helping you achieve your goals? Who is holding you accountable for your goals? Who are you seeking out that has achieved your goals before?

Propelled by friends,

–JT

Preparation

As I approach the weekbetween Christmas and New Years I often take time to reflect on the last year, where I have been, what I have done, things I have done well, things I have not done well and generally how this year has been. I am looking to see not only what has happened to me but also how have I reacted and responded to the year.

For some reason, I work backwards in this exercise. I start at the end of the year the current season and work back towards the beginning. I would not say it is the most logical way to do it but it has always worked for me and my quirky personality. When I look at the end of this year I have a bit of a rubric of things I think I should probably be outputting. I should be outputting things like hope, joy, and love. This is a season of Christ. The season of preparation. 

Preparation.

I am to be prepared for to be these things. I am to be ready to be hope to people. I am to be prepared to live out joy. I am to be available to share love with other people. I need to be prepared to celebrate the birth of the Christ child. 

I would not say It has been a good year. Generally, these have been two long years. In my short life, these last two years are in the top five hardest years I have had. I do not think I have some sort of right to claim this year as harder than anyone else’s; I would say with out a doubt there are people who have had significantly harder years than I have had. 

These messages are bigger than we are though. I would say for all of us, we can bring these messages of love, hope, and joy to the people around us despite the years we have had. We are to prepare ourselves to bring these things to people around us. The Christ child came and brought these things to his parents when they needed it. 

For me, it all revolves around preparation. Am I preparing myself to bring love to the people around me? Am I preparing myself to bring joy to the people around me? Am I preparing myself to bring hope to the people around me?

Not because I have an abundance of these things, but because I am preparing myself. Focusing myself. When I wake up, do I decide to bring love to others, despite knowing I am going to sit in more traffic than I would want. When I wake up, am I preparing to bring joy to the cashier at Starbucks despite the child behind me throwing a tantrum. Am I prepared to bring hope to the employee at the department store, despite her inability to get off her phone? 

Am I walking into the situation prepared to better someone else’s day despite my perception of what they should or should not be doing? Am I preparing myself to be to others what I need and want in this season? 

Are you prepared to be love, joy, and hope? Are you preparing yourself?

Prepared,

–JT

Brilliance

The other day someone peered over my shoulder as I was working on some odds and ends bouncing between email and web browsers and they were impressed by how fluidly I moved around and how I had applications and windows sorted on the computer. Really, I do not ever think about it. Most of it is all pretty simple and well thought out and arranged around my computer’s desktops for where I want them to be. It is natural and logical to me. 

However, to them, it was brilliant! They had never thought of it all this way. They had never thought to use spaces like I do or arrange their applications like I do. It was genius. What was completely obvious to me was genius to them. 

Likewise, I was playing a game and I kept failing pretty hard with some friends and strangers. They pointed out how I was failing and what to do differently. To me, what they suggested was not only brilliant but also perfect. They solved my problem and made it possible for the whole team to succeed. And we did. 

Their suggestion was obvious to them and genius to me. 

It all brought me back to how I can often miss the most obvious of things; but, when someone else brings their opinion to play, I can suddenly be shocked out of my train of logic into a different train of thought I had never thought of before. A train of logic seeming quite brilliant to me. 

I have to wonder, was E=MC^2 brilliant to Einstein or was it obvious? 

What brilliant idea are you logically working out as if it should be plain as day to everyone around you? What brilliant idea have you come across from someone else who thought it was no more than common place? How are you observing the people around you to grow and improve in new ways?

Logically,

–JT

Adventures

I am a pretty simple person. I do not have a lot of lofty life goals and idealistic priorities in my life. I do not have much of a bucket list and I most certainly do not have a bunch of crazy dreams I am trying to achieve. As a matter of fact, if anything, I have too few goals and achievements to strive towards.

I have been on a lot of cool adventures though. Not necessarily stuff out of the ordinary, quite simply put, things important to me. Things like going to Ireland and going to Israel. Two life goals or bucket list items I have checked off my list. I have been to Norway, Belgium, France, Germany, and Iceland (though only the airport for a few hours.) I have been to most of the states in the United States of America including Hawaii. I did a road trip for three weeks with four of my best friends. Generally, I never really dreamed I needed to go all these places but I have. And I am so thankful to have gotten to have done these things. 

Much of what I have done has not been because of me. I have done what I have done because of the people around me. 

People like my wife, my friends, and my family. 

I have been where I have been and seen what I have seen because of the people in my life who want to share their goals and adventures with me. I have what I have not because I am something extra special deserving of these fun travels. I have been blessed to go these places because of the people in my life who love me enough to take me along as they do these things. I have been where I have been because I am plugged into community. 

Now, I am sure I will still be able to do some really cool stuff over the next rest of my life. I am sure much of that will continue to be because of community. However, I must also make sure I am blessing people too. I must make sure I am bringing people along who might not have the chance or blessing people as I have been blessed. I must make sure I am inciting adventures and bringing people along with me and expect nothing in return.

Who are you bringing along on your adventures?

Adventuring,

–JT

Are You Not Entertained?

Someone recently posed the question to me, “What causes your generation to be connected to something?” Essentially, they were trying to figure out how to advertise to me. How to connect to me as a brand or a business. 

How do they advertise to me? How do they sell me something? How do they become my resource for sales and purchases? 

Simply put, “What do they need to do to sell to the iPhone generation?”

I was a little off put and realized, they needed to connect to me by connecting to me. They needed to tell me a story. They needed to bring me a message worth taking in. They needed to connect me to the story of their brand. 

We jokingly talked about how my generation and I could so easily pick up our phone and seemingly tune out a conversation with four or five other people who are all talking. 

I pointed out about how picking up our phone was not tuning out a conversation with four or five other people. It was choosing to engage in a conversation with the 300 people on the other end of our story. 

While I might be connected to a conversation about the weather, the annoying neighbors, work woes, or the funny thing a pet recently did. As soon as I pick up my phone I have real peoples’ stories to join. 

To read.

To watch.

To engage with. 

All of a sudden the surface level conversation about the weather is trivial when compared to the content online. The content of seeing a child take their first steps on social media or the content of the guy I know going through a depression and expressing his angst. When I compare the content linking me to the family who donated all of their Christmas gifts to the needy to someone else’s work woes, I find myself more interested in the family making a difference than the same sad story about work woes. 

I do not think I am justified to pick up my phone as if I have found the social trump card. 

I do think I am expected to be worthwhile in conversation. When I am in a conversation I am leading, it is my job to be worthwhile content. I need to be digging into the conversation and making it worth everyone’s time sitting around the conversation we are having. Is the content I am providing in this conversation more interesting than the weather?

The weather happens to everyone, when is the next time you are going to talk about how you happened to the world around you? When you are in a conversation are you contributing something worthwhile?  

Quality Content,

–JT

Scaling

Putting issues on a scale has brought me much perspective in life. I have been able to see what is important and what is not important. I have been able to see when to act, react, and instigate. I have not always done a great job at analyzing life on this scale. I have been trying…that is pretty much the same right!? Not so much. 

But the moments in my life I have put things into perspective for myself have made an immense difference when I was over or under acting in a situation.

For instance, when I start to look at life through a scale of 1 to 10, I can see the valuable moments versus the valueless moments. When I am upset about something and I throw it on this scale, I can see how upset I should really be. Are my actions truly to scale of the situation. Am I about to flip a table at a restaurant because I have not had my iced tea refilled in the last ten minutes? 

Am I totally downplaying the importance of family and ignoring my wife in order to watch another episode of Hell on Wheels?

Usually when I get this scale out of whack it is because I am out of whack. When I see myself react to situations out of proportion, I know something else is wrong. Something else is misaligned in my life. Usually whatever I am under or overreacting about is not the real issue, there is something else behind the issue for me. However, using this metric I am able to see how I should be acting and reacting to situations.

How do you tell whether or not you have a piston misfiring? How often do you overreact or under react to situations? How would your actions & reactions change if you put everything into a relative scale of 1 to 10?

Scaling,

–JT

Steps

For every step I take in knowing who I am and how comfortable I am in my own skin I find mixed results. I the more comfortable I am in my own skin, the more I am able to relax, let my hair down, and be who I am with people I know and trust. However, the more I am who I am most comfortable being, the more I receive questions and comments about my attitude, demeanor, and disposition. 

People start to ask me if I am ok all the time. They start to ask about me. They start to get really concerned about me. In turn, I start to get really concerned about myself. I start to become hyper aware of my own demeanor and disposition. I start to question whether or not I am ok. I start to dig around and look into how I am doing, I assume there is something wrong. I am constantly looking for the wrong thing looking to fix it. I want to fix the broken part when all along, the broken part is what I assumed.

I assumed there is something wrong. 

There was not anything wrong more than my assumption. I was ok to begin with. I was just operating differently than everyone else which is completely normal. I am different than many and similar to many. However, the people I am different from will ask if I am ok because they are not sure. The people I am the same as will ask if I am ok because they care. 

Are you starting with the wrong assumption? What is your problem?

Unbroken,

–JT

Waking Up

The recent events of Paris have slammed into us all. These events have awoken me as well as I am sure you have been awoken as well. These events have reminded us of the worst parts of humanity. Our collective lowest points and how terrible humanity can be when we act out of pure selfishness and extremism. Truly an atrocity in Paris.

Alongside these events in Paris have come a series of responses ranging the full gamut. One response being the Bleeding Heart. These are the people who have been changing their profile photo, making statuses on social media of their thoughts, prayers, and good vibes being sent towards Parisians caught up in these events. 

Then there are other peoples' responses, such as the Cynic’s approach. The people who are unimpressed by these statuses, avatar changes, and sending of prayers. These people cite the monetary value of these changes to be nothing. To the Cynic, sending nothing to Paris is the same as doing the listed actions above. The Cynic also makes comments about the unreported atrocities going on every day. They point out the lack of emotion from the bleeding heart and the mainstream media's lack of coverage. All of which ends up hurting and devaluing what the Bleeding Heart was saying or doing in the first place. 

The Bleeding Heart eventually responds mad and makes an inflammatory defensive statement towards the Cynic. 

The Cynic, justified by the Bleeding Heart, fires off some snarky remarks designed to enflame the Bleeding Heart. 

At the end of the conversation, no one has won. There is only anger, pain, and hurt people. When all along the Cynic only wants people to take action and the Bleeding Hearts wants to help people. 

Action is exactly what everyone wants. Everyone wants to help. Everyone wants to see restoration and healing. The prayers are powerful. The thoughts are encouraging. And donating to the cause makes a difference. 

All of these parts are necessary. I cannot let myself stop short of taking action. Too often I hear of something tragic going on whether it be up the street or half way around the world and I say my prayer and call it good. Not often enough do I take time to donate my time or money to the cause. 

In this season of generosity, will you donate to the cause? What other times do you stop short when you are called to do more than an obligatory prayer? Who are you in this scenario, the Cynic or the Bleeding Heart?

Both And,

–JT

P.S. I found these two charities. One to help the victims of Bataclan and one to help the Syrian Refugees. I have not researched or vetted these charities in any way. I strongly suggest doing your research before donating, but I think these charities are trying to help people who are front and center of the world’s stage.

Support the Syrian Refugees [Global Giving] 

Support the Bataclan Theater victims [Bitcoin Only]

Where I Belong

Belonging. I want to belong. I want to belong to an identifiable group. A chunk of people who all align similarly and are pointed the same direction. A college sports team. A professional sports team. A group of nerds playing video games. A group of people listening to the same podcast, commenting on the same subreddit, or even so simple as to rock out to the same concert. 

I want to belong. 

Most often I know what group of people someone ascribes to by their use of 'we.' I also know what group of people I am ascribing to by my own use of 'we.' We beat the boss in the game, we beat the other team at sportsball, we were talking about topic XYZ online last night. 

When I start to make these comments, and include myself in these 'we' statements I know I have often overstepped my bounds. When I refer to the sports team and say, 'we are playing so-and-so.' It is so incredibly inaccurate but I so want to be a part of the team. I want to belong to this group. I want to be a part of the moment, even if my part is to be on the sidelines cheering along. 

The key is to make sure I am focused on being a part of the right things. 

What are you trying to be apart of? Who is your 'we'?

Belonging,

–JT

Understanding

“If you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough.” — A. Einstein

This quote has left me in an incredible state of questioning what I do and do not understand. I do not use this to question everything; but, I do use it to know whether or not I am going to claim to understand something.

What do you understand? Can you explain it? Can you defend it? Can you question it? Can you argue for it? Can you argue against it? What do you understand?

Explaining,

–JT

Shred of Truth

I tell myself stories all the time. I tell myself stories about to explain companies doing well, explain other people, to explain my reactions, and to explain everything. Many of these stories start with a shred of evidence. I use this shred to dig deeper, find more information, fact find, and fill in the gaps. There are on occasion times I tell myself stories and they are not as filled in as they should be. They might start with a sideways glance, a loaded comment, or an unassuming joke. 

One of these sorts of minor happenings then become my shred of truth. I then use this shred of truth to develop an entire world around this shred of truth. It becomes the lens through which all other truth is filtered. It even tends to create some new truths of its own. The issue being, a shred of truth does not create new truth. 

A shred of truth cannot create new truth.

A shred of truth is not a lens through which I should be filtering life. 

A shred of truth is evidence.

A shred of truth needs other truths to tell a story.

When I use a shred of truth to tell a story, I create a lie. When I use a long series of truths to tell a story, the truth tells the truth. Far too often I sucker myself into telling a story based on a shred. I get too caught up into synthesizing a story to go along with the shred of truth I find. I spend more energy trying to tell a story of lies, than I do finding and listening to the truths.

How often do you stop trying to write the wrong story and instead read the truths of the true story? How are you doing at finding the truth? What story are you telling yourself right now about someone else?

Truth listening,

–JT

Compartments

Life has compartments to it. I do not get to stop that. I cannot stop teething. I cannot stop puberty. I cannot stop cannot prevent myself from growing hair on my chest any more than I can prevent the times when I have to fill my perpetual need for food. However, life has other compartments too. 

There is a preschool phase, a kindergarten phase, a elementary school phase, middle school, high school, college, post college for some, and maybe even some version of professional compartment. All of these then followed by retirement.

As I listed these compartments I think of myself in each compartment. How I might play on the playground or watch the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in kindergarten. Learning to write in cursive and learning my multiplication tables in elementary school. Even learning how to format a computer hard drive or play the bass stick out to me from middle school. 

There are many more memories to dig into; but, with each passing compartment, comes a certain set of expectations and allowances.

In the kindergarten compartment, you are only allowed to go so far from the house and cross the street under certain circumstances. The middle school compartment probably has a certain curfew. 

The high school compartment has certain allowances for community development. You are expected to be able to interact with people a certain way orThe college compartment has expectations about grades and friendships. Allowances for post college include healthcare benefits, finding a significant other, some possibly children, and preparing for life after career.

Nobody ever shows up and blends the compartments.

Nobody ever shows up and says, “While you are at college you can do anything else outside of college while you are here.”

Where is that guy? The guy who encourages me to break down the walls because I can. When does someone explicitly say, “These things to the left are the bare minimum and these things to the right are considered ‘extra.’ You can do all or none of these. Your call.”

Who is the guy who gets to set the expectations for each compartment?

When did the expectation committee meet? 

How come I was not invited?

Life’s compartments are only dictated by age. I cannot stop time from ticking. I can stop my time from being wasted on the bare minimum. I can set the expectations for myself.

What are the walls of your compartment? Which ones can you move?

Decompartmented,

–JT

Life in Percentages

I get to meet many people in my life. I am thankful to meet these people. Living in a highly transient community, I think I get to meet a higher variety of people than maybe most people might. Moscow & Pullman are two college centric towns within 8 miles of one another and we receive students from all over the world just for the state schools, not to mention the other schools present in the community.

l have to admit a downfall of mine is, I will often make assumptions about the people I meet. Or worse, I’ll make assumptions about the people I do not know based on very little information, time, or interactions with them. I pretty much hate that I do this. I know it is wrong and I try hard not to continue to do this. But every time I evict this habit, it still finds a way back into my life. My only true defense is to remember how much they have lived and how little I know them.

I am meeting these people after 20, 25, 30years, or many more. I am meeting these people and getting to know them for a couple days or a week and making decisions far too large about who I think they are based on the bit of information I am gleaning from them. 

If I build a case study, I can see what I am really doing to these people.

For instance, someone who is 25 years old has lived for more than 1300 weeks. So when I decide about the whole of who they are based on interactions over the course of two week. I am literally using a picture of 0.23% of their life to decide who they are.

How can I do that? 

What kind of picture can I actually develop?

Granted it takes time to develop these pictures and often times someone can be off putting. But does that give me the right to take a snippet that small and make decisions about their whole persona based on this brief interaction?

What percentage of a person’s life do you spend with them before you decide who they are?

Taking my time,

–JT

Value In Scale Part 2

My value cannot exceed the value of my neighbor. Not in the sense of dollars and cents; but in the sense of intrinsic value. However, I cannot deny my value in the sense of contributing to the whole. 

I am a part of the whole.

The whole does not exist without all of the parts. 

My part is important.

My part contributes to the whole.

Much like a recipe, my part is not the most important ingredient, but it is important when I reference the recipe. If I were baking an apple pie, for instance, I could not leave out the cinnamon. The recipe may only call for a teaspoon of cinnamon; but, how would the pie taste without it? Or the crust? It is almost absurd to think of a true blue homemade American apple pie without a crust. There may be derivations for certain allergies or dietary needs, but truly. When I am talking apple pie, I am talking about a bottom crust, a top crust with a basketweave, and everything amazing in between. 

How can the world be the world without me? It would continue to spin, churn, orbit, and time would go on. However, for me not to contribute to the whole of the world and to lock myself in my room and ignore the rest of the world is to say me meeting my own needs makes me more important than anyone else in the world. 

There may be seasons to back off and healing; but as a rule, I can say that I should be contributing to the world at large. The world at large should also be a better place because of my contributions. I am a needed ingredient to the flavor of the recipe. The cinnamon contributes as a spice, so I should contribute as a participant in the world’s turning. 

What are your contributions? What contributions are you holding back from the world?

Spicy,

–JT

Value In Scale, Part 1

The world is huge! More or less, the size of earth is mind boggling to me. Comprehending the size, for me, is pretty ridiculous. I can put it in scales and references; but generally, I have no clue how large the world is. The implication of the size of the world becomes so much more impactful when I interpret my value as a fraction of the world’s total value. 

Using this scale helps me center myself on what is actually important. I can easily get carried away from the tiniest details of what I am doing or what really matters. When I scale my bad situations in reference to the number of other people in the world, I become comforted. I start to see how important I should actually consider myself. 

When I loose reference for my scale and importance, everything starts to revolve around me. I start to think everything either works for me or against me. When the truth is, the world turns and I am not all important at the center of it. 

The world turns with or without me.

The world is made up of many parts working together for the good of others.

The world does not turn for the good of me.

I am not the entire enchilada.

I am an ingredient of the recipe.

I am a player on the field.

I am a portion of the whole.

My wants and needs are not more important or greater than my neighbors.

How are you doing at keeping your own importance in proportion to the rest of the world?

Calibrating the scale,

–JT

Internal Processing

Surprise, surprise, I am an internal processor. I take information in, I discuss it within myself, then I deliver a reprocessed information to everyone else. However, internal processing has many faces. 

Quite literally. 

I have many different faces when I am internally processing information. I am asked questions, delivered new facts, or simply talk to someone for a few minutes. I then have to take this information and roll it around in my noggin. I have to reframe it so I can own it. I have to decide whether or not it is accurate based on what I know. 

Internally, the cogs are turning and the pistons pumping.

Externally, I am staring off into space or silently mouthing and talking to myself. 

When I am internally processing information, I hate looking like I am staring off into space almost as much as I hate the look of me talking to myself. Neither one of these options are a good reflection of what is going on and both of them lead to other people either thinking I am angry or crazy. Generally, I am not angry and I am not so crazy as to constantly be talking to myself, lets be real though, I am a little crazy.

The worst option, when I am internally processing, is me looking completely disinterested in what is going on around me. I lose sensitivity to how I look to everyone around me. I lose

reference for how I am externally being portrayed despite my internal nature.

My disposition in processing has actually lead to many different reactions from many people. Many people have either misinterpreted my external appearance or completely ignored it. I am always surprised when I find out what people think of me processing. I do need to be better at letting people know I am processing when the conversation goes silent…awkwardly silent usually. 

How do you process? What does your processing style communicate to those around you?

Processing,

–JT

Reading Is Fun & Mental

I have much to learn in life. Even more so, there is more to learn in life than I could ever learn. I enjoy learning. I do have a maximum learning capacity at any one given period. However, I enjoy filling my learning cap and I enjoy learning even when I do not need to. I have noticed a trend in my life where people consider some learning to be more significant than others. Specifically, reading seems to be the highest form of learning. 

When you ask someone what they are reading, you are almost asking them what they are learning. I have been asked on many occasions, “What are you reading?” Most often, I have very little I am actively reading. Generally, I am in the middle of a book at all times but not very far into it or very interested in finishing it. I usually try to be learning something. However, reading does not do it for me. I am seeing a trend though, reading is portrayed as the, ‘learners method.’ You cannot be learning if you are not reading. For me, I think this discounts the essence of learning. Learning is what we do when we bring in new information. 

Learning is what we do when we absorb something we have never thought of or experienced. 

Learning is an essential part of life.

For me, I always want to be learning; but, in testing, experience, and with the advice of wise teachers and leaders in my life. Reading is quite possibly the most awful way I can learn. 

I am slow. 

I have have a low absorption rate. 

I do not do the best job of converting abstract concepts I read about concrete ideas I can implement.

How do I succeed in a world where who considers reading to be the most affluent way of learning?

How do you learn? What do you think of someone who is not currently reading something for learning?

Learning,

–JT

Discipline

Discipline is an amazing part of our human capacity to push forward and succeed. It requires so many parts of my personality and the more I do it, the better I get at it. Much like a muscle, the more I work it the stronger and more sustainable it is. I love the feeling of accomplishing my goals as I bring together my ability to be disciplined. 

I love seeing how I have to use my ability to be diligent in order to be disciplined. I have to keep watching my work to make sure I am producing quality work. I have to keep a watchful eye on my tasks in order to make sure I am addressing my most difficult tasks. For me, diligence is the portion of discipline making me stay on top of what I am doing.

Discipline requires me to set goals. It does not let me be disciplined for the sake of disciplined. It requires enough foresight to know I am headed somewhere. I cannot sit alone in a room by myself and say I am being disciplined unless I am trying to develop the skill of sitting alone in a room.

Most of all, discipline requires me to push myself farther than I have been before. 

Discipline means I am pushing into an area of discomfort. 

Discipline breeds more discipline for me.

Where in your life are you pushing yourself beyond where you have been before?

Disciplined,

–JT

Hunters and Vendors

Hunters and gatherers are a real part of the world’s history. People would run around and collect what they needed to survive. The would move north in the summer to stay cool and move south in the winter to stay warm, an obvious argument the whole world should have central heating and air in my opinion.

To contrast these people, we can look at the market vendor. The market vendor or salesperson, I will use these terms interchangeably, sits around waiting for people to come to them. They never get up and talk to you as you are shopping wandering around the mall. They never engage you in relationship. They do not move. They stay in their shop or in their doorway at best trying to make you an offer you cannot turn down. They try to pull me by putting the freshest fruits in the door or the prettiest pendant on the mannequin; but, they cannot force you, their prey, into their shop. 

The hunters and gatherers on the other hand are the ones who are constantly fishing. Always pitching their lures. They are always on the move. They get close to their prey, analyze their prey, and when the moment is right, they pounce! They take their prey captive and return home to celebrate their capture. 

The shop owner chooses not to be like a hunter and gatherer. He chooses to stay at his shop pedaling his wears. He chooses to take in only what comes to him. He has lean years, he has fat years; however, he can never bring in more than what comes to him. In contrast, the hunter and gatherer can gain much. She can catch her prey, bring it in, and celebrate her success. She can move south when her game hibernates. She can move north when the scorching sun threatens her life. She is not swayed by the easy life of the vendor. She runs out and takes life by the horns. 

More often than not, life does not happen to her. 

More often than not, she happens to life.

The vendor receives what comes to him and never more.

As different as these two are, I am not be satisfied with relating to the vendor. I must continue to take steps to be more like the hunter and gatherer.

Which one are you? Is this who you want to be? What is the next step in growth for you?

Hunting,

–JT

The Square Root of All Evil

Goal setting is a universally good thing. Everyone I know wants to set goals. They want to be moving forward. I have goals. I want to be moving forward. I want to be accomplishing my goals. For me, my goals are my ways of becoming a better person. I will be better at being me because I accomplish goals. 

My goals need direction, purpose and reason. My goals need to solve a problem. As a matter of fact, since I have started making my goals solutions to problems, I have been able to sustain moving forward. I love solving problems and therefore I am able to sustain this repetition. However, I do not do a great job at identifying my problem areas intentionally. I walk into my solutions based on intuition of where I have been at or how I am feeling, not based on my own actual calculated observations of what is going on.

Not using a calculated information means I can start solving the wrong problem. I start treating symptoms, not the disease. I try to put bandaids on hemorrhaging and tunicates on cancer. In order to set better goals, I have to actually observe, record, and discuss. In order to solve problems, I need other people’s perspectives in addition to my own.

How do you set goals? What problems do your goals solve? Are you solving symptoms?

Solving for I,

–JT