EXCITE

When I’m texting, I will add in exclamation points more often than I would for pretty much anything else I write. I am especially fond of the emoji exclamation points (‼️❗️⁉️). I know I’m not the only one, many other people I text will do the same thing.

I will add in exclamation points to indicate extra positivity or emphasis even when I do not think I would normally. It is always a struggle to decide whether or not I should even add them in.

The reality is though, they do not matter or count anymore.

When there is an exclamation point in a text. It does not really matter. I will get a 100 or more text messages a day and if a few of them have an exclamation point. No. Big. Deal.

Contrast my text messages with longer form writing, there are almost no exclamation points. There are periods, commas, occasionally a semicolon, almost never a colon, and even fewer exclamation points.

Exclamation points in a text message do not have the same purpose. They do not perform the same function. They most certainly are not as rare. And they are as common as sand in the desert.

The exclamation point is a tool for communicating excitement and we are frivolously using it as if it hardly means anything at all. The only difference is long form and text messages. Text messages happen all the time. Rarely do we sit down to write a long form letter.

Sitting down to do more long form writing we could develop a better sense of value for the exclamation point. Whereas when throw this golden hammer around so easily, we lose perspective on the true power it can posses.

Similarly, if we sat and watched a road crew pave a road, we might be more patient with the small pothole on the highway. The crew has an immense power and it is incredibly labor intensive to fix one pot hole much less an entire neighborhood of boulevard of them.

Spend a day watching your barista, you might be more forgiving that they used soy milk instead of almond milk in your drink this morning.

Follow around your mayor or senator for a day and you might be a little bit more patient with them as they tend to their jobs.

These modern marvels surround us every day and they have a face behind them.

What luxuries have you become too familiar with? What valuables are you taking for granted? Whose work are you taking for granted? Who are you being too critical of? How can you give value to the people you are taking for granted?

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Zooming Out

An ant is tiny. The ant cannot comprehend the size of the continent it is on. It has no concept of the value and purpose it has in the context of the whole. It is digging, carrying, and working for the good of the whole with no any context at all.

Like the ant, a rat in a maze is wandering aimlessly through his labyrinth style prison following his senses looking for his goal.

To the ant, the ant hill is a large and a rocky knoll is a mountain. To the mouse the maze’s walls are the world it lives inside.

Our advantage is being able to stop and take a look down on their situations. We have perspective. There are globes to give us context of where we fit into the rest of the world. Our phones have maps with GPS to show us how to navigate the maze of roads, highways, and freeways we interact with.

How easily still do we find ourselves plowing through life with the same perspective as the ant and mouse?

My goals slowly narrow my perspective clouds from a wide angle at 150º or so down to 90º. Still a decent field of vision and useful to be successful, but not what it was. My vision still then narrows more until I am seeing less and less. At the end I am so focused on my goals I have been sucked into a 2 degree field of vision.

I am focused on my own problems and cannot see the value of my work in the context of the whole. I forget where I am and what my value is. I get my priorities out of alignment. I start to encourage marginal gains and growth sacrificing the bigger picture.

My tunnel vision is now costing us any progress we should be making and instead I cannot see around the biases I have developed. I cannot hear other voices through the noise I make. I are so focused on not tripping and being hurt again we cannot see the cliff we are about to walk off.

When was the last time you zoomed out on your life? When did you last assess your goals? What are your goals? What do you want to say you accomplished? What do you want to have said of you when you die?

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Production

I started school in a kindergarten, much like many of my peers. We went to kindergarten, some even had the privilege of going to a pre-kindergarten environment. After that we had the pleasure of working our way through first grade right on up through twelfth grade progressing from an elementary school to a middle school or junior high, and then culminating our early education with high school.

Like clockwork, we showed up at the allotted time. Each time we graduated to the next school, we would start waking up and showing up earlier and earlier to accommodate the limited supply of busses our given school districts had.

In accordance with our teachers we would do enough work to graduate to the next grade, thus proving we had learned everything we needed from the previous grade. At some point we even began to have a little bit of a say in what classes we were showing up to.

By the time we’re in our late teens. The system spits us out, ready for the the final step, college.

When we graduate college we are then fully educated for adulthood. Class after class graduates with degrees.

Post graduation is a chaos induced bucket of ambiguity. No more rails to follow.

What are you trying to produce? What is your metric for success? Is what you are trying to produce actually what needs to be produced? Is your final product actually designed to be successful?

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Milestone

Golly gee, nothing like a milestone to get me to stop and look back. And really, not only glance back, but truly, look back at the sea of sand from the beach parking lot. Look back in the sense of I am sifting the sand looking for thegold shavings I lost.

I have been looking back at how I got to where I am asking questions. Questions about everything. Everything has been up for questioning. Not because everything can go. But because the treasures is not going to make itself apparent. The treasures I have forgotten are not simply missing, they are lost and not easily found.

Everything can be questioned because everything has value and sometimes the only way to get the most value from life’s things is to question all the things.

When I set something off limits to questioning, I tell myself it has no more value. When I stop questioning things, I stop contributing value to them.

How are you contributing value to things in your life? What are you devaluing by not questioning? What can you add value to by questioning?

Questioning,

–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

Opinions

Over time I have learned to need and to fit in. I have not often felt like I needed to fit in, whether it be with a mass or a large group. I am somewhat avoidant of large groups in general. I do not generally see the need to be a part of a larger group. I find I am most comfortable in the presence of a few close friends. 

The opinion of these people is paramount to me.

If one of these few people were to say I am pointed in the wrong direction, I would almost immediately adjust course and change direction. 

I do not generally value the opinion and voice of strangers. People I don’t know at all or very little really. I can even think of situations where complete strangers have inserted there opinions into my life completely unsolicited and I have been so repulsed. I am open to conversations about decisions I make. However, to blatantly tell me what to do or how to do what I do without any relationship with me is completely offensive. In the even one of these people were to voice an opinion about me being pointed in the wrong direction. I would reevaluate, analyze, and process their words to find the truth behind what they are saying. (There is always truth behind an opposing opinion, you have to find out what that truth is before embracing or dismissing it.) After analyzing, I would embrace or dismiss, partially or fully, their opinion and move forward accordingly. 

I have not often found value in trying to give strangers a voice in my life. I expect to earn my right to speak into their lives and vice-versa. 

Who’s perspective do you value and hold in high regard? Who’s opinion should you hold in high regard?

Selectively,

–JT

The Value of The Yen

It is so interesting how I stop accepting myself. I end up telling myself little lies about my ideas, my thoughts, my value, and my ambition. I start filling myself with doubt. I ignore the truth my friends have given me. The encouragement my friends have poured out on me and start focusing on the little things that are wrong with me. 

After a while I start to look in the mirror and see an intelligence quotient score, which is too low

I see a pant size, which is too big.

I see a shirt fitting too tightly.

A hairstyle, not groomed correctly.

A heart, is not happy enough.

A husband, not loving enough.

A friend, not attentive enough to the people who matter to him.

Relative who does not ever call.

And after a while, I begin to think I am barely worth the clothes I am wearing. 

No one ever told me I have so little value. I have convinced myself of this idea. As a matter of fact, the people who might be the very people who would jokingly say these things to me are not saying these things. Even their jokes are positive. Their love is ever present. I am the only one telling myself these lies. 

I am the only one trying to define myself of something that is totally and completely insufficient to measure my self worth.

I am the only roadblock standing between me and progress. I am feeding myself these lies.

I am the only one who can plug the hole of these lies pouring into my life. 

Where are you lying to yourself? What lies are you telling yourself? When are you going to start telling yourself the truth?

Valuably,

–JT

Choosing Others

I am realizing, more now than ever, that much of the reason I am doing so well is because someone else chose me. 

Someone else chose me to be able to take time to heal. 

Someone else chose me to be able to step away from the busyness.

Someone else chose me above themselves.

I now have two obligations as I have been given this opportunity. I must choose other people that need to have a place to heal and I must continue to heal. My continued healing does not seem unattainable. Intentionally choosing others is going to be more of a habit than a one time deal. 

I am going to have to be intentional about seeing the people who are sitting aside and not speaking. The people who are on the sidelines. Maybe they are “in” and “committed” but they aren’t voicing their opinion. They are just riding along, coasting with everyone else. 

Maybe they are hurt like I was and they need someone to choose them as important enough.

I don’t know their situation. I only know it is just as much my responsibility to choose them now. Now is a time where get to watch and learn how to choose people who have something to say and I need to choose them to be available to be heard. 

Sometimes I’ll have to watch for someone who hasn’t contributed to the conversation in a while who seems disjointed and aloof. It could also look like me spending more time with people who have been marginalized and pushed to the fringe and don’t believe that they should have a voice. 

Either way, I genuinely believe that I will find more healing and growth as I continue to focus on others’ voices as well as my own.

Who around you does not use their voice? What can you do to bring them a voice?

Choosing,

–JT

Waiting Game

Where do my own ambitions end and trusting others begin? Fine line for me. Right now, I too strongly want to move forward and roll over some people. I want to grab the bull by the horns and probably get myself in quite a bit of trouble to get where I want. 

I just see how many other people do exactly that and have little to no repercussions. I do not understand how I can make the same moves they would make with the same motives and be so much farther behind. This only adds credence to the conceptualization of everyone’s personalities being incredibly diverse. My proof here comes from the observation of people who naturally steam roll others do not mean to. These people aren’t malicious and they care deeply for others, usually. However, they do tend to just run people over for the accomplishment of their own goals. 

I’m stuck in a struggle where I want to move forward with my goals. I do not see a way to do that without running some people over. It has become a bit more difficult for me to be patient and wait. I have plenty to do in the waiting. I just long to move forward as well. 

I am right in waiting. I will continue to wait. I can see the areas in my life where I didn’t wait, what I have done to myself and what I have done to others. I simply have a hard time waiting when I decide on the next course of action.

How do you do with patience?

Waiting,

–JT

Weight in Gold

I have been reflecting on my writing looking for themes and common denominators between what I’ve been saying and what I’ve been struggling with. The biggest theme I’ve seen is the value of other people, my perceptions of them, and how I interact with them. I’ve taken this observation and spun it around to test as a view of myself.

My own value has been in question for years. 

I agree with this statement. I have been undervaluing myself, devaluing myself, and underestimating my own self worth for years. I don't believe in my own opinion to be valuable. To which my subconscious responds, “Yes you do. Your opinion has value! Very little value, but some value is better than no value.” Me believing this about myself is the reason I play the part of the doormat more than the part of the door. 

And I’m scared. 

I’m scared to value my own opinion. I’m afraid I’m going to do this wrong a lot. I’m afraid I’m going to hurt some people in speaking my mind more. I’m not looking to be belligerent. I just have to speak up about what I think because it can make people around me better. I don’t want to offend and hurt people as I go. I think humility will play into this as much as anything. I’m going to have to be willing to back down my opinion when it isn’t popular and not be hurt (not being hurt will be the harder part.) The hurt part is why I’ve stopped putting my opinion out in the first place. 

The reality is, it is ok for people to accidentally hurt me. It is not ok for me to react poorly when someone does  unintentionally hurts me. Likewise, it is ok me to accidentally hurt someone, it is not ok for me to intentionally hurt people.

These two things are linked for me because it hurts me so much when my opinion/idea is not the popular opinion. However, I could probably count on one hand the number of people who have actually been out to hurt me by ignoring me.

I must start creating space in my thoughts and ideas to be gently set aside without being hurt. And I need to start being willing to take the bull by the horns when the popular action is to wait for everyone else’s opinion.

Opinionated,

–JT

Stranger Danger

Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. 

A simple statement with all of the meanings. It has so much to say and it strikes me hard as I’m spending so much time in a metropolis. I see people all around me every day and I make snap decisions about them. 

I see someone who is a bum and I assume they choose to be there. 

The fast food worker and I assume he never went to college. 

I assume so much about all of these people yet I never take the time to ask them their story. To discover how they actually got to where they are. I never take the time to explore with them what their future could hold and what hope there is for them. I just keep on driving, ignoring, and assuming I have a reasonable estimation for who they are and how they got to where they are. I don’t spend time getting to know their story. Their story has value. They have value and I don’t take the time to know their story, only to know my guestimation about them.

I had value even though I was in a rough place. I might have never been a bum, but I have been emotionally broken. I have never worked at a fast food restaurant, but if I needed a job and they were hiring I would take the opportunity to pay my bills and fill my belly. I am not too different from these people I am making snap judgements of. I have potential. My potential and value has been called out. I am valued by people who love me who have taken the time to get to know me.

Who am I taking time to know and encourage? When do I stop and remind myself that these people I see have value, potential, and life experiences that have played into their life choices.

With Empathy,

–JT

Worth

The server at my restaurant, my barista, my neighbor, at some point of these people will offend me [again.] I’ll be hurt and angry about this. Maybe I’ll say some unsightly words or yell at them (in the comfort of my car where they would never know of course.) Then I’ll go on with my day. Ignore the fact that I’ve made these decisions to devalue people I don’t know. 

People who have a life and experiences that I’ll never know about. These people will never be close to me. I make decisions about these people every day when they offend me. 

I decide their value.

I decide their potential.

…their humanity. 

I decide this all based on my own experiences. 

…my own value.

…my own humanity.

Now it is time to start remembering these are real people, not simply nameless faces. I need to engage these people the way I would engage my friends, let them make mistakes (even if it negatively effects me.) I need to assume these people are just like me. They have life experiences, value, and they are worth more than me projecting my baggage on them and deciding their worth accordingly.

What do you use to decide others’ worth?