Benefits of an “Everyday I Must…” List
You might think of an “Everyday I Must” list like a daily bucket list. Those little things that you don’t want to forget about in the busy-ness of life. The things you don’t ever want to take for granted.
I’ll give you my short list so you can see what it may look like…
Everyday I Must…
- Read a page (article, book, magazine)
- Write a paragraph (blog, journal, essay)
- Read a chapter of the bible
- Pray
- For my wife & child
- For my friends & family
- For my enemies
- Smile at a stranger
- Spend 5 minutes in silent thought
You may have an entirely different list, but I encourage you to make one and keep it someplace noticeable – next to your computer monitor, on your car dashboard, on the frig, etc. I suggest not including work related things like checking emails as those are the sorts of things that usually “busy” us away from our more meaningful activities.
You may consider a “Every Week I Must” list if that makes more sense to you. Just keep it simple.
- Call your parents/grandparents
- Invite friends to dinner
- Color with your kids using only crayons
There’s no rules about this. It’s just meant to help us make each day fulfilling and meaningful.
What are you going to put on your “Everyday I Must” list?
The Silver Lining and a Fiery Rise
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[caption id="attachment_359" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="October 22, 2010 - Fiery sunrise on the way to work"]
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Why do we write on the internet?
There are billions of things posted, uploaded, updated, reddit‘d, submitted, stumbled, and tweeted all across the interwebs. Today, I want to look at those things that have a bit more substance to them – the “written” things on the internet, if you will.
Some write to journal publicly. Maybe just to get things off their chest or express themselves through writing.
Others write to entertain. I haven’t come across a lot of sites dedicated to fictional writings, but I’m sure there are some. When I say “write to entertain”, I’m thinking of the writing on the internet that is in short anecdotal stories that you can read in a few minutes or less (i.e. FML, Dear Blank Please Blank, Texts From Last Night) Sometimes this too can be to get things off their chest, but in a humorous style and about things that people can relate to. One of my favorite forms of this is in the form of comics (i.e. The Oatmeal).
You’ll find a very large community, nay, internet metropolis based around technology. Technology is a broad topic, yes, but it is a part of so many parts of our lives and this is what makes the articles about technology related topics so voluminous. Technology breaks into many different pieces that could also be categorized otherwise – some of the most popular are likely How-To articles and News articles.
You may not think much about the importance of writing. You may think that the last the the world and the internet needs is another article about something that doesn’t matter or that no one cares about. Or you may think that there’s nothing actually worth-while on the internet when it comes to written works. If so, I challenge you to do a search on things that you’ve always wanted to know how to do and tell me if you don’t find a decent answer.
If you know about something or are particularly good at something and ESPECIALLY if you are an expert (or something close to it), please, for the rest of us – write about it! Explain it. Give us enough insight to try it. And then when we’ve tried it and realize how beautiful or difficult or fulfilling it actually is – we’ll love you all the more for it.
If you are not an expert at anything and don’t really do much, well… Keep consuming. Keeping reading. Keep thumbs-upping and thumbs-downing, 1-starring and 5-starring, Liking and Retweeting. And most of all – Keep trying. You’ll get there. And when you do… write about it!
Food, Pipes, Fuel, and now this. Is there anything corn can’t do!
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A brief wrap up of 5 things people seem to care a lot about
You came to my blog so you’ll get my opinion… and we’ll waste no time getting there.
Global warming. True or False?
False. To say that the only reason the globe is heating up is because it’s on it’s way down is turning a blind eye to a lot of other very plausible explanations. (I won’t even go into the research that shows the Earth may not be warming up at all, but rather cooling.) What about the idea of cosmic seasons? Perhaps the Earth has ebbs and flows of temperature on a very long cycle. What about natural evolution of the planet? If Earth really did start as Pangea, then why would it have stopped moving now? And why couldn’t water redistribution from the polar ice caps be the force behind the continual reshaping of the landscape of the world?
* I absolutely agree that we need to pollute less, find more sustainable energy now and respect the wildlife of the planet at a level that we do not push extinction on any more species.
Are there aliens on other planets?
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Yes. Don’t get all excited. Yes, I think there are other life-forms on other planets. There is plant life, fungi, and even insects of sorts, but I don’t think there are any mammals or humanoid like creatures in the great beyond. But even if there are, well, I’m sure they’re as far away from building a spaceship that could reach us as we are from reaching them. So stop wasting your life taking pictures of lights in the sky. It’s more likely government military testing or satellites.
Speaking of the government…
Did the government have anything to do with 9/11?
Yes, the government was about to lose control and loyalty of all of Americans to the fun loving ways of militant Islam so they had to make the Islamic extremists look bad… NO! Are you serious?! I am sure that plenty of mistakes were made having to do with the preparation and precautions about security, response to news of a possible terrorist threat and plenty of other things. That doesn’t mean that the government DID IT! Jeez. “Where’s the debris from the plane that hit the pentagon? The video looks like a missile!” Ya and that was some real high quality 1 frame per second video you watched on YouTube to make all of your conspiracy theories, wasn’t it?
Travel security got lazy. It had been so long since a real hijack/terrorist threat that we started caring more about fast security and check-in lines than we did about the actual security. And I’m sure plenty of us made complaints about airlines making us take too long in the lines. And so they responded – as any good company would to their customers. The lesson to learn here: Always consider the full ramifications of your actions when fighting for your conveniences.
Is Healthcare Reform a good idea or bad idea?
In the way they’re approaching it… bad. Pay doctors less so that everyone can get poor healthcare. “Hey but everyone is getting healthcare, right?”
I won’t spend much time on this because a lot of the Healthcare Reform is still being battled over in Washington.
Here’s how we SHOULD be reforming healthcare… Government programs and encouragement for Healthy Living. Obesity and the health problems that are related to it are the biggest expense in healthcare today. Just listen to Jamie Oliver.
What should happen to BP?
They are crooks and thieves as bad as Bernie Madoff. The company (at least all of it’s American assets) should be sold and all of the money be put into a fund solely for oil clean up and on-going environmental recovery of the Gulf. Sold to who? QuikTrip, Phillips 66, whoever is currently running their oil business ethically. “Oh but what about the jobs and what about the economic downturn if BP goes under?!” You mean the same economic downturn from when we bailed out all those crooks in the financial sector? Ya, that helped a lot didn’t it? No, people still foreclosed on homes, most of the higher-ups in those companies still got their bonuses and we still are shaky economically… and we’re paying for those bailouts still.
Understand this – the world will change… constantly. Big events like this may be tough, tougher even for some than others, but we will survive. Growing pains are the good kind of pains. We get so scared about losing jobs, but if it’s for the right reasons, then I can’t say that I’m opposed. I mean, is anyone upset that there are no more Blood Letters employed? Is anyone upset that “moat shoveler” or “pyramid building slave” are no longer available jobs? No, of course not. We have moved far beyond those things. What about a day when Oncologists do not have steady work. Will anyone be upset? No, because it means that cancer is a thing of the past. And I hope that we don’t bailout the oil companies when we are on the verge of using sustainable clean energy from some other source.
Cream of Wheat is SO good!
Last night I was so hungry it was making me REALLY grouchy. It was one of those hungers where you are starting to lose it and just get delirious… only with a good helping of straight up MAD. I remembered that I had a box of Cream of Wheat in the pantry, so I got it out and started to boil up 2 servings of it (both for me). I asked my girlfriend if she wanted some and she answered with a laugh – I already knew that she didn’t like Cream of Wheat. So I doctor up the finished product with butter and brown sugar and head into the other room where she is.
As I’m going to town on this bowl (after apologizing for being a total grouch 10 minutes earlier) she peeks over and makes a face. It’s at that point I decided to defend my beloved childhood meal and started to pry into her about it.
Me: “When was the last time you had Cream of Wheat?”
Her: “Look at it! It looks like… like… little eggs or something, bleh.”
Me: “Ok the texture might be unique, but it’s like a massage to your mouth and it tastes SO good!”
She starts to argue more (playfully, of course), but decides instead to just take a bite and (presumptively) hate it and put an end to the discussion.
*Takes bite, goes back to reading her book* ………. *Turns back towards me with a slight smirk*
Me: “You want some more don’t you?!”
I hand her the spoon and we split what was left of the bowl. She loves it now!
I call upon all of you that are against Cream of Wheat to give it another shot. Try it with butter and brown sugar or add some chocolate syrup or put fruit on top. It’s good.
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The Man Trip (10 Steps)
Thanks to my HTC Hero and WordPress for Android, I decided to use the 5+ hour drive to Bull Shoals Buffalo River Nat’l River to blog about it.
I’ll be making on-going updates as the trip goes on to try to encompass the essence of… The Man Trip.
- Plan to start traveling to destination at an ungodly hour (ie 4am)
- Don’t get to bed til 2am the night before
- Sleep past “scheduled” start time by hours (reasons: see above)
- Discuss and compare new gear bought for the trip focusing especially on masculine items such as knives and hatchets
Try to have a ratio of one GPS device per person. This is mainly for effect though
- 4 GPS devices between two cars and we still found a way to get separated and add a couple hours to the trip by missing turns
- Once at destination, take a hike and talk with knowledge about things you don’t actually know how to do
- identify and “track” animals by their paw prints
- identify and comment on the type of wood in the area and it use for fire or camp set up
- Grow out facial hair… whatever you’ve got
Do simple man-activities
- Throw or skip rocks
- Throw or skip very large rocks
- Throw knives and hatchets at anything they’ll stick in
- Build fire (see #7)
- Build excessively large fire
- Build Fire
If this were a ranked list by importance, this would be #1 followed by growing out facial hair.- If nothing else is done on the trip… this MUST be done
- Discuss how well you and your buddies could survive back in “The Olden Days”
- Near the end of the trip as you begin to feel very comfortable and accomplished with your camping abilities
- Drink Beer
- Even if you’re not a beer drinker.
- Other booze will do as a substitute.
- Extra points if you drink the booze out of a rustic looking flask.
- Bring only enough food so that you believe you’ll actually have to kill something
- Be sure to have a few extra granola bars or cans of beans to survive on when you, inevitably, do not kill anything
Helping the Homeless
This is a good post by Nathan Graves. And it’s a big issue I think everyone should know how they want to respond to these interactions with homeless people and why they’re doing it. Read Nathan’s post first, this is a response article.
[I started writing this as a comment on Nathan Graves blog, but realized that it was getting far too long, so it became my own blog post.]
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="384" caption="Homeless, anything helps, God bless"]
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I pass the same intersection (West Pennway & I-35) every morning and often see a guy, not always the same one, standing at the corner with a sign. Sometimes it’s as simple as “Homeless, please help.” Other times it has been a bit more verbose, “US Veteran. No job. No food. Anything Helps. God Bless.” I think there are few people in my circle of friends that do not have at least a degree of compassion for the homeless or otherwise less fortunate people around them. The question is ‘how do we respond in the best way?’
No more money
I have made a decision to no longer offer money – almost with no exceptions. This is due to several interactions over the last few years that have left me reconsidering what I give and probing the truths about street beggars. (“Street beggars” might sound like an offensive term, but I think it’s accurate.)
— More than once I’ve offered a part of my lunch (or the food I had with me) to a man at the I-35 / West Pennway off ramp intersection and been asked instead for cigarettes or cash. When I told him I didn’t have either of those but I had an apple and sandwich, he waved me off and rolled his eyes as if to say, “Why are you bothering me? Stop wasting my time.”
— I was once approached by a man while I was at the gas station on 37th and Broadway asking me for money to get him and “his girl” (who was no where in sight) something to eat from inside the convenience store… hard times, explanation explanation explanation. I gave him $5 and he never went inside.
— More than once, I’ve been asked for money to help someone out and when I offer to go inside some place and buy them a meal, they refuse, but usually ask for the money one more time.
— On cold nights I’ve offered to give guys a ride to City Union Mission where I know they could get a bed to sleep in and a warm place out of the elements. I’ve never had any takers. In fact, most have a down-right negative reaction to that.
These are how the majority of the interactions go. And this, to me, says that they don’t want to improve their situation. I don’t want to sound I’m cynical about it, although I probably am. I know that there are hurting people out there and they are struggling to get by and they are held down by addictions and brokenness. I want them to find healing and growth and purpose and the love of Jesus Christ. I just don’t want to perpetuate a cycle of no self-respect and no sense of accomplishment by giving them hand-outs. And I don’t want to reward people for lying.
Bottom Line
I don’t want to contribute to a system that ends up keeping people down just because I don’t have the time to help in a more meaningful way. I’ve decided that if I don’t have time to help in a meaningful and engaging way, then I will just live with looking like a heartless jerk for that moment.
Why I haven’t given up
On the flip-side, I had a guy come up to me at a gas station in Mission, KS a few months ago. He was very sincere, had his family in his car, and asked for some help with gas just to help them get back home to Olathe. “Economic downturn… lost job…” etc etc. I went to the pump and swiped my card and said “go ahead and fill it up.” He declined and said, “No we’ll just take a little bit, thank you very much, we appreciate it a lot.” I went inside to grab some gum. Checked the pump when I came back out and he’d only pumped $7. Man of his word. Not taking advantage, just getting enough assistance to make it. I pray for all the people I get the opportunity to help, but for this man I may have prayed a little more.
In conclusion…
There’s no conclusion to this post, it should be an on-going and open discussion. Most of us live in a city (or close enough to one) that has some sort of homeless population. If you’ve never been approached by or even seen someone begging on the street – you might want to leave your gated community a little more often. We can help. We should help. But we need to be educated and intentional about it. There are several beautiful outreaches in Kansas City that are worth partnering with or donating to.
Feeling guilty for not giving your change? Feel better by checking out these websites and giving to organizations that are making a concerted and organized effort to help the less fortunate.
| City Union Mission | Care of Poor People | Kansas City Rescue Mission |
| reStart Inc | Cherith Brook | Just One – Kansas City Hub |
Not in Kansas City? Search out “Homeless Outreach” in your city or get in touch with your local church.
New Year’s Resolution: More Writing
Half Priced Books was a great help today in my first purchases toward my New Year’s Resolution.
The 10 Best of Everything: An Ultimate Guide for Travelers
Everything Improve Your Writing Book
(Funny that this post is so short on words)
Blizzard Warning – My favorite part of winter
“Blizzard Warning – Travel Not Advised”. My first thought was, “I’m glad to be traveling right now.”
Click to continue reading “Blizzard Warning – My favorite part of winter”