Monday, November 29, 2010
Who am I, what I believe and the key ingrediants
Who am I:
Born in 1973, the middle brother of 5 left handed boys
An emotional, passionate seeker of wisdom AND truth
Married in 2001 to Julie, a tenderhearted spitfire AND my soul mate
Father to the world’s greatest 3 kids
Liberal AND Conservative
Hungry to grow my often fixed mind
A maximizer AND over-thinker
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A good heart but also a sinner who needs lots of grace
William Wallace and Bruce Almighty
Favorite sports are futbol and football
Need lots of work on how I argu… I mean, debate issues
Terrible chronological memory but a good relational one
Prefer to figure out conceptually how things work/relate/fit together before taking action
I love the art of dance
An audio/visual savant
What I believe:
Answers can be right, wrong, neither or both and this is OK
Absolutes are absolutely ridiculous
Creation and evolution are true
Deep change is a characteristic of authenticity
The beauty in the everyday is uncomparable to any work of art
Life is a gift from God and living it with intention is a form of gratitude
Respect is a gift, trust is earned
Prejudice is the 8th deadly sin, discrimination the 9th
No matter how hard you try to live life “right”, you can only get it less wrong
An unexamined life is simply not worth living {Aristotle}
With a cause, excellence is possible… without one, mediocrity is the best we can hope for
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage {Anais Nin}
It's not if I believe in love but if love believes in me {Bono}
Key ingrediants:
Love is magic
Imagination is the first step towards living your wildest dreams
Asking for direction is a sign you’re right where you need to be
Admitting you’re weak is the strongest thing you can do
Listen to, and learn from, our children
If you are going to put someone “in a box”, make sure it’s only 3-sided and open to change
Serving others is far more powerful than any words you speak to them
Doing things you love will lead to living a life you love
If you are going through hell, keep going {Winston Churchill}
My melody line:
Where the streets have no name - U2
These are days - 10,000 Maniacs
Clocks - Coldplay
Poison and wine - The Civil Wars
Defying Gravity - Wicked
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Magic in the weeds...
So I've been working on a house maximization project the past two days. Here's the scenario... we have one DVR but want to be able to watch the recorded shows on different TV's. The logical solution would be, get another DVR. But my wife and I are hell-bent on not giving Charter one more penny than we already do. So I started playing around with different ways to run the wires and I discovered a way that works (it's actually quite brilliant if I do have to say so myself). The kicker was finding a remote control transmitter that allows us to use the cable box remote on a different floor. Off to Radio Shack and I purchased the final piece of the puzzle.
I spent about an hour going through the steps of setting up the wires as I planned it up and all went well. However "that kicker" (the remote control transmitter) wasn't working and I was losing my mind - it made absolutely NO sense. Oh and it probably didn't help that it was bedtime for the kids and my stress level was impacting the entire family. Julie pleaded with me to stop and wait for the kids to go to bed - and while my mind was running a mile a minute, I knew that I had no choice but to pause.
After a 25 minute show, I looked at Julie and asked if she would take the kids up and she laughed while saying, "I think you need to so that you clear your head." Again, she was right and I begrudgingly headed up with one kid in each arm. I hurried my way through the routine, quick dabs of toothpaste on the toothbrushes, a request for going pee before getting into bed, into one room - night-light on, CD player on (repeat on song one unless otherwise instructed), other night-light on (same room, she needs 2) - into another room - night-light on, CD player on, go back check on the progress in the bathroom and find Miles on the pot - all's good. Take the kids into my bedroom to show them the weather for the night, they like to see that it's not going to rain - done, only partly cloudy. Drop Lily off, tuck her in and on my way out she requests that I set up her CD player to repeat all - done and done. Drop Miles off, tuck him in and on my way out. Turn off the lights up stairs - Miles holler's, "Dad, I can't hear my music!" - back into his room, turned up the volume and out I went to go figure out this problem with the freaking transmitter. "Check on me millions of times" requests Lily followed by Miles, "Check on me 20" - done and done and done.
While I was removing myself from the situation of fixing the problem and TRYING to focus on putting my kids to bed, I discovered a better way to test what was wrong and sure enough I found out how to make it work. However, it entailed plugging the transmitter in behind the couch and lucky me, it's a sectional and requires taking the whole thing apart. Surprising I wasn't too affected by this notion because I saw the light of success at the end of the tunnel. As I pull two of the pieces apart, to my shock and amazement I uncover my daughters favorite stuffed animal friend - a tiny guinea pig named "Mini" who has been missing for 4 months. The biggest smile came across my face because I knew that everyone in the house would be overjoyed, especially Lily.
I put Mini on my head and walked up the stairs to "check on Lily for the 1st of my million times" and walked into her room. She says, "Hey Dad" I reply "Hey". I lay down facing her and she still didn't notice her old buddy because of the dim light in her room. I nod my head forward and Mini falls right on top of her and she squealed in confusion of what just fell on her and then when she saw who it was she giggled the most magical noise I father can ever hear. Julie came running in, curious to know what happened and when she saw Mini, I might go so far to say she was just as happy as Lily. In fact, she ran into Miles room and got him out of bed and brought him in to see who returned. She went on to say, "I told you that Mini didn't leave us Lily, I told you she was eating crumbs to stay alive, oh I just knew she was OK" - yes this is my wife talking about an inanimate object but in all seriousness, we all love Mini. As I walked out of the room, Julie was grabbing the phone and called her brother to tell him the news. It was a great night indeed.
When I got back down stairs, I saw my project was right where I left it and it no longer consumed me or mattered all that much. I found Mini. I couldn't help but feel like this whole thing was a set up by God to remind me of my narrow-mindedness and how if I focus on the wrong things, I might miss the magic in the weeds.
Thank you God for making this one easy and give me the strength to do better next time and thanks for Mini.
DD
I spent about an hour going through the steps of setting up the wires as I planned it up and all went well. However "that kicker" (the remote control transmitter) wasn't working and I was losing my mind - it made absolutely NO sense. Oh and it probably didn't help that it was bedtime for the kids and my stress level was impacting the entire family. Julie pleaded with me to stop and wait for the kids to go to bed - and while my mind was running a mile a minute, I knew that I had no choice but to pause.
After a 25 minute show, I looked at Julie and asked if she would take the kids up and she laughed while saying, "I think you need to so that you clear your head." Again, she was right and I begrudgingly headed up with one kid in each arm. I hurried my way through the routine, quick dabs of toothpaste on the toothbrushes, a request for going pee before getting into bed, into one room - night-light on, CD player on (repeat on song one unless otherwise instructed), other night-light on (same room, she needs 2) - into another room - night-light on, CD player on, go back check on the progress in the bathroom and find Miles on the pot - all's good. Take the kids into my bedroom to show them the weather for the night, they like to see that it's not going to rain - done, only partly cloudy. Drop Lily off, tuck her in and on my way out she requests that I set up her CD player to repeat all - done and done. Drop Miles off, tuck him in and on my way out. Turn off the lights up stairs - Miles holler's, "Dad, I can't hear my music!" - back into his room, turned up the volume and out I went to go figure out this problem with the freaking transmitter. "Check on me millions of times" requests Lily followed by Miles, "Check on me 20" - done and done and done.
While I was removing myself from the situation of fixing the problem and TRYING to focus on putting my kids to bed, I discovered a better way to test what was wrong and sure enough I found out how to make it work. However, it entailed plugging the transmitter in behind the couch and lucky me, it's a sectional and requires taking the whole thing apart. Surprising I wasn't too affected by this notion because I saw the light of success at the end of the tunnel. As I pull two of the pieces apart, to my shock and amazement I uncover my daughters favorite stuffed animal friend - a tiny guinea pig named "Mini" who has been missing for 4 months. The biggest smile came across my face because I knew that everyone in the house would be overjoyed, especially Lily.
I put Mini on my head and walked up the stairs to "check on Lily for the 1st of my million times" and walked into her room. She says, "Hey Dad" I reply "Hey". I lay down facing her and she still didn't notice her old buddy because of the dim light in her room. I nod my head forward and Mini falls right on top of her and she squealed in confusion of what just fell on her and then when she saw who it was she giggled the most magical noise I father can ever hear. Julie came running in, curious to know what happened and when she saw Mini, I might go so far to say she was just as happy as Lily. In fact, she ran into Miles room and got him out of bed and brought him in to see who returned. She went on to say, "I told you that Mini didn't leave us Lily, I told you she was eating crumbs to stay alive, oh I just knew she was OK" - yes this is my wife talking about an inanimate object but in all seriousness, we all love Mini. As I walked out of the room, Julie was grabbing the phone and called her brother to tell him the news. It was a great night indeed.
When I got back down stairs, I saw my project was right where I left it and it no longer consumed me or mattered all that much. I found Mini. I couldn't help but feel like this whole thing was a set up by God to remind me of my narrow-mindedness and how if I focus on the wrong things, I might miss the magic in the weeds.
Thank you God for making this one easy and give me the strength to do better next time and thanks for Mini.
DD
Friday, November 19, 2010
Find the melody line...
So I just had a revelation and I want to write it out so that I don't forget - or better yet have a place to go when I do :-)
I read "Born To Run" a month or so ago and really found myself drawn towards the concept that generally speaking our bodies are perfectly designed to run with little help from shoes (funny since I work for a running shoe company). So I bought myself a pair of "minimal" running shoes that have very little technology and cushioning and began my journey.
Based on the information from the book and general knowledge I had picked up in my days of researching this, it was very clear that it would take some time for me to get used to running with these type of shoes - and it has. I've been rinsing and repeating (if you will) different ways to run. A little slow, a little flat footed, a little this, a little that - it felt better than before, but it still didn't feel "right".
That is until today. My achilles was sore, my breath was off, I just didn't feel good. While I was running though, I couldn't stop thinking about how different running has been for me since I stopped playing soccer. I could not remember one injury or chronic pain I ever had while running for and playing soccer. Why? What is the melody line here?
Here's what I go so far. While I was playing soccer I rarely ran on the road or wore running shoes. Rather we ran around the field in our cleats. Soccer cleats have zero technology and zero cushioning, they are strictly for touch and traction. At that moment I looked down and saw my black minimal running shoes as soccer shoes and moved over to the grass. A familiar feeling came back - the feeling I had when my high school coach would send us out on a run to start practice. I felt my stride naturally correct itself. I felt my stability muscles kick in to protect my every step. My body as a whole was working to run, not just my legs.
What does all this mean? What do I want myself to remember? The melody line is deeper than the tools or the answers to the questions... the melody line is deeper than simply "what the book says" and buying minimal shoes... the melody line lies in that subtle nuance, the subtle sense of ownership when you look past the surface and find the answer FOR YOU.
For me, the answer in this case was reflection. Reflection on a time in my life when running was (dare I say) fun and (dare I say) more comfortable. A time when I wasn't trying to run barefoot with the right stride - it was I time I was running with love of a sport, commitment to a team, desire to be great, in my heart. That, AND removing crutches (like too much cushioning in my running shoes) brought me into a place I hadn't felt in a long time. It was magic.
So David, when you find yourself struggling to get something or not quite comfortable with where you are, find the melody line - look deeper - and wait for the magic, it's there!
I read "Born To Run" a month or so ago and really found myself drawn towards the concept that generally speaking our bodies are perfectly designed to run with little help from shoes (funny since I work for a running shoe company). So I bought myself a pair of "minimal" running shoes that have very little technology and cushioning and began my journey.
Based on the information from the book and general knowledge I had picked up in my days of researching this, it was very clear that it would take some time for me to get used to running with these type of shoes - and it has. I've been rinsing and repeating (if you will) different ways to run. A little slow, a little flat footed, a little this, a little that - it felt better than before, but it still didn't feel "right".
That is until today. My achilles was sore, my breath was off, I just didn't feel good. While I was running though, I couldn't stop thinking about how different running has been for me since I stopped playing soccer. I could not remember one injury or chronic pain I ever had while running for and playing soccer. Why? What is the melody line here?
Here's what I go so far. While I was playing soccer I rarely ran on the road or wore running shoes. Rather we ran around the field in our cleats. Soccer cleats have zero technology and zero cushioning, they are strictly for touch and traction. At that moment I looked down and saw my black minimal running shoes as soccer shoes and moved over to the grass. A familiar feeling came back - the feeling I had when my high school coach would send us out on a run to start practice. I felt my stride naturally correct itself. I felt my stability muscles kick in to protect my every step. My body as a whole was working to run, not just my legs.
What does all this mean? What do I want myself to remember? The melody line is deeper than the tools or the answers to the questions... the melody line is deeper than simply "what the book says" and buying minimal shoes... the melody line lies in that subtle nuance, the subtle sense of ownership when you look past the surface and find the answer FOR YOU.
For me, the answer in this case was reflection. Reflection on a time in my life when running was (dare I say) fun and (dare I say) more comfortable. A time when I wasn't trying to run barefoot with the right stride - it was I time I was running with love of a sport, commitment to a team, desire to be great, in my heart. That, AND removing crutches (like too much cushioning in my running shoes) brought me into a place I hadn't felt in a long time. It was magic.
So David, when you find yourself struggling to get something or not quite comfortable with where you are, find the melody line - look deeper - and wait for the magic, it's there!
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