Less is often, surprisingly, More

Sitting in the pale white office of the local Carmax was an interesting experience. The people dutifully did their work, calling the bank, checking the title, taking the key, inspecting the car. Not understanding how we would function without the standard two cars.

We on the other hand were excited. Sitting, waiting, and hoping that everything would work out. Our goal is simple, we don't need two cars. Yes, we work full time, in two different parts of our city. Yes, we recognize that it will not always be convenient to go down to one car. Yet we recognize there is no need for two cars in current day to day lives. We recognize that the money spent on gas, insurance, and car payments could be better used to purchase more experiences, put into savings, and even an occasional romantic dinner.

We've opted for teamwork over convenience, in essence finding that less is more. I am determined, no matter what circumstances arise, no matter what financial successes we encounter, that the sum of our relationship is not what we have. Our relationship is more determined by what we do, both together as a couple, and independently as individuals. Getting rid of one car actually makes us a little happier. We find that our errands still get run, we both still get to work, in the end everything we need still gets done.

It's interesting because the average American has more of everything. In fact in a recent book I finished, The Progress Paradox by Gregg Easterbrook, points out that in almost every aspect, life has consistently gotten better over the past few decades, yet people feel worse now than in past decades. And despite Easterbrook's book being written in 2004, before the Great Recession, the facts all hold true today. Things have gotten better. Despite what our media says, the facts, the actual statistics show that things are better now then they have been throughout our history. Yet we, collectively, feel worse.

The book points out that we have more, and that's hard to deny. Think about how we now have so much stuff, that a whole industry has been created specializing in storing the stuff we don't use frequently. At the same time the storage industry has been created the size of houses and apartments have nearly doubled. Not only do we have more space to store our stuff, but we can't fit all of our stuff in our more space. The standard of living in the US has increased even more, to the point where what we want often gets confused with what we need and it's no longer about "keeping up with the Jones" but "catching and surpassing the Jones". All the while the general "Westerner" is becoming less engaged with the world in a civic capacity, more unhappy, more obese, and more worried about the future.

This is not to say that one should give up basic necessities or that money is not a good thing. But even those who have money, or those who think that having money, equates to happiness should be cautious. One study cited in Easterbrook's book points out money and happiness are correlated up to a certain point, that point being $60,000. After $60,000 on average, more money again often equates to less happiness (now that changes based on where you live and family, the study does address such things but comes to the same results, obscene amounts of money does not make one happy and often leaves one more unhappy).

In giving up a car, Anne and I have found that less convenience doesn't mean more headaches. It means more quality time together, more teamwork, and in a very real sense more happiness. We have begun to find that it isn't about what we have, and yes, it is nice to have certain luxuries, but it is about what we do with what we have.

The Old Men and The Road

There once was a young man who sat starring at the long road laid out before him. He starred at the road from behind the counter of the last gas station on the edge of a small town. The small town where he had been born, where he had his first kiss from a beautiful girl who begged him to adventure with her as she left on a train. He enjoyed his life well enough. He had all he needed in his steady job. He had even saved enough to buy a car, which could take him from his small town to the nearby city. He had a TV and had seen movies. He was educated through high school and community college.

He had a look of contentment on his average face. Indeed, he was the type of man who while you tarried in his story you would like and, in fact, may even enjoy a pleasant conversation filled with pleasantries. Yet, should you be asked miles down the road about this particular young man you would not be able to remember his features, his contented look or his neatly cropped hair. You would not remember his ethnicity, for he could pass for a few. He was a man who tended the road. A road the man knew about, yet did not know.

Years would pass, money would be saved and the man would grow older. The gas station was his and he would sit watching the road fill with ever newer cars and ever different people. He sat. The road changed. His look would change from that of a contented man to that of an old passerby. He had few stories and they were mostly of things he had been told by travelers who visited his station.

As this old man sat he noticed a similar old man filling a beat up old car, dented and with stickers. The man entered the station, cherry and full of life. He struck up a conversation, while staring at a road map. The man asked why he never drove down the road. The owner gave a thousand reasons why. All were valid reasons to stay. After all, he figured he might as well work at a gas station before the gas ran out, and then business was good so he couldn't leave because he was making money. Then he got older and thought the world would end soon anyways, for there were wars and rumors of wars, just had there had always been so he thought there was no point in traveling ("Might as well be comfortable while I can." he would say) and stayed. He always reasoned that another year or two and things would change; gas would run out, the economy would tank, the world would end, and he wouldn't have missed anything anyway. So he stayed, adding a little extra to his security, accumulating a little more of what he did not need. Life happened to him, but he didn't make life happen.

My Thoughts:
Life happens to us, but few of us make life happen. We find a thousands reasons to worry and a thousand reasons to embrace our current circumstance. All of our reasons seem valid. We worry. We worry about things outside of our control. We worry about the economy, we worry about tomorrow, we worry about today. In essence I think many of us sacrifice the greatness of a single moment for the fear of an inconsequential and nonexistent future moment. We exchange what is happening now for fear of what is not yet determined to happen.

It seems to me that many of us have got caught up in the idea of having more and living less. We seem to spend more time watching TV and less time with others, more time worrying about the economy and how much money we have, in effect leaving us less time to play a cheap board game with family and friends. We seem to be so worried about our values and freedoms being taken away that we almost forget to actually practice those freedoms.

My opinion is that many of us have become the old man at a young age. We have sacrificed the freedom to travel and experience life for the paycheck that accumulates more stuff. We have bought into the concept that the more you own, the nicer car you drive, your status is better than your experience.

Now I do not want to come across as an advocate to say that you do not need to plan ahead or treat your valuable resources of time and money with frivolity. No, you need to treat your finite resources with wisdom. But we tend to live so far outside the means of our resources that we trap ourselves into things we think we need, instead of things we actually need. The reality is that we do not need a ton of money to experience life and build relationships, we do not need a nice car to garner respect or a boat to appreciate the ocean, or a movie to appreciate a story.

Maybe if we took a moment to appreciate the current moment we wouldn't be so worried about tomorrow because we had today. Maybe if we take a second to be thankful for modern medicine, health, friends, family, the air we breath we would realize we have a lot more than we thought. Maybe if we take a second to give of ourselves to the neighboring shelter, to say a kind word to a friend going through a hard time, to give a cup of coffee, or send out a job opening we just heard about we would show others that all is not hopeless and that people do actually care. Maybe in the midst of struggles, when we are living in the moment with wisdom and creativity we in turn create a better future. Maybe means its uncertain, but it's clear to me that the alternative of fear and worry isn't really working. Maybe we won't become the old man spending our lives holding off traveling down the road.

Reflections of Us

There are days when I don't have much to say. It's days like these where I like to read. Lately, I've been reading a lot. From books on math (I must shamelessly plug my previous blog entry about The Drunkards Walk) to books on social issues, such as Losing My Cool, I've been gaining more understanding and seeking new perspectives. As I sit and listen, reading Facebook posts or hearing various debates, I find that new perspectives and gaining more understanding is something woefully forgotten.

Please hear me out, I do not wish to engage in a politically philosophical conversation where words are dissected to create division. It is simply that we, as a group of people, seem to be drawn to the edges of arguments by those who are already at the edge of the argument. While most of the American mainstream are somewhere in the middle all too many of us choose sides based solely on political loyalty, in doing so we exchange our personal opinions for parroting other's thoughts.

It seems to be that we have become ingrained in saying one side is wrong, while ours is right. What benefit is this pride that we have in our own political ideology's opinion? It is of no consequence, after all our political party, for most of us, is not going to be offended by our agreement or lack of agreement with them.  Ultimately it comes down to us. We want it our way, after all we like to be "right", and in selfish frivolity we refuse to understand or hear another point of view, which could prove us "wrong". Worst yet, we as a group of individuals, have failed to read and research our own view. We no longer are concerned with the information out there, unless it comes from a source supporting our point of view. We ingest "facts" only if those "facts" come from a source already proven to support our political party. This does not benefit us. This is the epitome of pride and ego.

This all or nothing view we hold does not serve us as individuals or as a country. We have become dominated by extremes, beckoning us to join them. We have been pushed to say we are one or the other, either a democrat or a republican, and this is rarely the case. We are people. And if we are rational, and even aware of our emotions, about those issues most important to us we can agree that there are no easy answers. No side is right, this is not about being right, because ultimately any solution is not going to be perfect when crafted by imperfect people.

The thought of "I think am I right and therefore I am right." does not make you right any more than thinking you are a millionaire makes you a millionaire. Yet, this is what we have boiled our opinions, and the views held by our political party, down to.  The reality is that government, just like us, is flawed and run by human individuals. Even when the constitution was crafted, those individuals we places as the idols of the past were imperfect and  disagreed with the elements included or left off of the constitution. George Mason, an individual mostly forgotten and only remembered by sports fans for the university with his name's sports team, refused to sign the US Constitution because, in part, of the issue of slavery.

Perhaps we need to reinvestigate where we stand, perhaps we need to read more and actually do the work it takes to become knowledgeable about our beliefs. Perhaps we need to read the opposing view point, not with a slant of hatred, but with a slant of trying to understand both sides of an argument. Maybe when we realize that our side is not infallibly right and the other side is not always inextricably wrong we can began to have a real conversation about where to go and what to do, without the threats of government shutdowns and drastic language such as "draconian" and "extreme".

After all the real truth is that our government reflects us. The more we learn to be knowledgeable, the more the commonalities will show through  and the less the edge's screams will divide. My encouragement is to break out of your self imposed boxes and put some work into understanding both sides of the argument. Ask questions, seek answers, wade through all of the rhetorical garbage into the issues and stop clinging to your own party's opinion. Live in freedom knowing that you, with a little work, can have your own imperfect thoughts and opinions.

The Man and The Desert

I've been working on writing in different styles to tell different stories in various ways. Here is one such story. I hope you enjoy it's brevity.

The sky showed a magnificent blue. The kind of sky that faded from a light North Carolina to a deep ocean speckled with cloud wisps reminding of white tips. Looking up could hide the barrenness of the ground where the dull, dusty brown seemed to swallow the horizon. The sun beat down as the man moved forward, dragging his right foot slightly behind his left. His water had long gone dry and the mirage of a friend had given way to a the reality of a cactus. He sat and tried to cry.

His face was a streaked tan, weathered from the years, with his upper lip obscured by the bleached salt and peppered mustache. He sat with his head on his chest. The magnitude of the situation was not lost on this man. He was a magnanimous man, generous to those in need and brave in the face of danger. It was this trait that led him here. He was after all a defender. Imperfect as he was, he was respected even admired.

His face now veiled the fear he had worked so hard to keep at bay. No one would see his shame; he knew this but still felt the guilt of what he held in his soul and which his face still did not show. He was tired and knew that any pusillanimous behavior would lead to his own demise. And so with great effort and tired legs he stood up, looked at the mountains and begin to walk. Hoping with the kind of hope only people in dire situations know.

It was a tired pace, his right leg still dragged slightly behind his left. He was a big man, amply strong, and when in good spirits he had helped many. He looked at his canteen and took an empty swig. He was moving forward, limping, spitting, throwing his very soul into the motion. The brown dust swirled in the wind, whipping away his footsteps and in his mind, the memory of him. He knew this desert well. It was his home, he had spanned it time and time again, this time seemed more foreboding though.

To pass the time, and to be honest ignore the pain, he questioned himself. If this situation were the result of generosity was it worth being generous in the first place? The question echoed in his mind. He reasoned that if the end result of munificence is death, and a lonely death, a unknown death at that, then what was really the point? However if the point of generosity is for the sake of humankind then irregardless of the consequence the action was worthy. If he only were generous when one knew then would he really be generous or would he only be an egomaniacal aberration only similar to those he abhorred?

The thinking was too much. He was tired. He had decided that if he had to do it all over again, he would. For the simple act of kindness, the simplicity of action, he recognized had been a worth his own demise. If no one knew that would be okay because kindness lives a life of it's own and in it's own way tells it's own story. He had lived well and this desert home knew the tale. He told it to the wind, spoke it to the dry dusty trail.

He started at the swallowed horizon where it meet the North Carolina Blue, continued to move his gaze higher to the deepest shade of the ocean. The part of the sky where the white tipped clouds lay like small waves in a peaceful sea. It beckoned him. He felt that peace, it washed over him like a warm blanket of the Gulf of Mexico he had one time felt as a kid. He succumb to the ocean in a sweet deep breath and fell to sleep.

His gravestone read: Here lies Charity. We know little of what he did but only that he lives in the heart of everyman. When the road gets tough and lonely, the brave still stand by their fellow human.

Drunk Walking and Our Seemingly Random Lives

Often times I stumble through life like a confused missile and as I analyze my path I am surprised to see the lack of destruction my trajectory has caused. It's interesting how my incongruous and inconsistent steps have led me from one state to another, one job to another, and have ultimately worked. If one were to analyze my path it would look to the casual observer that I was a drunk nomad wondering though life, even though this is not the case. While this is not the case it does lead to an interesting conversation, which also includes an interesting book, The Drunkards Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. 

While in all honesty my life makes sense in that I can explain my path there is a recognizable element of luck and randomness. Leonard Mlodinow, a physicist at Cal Tech, teaches Randomness. His book discusses the history of statistics, norms, and randomness. It is an investigation and story into what makes life work and how work, both good and bad, can often be contributed to randomness.

It may seem that this thought process would preclude one from having to work for what they have. After all if it is all luck then why work? This is not the case for as the author points out, randomness may ultimately have some say but just as flipping a coin the more times you flip you will always have a fifty-fifty chance at the desired outcome. For even if you have a streak of twenty heads eventually, even in a completely random scenario, you will have one that falls on tails. So in essence the more times you try the greater chances you have of succeeding. Dr. Mlodinow's work does not conclude that all life is random so do not prepare, but simply points out that there are random elements of life and it is good to recognize those elements.

Benjamin Franklin once pointed out that, "Diligence is the mother of good luck.". I believe that the Drunkard's Walk would agree. While I attribute many things to a higher power, and the author does not seek to disprove or dissuade the reader away from that higher power, but points out that it is important to see how randomness impacts everything from the stock markets to how we meet others. It is then up to us to make the most of those chance encounters and opportunities.

As Dr. Mlodinow walks through the story of how the theory of randomness came to be, he walks the reader through the dark ages of the inquisition and through the enlightenment, into modern thought. His ability to tell stories explains the importance of the discoveries in a way that keeps the mathematician's antithesis interested. In his journey through history he shows common fallacies in how we recognize patterns and how we attribute success, and failures for that matter, to the wrong people as we attempt to use logical fallacies to explain data; data which we often misinterpret due to the way the numbers are presented to the public.

In the end Dr. Mlodinow seeks to help the common person learn to understand randomness and statistics in order to help each think through and see the facts associated with the everyday information presented. No matter who or what one attributes the chance occurances of life, the author points out, that it is good to recognize the good fortune we have had and how little control we have had over those occurances. It does help me be thankful that where I started did not dictate where I currently am. After all as Dr. Mlodinow points out, often our ability to succeed is not in what happens to us, but in how we react to those occurrences.

Regardless of if you believe life is ruled completely by chance or believe that life is ruled by a Creator, the book gives plenty of interesting food for thought. After all we can all recognize that we have very little control over what happens and when it happens and more control over how we react to those situations.

Lending a Helping Hand

About a year ago I started to write an article that was promised to be published by a progressive Christian magazine.

So here is one of my first articles accepted by a publisher. It is a thought about Foster Youth and how that mixes with Spirituality.

I didn’t realize that when I walked across the stage to receive my bachelor's degree I was achieving something that only 2% of my peer group accomplishes. I am a product of foster care. I moved homes, grew up with various families and even experienced being homeless for a brief period of time. I don’t really fit the mold. When looking at me, you could never tell the experiences I’ve come through. You’d never know if I had not just told you. While nearly 70% of students from the general population attend college, only 17% of traditionally aged students (those students from ages 18-24) from foster care enroll in college. According to a study by Casey Family Programs, of the 17% who enroll, only 2% actually graduate.

Growing up in foster care is something that is hard to explain, describe, or even fully understand for those who have never experienced it. For instance, many of us from foster care hear words like mother and father and might not have the typical feelings of comfort and stability. Instead, we feel the hurt and pain that accompanies abandonment or the loss of something that you’re supposed to have, but don’t know what it is like to have. We stand on the edge of society; the group that few talk about and even fewer really know. Our experiences about how we got here are far different, but there are certain struggles we all share.

In general, young adult college students face many transitional issues in general, but there are groups like those from foster care who face an abnormal amount of issues. There are many students who carry the emotional scars accrued from an upbringing that has told them “they cannot”. These students must not only face those scars, but also learn to navigate a collegiate system that wasn’t built for them. As students face these issues head on - as I faced these issues head on - we all develop something that we can pass along to others. As we grow from our experiences, we can help others with a unique perspective about how to overcome their own struggles. We can offer lessons in resilience.

Building Resilience

Brittany is currently in her first year of a master’s degree program in Colorado and is a foster care alumnus. She happens to be in the same master’s program that I graduated from a year ago. Brittany and I have had several email conversations back and forth discussing life and helping others through working with students from foster care. Brittany points out that resilience is the ability to bounce back and change the negative patterns you experienced as a child. Dr. Oscar Felix, the executive director of the Access Center at Colorado State University, compliments her statement by saying “Resilience is the persistence to reach goals and to gain a wider perspective on situations.”

Brittany, myself and those from similar backgrounds have to constantly reverse the negative foundations on which we built our thought process. We have to relearn how to differentiate between the “feelings” from our past experiences and the actual truth. Our past experiences do not dictate who we are and what we can be or do, but often as products of foster care, we believe and feel that our past does just that.

Resilience is developed over time through building successes. From the perspective of someone who has come out of a foster care background, it takes a willingness to learn and accept help. Often times growing up in less than favorable environments create an unhealthy sense of independence. Dr. Felix points out that this may cause some students to not seek help or ignore support systems set up for at-risk populations, foster care alumni being one of those populations. Those of us from these backgrounds need to lay down some of that independence and ask for help. We need to be willing to face the scars of our past and rebuild our foundations on something positive, healthy, real and true. This takes time and is scary.

Where Does God Fit?

All of us carry scars and have a need for resilience. Although you may not understand all the issues others face, sometimes just being a friend can be the most healing balm that exists. As friends and mentors we can encourage people to seek the appropriate help necessary for success and, in essence, be the healing hand of God.

The Bible is full of healing words and gentle encouragements. It seems many times we as Christians are quick to state what someone “should” be doing, we fail to realize that our preconceived notions are not problem solvers or words of healing. Young adults from traumatic backgrounds understand the harshness of the world and need to see the love and care that exists in humanity.

One time I was at a church with a young man who had been placed in foster care. A well-intentioned man at the church told him that what he really needed was a father figure in his life. The older man said that, but was not willing to commit to the action. These were empty words. God calls us to be the healers in a broken world. Being a healer means taking the time to get to know someone, showing them that they are worth the time and helping them live to their full potential.

Those of us who come from these types of backgrounds are hard on ourselves. We do not need to be told what we are doing wrong. We have grown up believing that we were born wrong. We need love from friends and family, the care that exists in community, and people to stand with us so that we can see what a right, just, and caring world looks like. This happens through the time it takes to build genuine connections. It pushes through the pain to the heart of someone who longs to accomplish a worthwhile life that can only exist in a continually healing soul.