the little things

Sometimes it's the little things that crack me up. I was at Walgreens the other day and I happened upon this product. It's not the best cell phone camera photo, but I loved how happy the elderly guy in the corner looks.

















And who could resist "Bubba Cola"?

more goals

I said that I would post the rest of my goals in the categories of fitness, mental/educational, spiritual, relational, and domestic here.

Fitness: I will be able to run one mile in under 9 minutes before the year is through. I will be able to climb the Manitou incline in under 60 minutes before October 31. My first time up the incline, I finished in 48 minutes. My goal that day was to make it halfway. My best time up the incline was 34 minutes, and I made the whole trip (up the incline, down Barr trail) in under 60 minutes.

Mental/Educational: I will read one fiction or non-fiction book (I prefer non-fiction anyway, frankly) per month. No more 7 or 8 months without reading, then reading 5 or 6 books all at once. At least 6 books this year will be about sales or the health insurance industry (not including my monthly HIU [Health Insurance Underwiter] trade magazine). I will also begin my first RHU (Registered Health Underwriter) or REBC (Registered Employee Benefits Consultant) class through The American College. Which track I take depends on if I will continue to specialize more and more in group health insurance or individual market insurance at work.

Spritual: To read through the Bible by year's end. I've read through it completely only once, and that's not nearly enough for a believer of over 21 years. This will take 4 and a half chapters per day. I'll also begin church "shopping" in February, and I'll get plugged in before Spring.

Relational: This goes hand in hand with being at a new church. I'll gain at least one new friend this year.

Domestic: This may sound like a stupid category for you, but I think it's appropriate. I will thoroughly clean my bathroom and kitchen, vacuum, wash my sheets, and do two loads of laundry once a week. I will dust the house once every two weeks. I will also finish my 3 year old baseboard project by touching up with paint and caulking. I will replace the kitchen and bathroom linoleum and install new baseboards. The baseboards will be completed by March 31 and the new flooring will be installed by December 31.

I'll keep you updated on the progress of these goals here.

loving work

It's been a busy week. A busy month, really. I am loving my new job! I am so blessed to have this opportunity. I get salary plus commission (the salary isn't a draw), 16 days of vacation, health and dental insurance, casual dress (the VP of Operations wore slippers yesterday), and easy hours. It looks like I may have the opportunity to work from home later this year. Our CEO is a great guy, he values his employees' ideas and truly has puts our welfare as his top priority. Our break room fridge is well-stocked with fruit, beverages, and other snacks. The culture couldn't be better. Everyone respects each other, gets along well, and works as a team. There isn't one person who doesn't pull their own weight. The CEO empties our trash on a daily basis! Even Harrison, the office dog, is friendly. The coffee is literally the best I've ever had. Our VP of Ops owns her own coffee roasting business, and she brings in fresh roasted coffee beans for us a couple times a week. I can't tell you how nice it is to know that I will make more next month than I did this month. It's simple growth, not compound, but it's great. Sorry if you are feeling nauseated by my gushing after reading this, but I can't help it! My job situation has not been the greatest in the past year and a half, so this is a dream come true.

I've been appointed the small group specialist. I guess it's because I have the most experience with small group health insurance. It's a stretch to say experience, I hadn't actually sold a small group case until last week, but I have quoted a couple of small groups when I was at MetLife and when I was independent. Last week I secured a small group of 12 people in Florida, and this week I've started on 4 more small groups. Two groups of 3 people each, one with 5 people, and one of 33! The group of 33 account's monthly commissions would amount to the equivalent of an 18% raise. Better than a sharp stick in the eye, for sure.

I still have to work on setting the other goals. I'll get that done before the weekend's through.

birthday weekend

I was without web access for a couple days, so I wasn't able to post. Brian and I resolved everything, just in time for my birthday. I don't think it was the best idea to eat so much cake so soon after a fast. There was a birthday cake for me at work, a cake at the Behm's, and my mom baked a cake. I went grocery shopping this weekend and bought food for lunches. It's been two years since I've packed my own lunch for work, but it will be good to eat healthier everyday, as well as save a ton on lunches out!

It was a relaxing and productive weekend. I'm so full of hope for this year, and I've felt that everyday since it began. It's kept me inspired to get things done, including the mundane. Aside from relaxing with friends and family this weekend, and seeing a couple of movies, I organized my walk-in closet and got a better handle on where I am financially after a rough year last year. I tallied my debts and was a little surprised (but not totally shocked) at the figure. I'm going to check into finding some work I can do for a few hours a week (10 or so).

I've also set two important goals for the year. They're not resolutions, they are goals. They are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and have a completion date attached:

1. Lose 100 pounds by December 31, 2008. This year, I'm going to limit myself to two meals out per week. I'm going to walk at least 10 minutes continuously a day, and do other exercise for at least 20 minutes for 4 days per week. I will eat at least two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables per day. I will drink at least eight glasses of water a day. I will consume no more than 4 servings of dairy (excluding eggs) per week. I will enter my food daily onto fitday.com as best as I can remember until I have lost 50 pounds. I will take at least one cycle of hCG this year.

2. Pay off half of my debt (excluding auto and home). I will negotiate balances and payoffs with all of the creditors I can and will be current with every creditor by year's end. My list of creditors will be reduced by two thirds.

In the next day or two I'm going to establish some other goals (fitness, mental/educational, spiritual, relational, and domestic) and post them here.

the end

Well, not "THE END", the end. Just the end of the fast, and the start of a new me. Again.

I was planning on posting the anticlimactic end of the fast yesterday. The fast broke on Wednesday morning, with the aptly named meal, breakfast. Let me back up a little. I wasn't quite sure of the exact issues I would need to deal with, spiritually, when I started the fast. I also really didn't want to publish what I have been learning in detail, at least not yet. I really don't want to, but I feel I have to to defend myself for comments made publicly by my friend, Brian, and I don't think I should wait any longer, lest I appear guilty (for lack of a better word). He did not actually use my name in his posts, but it's clear that if you know both him and me, that it is me. Public enough. You can read his comments for his side of the story, here, although it's not my intention to pit myself against him. We're friends, and we'll get through this, like he says in his blog. I did hang up on him after our very brief interaction. The first thing he said was "Give me one good reason I shouldn't think you're a loser," and after I angrily replied "I don't care what the hell you think, I wasn't fasting for you." We didn't start out on the right foot. He was upset, I think mostly about feeling alone now in his fast, and probably a bit irritable after not eating for 20 days or so. I was angry that he was angry and I didn't quite understand why, and I was expecting an angry phone call after I heard from someone close to him that he was "hacked off" that I "quit" the fast. He was on the offensive, and angry, and I was on the defensive, and angry. Nothing good would have come from that conversation. Hanging up on him, I now realize, only exacerbated an already tense situation. Brian, I'm sorry for my harsh response and for hanging up on you. You deserved a more thoughtful, respectful answer. I hope what you (hopefully) read here will satisfy you.

Anyway, back to the beginning of the fast. I wasn't sure what to read in the Word, or what to read outside the Word for encouragement. My dad gave me a book by Og Mandino for Christmas, which I've mentioned here before. It's called The Greatest Miracle in the World. The night of December 31 (really the wee hours of January 1), I started reading it before bed. I also started reading the sermon on the mount, Matthew 5-7. I memorized that passage in high school, but only because it was required. I never put much thought into it. But that's all I've read during my fast, 3 chapters in Matthew and a 100 page paperback, other than my daily Oswald Chambers devotional. That's all I wanted to read because I wanted to dwell on them. Zig Ziglar says that a person will learn something new every time he or she reads a passage or hears a talk until after the sixteenth time reading or listening. This is obviously not a hard and fast rule, but it is amazing how something new popped out at me every time I read the same passage for 16 nights in a row. God had one main topic on his lesson plan for this fast--to make me learn the depth of his love for me and that I should live up to be the man he created me to be. I've been wallowing in self-pity for the past 18 months. You'd think that brimming with self-confidence and thinking you're so unique and special is selfish. It's not. Being absorbed in self-pity is selfish. When you're sitting in the pit of self-pity you can't climb out and help anyone else in need. You can't do anything but sit there in the dirt and feel sorry for yourself. You are in so deep that you can barely see the light of day. Being self-confident and proclaiming your rarity put you in the position you need to be in to live up to your potential. I've needed to re-recognize my potential and change my mindset to believe that I can get there.

That's where the sermon on the mount and the last chapter of Greatest Miracle come in. This is part of what I read in the chapter titled "The God Memorandum" very early in the morning on January 1:

I am with you, and this moment is the dividing line of your life. All that has gone before is like unto no more that the time you slept within your mother's womb. What is past is dead. Let the dead bury the dead . . . Attend to my wisdom. Let me share with you, again, the secret you heard at your birth and forgot. You are my greatest miracle. You are the greatest miracle in the world. Those were the first words you ever heard. Then you cried. They all cry.

Then I cried after reading that! Those were the exact words I needed to read. Jesus words in Matthew 6:25-33 were also what I needed:

25Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

I've been meditating on these words and praying about them. I believe that I've learned what I've needed to learn on a spiritual level; I feel fresh, reborn, and sated. I woke up on the morning of the 16th feeling spiritually satiated, and physically hungry. I knew it was time to end the fast, and it seemed like a natural thing to do. It wasn't a moment of weakness, it didn't feel like giving into an urge like how I felt the night I ordered the pizza and canceled it minutes later. Sure, my upcoming birthday was in the back of my mind, but ending the fast had nothing to do with that. I have learned a measure of self-control, too. I know 16 days isn't the same as 40, but I never committed to 40 days either. Being in the "40 Day Club" isn't on my priority list.

Like I told Brian in my IM, and you, reader, in an earlier post, fasting is a deeply personal experience, and one should question only his or her own motives for fasting or reasons for breaking a fast. It's between God and his child alone. The second part of 1 Samuel 16:7 says "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." I don't fault Brian for examining and speculating on my motives. It's a very human thing to do. I've speculated on his. But that doesn't matter one bit. Let me be perfectly clear: This fast was a success. Not a partial success, and certainly not a failure. A complete success.

Brian, please understand that this fast had very little to do with changing my eating habits or losing weight. If that's a significant part of what it's about for you, that's great. More power to you, you've done very well! I know that you are genuinely concerned about my weight and want me to be a healthier person. I do, too. That's the next project. The first project was this, and it turned out to be God's, not mine, and that's to be confident in the skin I'm in. And I am, now more than ever. And you're not an asshole. You just act like one sometimes. ;-)

And I still won't be Too Easily Pleased.

fast, days 8, 9, 10, and 11

Each day this week seemed to race by, but last weekend seemed like a month ago. A lot has happened this week, so I suppose that made it seem longer than it was. I ended the first week of selling at work with 3 applications written, not bad for the first week. When selling over the phone, the lead time between quoting a prospect and writing a health insurance application is about 10 days, so it's nice to have 3 apps completed already. I have about 30 people to follow up with next week, 5 small groups to quote, and another 15 people to get in contact with when a specific health plan becomes available to us in the next week or two. In lay terms, this job is a health insurance guy's dream!

Back to the fast and what I've been learning. It's been so busy that the fast has been a breeze, really. It almost seems normal now to not eat. I've gone long enough without food that it seems almost strange for people to eat 3 times a day. When someone says, "I'm hungry" it doesn't quite make sense to me. How can you be hungry after 5 or 6 hours of fasting, when I've gone 11 days? I've thought about people in the third world who are fortunate to eat one balanced meal a day. It seems so unjust that Americans have a meal option on every street corner when a rural African child goes days without a morsel. And when life isn't quite going our way, we whine and flounder in self-pity. We have an abundance of all things, save one. Zig Ziglar calls it "the healthiest of all human emotions"--gratitude.

And to reclaim our self worth, as discussed in the last post, that's what Og Mandino suggests we start with--taking inventory of our blessings. We have warm homes, food to eat, and hands to earn a living with. Our eyes were designed with a hundred million receptors that enable us to enjoy the magic of a leaf, a snowflake, a pond, a star, a rose, a rainbow, and a look of love. We have 24,000 fibers in each of our ears that vibrate to the sound of a child at play, wind in the trees, an opera, tide crashing on rocks, and the words "I love you." We can speak. We're the only creatures on earth that can calm the angry, warm the lonely, praise the worthy, encourage the defeated, and say "I love you." We can move. We have 500 muscles 200 bones and 7 miles of nerve fibers that allow us to run, dance, play and work. We can think. Our brain has 13 billion nerve cells within its 3 pounds, letting us store every perception, sound, taste, smell and action we've experienced since the day of our birth, only awaiting our recall.

The second thing we need to do is to proclaim our rarity. Mandino says to consider a violin by Stradivarius, a bronze by Degas, or a play by Shakespeare. They are valuable for two reasons: their creators were masters and the works are few in number. But there is only one of each of us. Never in the 70 billion people that have walked on this planet has there been anyone like any of us. From only one of our fathers' 400 million sperm, through 23 chromosomes and hundreds of genes governing every possible physical characteristic about us, God could have created 300,000,000,000,000 possible humans (that's the population of 50,000 earths), but he chose each one of us, each different from another. We are special. We are not mediocre, so why act or perform like we are?

The third is to go another mile. The best law of success is found in the sermon on the mount. Whatever our task is, the only thing that will bring us success is to give more and better service than is asked of us. We shouldn't feel cheated if we deliver more than we receive, because life's pendulum, if it doesn't swing back today, will swing back tomorrow, tenfold. The mediocre man never goes another mile so that he doesn't cheat himself. But we aren't mediocre.

We have the power to choose. We have the power to think, love, laugh, grow, create, pray, act, and give. We also have the power to hate, cry, rot, destroy, curse, procrastinate, and steal. We must "use wisely our power of choice."

The 4 Laws of Happiness and Success:

Count Your Blessings
Proclaim Your Rarity
Go Another Mile
Choose Wisely

And one more law, to fulfill the other 4: Do all things with love. Love for our Creator, love for others, and love for ourselves.

fast, days 6 and 7

Yawn. What a busy two days it's been. I'm wiped. Our little call center is off the ground and we've been flooded with calls. I was on the phone from 8:30am until 5pm yesterday with a 20 minute break for lunch. After a slow drive home through the snowstorm, I spent the entire evening preparing health insurance proposals. It's a nice problem to have for an insurance guy. Most insurance agents spend an hour or two drumming up business on the phone with people who'd rather not talk to you, a couple hours a day out of the office running appointments, and a couple hours of customer service and paperwork. I now spend all day taking calls from friendly people who called me to buy health insurance. Next Monday our customer service/client liaison starts her job. This means no more paperwork or customer service calls, only 8 hours of pure selling time. Beautiful. With all of the busyness, I've had hardly a moment to think about food. It's made the fast easy the past couple of days.

I'm reading a short book by Og Mandino called The Greatest Miracle in the World. The last chapter I reread every night for the next hundred days or so. I'd highly recommend the book and reading that chapter every night just before bed. When you read the book, you'll understand why. Mandino asserts that humans do not live up to our full potential. We are God's greatest miracles, yet most of us wallow in mediocrity. This passage particularly struck me last night:

Maslow once wrote that either people do things which are fine and good, and thus respect themselves, or they do contemptible things and feel despicable, worthless, and unlovable. To my way of thinking, Maslow did not go far enough. I believe that humans feel despicable, worthless, and unlovable without doing contemptible things. Just being sloppy in their work, or not caring about their appearance or not studying or working a little harder to improve their position in life, or taking that unnecessary drink, or doing a thousand other stupid, small acts that tarnish an already bruised self-image is enough to increase their self-hatred.

It sounds depressing to think that humans operate that way, but I believe we do. Fortunately, there's much we can do to turn it around. This passage just seemed to resonate perfectly with how I've been thinking and feeling during the past week. We're Too Easily Pleased with mediocrity. I don't believe that God called us to mediocrity. I'll post more later about what Mandino suggests we do to be more than human beings, to be human "becomings".

fast, days 5 and 6

This weekend has been relatively uneventful, fast-wise. A little wooziness here and there, but no strong hunger pangs. I suppose they've passed. Tonight I went into the Sinclair gas station to prepay for my fuel and the cashier had a whole pizza, box top open lying on the counter. I must have been staring at it because she asked me if I wanted a slice. I haven't been telling strangers or people I don't know well that I'm fasting, but I thought it would be rude if I didn't give a reason for refusing.

"No thanks, I'm fasting," I said.

She nodded knowingly. "For the Lord?" she inquired, her voice raised on the last word. I smiled, nodded, waved, and walked out to fill up my tank. It felt good to refuse the food when the temptation was strong. Although, I don't think I would normally even seriously consider accepting food from a stranger in a situation like that.

Brian and I were commiserating with each other Saturday at the movies about not being able to eat in social situations. His wife, Angela, and another girl that was at the movies with us, Alex, had run over to Chipotle for dinner between films in our discount theater mini movie marathon. We stayed behind at the theater while they ate. Food is not just sustenance when in a social situation, it's something people gather around. It's also something to do. When I'm by myself, I can read, or blog, or take the dog for a walk. Around others, though, it feels like I'm missing out on something if I'm not partaking.

I also realized that the Super Bowl lies within the fast period. Last year I hosted a Super Bowl party that had a 18"x24" New York style pizza from the best pizzeria in town, 100 chicken wings in 4 flavors, a giant bowl of candy, and 6 different microbrews. I even featured a different chip and dip or salsa every quarter. And a veggie tray. Maybe this year I should have a custom juice and smoothie bar and 6 different flavors of Vitamin Water.

fast, days 3 and 4

Forgive me, I've been remiss in posting. It's been a long Thursday and Friday at work. I work at a health insurance brokerage that's used a third-party call center broker to write its business. We have partnerships with different associations and companies that drive business to us. The third-party broker gets the call, sells the policy, and earns a percentage of the commission. It's not been working out so well for my company as this other broker has allegedly been reporting bogus numbers to our partner associations and to us. There's a strong chance that they are writing most of the policies under their broker number and writing a minimum amount of business under ours. Because of all of this, our relationship with this broker has been terminated and we're starting up our own call center. I use the term call center loosely, there's only 3 of us staffing it at first. There's been a lot to do, though: setting up the phone system, setting up the computers and workstations, and familiarizing and training ourselves on the contact manager/agency manager software. We've also been dealing with insurance carriers to get appointed to sell their products and training ourselves on those products. This has been particularly difficult as we will be writing business in all 50 states, and each state has its own laws. That means that each product varies from state to state. It also means that just because we're appointed with, say, Assurant Health to sell their products, it doesn't mean that we can sell Assurant products in all the states they offer their products in until the state tells Assurant, who then tells us, that we can. It's an arduous process. We're finally going live on Monday, and I'm excited about that.

***The next section discusses some bodily functions/processes that you may find unsavory. Read with caution!***

Anyway, back to the fast. It's been relatively uneventful physically. I thought I would be irritable, and I haven't been at all. Thursday night I did get ravenously hungry and I ordered a Papa Johns pizza online. A couple minutes after placing the order I called and canceled it. I have had mild hunger pangs since then, but they pass quickly. I thought that I wouldn't have any past day 3. I continue to take psyllium husk, whatever that is, to keep me regular. It takes terrible and when mixed with water the lumpy texture almost makes me gag when it slides down my throat. It's better than constipation, though. It is strange to have a bowel movement that's smaller than my 35 lb beagle. In my reading before the fast, I was surprised to learn that I would still have bowel movements on a juice fast. Apparently the body takes the small amount of fiber and wastes from the digested juice and combines them with bile and bilirubin, which is made up from dead red blood cells. Exciting, I know.

More tonight or tomorrow.

fast, day 2

I just finished drinking my carrot, apple, kale, and blackberry juice. It actually tasted kind of good. It was mostly nice just to ingest something thicker than water. The hunger is there, but I don't feel ravenous.

I'm continually annoyed by well-meaning people trying to talk me out of fasting. My friend Brian warned me about this. Why should anyone care whether I do it or not? No one's ever tried to talk me out of scarfing down a greasy cheeseburger, so now that I'm detoxifying my body, seeking a greater spiritual connection with my Creator, and undergoing a trial of self-discipline, that's a problem? What the hell?! Another reason to be as vague as possible about the fast to people who are only acquaintances.

At lunch I wandered over to the Monument Starbucks to get a cup of (decaf) red tea and sit and have a quiet time. I brought with me my Bible and Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest. I read the devotional for today, January 2. It never ceases to amaze me how God always gives me the message I need exactly when I need it, whether I read it in scripture or hear it in a sermon:

*****

Continually examine your attitude toward God to see if you are willing to "go out" in every area of your life, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in constant wonder, because you don’t know what God is going to do next. Each morning as you wake, there is a new opportunity to "go out," building your confidence in God.

Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do— He reveals to you who He is. Do you believe in a miracle-working God, and will you "go out" in complete surrender to Him until you are not surprised one iota by anything He does?

Believe God is always the God you know Him to be when you are nearest to Him. Then think how unnecessary and disrespectful worry is! Let the attitude of your life be a continual willingness to "go out" in dependence upon God, and your life will have a sacred and inexpressible charm about it that is very satisfying to Jesus. You must learn to "go out" through your convictions, creeds, or experiences until you come to the point in your faith where there is nothing between yourself and God. (emphasis mine).

*****

There are so many things between me and God. I hope that during the rest of this fast I can push those things aside.

fast, day 1

As I contemplated some changes I need to make within myself and some addictions I need to break, I decided to start a 40 day juice fast. At this point, this fast is very personal and I don't feel like writing too specifically on some of the facets of the fast. I will say, though, that a few other guys from the Real Men of Genius group I go to at Pulpit Rock Church are also starting today, so I'm not going it alone, and I'm able to share my experience discreetly with them.

My friend Brian started the fast a couple days ago and it's been helpful watching what he's dealing with and getting some advice from someone a couple steps ahead. He's on day 6 and is fully over any hunger pangs.

I woke up at 10am after going to bed late from New Years Eve. I ate well last night, but I didn't eat too much. Probably too much for starting a 40 day fast the next morning, though. I woke up with a sinus headache that persisted until late afternoon. As a result, I really didn't do much other than read, pray, and surf the web until around 4. I did drink water throughout the day and when I got some mild hunger pangs in the afternoon I gulped a couple tablespoons of organic apple cider vinegar to get rid of them. Big mistake. Almost immediately the vinegar came back up, and the dry heaves aggravated my headache for a couple hours. If I take any tomorrow, I'll be sure to mix it in some water and I'll add honey.

In the evening I went to Sam's Club for Vitamin Water and Wild Oats to buy some fruits and vegetables to juice. Sam's was closed, but I was able to get some grapefruit, apples, kiwis, kale, a big 15 pound bag of carrots, and a couple of store-brand vitamin waters. Hopefully I'll have time to swing by Sam's tomorrow to pick up a case.

Brian warned me that it was tough for him to fall asleep the first two or three nights. As I write I'm drinking some Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Tea (my favorite tea they make) so I can minimize my time thinking about food in the dark. It's time to sign off and start reading the Word.

too easily pleased

My favorite quote of all time is by C.S. Lewis:

"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

As a child I was a dreamer. While other boys wanted to be astronauts and firemen and cops, I wanted to be a business owner and a missionary. Not just an owner of one business, but of a conglomeration of businesses. And not just a missionary to some third world country, but an individual through whom God could impact millions and millions of people. Sort of a Warren Buffett/Billy Graham hybrid. I've never really lost sight of those dreams, but I've definitely sidetracked myself. At times I've become too easily pleased with where I was at spiritually, job-wise, or otherwise. That's not to say I'm not grateful for the blessings God has given me, but I'm keenly aware that he doesn't want me to be too comfortable, too long. I want a holiday at the sea, and on my journey there, I plan on jotting some thoughts down here.