Tag Archives: time

marriage, personal growth

Adventure in El Salvador

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My wife and I recently made a quantum leap from our comfort zone in small-town Ohio to south-central El Salvador. In February, we ventured with a group of gringos to a small island called La Calzada for a week.

We were equipped with a sense of adventure, our life stories and the belief that the restoration we’d experienced in our own lives might spark growth or hope in the lives of others.

If, like me, you have never ventured to Central America before, your mental picture of El Salvador may be fuzzy. I had previously traveled deep into Mexico so I had images of rocky farm land. I envisioned dirty cities tightly packed with humble abodes. I anticipated there would be vendors aggressively peddling their wares.

I saw all of that en route to our final destination. But over the course of our week on the island, I saw so much more.

A 30-minute van ride from the airport delivered us to a bustling port town where we schlepped our luggage into a flat-bottom boat. After another half hour of cruising through densely-packed mangroves, we arrived at our destination.

The air hung thick with smoke from burning trash. The wheels of our luggage bogged down in the layer of fine dirt that comprised the road on which we walked. A short hike landed us in the homestead where we would reside for the next week.

Scoping out our new digs, my first thought was something like, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.” My wife and I did get our own room, for which we were grateful, but the outhouse outside our room made me anxious.

As I was settling into the room and processing the new environment, a bat proceeded to join me, darting through my personal space like bats tend to do. I stifled my girlish screams and ran from the room like a scene from Ace Ventura. And I thought, “What are were doing here?!?”

What are we doing here?!?

What we did there was meet a lot of people. We heard a lot of stories. We shared our own. We laughed with the locals. We prayed with them. We gave a shoulder to cry on. We distributed food, clothes and reading glasses. We didn’t do anything extraordinary.

This week, though, was definitely beyond my ordinary. For one, I had no cell phone reception. The high-tech distraction that regularly beckons me to piddle my time away only served as a camera.

In the absence of email, TV, video games, social media or any media, there was more time to talk to my wife and to take in the beauty of creation. I absolutely loved it!

This journey helped me to recognize the things I often take for granted like indoor plumbing, air-conditioning and paved roads. Perhaps the greatest resource that I take for granted is time. I always assume I’ll get more of it, that tomorrow will bring another opportunity to do things I didn’t get to today.

It’s okay of I work a little too long or if I fritter my evening away shopping for cars, even though I’m not in the market for a car. There will be another time to spend with the kids, to get healthy or to take my wife on a date. I have deceived myself into this thinking.

Today, as I sit in the shadow of this adventure, I strive to recapture and rekindle that feeling of gratitude for the conveniences we have in our country and for my largely bat-free life. But mostly I want to remember that my time is far too precious to waste.

Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. I should be investing more of my time in the people I love and in the causes that matter to me.

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

-Psalm 90:12
marriage, marriage & parenting, personal growth

Dandelion Whine

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I deal with quite a bit of lawn shame. Looking out over my vast .26 acre lot, I often find myself thinking, ‘Meh.’ My yard is especially inglorious this time of year when it needs cut every three days and the weeds are plentiful.

One of my biggest issues is that although my yard needs cut every three days, I am more like an every six to seven day kind of guy. I know my grass is too long when I can see the wind rippling through my lawn like it’s the Serengeti.

I could have sworn I heard Hakuna Matata echoing across the plains the last time I mowed. A “problem-free philosophy” my eye. Whoever wrote that song clearly didn’t have chickweed covering half of their front yard.

I’m not sure why my inability to grow a great lawn bothers me so much. I guess my inner-farmer is offended. I think back to the pioneer days when agriculture was essential. If you couldn’t grow food, you couldn’t eat.

Then, I imagine my 10 pioneer-days children who all look like Tiny Tim (from A Christmas Carol, not the eccentric ukulele player) staring at me with their sunken eyes wondering why their papa can’t get the crops to grow.

I don’t know, Tiny Tim kids! Stop with all the pressure!

I realize that one of the biggest barriers standing between me and a beautiful lawn is time. I don’t invest a lot of it into my lawn.

I assume I could have great landscaping and make my imaginary Tiny Tim family proud if I were to work in my yard every night. But my time is more wisely invested.

I’ve started to notice that some of the best men I know share a similar affliction. Their yards aren’t great either. These men are coaches, dads, granddads, leaders, servants and big-idea guys who are pouring into their families, into youth, into marriages. Lawn care is an afterthought.

They are eradicating emotional weeds and helping prune and nurture spiritual gifts that are just beginning to bud. While I wouldn’t put myself on the same level as some of these men, I see that I often let my yard go for one more day because that day is being invested in something more meaningful.

I am learning to be okay with that.

Someday my body will reside six feet beneath a well-manicured lawn, and whether that’s tomorrow or 50 years from now, I want to leave behind a positive impact.

I want to know that I did something with my time and gifts that helped others in some way. Lawn care (unless I’m caring for someone else’s lawn) simply doesn’t do that.

Now, I have some civic duty and pride that compels me to keep my yard respectable, but it will never look like a golf course. My lawn’s mediocrity is freeing up my capacity to be great in other areas.

I am good with that.

 

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I Quit

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Effective January 1st, I retired.  No, I didn’t leave my 9-5 job.  I quit a brief, but illustrious, career as a zombie slayer.

You see, a couple months back I loaded an app onto my phone that launched me into a post-apocalyptic world where I had to survive zombie attacks and raids from opposing camps. I quickly learned the ropes and hardened into a grizzled survivor.

My team grew in strength. I collected better weapons.  I annihilated opposing crews, leaving bodies in my wake.  I joined a faction and rose through its ranks.  Then, with one quick swipe of my finger, I left it all behind.

I realized that I had compromised my real life in order to build a fictitious empire that amounted to nothing. The goal of game developers is ultimately to get users to spend real money on virtual stuff.  Because I’m so cheap, I refused to spend money on the game, which meant I had to earn stuff the old fashioned way, through the investment of my time.

When I started playing this game, I set out some rules for myself. I vowed that I wouldn’t play when I was spending time with my wife or kids, and I wouldn’t spend any money. The money rule held fast, but I let the other rule slip from time to time.

I found myself sneaking in quick battles during any moments of downtime. Then I noticed I was letting the game seep into other areas of my life. In my car before work, at lunch, in the bathroom, during my morning reading time, when I was supposed to be playing Barbies with my daughter, in bed at night – I was slaying zombies.

The beginning of a new year is a time when many of us take stock of our lives and seek to eliminate bad habits while establishing good practices. It became clear to me shortly after I started playing, that this was a habit that had to go.  Not only was this game distracting, but it was a time stealer.

I shudder to think about how many hours I actually wasted building a kingdom of nothingness on my phone. The game tracked how many ‘raids’ I did, and I’m embarrassed to say that my total was around 1400.  With each battle taking around a minute to complete, that is 23 hours that I threw in the trash can, not to mention the time I spent doing other actions in the game.

The moment I dragged the game’s icon across the screen of my phone into a virtual trash can was so liberating. My time is too precious to fritter away on empty pursuits. There is value in recreation, and video games are not inherently bad.  But I had let this game get out of hand, and I let it steal valuable moments away from me.

What are the zombies stealing time from your life? Do you need to retire from something? If so, there’s no better time than now to make the change.

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My Days Are Numbered

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horseshoe

I recently took my son, Alex, to his first Ohio State Football game. It wasn’t really much of a game as OSU dished out a 66-0 whooping to a painfully outmatched Kent State.   But the truth is I didn’t care as much about what was happening on the gridiron as I did about what was happening in the stands.

In section 11A – row 17 – seats 27 & 28, my son and I bonded. We high fived, recapped plays to each other, ate hot dogs, spelled O-H-I-O with our arms and formed memories that will last a lifetime.

Our day in Columbus came at a cost. Tickets to OSU games are not cheap and typically resold well above their face value. Then you have to pay for parking and stadium food. A bottle of “smart water” cost $7, which is about as oxymoronic as anything I can imagine.

Beyond dollars, this game required an investment of time. For us to go to this game, I had to invest an entire Saturday. And with an ever-growing list of to-do items, my weekend time is precious and fleeting.

Even though I enjoy watching football, the thought of spending a whole Saturday accomplishing nothing defies my task-master mentality. But through this investment of time, I did accomplish something; I had a fun day with my son that the two of us will likely remember the rest of our lives.

Time is our most precious commodity – a gift that isn’t promised to us in any set amount. The only guarantee in life is that sooner or later this gift will run out. So how one invests this treasured commodity reveals a great deal about what matters most to them.

There is a Bible verse about time that is one of the guiding tenets in my life – “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” This Psalm reminds me that my life will be short therefore I should use it wisely. For me, the wisest way I can spend my time is with my wife and children.

In order to protect my time so I can invest it where it matters, I have to establish boundaries. One time thief that continuously threatens to encroach upon the sacred hours spent with my family is my work. I strive every day to protect my family time from my work life, doing all I can to leave at my designated quitting time and to not take work home with me.

This isn’t always easy. Not taking work home means I have to be extremely regimented about how I approach my daily work load. I try to minimize my time spent in meetings where my attendance isn’t required. And when necessary, I work through my lunch. I do everything possible to ensure that I leave at my scheduled end time.

I also have to set boundaries with my own selfish desires. I can be obsessive about cleaning my car, spending hours washing, clay barring, waxing and polishing if I go unchecked. I have more bottles of cleaning products and microfiber towels than any sane man should own.

Beyond car care, I have many other interests that could eat up my time if I allowed. I have a mountain bike quietly collecting dust in my basement, resting next to my bass guitar. And I own more books than I will ever find the time to read. But I choose not to pursue any hobbies or interests that will take me away from my family.

I’ve heard a hundred times that no one ever lies upon their death bed wishing they had spent more time at work or perfecting their golf game. Having the cleanest car on the block is not the legacy I want to leave behind. Clarity comes too late for some, and although I wish I’d come to this realization sooner in my life, I have learned to number my days.

By protecting my time and treating it like the precious commodity that it is, I am able to give it to those who matter the most to me. In 10 years, I won’t remember that my car was dirty when I drove to Columbus, but I will cling tightly to the memories of the day spent with my son.