Okay, let’s see how this goes. I doubt anyone is going to read this so I should probably go ahead and insult as many people as possible. JK, I try not to offend. At least not strangers. I only strive to offend those who actually know me.
I have a lot of random ideas. Some good, some not so much. I was reading the book Show Your Work by Austin Kleon yesterday and it inspired me. That’s one of my gifts. It’s also one of my curses. I read a lot. I get inspired by a lot. And that’s why I’m starting this blog.
I have “shiny object syndrome.” It’s served me fairly well so far in life. I get interested in something and spend time learning about it. There are a few constants, but I love to learn. I love to learn about random and interesting things. And sometimes I get distracted by Twitter. I know, I know, it’s X now. I love Elon but I can’t bring myself to call it X yet.
So I’m going to be sharing what I learn here and see if I can find the key. What key? The key to me. It’s in there somewhere. What I have learned about myself is that I really enjoy writing.
It’s kind of surprising I love writing because I HATED writing in school. Actually, it’s the biggest reason I finally dropped out. English was not my subject. I barely passed the other classes anyway. Except math. I like math. I love solving problems. It wasn’t the math I enjoyed, it was the problem solving. I love finding patterns. I guess that’s what I’m doing by writing this. I’m looking for patterns in myself.
When I decided I wanted to go back to school in my 30s the weirdest thing happened. I was regularly getting a lot of positive feedback on my writing. I started looking forward to writing papers. I found that I actually enjoyed it!
I love reading as well, even though I hated reading in school. I became obsessed with books when I was in my early 20s. I read a lot. In my 20s I lived in Portland and attended Western Culinary Institute thinking that being a chef was what I wanted to do with my life. Spoiler alert, enjoying cooking and the restaurant lifestyle wasn’t what I wanted to do long term.
While I was living in Portland, my favorite place in the city was Powell’s City of Books. That place is incredible! If you don’t know, it’s a giant bookstore that takes up an entire city block. It has a few levels and more books than I could ever read. On my days off work, when I wasn’t recovering from a hangover, I could be found at Powell’s. The best part was that they sold new and used books. One of my favorite things in the world to this day is the smell of a used bookstore. There is something about that smell I can’t explain. It’s amazing. That, the desert after a rain, a pot of broth cooking, fresh baked bread (my most hated part about living a low carb lifestyle), and February/March in Arizona when the citrus trees are blooming.
See! This is what I’m talking about! I was talking about books and here I am writing about bread and orange blossoms! How can I commit to one theme on a blog? Bring it back, Dave!
A few years ago, I gave a speech when my wife and I opened a wellness clinic. It was amazing and I realized that I loved public speaking. Another class I didn’t do well in in high school. Now I spend every Tuesday and Friday morning in Toastmaster’s clubs and am working on a career in speaking.
I have books I want to write. I have this vision of writing children’s books that encourage healthy living and personal development. In the last few years, I have become obsessed with personal development.
I don’t have regrets, I am where I am now because this is where God wants me to be. I went through struggles because this is where God wants me to be. But I want kids who are unmotivated in school, kids who are labeled ADHD, kids who the system writes off as underachievers, to realize they have amazing potential even thought they can’t bring themselves to work in the system. I call them the 20 percent.
I was thinking about that recently. In school, you’ve got about 5 percent of kids who are really good at the system and want to “achieve.” Another 25 percent are pretty good at the system. Probably 50 percent are just going through the motions in the middle. And then we have the 20 percent who the system isn’t for and they end up having problems in the system.
We make them feel like there’s something wrong with them because they aren’t good at working the system instead of thinking that maybe it’s the system that’s wrong because it works for the other 80 percent. I was a 20 percenter.
One of my favorite scriptures is Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world.” Jesus told everyone in that scripture that they all have a purpose and they need to let that light shine. The system tells us you can only shine if you perform well in the system. I want kids to realize that is far from the truth. There have been a lot of famous high school dropouts but we don’t hear about them very often. Those kids who are struggling need to know that. There’s nothing wrong with being a high school dropout. It pisses me off that we use it as an insult. We encourage, “free thinking” but our highest rewards come from conformity.
These kids don’t need to conform. They need to be taught self-discipline. And self-discipline doesn’t mean doing what you’re told, it means developing the discipline to get what you want. But that’s the message they receive. I want to change that.
I should probably wrap this up. I’ll write more on all of these topics and more. Basically, I’m going to write about things that strike my fancy. But I will be coming back to that much more thoroughly down the road.
If you made it to this point, I thank you! If not, go to hell, you didn’t read this anyway!
I’ll end with this. I’m big on mindset and a few years ago I started ending my daily journal writing with, “Today is going to be an amazing day!” I even had it put on my shirts for my health coaching. With that said, I am going to be wrapping this up.
Today is going to be an amazing day!
