working from home

My company decided that my office will be closed for the foreseeable future and I am now a work-at-home employee.  The official line is that this is permanent and not going to change at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, but I know that things can still change in a heartbeat.

I'm torn on this news.  Being a severe introvert, this has been a bit of a fantasy for me, and it has worked well for the month-and-a-half that I have been doing this.  It has been great having more opportunity to eat with and interact with the family while still being on top of my work.  I will miss my co-workers, though.  It also introduces some instability to my job.  Will my employer continue to consider me or the rest of the people in my office as important when no one physically sees me working, and will this make me more of a layoff target in the future?  It can't help.

I am among those who think this is a harbinger of things to come in business in general.  It often doesn't make sense to pay to lease and maintain business facilities when employees can be just as productive from home.  This pandemic is going to be an excuse for a lot of businesses to drop some facilities expenses from their books.

There are things that are important about an office, but I don't think they're always the things that management says are important about having an office.  The rationale that I normally hear is that an office makes it easier for workers to collaborate.  That may be somewhat true, but technology has come a long way in this regard.  The bigger issues I see are less opportunity to build rapport on a team and more difficulty in training new employees.  I don't have a good, non-buzzword solution for these things, but if someone does solve those issues a lot more business will be removed from traditional offices.

I do think this is going to lead to a fundamental change in much of society, and could be the beginning of a nightmare scenario for extroverts.  Will this drive extroverted people out of typical office jobs into fields where they can interact more with other people?  I know that finance, accounting, and technical fields already have a reputation for being a bit anti-social.  Will marketing, HR, legal, and PR follow suit as people in those fields work more from home?

age

Over the summer I turned forty.  I genuinely don't feel forty.  I think that's going to be a theme every time I turn a new age.  Where'd my twenties go?  I can't be out of my thirties already!  I'm sure that fifty is the new twenty-five!

I've had a lot of observations about getting older, but three have been on my mind lately.

First, I've been weirded out by the number of times I've seen someone my age or younger who my mind has registered as old.  Just in the past day I saw someone wearing a shirt declaring "Established in 1979," who I did not think looked my age, even though he was clearly born in the same year.  This is very much vanity from someone who likes to think he isn't vain.  "I can't possibly look that age, right?!"

Second, while I see more overall growth in my life, it feels slower.  I mean this in the sense that old dogs can learn new tricks, and can possibly learn them better, but it takes longer than when the dog was younger.  When I look at the things I've learned and improved on in the last five years it's a numerically shorter list than from the five year period from when I turned fifteen to when I turned twenty.  I feel like a have a better grasp on that shorter list and that it includes a lot more soft skills, though.

I don't know if this is something anyone else experiences, but I'm not intimidated to learn a lot of things that used to intimidate me.  However, there is a real limit that I see to how quickly I can progress on a given skill-set or cache of knowledge.

Third, I have also noticed that in some respects age is a minor super power in the same way that working the same job for years on end is.  Some people are naturally wise and see how certain bad choices will go badly.  Some people are just old enough to have seen this rodeo before and know from experience that certain bad choices will go badly.  It's odd to see someone do or say something that I might have thought was a good idea years ago, but to immediately know what a mistake it was.  Some of that is just that it's easy to see things as a super power when you used to be thoroughly clueless.  I'd like to think that age does bring a level of maturity as well, though.

Here's to another decade which will undoubtedly conclude with my flabbergasted exclamation of, "Where did my forties go!"

february christmas lights

Over the last couple of weeks I noticed a handful of houses around my neighborhood and some of the areas I drive regularly finally take down their Christmas lights.  This wasn't a situation where the lights were up but not on.  The lights were turned on every evening like it was Christmas season.

I have also noticed that an office in my building has a Christmas tree up in a meeting room visible from a public hallway.  I haven't seen it lit in a few weeks, but it is still prominently displayed.

Part of me is irrationally irritated at this.  However, my irritation doesn't make sense.  If someone wants to leave lights up it isn't my business, and really Christmas displays are attractive.  It's just that seeing Christmas displays feels incongruous with the season.

I think this part of me is a little hypocritical as well.  I have believed and continue to believe that certain fashion rules are made to be broken.  This shouldn't be any different, right?  Is a lit Christmas display in February the equivalent of an all-white outfit in November?

cherokee princess

From when I was born until when I was elementary-aged my dad worked on a few different reservations.  We are as white as white can be, and no one in our family ever pretended any different.  It never crossed my mind to think any differently about the situation, either. However, one of the first questions I'd get from people who did not live near the reservation was whether I had any Native American ancestry.  This was almost always a prelude to someone telling me about their grandparent who was half-blooded [fill in Native American tribe].

Even as a kid, this pattern jumped out to me because it happened so often.  Why did people who had probably never been on a reservation care so much to identify with a specific tribe?  In my experience (from the 80s and early 90s) reservation life was different from life off the reservation in a lot of respects, so it felt a little like trying to gain the benefits of an identity without paying in experience.

I don't remember this firsthand, but there's apparently a joke that gets told among Native people about how every white person's grandmother was a Cherokee princess.  That does fit my experience.  Everyone and their brother seemed to want to tell me about their Native ancestor.  In fact, even if I mention now that I used to live on a reservation to a small group of people it is more or less guaranteed that someone in the group will notify me of their Native American heritage.

This is what has made the evolving story surrounding Elizabeth Warren fascinating to me.  I don't doubt that she fully believed that she could claim Native American ancestry.  I've heard enough people who were convinced of it themselves that it fits the pattern.  Why, just based on family stories, she decided she should assert that as an identity baffles me.  Even if she had a close Native ancestor, she clearly had to know that she was mostly Caucasian and lived a Caucasian life.  She should have especially known that as someone who originally hailed from Oklahoma.  Of all of the unforced errors a [future] politician could commit, this is among the dumbest.

However, as dumb as I think that scandal is, my experience says that Warren doesn't go much further than a lot of other Native American wannabes.  I am certain that a lot of the folks laughing about "Pocahontas" Warren's claims have also asserted their non-existent Native heritage whenever they got the chance.  The reason I'm so sure is that I've probably heard one of them talk about their Cherokee grandparent some time in the past.

crooked, or all in my mind?

Last week I saw a guy with a level making marks on the glass door in front of another office on our floor at work.  He was talking to someone else about how he hoped it turned out okay.  Later, either the that day or the next, I noticed the name of a small tax accounting firm on the door.  What jumps out is that I think it's crooked, but it may also be something that's in my head.

What I find odd is that when I look at the words on the door they look level in absolute terms.  Each letter looks the same distance from the top or bottom of the door.  However, the text immediately gives me the impression that one side is higher than the other.  I wouldn't bet money that the text is truly not level, but I can't look at it without that being my first reaction.

I'm thrown off by the fact that the door faces the hallway at an angle, and with it being glass it could be that objects behind the text in the office behind it give the illusion of the text being crooked when it is actually straight.  Is that a thing?

I feel bad that this is what I think every single time I see that door.  The job was either almost perfect, or it was perfect while being undone by an optical illusion.  However, all I can see is what looks like a flaw.

All of this is to say, I don't think I could take the stress of having a job where I place words on glass.  I'd never think my work looked right.

resolutions

It's a new year, and so a lot of people are making resolutions.  I have mentioned at least twice already (time 1, time 2) that I don't like New Year's resolutions.  I've been a little embarrassed this year by how irritated I am by people making resolutions in the new year specifically.  It shouldn't matter to me whether others make or brake resolutions.  It's none of my business.  However, when I hear someone making a resolution it just bugs me.  I've finally figured out why.

I actually have a great deal of respect for people who make resolutions and stick to them.  I know that making fundamental changes to one's lifestyle for the long term is something that requires planning, determination, and sacrifice.  Therefore, rather than me disliking resolutions because I don't like people resolving to do things, the real reason I dislike New Year's resolutions is that deep down I think that there are some people who make resolutions without counting the cost ahead of time, and doing so besmirches something which is sacred.

Everyone has things that they need to improve about themselves.  They could improve their health, or they could improve their relationships with others, or they could improve their educational or career prospects, et al.  I know that I have a plethora of flaws I could focus attention to.  Furthermore, we all embark on self-improvement projects that we later learn are more involved than we originally realized, even when we planned and actually did put in the effort.  Everyone who consistently tries at least occasionally sees failure.  I'm not judging these sorts of failures.

What bothers me is that there is a human tendency to get excited about starting things, often without a true intention of seeing them through.  If someone loudly announces that they're doing x, y, or z in the new year and by the middle of February it's but a distant memory, it makes me think that this person likes taking credit for things without working for them.  It makes me not trust them.

I am realizing as I get older that the two qualities I most admire in others is trustworthiness and an objective view of the world, because if those qualities exist in another person I know I can trust to get a fair shake from that person even if we butt heads.

In this situation, I don't trust people who give their word that they're going to change something, then give up early in the process.  If they gave up early on something that they claimed mattered to them, then what else have they given their word on that they're going to go back on when the going is tough?  I will view all commitments made by that person as matters of convenience rather than true commitments to follow through.

Also, seeing someone make a resolution without counting the true cost makes me wonder if I can trust that person's judgment on other things.  If a person says, "I'm not going to each sugar in the new year," without thinking through all of the times they're going to have to turn down a cookie, a slice of cake, or a piece of chocolate, it makes me think that I can't trust their understanding of reality.  It makes me think that they live in their own world with its own subjective rules.

If I'm being fair, I should judge myself on this last standard.  I made an unrealistic resolution years back about being less neurotic.  I have gradually done so, but not due to a resolution, or even a concrete plan that I put together.  So, I did not objectively assess that resolution before announcing it on this blog.

Finally, I do want to clarify that I am not demanding that people bend to my will on this.  This is about soul-searching that I have done about my revulsion of most New Year's resolutions.  Ultimately, my opinion doesn't matter for how anyone else decides to improve themselves.  I'm just working through why I react in the way that I do to these things.

Update (Jan 4, 2019):

I contemplated this further last night and have tweaked my view a bit.  I think the issue is less with individual people making resolutions than with the societal pressure some people feel to make a resolution in a way that leads to failure.  So, rather than taking such a judgmental tone, I should be taking a more sympathetic tone.

I apologize regarding the tone.  Again, I'm working through why I think like I do here.

There are better ways to achieve goals than to announce a resolution to friends with minimal planning.  The following has worked for me.  I'm sure there are other ways as well, but I can only speak to what works for me.

1. Set two goals: One modest and easily achievable, and one aggressive.  Target the modest one, but keep the aggressive one in your back pocket in case the modest one turns out to be too modest.
2. Research how other people have been successful achieving similar goals. Use this to develop a strategy for how to achieve your modest goal.
3. Break down the steps necessary to achieve the modest goal in the long term.  Baby steps are best.
4. Determine what you're willing and capable of committing to the effort.
5. Enact your plan, taking all of this into account.
6. Be flexible and adjust the plan based on the lessons learned through the process.

awkward endings

In my work I interact with a lot of people all over the country and the world through different means.  One constant that I've noticed is that, as someone who's a bit socially awkward, I struggle with closing out conversations a lot of the time.

I've noticed that I'm actually a lot more awkward in situations where I believe there is some social expectation on my side.  If I'm working with a customer who I don't have much of a connection with the expectation is to be businesslike, so no problems there.  However, when I have a more friendly relationship with individuals, or when I sense that someone believes we should have a more friendly relationship, I spend more than a reasonable amount of energy trying to determine how friendly is too friendly (or not friendly enough).  This is especially a problem when closing out a conversation.

My goal in the conversation is to have closed out the conversation without hurting feelings or sending an unwanted signal.  So, I struggle between the extremes of looking like I'm trying to shut down the communication and caring a little too much about what's going on with the person I'm chatting with.

Am I the only one?

toxic masculinity

I've heard the term "toxic masculinity" used a lot recently.  I don't think I had ever heard it before a year or two ago.  I've never been the most masculine of men, but I'm not by any stretch effeminate.  So, I think I can maintain some objectivity on this specific subject.  Rather than write specifically on this subject, though, what I would like to do is use it as an illustration as to why terms like this are particularly frustrating.  Specifically, labels like this are used by people on all sides of an issue to either label everything they don't like as evil or to portray themselves as being under attack.

A real, valid, and useful definition of "toxic masculinity" would probably be something to the effect of, "Socially reinforcing negative behaviors in boys and men by creating arbitrary standards that associate negative behaviors with masculinity and positive behaviors with femininity."  I've seen and fallen prey to that.  Boys need respect from their peers, and a lot of times doing the right thing is also doing the girly thing--or so I have felt.  I've been the boy/man left to feel less masculine for doing the right thing.  I've been the boy/man who did the wrong thing in order to feel or appear more masculine.  I've also negatively reinforced behavior among others.  As a society, in our smaller sub-cultures, and in our families, this is what we should be addressing.  There will be disagreement about how that's addressed, but I'd hope we could agree that this should be a priority.  This gets at the root of a lot of criminal activity and actions that leads to broken families.  It's a big deal.

All of this being said, there are those who would want to take advantage of the term to knock all things masculine.  These folks are not be in the majority by any stretch, but they can be vocal.  I've definitely heard plenty of opinions about how everything in the world would be better if it were run by women.

As a counterpoint, there are those who hear people taking advantage of the term and assume that "toxic masculinity" is part of a larger cultural attack on masculinity.  As a result, they do not take as seriously the crimes committed through "toxic masculinity" because they sense a danger in giving too much cultural sway to the anti-masculinists.  They also view any criticism on the things they deem masculine as an attack on manhood itself.

This situation leads to the pitched battles we see today in society where people dig in and fight each other rather than understanding each other.

Perhaps the real antidote to the current situation is for discussion to move beyond blaming toxic masculinity, and to focus on what real positive masculinity is.  It can't be just what women want it to be, or what men want it to be, or what "the man" wants it to be.  It needs to be naturally masculine, but having a positive effect on society.  A lot of the traits I consider to be masculine do that already, and so the challenge is not changing everything about men but rather identifying the places where they go astray and focusing on those.  I'm sure this could be done for women too, but I haven't heard the term "toxic femininity" referenced in the media yet so I haven't given that angle much thought.

I think these sorts of issues come up with a lot of terms we use today, and have potentially been issues in the past as well.  I've heard tens of definitions of "feminism."  By some definitions I'd be a feminist.  By most I would not.  But the ambiguity around the term allows people to throw the word around in an argument and seem like they have a well-formulated position when they don't understand the basics of what their "opponent" believes.  I'd bet that if people to get beyond the term and focus on the issues the term represents that a lot of our arguments would melt away into societal compromises and solutions that almost everyone could agree with.

Labels should be short-hand ways for us to shorten the description of something we already understand rather than tools we use to keep from learning about what we don't fully understand yet.

defensiveness and boundaries

One of my biggest weaknesses that I'm aware of is that I get defensive quickly and easily.  I think that most people have a threshold at which they get defensive, but mine is more sensitive than most others.  I've been working to correct this for years, but it has been slow going.

I think a big reason I get defensive is that I envision being held accountable for things beyond the bounds of what I should be held accountable for, and probably beyond the bounds of what I will be held accountable for.  Someone expresses displeasure in some way, and my gut reaction is to make that a problem I'm responsible for.  Sometimes it's not actually a problem that needs to be solved.  Sometimes it's a problem, but it's not my problem.  Sometimes the issue is less severe than my gut wants to make it.  In most cases, defensiveness is not called for, and I'm getting better at it--but slowly!

Part of what is hard about correcting defensiveness is knowing what the proper bounds of accountability are.  If the lines are blurry for what I'm responsible for, I'll assume that I'm responsible for everything in that grey area.  A lot of the time when I go above and beyond the call of duty or when I over-prepare for things it's because I'm not sure where that line is, and it's far safer, though more exhausting, to take more responsibility than not enough.

This is something that I don't think gets addressed enough.  People will frequently talk about the importance of setting boundaries, but many times those same people talk about how important it is to chip in and do your part.  Implicit in those statements is that the audience will understand where the boundaries are for what is my responsibility and what is not.  It's not a question of being unwilling to set boundaries, but rather a question of understanding where those boundaries should really be.

I hear a lot of people talk about the 80/20 rule (I've done it myself).  Maybe a better way of looking at the 80/20 rule is that the people in those two groups have different standards for where their boundaries should be, and perhaps both groups aren't entirely right.

completed bucket list

I recently wrote about goals, and of my lack of a bucket list.  The real reason I would create such a list is to have goals to look forward to, and to create memories of rich experiences.  It occurred to me that, while I haven't created such a list, I can look back at my life and see hundreds of experiences that would qualify as bucket list worthy.

As examples, I can imagine putting on my bucket list in my twenties that I'd like to swim in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  I hadn't had that opportunity yet even ten years ago, as I hadn't been in any ocean water in my life at that time, but now I have.  I can imagine taking a tour through a cave being on my list, which I hadn't done yet seven years ago, but which I have done twice in that time.  I can imagine experiencing kids camp with my kids being on such a list, and that is something that happened just this summer.  I can imagine maintaining a target healthy weight on my bucket list as well, which is something I've only recently set about achieving.

Even if I don't ever create a bucket list with things that I want to do in the future, just consciously making choices to do things with family and to commit to self-improvement will guarantee bucket list-like experiences and achievements.  Perhaps one of the best ways to be thankful is to look at the experiences in life that I've already had that could have filled a bucket list I may have had ten or fifteen years ago.  I understand that not everyone has the same opportunities to have what appear on the outside to be rich experiences, but I suspect that most adults do have a large number of bucket list experiences and achievements of their own, even if their backgrounds or current situations are not as advantaged as others.

What are some of your bucket list experiences that you've already had or achievements you've already accomplished, even if you didn't put them on an actual list beforehand?

life goals

Someone in our church has been teaching a marriage class Wednesday nights.  Golden is unable to attend because she teaches a pre-schooler class, but I've had the opportunity to regularly be there.

Much of the early portion of the class has been focused on avoiding contemptuous behavior and attitudes as well as becoming friends and allies.  I don't think I act with contempt a whole lot, though I'm sure I'm not perfect.  One thing that the class focused on regarding connecting with your spouse is learning more about each other's goals, desires, histories, etc.  Through this I've started to think about the fact that, while I have vague goals for life, I haven't really articulated them.

Golden and I talked about this aspect of the class and its associated book, and so we agreed to work on listing our goals for life and for our kids.  As I sat down to write about it I realized that, while I have an idealized idea of what I think a contented life looks like, I don't have a long bucket list of items I need to accomplish in life.  I don't know if this is good or bad.

What I would consider a contented life looks pretty selfish to me at the same time.  It largely boils down to wanting to have time to do such and such thing that is personally fulfilling but doesn't enhance anyone else's life.  I think that just comes from being a parent with less free time than I'd like.  At a different time in life the contented life list would look different.

Regarding the bucket list, I have precious few things on the list I really feel like I need to do, and the things that are on the list are completely negotiable.  As an example, I'd like to travel at some point, but where doesn't matter much to me.  Is having a more specific bucket list more fulfilling?

I think that part of why I have avoided creating a bucket list of measurable goals in the past is that it's not always realistic to check things off such a list.  Will I get a bad attitude about the things keeping me from accomplishing the list, or will it be a hit to my self-worth if I can't reasonably accomplish the things that I have put out there that I want to accomplish?  While I haven't explicitly thought this, it is just easier not to share all of what I might have as a goal, especially if I haven't fleshed out the specifics of it.

So, my question to you is, do you have specific or vague life goals?  Do you have a literal bucket list?  Are there things you assume you'll start doing later in life when there's time to do them?

impostor 2

Years back, I posted here about feeling like an impostor, and I capped it off by misspelling the word "impostor" multiple times. I was heartened at the time that this is apparently a common feeling among men. I've had over a decade of experience since then, and I've come to the conclusion that this is a feeling that changes in nature, but it does not go away.

Something I that I don't know if I made clear or not is that this impostor syndrome has everything to to do with a man's belief that he can support a family. Deep down, I believe one day everyone will find out that it's something I'm not capable of doing.  That sounds like a deep confession, and something to be embarrassed about, but the more I talk with other men the more I agree that this is an almost universal feeling.  What's odd with this issue is that it is almost impossible to convince someone dealing with it (me, for example) that they're wrong, because all that means is that you are fooled by their charade rather than that there is no charade in the first place.

One observation I've had is that I have heard several retired men talk about dealing with this when they were responsible for a family, but looking back and feeling like this specific stress was silly in retrospect.  I would love to have that experience myself where I truly understand in retrospect that most of this is my own overactive neuroses.

My real greatest anxiety at this stage in my life is wondering how I spare my autistic son this stress when he is an adult, yet still teach him to be responsible. That is a real trusting God issue for me, because I don't have answers to how that's going to work. Without God, it probably won't.

new year, healthier dust

I inadvertently scheduled a physical in the last couple of weeks last year.  The timing was an accident, but it has led to a bit of an odd situation.

Every year I make a point of not making a New Year's resolution.  I know that most people break their resolutions (if they're even specific enough to break) before the end of January, and so making a New Year's resolution always feels to me like an impulsive or a showy move.  I know many people have great reasons for making resolutions, but for me to do it doesn't feel natural.

Since I went to the doctor's office and had the typical blood work done right before Christmas, I got a call over the Christmas holiday that my triglyceride and bad cholesterol levels were consistently elevated enough that I need to start exercising more regularly.  For me this means that I need to start exercising at all.

Golden's first reaction was that we should get a membership to the local community center and work out there.  My first reaction was thinking that I don't want to be one of those guys the regulars see as an annoyance who will give up in a few weeks.

What I have done so far is find a YouTube channel called FitnessBlender and start with some of their beginner routines.  It turns out my boss uses the same channel for some of his exercises, so I'm not the only person I know who uses the channel.  He's more active and healthier than me, though.  I've committed to doing twenty minutes of routines every day, even when I'm very busy.  This sounds great on the surface, but to this point I have primarily proven to myself that I am horribly out of shape because I have a hard time completing anything other than the beginner routines.

My short term goal is to get healthy enough to regularly complete the normal, not-beginner routines without too much trouble.  My medium term goal is simply not to gain more weight, and ideally trim some (five pounds in a few months would be great at this point).  That goal is more psychological than anything.  My long term goal is to not have given up on this endeavor in one, two, five, or ten years.

Thus far, I have not modified my eating habits because I don't want to make major changes all at once that are unsustainable.  To me, this whole thing is pointless if I don't keep this up over the long term.  We'll see how committed I can remain to this since it's now more directly a question of health rather than just clothing size.

social needs

My pastor has gotten much of his education in Psychology and Counseling, so has taught a few times that there are six dimensions under which people's needs can be defined.  Those are spiritual, emotional, social, sexual, family, and financial.  I don't know if this is based on any real research, but it is indeed a convenient way of categorizing needs.


There are times that I feel like most of my needs are atypical.  I don't know what really counts as typical or atypical, though.  A great example, and most of what has been on my mind, are social needs.  I just seem to have different social drives than many other people I speak with.

While it has happened, I have very rarely in my life experienced a need to be out among people.  Usually when it has that is because I have been home alone for more than a day.  When I was fourteen living with my family at my grandparents' house I remember wanting to get out to social events, but that was more an issue of circumstance than a reflection of a strong social need.

I do have a strong social need, but that is for people I can have in-depth and analytical conversations.  To do something like this, though, requires a connection.

Something I have noticed is that I can get standoffish to people I detect have strong social needs.  When people start talking about wanting to get together on the spur of the moment, and I don't already have a strong connection with them, my gut reaction is to view them as stealing my precious time resource without paying me something I can use.  I feel overwhelmed very quickly around those sorts of people.

This is a problem because I am starting to understand that to maintain friendships you have a good connection with you need to care about others' needs as well.  I can understand those characters who get older and shut in and don't want to interact with others because that is one of my tendencies.  It's easy to think in the short term that I should only do things that directly align with my needs, but then eighty-year-old me will have few close friendships.

teaching in church

"Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly."- James 3:1

I have been the primary teacher in our Sunday School class for just short of four years now, along with rotating through teaching a men's class on Wednesday nights for the past couple of years.  Many of the classes I have taught have been very thin in attendance (I've taught a solitary person more than once), but many have been well-attended by very intelligent people.  That might sound like bragging, but what what has struck me over and over the past few years is how unqualified I am, and how ridiculous it is that I presume to be able to teach many of the people who regularly fill the seats.  I don't have more knowledge or experience.  All I have is that I put in time to research and prepare a lesson every week.  Just about anyone could do that.

The reason I teach is not skill or a love for teaching.  I'm not a great speaker.  What drives me is the fact that it seems like a waste of time if everyone takes the time to show up and the topic of discussion is either shallow or not well researched.  Why even show up, then?


In light of the statement above from James, it is scary what I don't know.  How can I teach when there are so many questions that I don't know let alone the answers?  There are passages of Scripture that flat-out confound, and there are realities of life I am not close to grasping.  People ask hard questions in class and pose difficult scenarios, as they should.  There is a limit to my knowledge, and the a big theme of the last five years for me has been realizing how much I still need to understand about the Bible and doctrine.  This being the case, how do I keep from leading people down wrong paths on this issue or the next?

Really, the only thing I know to keep myself in line is something I mentioned in class a few months ago.  If I get to the end of class and haven't mentioned how the passage we're looking at points to Christ, then something is wrong.  I pray that there aren't other things that I state wrongly along the way.

why i'm a tightwad

I used to watch Suze Orman quite a bit.  It could have really been any personal finance advisor on TV, but she was the one who was on CNBC on Saturday nights years ago when I had an hour every week.

The thing I always noted about the show was that the people featured on it tended to fall into one of two categories.  The first category were the people who made every right financial decision in the book, had great jobs that allowed them to do what they were supposed to do, and called or wrote into the show more to brag than to ask for genuine advice.  The second were people who made a lot of bad decisions, or who were in unfortunate situations such that their finances were in shambles or close to it.  I never felt I fit in either category.  That, plus no longer having the spare hour every week, caused me to lose interest in the show after a couple of years.

Like most people in our demographic, we are in between these two extremes.  We are nowhere near destitute.  We aren't in the impossible ideal where many financial advisors say you should be either.

One of the things I have wished existed was some way to indicate whether you're making the right financial decisions.  I am not concerned with decisions about investments, or things of that nature.  As ridiculous as it sounds, I just wish there were guarantees that if I made such and such decision or put a certain amount of effort into work that this would cover all of the unforeseen things that we'll need to handle in the years to come.

I know that the worry that drives this is sinful.  I'm trying to repent of this, but I'm still human and I still have human drives.  It is something God is still working on in me.

The real problem I have been butting up against is that on a basic level I don't know what my responsibility is and what God's responsibility is.  Both the Bible and American society frown upon men who do not financially support their family.  What that actually means and what responsibilities it entails seems fluid, though.  What one person considers being financially responsible another considers not trusting God enough, or putting career in front of family.

Because of all of this I sort of default to being a tightwad since it's the safest option.  If I don't allow many frivolous expenses it's not my fault if some day if we're unable to cover some important expense.

I know this seems silly coming from someone in my situation.  I've got a decent job, a couple of degrees, and no student loans.  I still think about it, though.

multi-factor issues

People are naturally wired to be lazy in many ways, and one of those ways has piqued my interest recently.  People like to find a singular cause for issues.  As a result, most people aren't wired to address complex issues, and have to fight their wiring to do so.

As an example, when the crime rate rises or falls in a region there is rarely one factor in play.  Policing, the justice system, the socioeconomic situation, etc all play a role, and people are prone to pick their favorite factor as the be-all, end-all reason for the good or the bad things they see on the streets and the news.  All may be factors, but it is unlikely that one is the primary factor that dwarfs all others.

I say this because I see the same tendency in myself.  When I see something broken I want to identify the issue and move toward a fix as closely as possible.  If I can identify an issue I want it to be the issue so that I can pin all of the problems I see on that one blamable and ultimately fixable thing.  I don't want to research more once one factor has been identified, because it's not in my nature to look for a second factor.  That approach leads to incomplete fixes, though.

I don't have much more to add on this.  This is just something I've been observing.

self-absorbed

I like to type introspective things because it helps me work through my thoughts.  When I do that, though, I find at the end that it sounds super self-absorbed.  As stuck-on-myself as I sound on this blog, most of what I write that sounds that way has been edited down and the worst of it peeled away.

Has anyone else run into this problem?

stepping down

Just short of ten years ago I agreed to be an usher at our church. At the time it wasn't a big deal. I just had to pray for the offering every couple of weeks and manage the collection plate in my aisle.  In the time since the role morphed into more a position of greeting and directing people to empty seats.  This is not at all my forte, and since I'm otherwise very involved, I am backing out of this responsibility after this month.  That I have stayed in the role as long as I have is an example of why I am always hesitant to agree to commit to things, though.

Any time I am in a role of responsibility, even something as small as this, I don't feel the freedom to back out.  I am very well aware that in a lot of cases there will be no one else to step up, and few things make me feel more rotten than leaving someone else holding the bag.  Because of this, I usually view new commitments through a very long-term lens, and hem and haw before committing.

As I noted, I am not suited for the current ushering role in our church.  The job is not mentally difficult in the least, but the responsibilities are a serious chore for someone who is as introverted as I am.  It is not in my nature to approach people I don't know, get information about them, and ask others to make room for them in the row where they're sitting.  When I hear about the reasons visitors do not return to churches I wonder if it was because I was not outgoing enough for some folks to want to return.

Even so, the only reason I feel the freedom to step down from this specific role is that it has interfered with my other responsibilities.  Sometimes the kids are in service, but Golden has to be in the nursery and cannot watch them.  Sometimes someone wants to talk about the lesson after Sunday School and I have to rudely rush out.  There is always the specter of what to do when one of the kids is sick and I have to usher and Golden is on the schedule to help in the nursery.  Without those conflicts of interest I'd probably stay in the role out of a sense of duty or guilt, which is every bit as pathetic as it sounds.

So, I guess that means that it's time for someone a bit more extroverted than I am to step up.  I hope they do.

boredom

When I was seven I remember wondering how I would ever outgrow Sesame Street.  I knew it would happen.  I could see that my parents, and other adults for that matter, only had a passing interest in it, but for the life of me I could not grasp what would change about me such that the show would no longer hold my interest.

A few years later my parents worked for a school on an Indian reservation (no one--even Native people--ever called it a "Native American reservation" in my recollection) they used to have a week of sermons at the school called spiritual emphasis week.  Something that those who have not spent much time on a reservation might not know is that time has a different meaning there.  Starting and ending times for a lot of events on the reservation are more generalizations than rules, and so many of the sermons would go hours long.  I distinctly remember sitting through a two-hour (or three-hour... they did occasionally go that long) sermon at nine years old wondering what would change about me for me to be as interested as my parents appeared to be in the sermon's contents.

Even today, I am often struck by how some forms of entertainment that others genuinely enjoy are painfully boring to me, and how many things that deeply fascinate me hold no interest in most anyone else.  What is it that drives fascination and boredom?  That question has been in my mind for at least the last thirty years.

I think there are three things that cause things to be boring.

1. Something is too simple.

Why do I find most kids' entertainment boring?  Easy, it's because there's nothing unexpected or engaging in it.  Bar none, if a children's show or movie is entertaining to me it is because something has been added to it that goes beyond it's primary audience.

2. Something is too complicated.

Many subjects are boring to me merely because I don't even possess the knowledge necessary knowledge to know how to be engaged.  By definition, it is difficult for me to provide good examples because the moment I have enough insight to cite an example I have stepped toward the issue not being so complicated. I do suspect that this is the main reason I am bored by much of what is considered high literature.

3 (or 2b). It doesn't speak to my experiences in life or the needs I have that drive me.

This is sort of like #2, but the reason for lacking understanding is not due to how complicated the issue is, but rather my not being equipped with fundamental background to appreciate the thing.

The best example I have of boredom from a lack of fundamental understanding is Pride and Prejudice.  I tried very hard to care about the book and the movie about ten years ago, but I just couldn't.  I lost interest in the book about four chapters in, and I could not connect with the characters on the most basic of levels simply because I had no fundamental understanding of what drove the main character.  I even got the sense that the things I sort of understood about the main character I understood wrong.

One of my pet peeves is when I am expected to enjoy something when I do not have the underlying drives or experiences that lend value to that thing.  I suspect that most other people feel similarly.

So, in order for something not to be boring to a person it has to reside in their window of knowledge where it isn't too dumbed-down to drive engagement or too complicated to make sense.  It has to also have some basis in the audience's experience and fundamental needs.

So, what do you think?  Are there other things that cause things to be boring?  Have you been as fascinated with this as I, or do you find this whole line of thinking boring in and of itself?  What is so boring to you it is painful?