Second Rate Thoughts

Music

2009-05-05T10:31:00.001-07:00

I'm realizing that the music I want to listen to is almost always directly tied to my mood. Today all I want to listen to is sad, depressing music. When I hear something upbeat I feel myself start to come out of my melancholy but I don't want to come out of it for some reason. I'm not sure what it says about my personality that I usually want to listen to 80's sounding dance music, usually fronted by a girl singer...

Excitement

2007-07-25T07:25:00.000-07:00

Well, after laboring over the decision of what to do with my life for several months I finally made a decision. Meghan and I will be moving to Denver in January to help plant a church with some friends from Fort Worth. I am so excited about this. I'm excited to live in Denver, excited to start something new and significant, but mostly I'm excited because I feel like I'm finally submitting to God's will and letting Him conform my will. My excitement makes me happy, but also leads to a little anxiety. I have 5 more months here in OKC but at times my mind is already in Denver. I can't help from looking for houses in Denver and thinking about the church plant more than my current job.

Disappointment

2007-06-18T10:28:00.001-07:00

Well, I didn't get into that certain graduate program.

My initial feeling when I read the news: nothing. I didn't feel anything, good or bad. Then about ten minutes later after reading the rejection letter for the third time the sadness hit. A sharp sadness and feeling of rejection. Now, a day later, it is just a subtle sadness and hopelessness. I was expecting a sense of relief, hoping whatever feeling that came would be better than the anxiousness. Not necessarily the case. I hope the relief will come in a couple of days once the sadness goes away.

Anxiousness

2007-06-14T07:42:00.001-07:00

I applied for a position in a certain grad program almost four weeks ago. I was supposed to hear back within two weeks, then it was pushed back an additional two weeks. The result: Severe anxiety. It's one of the more physically taxing emotions. I have a consistent, dull churning in my stomach. I feel that it is taking a toll on the rest of my body as well. Emotionally I can stay quite upbeat and function as usual. It doesn't keep me from enjoying reading, listening to music or any of my other hobbies and actually anything that keeps my mind away from the source of my anxiousness relieves the pain completely. Unfortunately, my day job does nothing to alleviate the anxiousness, so I end up sitting at my desk for 8 hours a day hoping that the next email or phone call I receive will be the answer. It's pretty miserable, but not nearly as bad as anger or depression.

Contentment

2006-02-14T08:10:00.000-08:00

It feels good. It's not overwhelming, but it is all encompassing, if that makes sense. It's not a strong, specific emotion like anger or joy- much more peaceful. It's basically the bizarro version of apathy(see depression), or I should say apathy is the bizarro version of contentment. This is my typical state of mind, which I'm so thankful for. I attribute it to God. I would say that I rest in this state about 85% of the time. The remaining 15% is split between depression, joy, anger, excitement, anxiety and so on.

Anger

2006-02-09T07:43:00.000-08:00

How does anger feel? Well, it's not too far from depression although not quite as apathetic, and my mind races a little more (if you could ever consider what my mind does as racing.) Then there is the underlying urge to beat someone up- which is a little weird since I'm a relatively peaceful person and I haven't been in a fight in just over a decade. Hmmmmm... It's gone. I'm no longer angry so I can't really write about it anymore.

Depression

2006-01-06T13:27:00.000-08:00

Depression... for me it feels like utter boredom and indescribable discomfort- physical and emotional. There are so many things I could and should be doing- work, other work, reading my bible, reading anything, practicing drums, playing guitar, taking care of stuff that needs to be done, you know. But I can't do any of that stuff. I can't do anything. Writing this pathetic blog post is the most productive thing I've done all day. The only thing that sounds remotely appealing is jumping on my motorcycle and taking a long ride... but I sold it 7 months ago so that's not really an option. I have the money to buy a new one, which I would really like to do, but now that I'm married, my money is our money and I can't just go out and drop a few grand on a bike- rightly so.

Extreme Makeover: Dan's life edition

2005-06-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

My life is changing. I am getting married in two months. In that same very month I will also be moving from Austin to a new city- Fort Worth and leaving my job with Campus Crusade for a new job as a zoning analyst (please don't ask what that is.) So basically within the period of a couple of weeks I will leave my secure job, friends, city, and pretty much my life as I know it. I'm not really nervous about this- actually kind of excited. Although I'm trying to prepare myself for possible hard times.

Failure

2005-05-12T13:30:00.000-07:00

It seems I've failed. I wanted to blog, I wanted to have interesting things to say that people would want to read... but maybe that's just not in the cards for me. My last post was on March 23rd. This realization began to hit me when my friend (and inspiration) Will Walker told me that my blog was one of the two most disappointing blogs ever (or something like that.) Then today as I was reading my roommates blogs (all three of them) I noticed that they all had links to each others blogs from their own, but curiously I found no links to mine. This hurts guys- that's right Paul, Matt, and Brett. I didn't realize you would so quickly expel a friend from the blog community for something as innocent as infrequent posts. I'm not sure what this means for our friendship but I think I can safely say: Paul- you're out of the wedding, and Matt- I don't even think you're invited anymore. As for Brett... this is strike three for you- the first being when you ate all my honey when I was on my sugar fast; the second was when you asked to borrow my suit... while wearing my suit. 'Nuf said.

Quote of the Day... part 2

2005-03-23T13:57:00.000-08:00

"REALITY IS LIKE A FINE WINE, IT WILL NOT APPEAL TO CHILDREN."

This quote is from Don Miller... from his book at least. Someone else said it to him.

I've thought of this quote lately when life has been unsatisfying and the questions of "why does life suck so bad" or "why are things so hard" float through my head. Wine is kind of bitter and harder to get used to than grape juice or coke for instance, but over time it can be much better. Sadly, I tend to prefer the coke (literally and figuratively.) I have a very easy life: easy job, easy roommates, easy family, not much stress, but there's probably not a whole lot of growth occuring in my life when things are so easy. I can pretty much just coast. Being engaged has added some stress to my life... how will I support a family? I can't do whatever I want whenever I want to anymore. Spiritual leadership? what the @#!? does that mean? especially when my fiance is at least as spiritual and probably more of an up-front leader than me.

What I need to realize is that hard doesn't = bad and that often it = good.

I think the next step for me now is to develope a taste for wine.

Quote of the Day

2005-03-23T13:00:00.000-08:00

My friend Trina had a great quote today:

"YOU MAY NOT HAVE MUCH TO SAY, OR BE A GREAT WRITER, BUT THOSE WHO SPEAK LESS... SPEAK LESS CRAP."

Well put Trina.

Sugar Fast

2005-02-25T22:05:00.000-08:00

So, I've been off sugar for about two and a half weeks, well... junk sugar that is. I still eat some things with a little sugar in them like orange juice and raisin bran. It's kind of an experiment more than anything. I usually eat a stupid amount of sugar so I was just wondering what would happen it I stopped. Not much yet. Maybe a little more energy... maybe. The hardest thing for me is putting equal or splenda in my coffee- uhhhh- it's just not the same. And I never feel full because I'm used to topping off all my meals with something sweet, so I find myself eating a meal, then looking for something else, and so on. I'm really looking forward to sugar again- I would like to say that I'm over the hump but I can't. Soon enough I'll be back off the wagon- about three weeks.

Like a Virgin

2005-02-13T11:36:00.000-08:00

Ok, description of the blog title. I've been reading and enjoying some friends blogs lately: Musings, The (s)WheatSpot, Westification, and while soaking in their thoughts on life and God I felt that maybe I should contribute to the "discussion" (more for my edification than for anyone else's.) Although it became blatantly clear to me that my friends are all strong to quite strong in the area of writing and I would consider myself quite weak, hence "Second Rate Thoughts." Here is the problem with my writing: I don't have much to say. I think this will be rather hard to overcome but in order to become a more interesting, and even spiritual person I feel I have to try.