I’m sitting here in a coffee shop hearing a song that is talking about waiting. I feel like I am often just sitting in life waiting for something to happen. I wait for someone to call to go out that evening. I wait at work for someone to come and tell me there is a problem or that I need to do something…even if I know that thing will need to be done eventually. It’s always easier to wait for someone else to react or approach you than to take the initiative yourself. Why is it that way for me? I’m sure other people struggle with this same thing. I think it ties in closely with leadership and with being a follower. It’s easiest to be a follower rather than a leader. I like to be in control in life, but I don’t always like to lead. It’s a problem of responsibility. If you lead a group of people or you take initiative in some area, you are the one responsible. You are responsible if the project fails and feel responsible if you yourself or your ideas are rejected. I don’t like to face rejection or failure in any way. However, someone once told me that the wisest people are the ones who are willing to learn and to listen to other’s suggestions or criticisms. We all know that we learn best from our mistakes, so wouldn’t a wise person be someone who was willing to try new things, to take initiative in life, to open the door for the possibility of making mistakes so that he or she could learn from them?

Failure is one area that holds me back from taking leadership or initiative in life, but I believe laziness and complacency also hinder progress in this area. It is so easy to want other people to do things for you. Also, being physically or emotionally run down can start a cycle of complacency. If it’s really hard to take the lead at some point in time because of being overwhelmed or worn down, it becomes even harder to take initiative the next time because you remember how hard it was last time and a feeling of dread comes over you. This is an area that I believe only prayer can help in. Praying with Jesus in order to deepen your relationship with Him and prayer from others. I find it hard to pray with the desire for a deeper relationship. Instead, I typically ask for help to not feel or be complacent.

I’ve hardly written any blog posts so far, and already I’m having trouble thinking of something to write today. So, I think I’ll take an idea I heard on the radio this morning and expand on it a bit. The DJ I heard mentioned that he coached other DJs at the station and helped them fine tune and improve in certain areas. One thing that he told them was to look for every day experiences in life and find the humor in them. This sounds very much like what I have read in the Comedy Bible. In fact, comedy is all about seeing the humor in life and then being able to tell it in an entertaining way.

This particular DJ mentioned that the other DJs he was coaching thought that they didn’t have nearly as funny experiences in life…even if they tried to find the humor in things they experienced. He also said that he definitely doesn’t go looking for these things to happen or really even talk to people that much…they just seem to come up to him and start going into their life story or whatever. So, do some people just have that look to them that makes other people feel comfortable enough to either share with them or confront them in some way? I certainly do not experience this very often. Although, I have had people come up to me in a store on a number of occasions and ask for help finding something. Maybe I just usually know what I am looking for in these stores and so people figure I must work there because I don’t look lost.

Anyway, all this made me think that it would be nice to be that person in a group that make others feel comfortable enough to talk to. I don’t think that would be something that comes naturally to me, but I know a good place to start is by taking an interest in other people’s lives around me besides my own. These could be people I know or have just met. I always feel special if someone does that for me.

In some areas of life, consistent practice can make all the difference in improvement. For some people, this can constantly move them to different skill levels. For others, it moves them to a certain point and they feel stuck…as if progress is so slow to be non-existent. I feel like I am at that point in many areas of life. One area I feel that does improve the more I stick with it is computers. I feel like I can keep learning new things and, if they don’t stick, at least I can continue to move on and make progress. In other areas, such as music and skateboarding, I feel stuck in a rut. The more I practice, the deeper the trench becomes and the harder it gets to unstick myself from a single-minded approach to the skill. I tell myself every year that I am going to work on learning one new trick in skateboarding. I just end up tweaking the few skills I already have. It becomes harder and harder to try something new and stick with it when it’s more enjoyable to do something I can do halfway well. It is hard for me to get out of one mindset when playing the drums and take some risks in my style. I should take the risks because I’m not that great at playing a smooth rhythm anyway.

So, how can I fix this? I’m not sure about the drumming, but I believe there is an answer to skateboarding. I just have to find it. I need to take (potentially less dangerous?) risks in other areas of life in order to become a little more comfortable with the risks I need to take to try something new skateboarding. I need to be more patient with others in my life so I can be more patient when learning something new. I give up to easily on others and I give up to easily when trying a new trick. I need to stick with it more like I did when I was younger and had nothing else to give me self worth.

Today was a lovely day. I got up early and ran 6 miles. Picked up a weight bench from Leigh’s parents and then went and worked on Jim’s Linux box. We were trying to get xmame and kxmame running. They ran, but not fullscreen, so we gave up for now. A funny thought occurred to me there…his case was actually from exploher mihcro. Smoked a pipe, grilled some chicken, and now…listening to music.

While all that is very exciting I’m sure, even better was a thought I had about today, or days like today in general. It feels weird to me to have such an unorganized day. Of course, by weird I mean great! I really like having a day that is different from the normal routine of life. I know it doesn’t sound bizarre at all, but it feels that way to me, and bizarre feels good. For me, just thinking back on the day and realizing that I wasn’t stuck running on the hamster wheel for just one day is a good feeling. It’s good to have good feelings.