hbedward writes

You have just been through another year of life. Set aside some specific time to reflect on that year. Write down some answers to these questions and acknowledge yourself, your year and your role in the year to come:

For all of the criticism that 2016 has gotten for being a terrible year, for me personally it was one of my best! I've known really difficult years, so I get it and I empathize. Fortunately we don't all have our down years at the same time! 

My counselor helped me identify a couple of the key reasons that my 2016 was so good. I was recounting my year to him recently, what I've experienced, what I've learned, fears I'm still facing, hurdles I've run into...then I stopped and said: 

I live with myself every day. I hear the jibber-jabber that goes on in my head all the time. I've heard everything I'm saying to you now before. Do you have it to give to share with me what you're hearing me say and if so, what are some affirmations and challenges you can offer? 

He was very gracious in accepting my invitation and I really love what he had to say: 

I hear you having made some really healthy detachments in 2016. I want to affirm the steps you've taken to do so and in the absence of what you've detached from, I challenge you as you journey through 2017 to continue that good work and create some really healthy attachments. 

It's true, I have detached from several old things this past year and it’s good to take stock of these things. I left a full-time job which is all I had known for eight years and stepped out into self-employment. I detached from a broken relationship and the narrative of romantic pursuit and relocation to a sexy new city that accompanied it. I detached from a poverty mentality and began exploring what possibility looks like in my life. 

And I accept the challenge to attach to healthy things in 2017 in the absence of what I've detached from. To continue to explore self-employment and what I want that to look like. For every what if of doom and gloom I can conjure up, to counter it with a possibility. To continue to give myself permission to show up and bring the unique individual that I am to the table. 

It’s going to be a great year. The great thing about proclaiming a year to be great before it has even happened is that we get to choose to play an active role in it’s greatness. Part of my action is continuing to identify healthy detachments and attachments for myself. I encourage you to identify ways you can be active in your year, as opposed to sitting by and letting it passively happen to you. 

Today marks the beginning of a new year! I love New Year’s because for me it is a natural reset button built into the calendar. A great excuse for healthy change.

I was encouraged about the year ahead by a podcast I visit from time to time called the Creative Pep Talk podcast, hosted by illustrator, Andy J. Pizza. In his episode titled, 9 Ways to Make 2018 Your Best Year Yet, Andy talks about the importance of envisioning what you want your 2018 to look like, then setting and walking out goals and mile markers throughout 2017 in aid of accomplishing that vision come 2018.

I like this outlook because it requires something different of me: To begin with the end in mind. Instead of setting little goals to be marked off a to-do list and brushed aside throughout the year, this approach is in aid of something bigger. Something much more grand. A vision of what I’d like to see my next year look like that I get to choose!

Yes, a longer and possibly more challenging view of the coming year, far from the instant gratification we’ve become so accustom to. I’d also venture to guess that the result will be much more rewarding.

What do you want your 2018 to look like? What are some goals that you can set during 2017 to help bring you closer to that vision?

I made a friend of mine cry the other day. 

Our words have the power to build up and to tear down. To heal and to wound. To bless and to curse. 

In between trips to the Indian food buffet and our table, I asked my friend if he was open to me sharing some of the things I believe about him. I told him how proud I was of him, and affirmed the growth that I’ve seen in him this year, in his career, his creativity, his integrity, his presence and provision for his family.

As I was speaking these truths to him his eyes started tearing up and his chin started quivering. My eyes welled up. When I was done he nodded and said, Thank you. It’s been really hard. I said, I know it has and you’re doing incredible.

It’s difficult for us to be objective about ourselves. We have a hard time seeing our own growth because we live with ourselves every day. I’m a firm believer in healthy self-care, self-talk, believing the best about ourselves and finding our validation in our Higher Power. I also believe it is really important and powerful for us to affirm the magic that we see in each other. 

With the year beginning to wind down, I’m already starting to think about what kinds of goals I want to set for myself next year. How can I continue to be more proactive and less reactive with my life? How can I best challenge myself and continue to climb outside of my comfort zone to promote growth?

When I start putting ideas to these questions it’s easy for me to get overwhelmed or scared. Start spiraling down all of the deadly what if scenarios. With change comes risk, and as a recovering perfectionist, risk can mean having to figure a lot of stuff out along the way instead of knowing it all up front.

The impact that this kind of thinking has on me is paralysis. Thinking myself into such a state that I don’t do anything, instead of trying something. I’ve read several thought leaders challenge those of us who suffer from this paralysis from time to time to ask ourselves this question:

What would yourself 20 years from now have to say to your present-day self about what you’re trying to figure out?

My cynicism would say, Well, my present-day self probably wouldn’t listen to my 20 years from now self anyway so what’s the point of the exercise?!

Once I get that out of my system and let my imagination take the wheel, I can usually come up with some rich perspective. Turns out my 20 years from now self is pretty wise and is very gentle with my present-day self. Most often what he has to say is something along the lines of:

Don’t worry. Whatever it is that you’re overthinking yourself into paralysis about (barring anything harming yourself or others, getting someone pregnant, or contracting VD)…go for it. Feel the fear, take the necessary steps and go for it. You will figure it out. And if you don’t, you will course correct. You are going to be just fine.

I like being able to acknowledge that. The challenge now is trusting it and acting on it.

The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal.

- C.S. Lewis

If dating was like the NBA, I’d be the league leader in assists. The self-proclaimed John Stockton of the dating world. Stockton drives the lane, pump-fakes, behind the back pass to Karl Malone, and the Mailman slams it home for two!

If you're not familiar with an assist in sports, an assist is accomplished when one player directly aids another player in scoring points. So the analogy goes, as an assist leader in dating, I’ve assisted at least 3 or 4 women directly into marriage. We date, one or the other of us ends it, then they marry the next guy they date. Assist. I’m by no means taking on a victim role here, only stating a humorous fact.

The other day I found out another tally had been added to my stat sheet. I was cutting a friends hair in my kitchen and he asked me how I felt about an ex-girlfriend of mine having just gotten married. I told him that, I get it, but I don't understand it. Here’s what I mean:

I get it because I've dated people and broken up with them. I've dated people and they’ve broken up with me. I know what it is to want to feel a certain way about someone, a certain gut feeling, or have someone else feel that way about me but it’s just not there. And it doesn’t have to have anything to do with character or physical attributes, it’s just something that is missing. In light of that framework I'm familiar with knowing how it feels to not want to be with someone for the rest of my life. Or someone not wanting to be with me for the rest of their life. I get it.

What I don’t understand is what it is that compels someone to want to be with another person for the rest of their lives. What makes one dating scenario different than the other? Why is one dating scenario missing that gut feeling and another scenario allegedly has it?

I like how my friend responded. He said, You don’t understand it because you don’t have a point of reference. You’ve never felt that feeling, so you don’t understand when other people claim to have it, and that’s okay. It’s something you most likely won’t understand until you experience it and I know that’s frustrating because in the meantime you feel in the dark. Like, what the fuck?

And he’s right. With no shame attached, I have no point of reference for this particular phenomenon, so it is frustrating. This very gnostic idea of marriage, and choice, and companionship. I get it, and I don’t understand it, and that’s okay. The key is the waiting and the patience in the interim between what I get and what I don’t understand. To remain present for the duration of what I’ve been told is a very enviable solo status.

I like how Aziz Anzari frames what I’m thinking:

When I hear a specific message over and over, from different sources, in a concentrated amount of time, I take that as a mark of importance. That there is something that I am coming in contact with that is worth paying attention to. Lately it has been the concept of comfort as it relates to growth.

The other night I was talking with a German friend of mine about the value of experience. He and I both put a high value on experience, often at the risk of our bank accounts and our sleep. A little over a year ago, he moved himself and his family to the States from Germany for an adventure. He relayed an imaginary scenario that stuck with me:

When I am old one day and back in Germany with my grandchildren sitting on my knee, the worst thing would be for them to ask me why I DIDN’T move to America for a few years or why I DIDN’T do this or that. I want them to ask me to tell them stories about how me and their grandmother took risks, moved to another country, and about all the people we met and the fun we had because we weren’t afraid to be uncomfortable for a little while.

One of my internet heroes, Casey Neistat, who for the past year and a half has shot, edited and posted a daily video to YouTube documenting his day-to-day life (which is fascinating, mind you) recently stopped. He stopped posting everyday. Not because he's lazy, but because he said he’d fallen into a rhythm and gotten comfortable.

What had once been a creative challenge to himself that kept him sharp and pushed him, turned into something that he eventually developed a formula for and was able to dial in. He is willing to give up something that had become an insane success both influentially and monetarily, because it was too comfortable and to him, hindered growth. It was time to move on. 

I’m challenged by both of these personal accounts because I like being comfortable. As I’ve been learning to play a more active role in my life and what I want over the past year, I’m also more open to challenging comfort as a means for growth. Stepping out into self-employment this year was a huge leap from comfort for me. Now that I’ve gotten a taste, I’m already looking for what comforts I can challenge next year.

Today while I was defrosting chicken for lunch at my apartment in Charlotte, NC, I received an email from myself, from one year ago. In Jon Acuff’s, Quitter, which I read at least 4 times the year leading up to transitioning from full-time employed to self-employed, he encouraged readers to write an email to themselves using FurtureMe.org. Here’s what I had to say to myself:

Dear FutureMe,

Hey buddy. Today is Monday.

You are standing at your standing desk in your office at INSP. You are wearing your new glasses, a new blue shirt you got from Uniqlo in LA and those orange corduroy pants that you feel make you frumpy.

You're having a hard time today, bud. You're wondering whether or not you're going to be okay. You have made up your mind that you will leave your safe, secure, regular paycheck, and benefits full-time job to go out on your own. Into what? You don't necessarily know today. You just know that you need to do it.

Everything is pointing in the direction of "Leap". Podcasts, teachings, encouragements, scriptures, sermons, blogs, authors, the Storyline conference a couple weeks ago...everything you are drawn to right now all points to this one thing...Leap. To trust yourself. To trust the Lord. And to trust the process. That the net will appear and you'll be better for giving yourself the chance to see what happens.

And you are scared to death.

Today is a scary day. You're mind is wondering from your work and you're thinking about all the what-ifs. What if I don't know what to do after I quit? What if nobody wants what I have to give and I go broke? What if I run out of money? What if I procrastinate my way under a bridge to die alone?

You've been feeling really lonely lately. You have been aching for a companion lately. You've been trying really hard and you've had a hard time maintaining your sobriety around that. You're afraid that you're going to end up alone. That the Lord won't ever leave you but that He won't let you have a companion.

I don't know where you'll be sitting or standing when you read this. I do know that it will be on the other side of all of these fears that you can so easily come up with today. You will have done what you've been so afraid to do up to this point. You will have done it and you are okay.

Remember all of the fears? You're on the other side of that. You made it!!

Look at yourself. Look around you. Where are you? What are you doing? Remember the Lord's faithfulness and your faithfulness to yourself in getting you there.

The Lord has never left you.

And you could not have been here if you had not taken the leap and tried.

Your buddy, David Stanfield encouraged you today. He reminded you that you are talented and that you can do it. That the world needs what you have to give it.

You're capable, my man. And depending on what state of mind you find yourself in today, remember where you were a year ago, and know that you did it! And that can continually do it.

You are awesome and I love you. You've done such a good job. Thank you for taking care of yourself and for giving it a shot. Pulling it back and letting it go. It is better than always wondering.

I want to be present on the ride, and I also look forward to seeing where you are when you receive this.

Keep going!!

You got this!!

I love you,

Blake

I took the news of the election results harder than I expected. That is really my only excuse for not writing for so many days in a row. I wasn’t sure what to say and it felt trite to just fill the space with some other libber jabber in the meantime so I’m making an effort to bookend these thoughts by sharing in order to continue moving forward. 

During my time with Michael Hyatt a couple of weeks ago, he and his wife Gail both said that one of their first impressions of me was my tenderness. This is a quality of myself I once considered weakness that I have now grown to appreciate as a strength. Not that tenderness is limited to crying, but it is true, I often experience joy, sadness, empathy, victory, growth and injustice through tears.

My tenderness got the best of me the morning of the election results. When I stopped scrolling through my twitter feed, stopped eating breakfast, and stopped distracting myself with episodes of Narcos…when I finally let myself sit and feel, I cried. It surprised me and I’ve been thinking this week about why the election result affected me the way it did. Here is what I’ve come up with so far:

Bullying breaks my heart. As a kid, I was very shy and demure. I was so quiet that other kids would ask me if I actually could talk. Prime pickins for a bully. I was also bigger than most all other kids including the bullies so fortunately any instances of bullying I personally experienced were few and far between. Regardless, we teach our kids to treat each other as you want to be treated, right? Respect one another, be good to each other, appreciate one another’s differences in beliefs, social standing, race, gender, language, hair color, education, age and size. We teach them that bullying is wrong. And then a bully was elected president. That bothered me.

As a privileged, white, Christian male, I realize I’ll never be able to experience first hand what it is like to be a woman, or a homosexual, or to have brown skin. I love people that don’t look like me. I love people that don’t speak the same language as me. I’ve had the honor of listening when LGBT friends felt safe to share their very vulnerable news of coming out with me, and then walking beside them in love, to the best of my ability, through an often confusing life transition. I’ll never know the prejudice against those people groups that they experience. As a privileged, white, Christian male, I also do not agree with nor align with the hateful, demeaning and threatening rhetoric that our president elect chose to spout off during the campaign trail aimed at these folks. That bothered me.

I consider myself a citizen of the world. I love America. I also love all the parts of the world I’ve visited so far and can’t wait to see the parts I haven’t. It bothers me that the leader and most public face of the nation I represent when I travel abroad with my U.S. passport is someone who has proven to be disrespectful to a lot of the rest of the world.

I’m not sure how it’s all going to go down from here. It’s going to be really interesting for sure. I think there is a great opportunity for the American people to come together and be hands and feet of love towards each other, towards the marginalized, towards people that are different from us. To be really good listeners. To show up for one another where our government may not. True social change from the inside out.

I am single and have no little humans with my face running around this earth yet. A friend of mine who is married and has 3 little humans that resemble him recently left his full-time job to go full-time freelance. I’m very proud of him.

The other day he pointed this out to me over lunch:

You [speaking to me] can do anything you want. You COULD, do anything you want! You may or you may not do it, it may or it may not be the right thing, but the fact is that you COULD. There is a system of checks and balances that my choices have to go through before I make a big decision. Not you though. You COULD do anything just because you can.

And he’s right! I could do anything at this point in my life. I am only responsible for myself.

My past tendency has been to respond to an observation like that in fear:

Yes, I COULD do anything, but how many years is taking a big risk just because I can going to set me back? If I move to a different city for example, just because I can, it’ll take me this long to settle in, it’ll take me this long to begin to make friends, it’ll cost me this much money, this long to begin to generate income to make up for what it cost me to get here plus maintain some sort of income so I don’t end up under the bridge, then it’ll take this long to possibly meet someone I may fancy dating, and if we date for awhile and it doesn’t work out then there’s that much more time lost making me that much further behind, and who’s to say how many times I’ll have to go through that and how many years that will take, and even if it does work with one of them at some point, say we date for a year or two then we’re engaged for another year, then by the time we have a few years to ourselves and by some chance she’s still at an age where she can even conceive, the only way I’ll be able to chase the little humans running around with my face that we produced is by using a walker, so what’s the point of ever doing anything or making any decisions ever, all is vanity, trying is half of failing, life is meaningless why even make the effort?

God, it made me exhausted just writing that out! Haha! So much fear. Such an absence of wonder and excitement.

Instead of judging observations like my friend shared with me through a lens of fear, I’ve been challenging myself to observe them through a lens of possibility and curiosity. How can I be the best steward of this very unique status of mine right now? That already feels a lot more centered than the jibber jabber I was spouting earlier.

I am a delayed gratifier. I like to make the joy of things and experiences last as long as possible.

6 out of 8 titles of Wes Anderson’s filmography I own on Criterion Collection are waiting patiently on my shelf, in their shrink wrap, ready for me to open and enjoy when I am ready.  

I left my iMac in it’s box for at least two weeks before setting it up because I liked knowing it was there all nice and neat in it’s box.

I hide gift cards in drawers around my place so that I can experience the joy of finding them after I’ve forgotten I put them there.

I wonder if my life is unfolding in a similar pattern. If each of our lives, depending on our tendencies, follows a certain pattern: If you’re impatient or impulsive, things happen quickly; If you like logistics and order, life unfolds according to an organized agenda, checking one thing off the list after another; And if you’re really scatter-brained you’re often perplexed by where you are and what is going on around you.

This is all a hypothesis and I have no scientific findings to back it up. But, if there is any coincidental truth to it, even in the slightest, I’m becoming more okay with things happening later in my life.

I read a post by one of my favorite authors, Donald Miller several years ago encouraging readers to aim to peak at 65, not in your 20’s and 30’s. Reason being that when you’re a young success, your shelf life is shorter and when you succeed later in life you’ve got a lot more experience to fall back on and gain credibility from.

Historically I've been pretty failure averse. I tend to obsess over getting all my ducks in a row before taking a chance on a new endeavor. Anything from moving to a new place, starting a new relationship, or buying a new pair of jeans...I want to make sure I've done everything I can on the front end to avoid failure on the back end. 

Disguised as wisdom and diligence, these are mostly measures taken out of fear, to avoid pain. 

A friend challenged me recently to fail fast. Instead of obsessing, go ahead and make an educated decision and walk it out to the best of my ability. That way if I realize it's not the right decision and need to course correct or I fail altogether, I can get it over with and move on without having spent all that mental and emotional energy. 

I think that's one reason I like performing improv comedy so much. When you're making everything up on the spot, there's no time to obsess. You make a decision, it comes out of your mouth, if it bombs you know it right away, and since the scene has to keep on going you don't have time to obsess over the failure. You keep going and make different decisions from there on out. 

I spent a lot of time scrolling, posting and replying on Twitter today, which was fun! I also sandwiched my online time between some real face-to-face time with a good friend in town for breakfast this morning and a good friend from out of town for dinner and drinks this evening. 

I think there is a time and a place for social media. I also think given the choice between only having social media or only having face-to-face interaction with people, I'd choose face-to-face. Especially when you're self-employed and are the only employee in your business, it's important to make intentional, genuine human contact from time to time, business related or not.  

We’ve all done it. We mindlessly scroll through social media and inevitably find a post or a photo representing some facet of a friend or an acquaintance or a stranger’s life that we immediately begin comparing ourselves to. We delve even deeper into the downward spiral and it does not lead us to a good place...

Their life is so much more beautiful than mine. 

Their job is so much more adventurous than mine. 

Their relationship is so much more perfect than mine. 

Before we know it, we are worthless, our friends and significant others are worthless, and every moment of our lives leading up to this point of comparison holds no value or importance. It never mattered. Worthless. 

I ran into this as recently as this morning. I know how it feels. When I am able to take a step back and see myself and the reality of what’s happening with a sober mind operating out of abundance and possibility versus operating out of scarcity and lack, here’s what I am able to do:

1) Shut down the app or website. Detach yourself from the tentacles of the thing triggering the comparison. 

2) Acknowledge what is happening. Give it a name. I am comparing myself to this person’s experience and I feel shame. About that I feel sad [or mad or bad, you fill in the blank]. Sometimes I call or text a trusted friend with that simple acknowledgement and it creates one degree of separation between me and the lies bouncing around in my head.

3) Counter the lie that says you are less than by speaking truth and reality: I am not walking in the person’s shoes that I am comparing myself to. I do not know how they are truly feeling. Whether they are feeling good and their post is an authentic extension of that, or they are feeling miserable and their post is meant to hide that, my worth and my well-being is not based on either possibility.

4) Affirm your own life. Think back on the past day, week, month or year. Begin naming things you have accomplished. Anything! Big or small. A goal you have met. Recall compliments you have given and received. Remember moments that have brought you joy. Something delicious you ate or drank. Something beautiful you saw outside. Write them down. Say them out loud. They’re there, ready to be accessed.

5) Say a statement of gratitude. To yourself, to the universe, and to your Higher Power...release gratitude.