Living to the Fullest: Can a Mom Do it?

Note from Adrian: This week's guest post is from another one of my blogging friends named Katrina. Katrina is a wife and mother to one amazing man and two beautiful girls, blogs over at Finding Equipoise where she strives to find a balance in life, love, motherhood and creativity. She is a musician, book-lover and wanna-be writer who is trying to pursue goals to be better, at everything.

Follow her journey through this crazy life on her Facebook page, Twitter stream or Google+.

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One of the most powerful things I have learned in this life is that I am in charge of my own happiness. I may not be able to control everything that happens to me, but I can control how I react. Or, more importantly, how I act.

Toward the end of 2010 I became a divorced, single mom of a newborn and a two-year-old, faced with an entirely different life than I had imagined. It was in that moment that I realized I had not been living life to the fullest.

I decided to make some changes and got to work creating 28 goals to accomplish in my 28th year of life.

Then, just as I started working on them, everything changed again. My husband and I decided to work things out and got remarried. Life got busy again and I wasn't able to accomplish as much as I thought I would in 2011. Still, I accomplished far more than I had in previous years and learned a few things along the way.

I discovered that the only way to live a full life is to have something to work toward. We are here to learn, to be better, to be stronger, and to be smarter. My goals gave me a purpose and a clear path to walk. They gave me the key to taking control of my own happiness. They taught me how to figure out what motivates me. They also taught me that I am stronger than I give myself credit for. Finally, they taught me that I really can do anything I set my mind to- as long as I have a plan for how to get there.

So I kept some of the goals I still had to work on from last year, and set some new ones to make 29 for this year. Yet sometimes, even when you have goals, it can be difficult to move forward and live fully.

Lately I have been struggling in an emotional pit of despair. I could not keep up my goal of healthy eating and exercise. I would start over and fail again and again. Then, I discovered that I have never really loved myself and, though that gave me something else to work on, it knocked me down even more.

I racked my brain, tried new things, even prayed for help to find a way to motivate myself again.

I had been doing mostly at-home workouts to achieve my goals. I kept getting the feeling that I should change it up. I have always loved running, but I was afraid to try because the last time I ran (over two years ago) I could hardly make it to two minutes without feeling like my lungs would burst.

Last week I got the distinct impression that I needed to go for a run. I spoke to my husband and he offered to put the kids to bed so I could go that night. As I was preparing to leave, he came in to tell me it was snowing. I have never run in weather like that. I almost gave up and sat on the couch instead of braving the storm. I looked outside to find that it was only lightly snowing/raining. There was no wind and it was rather warm for a snowy evening.

I went.

I started with a brisk walk for a warm-up and was off running after five minutes. I ran until I got a side cramp. I checked the time and found that I had run for 10 minutes straight. Ten! Even in high school, I could never run that long without stopping to give my lungs a rest (side cramps were constantly present.) After walking for a minute to breathe away the side cramps I ran for another five minutes and then turned around and ran for another 10 minutes straight. I had to talk myself through the last couple minutes, but I made it to my goal spot and cooled down with a walk the rest of the way home.

I was awe-struck - triumphant, even, after months of putting myself down because my body wasn’t looking the way I wanted. Weeks of fear that falling off the wagon had cancelled out all my previous hard work were put to rest. After all the emotions and tears and frustrations, I discovered that I am in the best shape of my entire life. Having a setback didn't negate all the progress I HAD made.

After my run, I was the happiest I have ever been with myself. I literally loved my body, in that moment, more than I ever have. I was PROUD of myself- a very rare feeling for me. It was exactly the motivation I needed to recommit myself and get out of this funk. Exactly what I needed to know what loving myself feels like.

Goals.

Finding out what I wanted out of my life. What I wanted to do, to improve, to be. Creating goals that would help me get there. That is what has given me control over my happiness and my future (as much control as I will ever have, anyway). Goals are what help me live my life to the fullest.

I may not always do it perfectly. I may fail over and over, go through rough patches, periods where I feel inadequate, but that is OK too. Life is not meant to be lived perfectly, but to continue the imperfect journey no matter what. It's just a matter of dealing with each hurdle as it comes.

I am certain that as I make goals and achieve them, I will come to the end of my life with no regrets and will be happy with myself - it’s one of my goals, anyway. And that happiness, to me, is what will signal that I’ve lived life to the fullest.

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Questions: What sort of goals have you set for yourself to work toward this year? How are you doing on those goals? Is there anything you struggle to do because you don't think you do it well enough?

This guest post was part of a guest post series called "Living to the Fullest." Interested in joining in? I'm still looking for submissions! Just write up a post, or even just an idea, and e-mail it my way. 

Why People Go Hungry

On Friday, I returned to being a normal, over-indulgent American. Our second month of 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess is finally complete.

Not sure what I'm talking about? Check out the post that started it all.

I drank my coffee with sugar and milk (and rejoiced!).

I ate sweets. Lots and lots of sweets. Also, lots and lots of processed foods.

And pizza. Oh, sweet nectar of life. I missed pizza.

You see, we went the last month only eating seven foods. And if that sounds crazy, it is.

Here's what I've been eating: brown rice, black beans, spinach, pears, fish, peanut butter, and coffee.

And here's what my wife was eating: brown rice, black beans, spinach, apples, bananas, almonds, and oatmeal.

Needless to say, we won't touch these foods with a ten-foot pole for the next week.

As with our first month, when we simplified stress in our lives, I've learned a lot from my experience. Simplifying food was not easy.

First of all, it became painfully obvious to us that we mostly live to cook/eat and not eat to live. Now, I could be wrong when I say this (I haven't actually researched it enough to know), but I suspect that humans are the only race that does this. And thus, we're the only race that suffers as a result of what we eat.

It's mind-boggling, really, how much money we spend on a monthly basis for food that ends up in the toilet. In effect, you might as well take the $150 per person (or more - that's the low end) that you spend on food and toss it down the drain, because that's what we're doing. And if that seems absurd to you, realize that we are doing exactly that by dedicating so much of our time and resources to something that ultimately ends up in the sewer.

I suspect that when I see this very problem in me, it's a sign of sickness. I was never meant to spend my life living to eat. For crying out loud, we have entire networks of television and schools of higher education dedicated to what we flush down the drain every day! As I progressed through the last month, I really wrestled with the fact that I was angry that I could only have my coffee black or that I always had smoothies for lunch and rice, beans, and fish for dinner.

Personally, I'm ashamed that I ever felt that way. To be so ungrateful for what we're blessed with is an attitude opposed to my very way of life. There's nothing fulfilling or satisfying about a negative, angry, ungrateful stance toward what we've been given.

More importantly, I learned about how ridiculous it is that so many people are hungry in the world. Here's an infographic from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to whet your taste:

If that doesn't make you angry, confuse you, or sadden you, then you need to do some serious soul-searching. It's bone-chilling to think that nearly a billion people around the world were considered "hungry" in 2010. And that was only two years ago - the problem hasn't become any better since then.

Just think about this for a moment: if the hungry were a nation, that nation would be three times the size of the United States. It would be a need too great to ignore.

Instead, though, the hungry are everywhere. They're so dispersed that it seems like a minor blip on the radar of world issues at hand. However, there's no denying that this is a major problem. Essentially, one in six people in the world does not have access to a sufficient amount of food.

This especially weighed on my heart through my food month of the 7 challenge. Rice and beans were the staples of most of our meals, and we became sick of them quickly. Now we can have fun and joke about eating the same thing for a month straight and how sickening it sounds, but can you imagine not even having the ability to eat for a month straight?

The worst part about all of this? Rice and beans are cheap. Dirt, dirt, dirt cheap. Even in the United States, where the cost of living is exponentially higher than in other undeveloped countries, these essential food items are basically free (especially when compared to our more preferred foods - beef or chicken, amongst other things).

Since these foods are cheap, this means that there is an abundance of them and that they're cheap to grow as well. To me, that raises a red flag. You're telling me that I can pay a few dollars for a bag of beans and decently sized bag of rice, but nearly a billion people around the world are starving to death? I don't know if you've noticed, but something doesn't add up here.

Last week, I wrote about my recently completed senior paper on social justice, and how I learned about the importance of caring for the fatherless. However, something that was even more prominent in my studies was the concern we are supposed to have for those who are poor.

God expresses that his will is that there should be no one who is poor in this world. And while it seems like a contradiction, God understands that we, as people, suck. And because we suck, there are going to be poor among us; in fact, Jesus says they will always be with us. So what do we do?

I suspect you know the answer already, but it's simple. God lays it out in four easy steps for us.

Steps 1: Don't be a jerk. Don't harden your heart.

Don't know what it means to have a "hard" heart or a "closed" hand? It's simple, really. If you can look at the infographic I referred to earlier and not be affected, your heart is hard.

Step 2: Keep not being a jerk. Don't close your hand.

Now maybe you were affected by that infographic and it burdens you to think about the poor among us in the world. So your heart isn't necessarily hard. But is your hand "closed?" There's an easy way to see this.

If, when you're affected by statistics like that or pictures or descriptions of the poor in the world, you hurt for those people, you have a healthy heart. However, if your first thought after, "That sucks," is, "Well, I can't help them out - I don't have enough money," then you're closing your hand.

While it may be true that you yourself are poor and can hardly afford to give to those who have not, God honors those who give out of their poverty.

Step 3: Admit you were wrong. Open your hand.

This one is simple. Acknowledge that you might actually have a lot more money than others in this world. And while I don't know every single person that reads Life Before the Bucket, I suspect that the majority of this demographic is much, much richer than many others in the world. We're richer than we know. Admitting that we're part of the problem is the first step to a solution.

Step 4: Give.

How hard is this, really? The instructions are the simplest out of any of the steps. Why do we make it so painful?

Now, don't get me wrong. Eradicating poverty isn't simple. There are dozens of organizations who are feeding those without food who will quickly tell you that the solution isn't as simple as a redistribution of wealth. However, if we never give, how could we ever expect the poor to receive the help they so desperately need?

And while you may be wary of giving to charities, there are ways to ensure that you're giving toward a worthwhile cause. Charity Navigator is one organization who helps charities to remain transparent in their finances. This allows us, who give to them, to see where our money is being spent. I highly suggest taking a look at CN's website and finding a charity that meets your expectations.

And so here we are, left with a choice. Harden your heart and close your hand, or soften your heart and give generously. It seems our excuses are exhausted, while the need is ever-growing. Will you, then, consider dedicating yourself to this cause? Help feed those who can't afford a bag of beans and a bag of rice to feed their children. Help those who are so poor that they live on less than $1 a day.

Join us in getting over ourselves and helping others today. Don't be part of the reason why a billion people are going hungry today.

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Questions: Were you aware of how many people in the world are going hungry? What has your attitude in the past been toward these people? How will that change now that you're more aware? What charities do you support that are part of the solution to this need?


Did you enjoy this post? If so, I'd appreciate you subscribing to Life Before the Bucket and sharing it with your friends. Thanks a million for reading

Win of the Week

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls...

You've made it through another week!

Congratulations!

Personally, this was one of the longest weeks of my life. Between mourning the loss of a good friend's child and waiting for my acceptance/denial letter into my Master's Program (which still hasn't come), I'm tired. Exhausted. Spent. Kaput.

So I don't know about you, but I had a pretty rough week.

But, regardless of circumstance, we celebrate. Regardless of whether we enjoyed the week, we remember the good. Regardless of how big or small our victories are, we share them.

My friends, it's time for you to share your Win of the Week.

Like I said before, this was a tough week. I've faced a lot of tragedy and death in my life, but never have I had to wrestle with the death of a child. It has been one of the most emotionally exhausting weeks of my life.

However, I did have a win this week.

Yesterday, I managed to talk to a good friend about what was going on. The conversation was brief, but it was meaningful to me. I needed to let part of my load off onto someone else. Now don't get me wrong - there's still a lot of weight hanging around. But talking to someone about this sort of stuff (for even a few minutes) is a pretty big deal for me. Typically, I'm a clam up and deal with it sort of guy, so this was a step in the right direction for me.

So that, my friends, is my Win of the Week.

So... What about you? What was your Win of the Week?

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I'd appreciate you subscribing to Life Before the Bucket and sharing it with your friends. Thanks a million for reading

Compassion

One of the lamest ways to begin any speech, sermon, or blog post is with a definition from a dictionary.

Please allow me to be momentarily lame. And thanks for your forgiveness in advance.

There's a word I want to define for you, something that I think is very important to understand. Something that very few of us remember on a consistent basis:

Compassion.

According to my very official source of Dictionary.com, here's the definition of compassion: 

1. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

What's interesting to me is the way that this definition seems to fall into two pieces. The first piece sounds an awful lot like empathy, but includes the word sympathy, so I suppose it's different. The first piece of compassion includes a feeling.

Personally, I don't place much stock in feelings. Feelings can happen for any number of reasons, including (but not limited to!) a change in weather, hormones, or a bad pasta bowl from Olive Garden. Feelings are just that: something you feel. Nothing more. Not much else to them.

Now, granted, there's probably a little more to them than I am letting on, but I'm biased. But in my heart of hearts, I believe that any feelings not accompanied by action are hogwash. They're nonsense. They mean nothing.

And that's why I like the second part of this definition. True compassion is not only a feeling, but a desire. And while many would classify desires as feelings, I believe there's something more to desire.

Desire is craving. If you desire something, it means you want and sometimes even need something. Your heart and mind are telling you that you are lacking something, even if you really aren't. And more often than not, desire leads to my favorite result: action.

Now I've been skirting over where this emotion of sympathy and this desire are placed, but I think we all know where it lies. It lies within our hearts to help those in need. And I'm not talking about someone who is a middle-class resident of these United States and has a little debt.

No, I'm talking someone who doesn't have food on a regular basis, or lacks what we would consider basic rights: clean water, shoes, or education.

It is disturbing to me how many people are living in extreme, extreme poverty. Not USA poverty, where you can make $18,000/year and be considered in poverty. I'm talking about people who make as little as $1/day and somehow manage to live off of that. 

I hurt for those people. And as a result, I desire to "alleviate the suffering" that they endure, as the dictionary puts it. I have a serious obsession with my compassion for these people. I can't help it.

And so here we are now. At the point where you know. Where you're aware. And hopefully, to a point where the desire has kicked in. Allow me to help you fulfill that desire. There are a number of organizations that assist in impoverished situations, and you're fully capable of Google-ing such entities, but I definitely want to plug a couple here:

Compassion International - Compassion International is a non-profit who assists those who are needy and suffering through the primary avenue of child sponsorship. For much less than a Starbucks a day, you can impact the life of a child and his family.

World Vision - World Vision is another non-profit dedicated to assisting those in need around the world through child sponsorship. However, they are also very active in a number of other ways, which you can see through their website.

Invisible Children - A war has been raging for years and years in Uganda and beyond. The Lord's Resistance Army has been mindlessly killing throughout the country through the use of child soldiers, and Invisible Children is an organization who has been working to take a stand against this injustice in various ways. 

The Adventure Project - The Adventure Project is one of my favorite groups to talk about. They're a non-profit dedicated to changing how we give so that we can eradicate extreme poverty. They've engineered a number of creative projects that have assisted families and communities and are always looking for more people to join and help out.

Remember, a feeling without action is nothing more than some bad heartburn. Turn your compassion into something deeper, something more meaningful, something more real. Do something about it today.


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Questions: What are some of your favorite charitable organizations? What are some actions you can take today to fulfill your desire for compassion?

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I'd appreciate you subscribing to Life Before the Bucket and sharing it with your friends. Thanks a million for reading! 


This was a repost from September 2011.


image credit: wojtek2000 - sxc.hu

There is No Explanation

Sometimes
                       there are no words.

Sometimes
                       there is no meaning.

Sometimes
                 there is no explanation.

It's in these times that I have no words to speak. Or even to pray.

Only silent thoughts, prayers, and pain.

We have some friends who are facing one of the toughest tragedies possible. Please join us in prayer for them. Help us to share this burden for them. Please pray for healing and peace, and for everyone involved in this to rely on God and his unending love.

Thanks, friends. It's much appreciated.