i appriciate what you have said here. i have thought some of the same thoughts and felt some of the same feelings for a while now.

thanks for posting this.

This was SO worth you leaving me alone in the cold bed. I love you and the adventure we’re on. Thank God for blurry clarity and missteps. At least we’re pushing towards a goal. And I believe this is the most exciting time of our lives.

i’m not trying to be mean at all…just trying to figure this out…but i’m confused as to how you expect to retire at 30, and how putting everything in your life into doing that is going to make God’s dream for the world come true…
everything you said in your post made sense to me except that one line…”and i’d like to retire at 30″…(of course, i’d like to retire at 30.)

Excellent point. Not retire so I can sit around and do nothing in Palm Springs. But retired so I can be freed up to do things on my terms and not an institutions terms.

Freed up to do things on terms of flexibility and not on terms of a paycheck. I don’t want a job to keep me from being fluid. I don’t want to work 9-5 for the next 40 years for my boss or some company or for a mortgage.

I want to be freed up to live and not tied down to exist.

Did you get a tattoo this weekend?

so how does one become retired at thirty? especially if one has a family and no overabundance of funds of which to save?
i’m all for minimalism, but you have to admit that you can’t live without money. it’s just not possible. i would LOVE to not work a job that has no meaning to me and that is just making money for other people. and God willing one day that will happen. but for now i can’t. i would much rather work a decent job that affords some comfort, than work a crappy job with the same and/or worse hours and barely scrape by. i’m just curious what your secret plan/idea is…

nope, no tattoo. sheena made me promise to wait until she’s there with me.

freelance graphic design would be a start. i’ve begun the process of working for myself where i determine hours, projects, and priorities.

and i’m not saying its bad to have a 9-5 job. i’m just saying most people don’t do their jobs with any guts, heart, or purpose. they just get by because thats what you do.

the retirement thing was just a blurb as well. the point was that i had allowed the “american dream”, mixed with a little religion, to lull me to sleep.

and i just don’t think that is my only option anymore.

so my goal is to retire at 30 and then work on projects that i feel god wants anna and i involved with. traveling, supporting, equiping, writing, dreaming, serving. things of that nature. instead of spending time on projects that “christianity” wants me involved in.

broad strokes and generalizations i know. but i’m starting to see how for most people, their religion has become a civil religion. one that fosters a posture lacking movement and passion.

and the greatest enemy is the idea that “it’s just the way it is, so we shoould learn the system and exist within it”. i’m thinking about changing the system. because with all of the stuff that we’ve added and chase after in life, doesn’t make the quality of life better. it throws us further in to the rat race. or at least it did for me.

always busy. always chasing. always wanting. always fighting. trying to keep my head above water. and somewhere i think that is an incompatible picture with the dreams of god for the world.

when you’re a kid, living in the moment with full blown imagination, without fear…they say “you’ll grow out of that.” and eventually you do, not so much grow out of it, rather supress it until you believe it isn’t there anymore, and that it shouldn’t be now that you’re a grown up.

but then what do grown ups say? “i wish i had that energy. i wish i had that creativity. i wish i could be so free. i wish i were young again.”

so who’s to say that living passionately, minimally and with fervor is for the young? i’d rather have an opposite society…where the older you get, the more passion, the more unstoppable momentum.

we’ve gotten into such a habit of assuming that life taints us and brings us down…but i’m not sure how much of that is real. and i’m tired of hearing that i’ll “grow out” of my passion, that i should “settle down” into my job and my mortgage and my laundry.

if you ask me, that’s not what God meant by living abundantly

hey you freelance graphic designer . . . how much would you charge to design some business cards for me?
email me and let me know dude. i LOVE your work!

you just gave me my happy thought

“always busy. always chasing. always wanting. always fighting. trying to keep my head above water. and somewhere i think that is an incompatible picture with the dreams of god for the world.”

This is an amazing statement. I’ve just begun second year at Bible College and I think I’ve finally let go of the always and the trying and I’m figuring out how to trust. That’s going to be my statement of the year.