Well, you can stop holding your breath and put your betting money away. I am posting yet again. Maybe now this will stop Sara and Jeni from giving me such a hard time about the frequency of my posting….or lack thereof…but I sincerely doubt it.
This coming Wednesday July 26 Lisa and I will have been married for 9 years!
This coming Wednesday July 26 Lisa and I will have been married for 9 years!
It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long to me…it probably seems longer than that to Lisa! lol
I just feel blessed that God has given me such a great gift in my wife. I don’t think we will be doing anything spectacular for our anniversary besides going out to eat WITHOUT the kids. That hardly ever happens! Lisa doesn’t want to spend a lot of money right now since we are trying to save for a new van…well…new to us at least. I do know that Lisa has made me truly happier than I ever thought was possible. So that’s that.
I had the chance to play with my video equipment earlier this month. On July 8th I taped the fireworks and Keith and Becky Noll’s. I was fairly pleased with the results since I had read online that fireworks are one of the hardest things there are to videotape well. Paul, Jeni, and Becky saw the end product and they seemed pleased. I don’t think anyone else outside of my immediate family has seen the DVD yet. I was able to edit out the pauses between the bangs and I put it to music. I have a few ideas on how to do it better next year. I’m looking forward to it.
Darren and I are working towards our 1st DVD. We hope to have a timeline or deadline for production by the end of July in hopes that this will keep us on track. We think that we should be ready to go to editing and post-production by the end of this year. For our 1st show we thought that we would do something that we are both intimately familiar with, so we chose to do the show on the Dialectic or Consensus Process. We want to do it as a documentary and include a lot of things in the mass media and pop culture of today to exemplify it. We want to be sure that we keep it interesting and not too dull or cerebral. We want it to be easily understood by almost everyone. We also don’t want it to be just us talking behind a desk or something boring like that, we want to interview people from different walks of life and areas of expertise. We already have a list of around 8 people and couples. We want to show what the process is, how it came about and why, who the people behind it are, why it is a bad thing, how to recognize it and finally how to combat it. The kicker is, we want to do all of this in about and hour and a half to two hours. We hope it comes out like we want it to. The working title is:
I just feel blessed that God has given me such a great gift in my wife. I don’t think we will be doing anything spectacular for our anniversary besides going out to eat WITHOUT the kids. That hardly ever happens! Lisa doesn’t want to spend a lot of money right now since we are trying to save for a new van…well…new to us at least. I do know that Lisa has made me truly happier than I ever thought was possible. So that’s that.
I had the chance to play with my video equipment earlier this month. On July 8th I taped the fireworks and Keith and Becky Noll’s. I was fairly pleased with the results since I had read online that fireworks are one of the hardest things there are to videotape well. Paul, Jeni, and Becky saw the end product and they seemed pleased. I don’t think anyone else outside of my immediate family has seen the DVD yet. I was able to edit out the pauses between the bangs and I put it to music. I have a few ideas on how to do it better next year. I’m looking forward to it.
Darren and I are working towards our 1st DVD. We hope to have a timeline or deadline for production by the end of July in hopes that this will keep us on track. We think that we should be ready to go to editing and post-production by the end of this year. For our 1st show we thought that we would do something that we are both intimately familiar with, so we chose to do the show on the Dialectic or Consensus Process. We want to do it as a documentary and include a lot of things in the mass media and pop culture of today to exemplify it. We want to be sure that we keep it interesting and not too dull or cerebral. We want it to be easily understood by almost everyone. We also don’t want it to be just us talking behind a desk or something boring like that, we want to interview people from different walks of life and areas of expertise. We already have a list of around 8 people and couples. We want to show what the process is, how it came about and why, who the people behind it are, why it is a bad thing, how to recognize it and finally how to combat it. The kicker is, we want to do all of this in about and hour and a half to two hours. We hope it comes out like we want it to. The working title is:
“Conquered by Consent: Consensus to Oblivion”
Anyway, there are other things that we want to do but we figured we would start with this. We hope that others will like it and buy it and etc. etc. but if they don’t that’s still all right with us. At the very least we will have a little bit of a ‘recorded legacy’ to pass on to our kids and grandkids when we’re gone.
That’s the one thing that we all have in common. We will all die someday. I wonder, sometimes, how I will be remembered...by whom...and for how long? Will my children and grandchildren only remember me? Will my memory die with them or will it go on to perpetuity?
Have you ever thought about where you will be in 5 or 10 years?
I remember when I was younger telling Sara that all I wanted out of life was to be “happy” and if being a beach bum made me “happy” then I wanted to be a beach bum. That was more than 5 or even 10 years ago and I am not a beach bum. But, am I “happy” the way that I wanted to be? I don’t think that I really understood what “happy” really was and is. I would love to be totally selfish and only do the things that I wanted to do, but I realize now that there are things that I sacrifice to make other safe, and happy that are more important to me than my selfish wants. I know that to make them safe and happy makes me happy—probably happier than I could have imagined back when I had the ‘beach bum’ philosophy. I don’t think of theses things as wasting my life and there are things that I still want to do, but I am willing to give them up for the deeper happiness that I have found.
My dream would be to teach MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) full time and make enough $$ at it to never have to worry about bills or credit or anything else of the sort. But I know that dream is just a dream and will probably never happen. The best I can hope for is to work a regular full time job and then train part time and if I end up making any money doing it, I would consider it a bonus.
I do know that I love to do MMA, especially BJJ (Brazilian Jui Jitsu). I have never experienced anything like it before. When I am on the mat rolling (practicing bjj) and I really get focused on what I’m doing it is incredible. It’s like nothing else matters, there is no past, no bills, no future, no mistakes, no failures, no successes, no correct or incorrect thoughts, nothing exists except the infinite here and now. It is a feeling that I haven’t experienced outside of my spiritual life. At that point in time I am truly “happy” in the real sense of the word.
I can see how people are led astray by martial arts that have Eastern religious philosophies attached to them. It would be very tempting for someone to fall prey to them without a correct worldview. I hope that someday I can provide a place for others to have this type of experience at least for a while and not be subjected to a false religious philosophy. The experience could definitely be described as almost religious or spiritual and without the proper worldview and safe guards someone could be led dangerously astray.
I don’t know what is in store for me in life. I have made mistakes and I have done things I’m not proud of, but I don’t know that I would change much of anything if I were to go back in time. Right now, minus a few debts and credit problems, I like my life. If I were to change something in the past I don’t know that I would be as "happy" as I am.
When I think about where I will be in 5 or 10 years I think I would like to be a better father and husband, a better son and brother, a better uncle and brother-in-law, and a better friend and person as a whole. I don’t know exactly where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing but I hope that those I care about will be better off than they are now and I hope that their being better off has something to do with me…that would make me very “happy”.
2 comments:
Wow Mark. All that silence and you come back with this? I'm impressed. I've always believed that happiness comes from within. Ok maybe not *always*, but within the last 10 years. Remember I was there with you during the ~not so proud~ years. LOL. But over the years I've learned that a person can make or break their own happiness by how they view the world around them and the life they lead.
Good post! Two thumbs up!
Happy Anniversary!!!!!!
Most impressive post! We must be related because we seem to think alike. Lately I too have wondered what will be my legacy, do I want a legacy, how do I get to make my legacy? I'm just now starting to discover who I am as a woman. I figure that God gives us one chance at this life and He really does want us to live. . . most of us just exist . . . but of course live in the way God wants us to live. . . He created life and nature to be exciting, we all have a story, multiple climaxes, drama, action, adventure, trauma, happiness, love and of course there is a villan (satan) and the Hero (God). We have this incredible opportunity to live out this awesome epic and we usually choose not too! I want to live, laugh, and love! *Sound familiar*? It's the truth though! I know . . . I know . . . I'm sounding a lot like John Eldridge. We just went through 'The Epic' in our small group. It's awesome!
Good post! I enjoyed reading it!
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