What’s Bothering Me So Much That I’m Awake At 4:45 AM?

It’s 4:45 AM and I’m up writing because I just can’t sleep. Something’s bothering me and I can’t figure out what exactly. I know bits and pieces of it, but not the entire thing, hence my writing it out to try and get a handle on what it is. Part of it is the fact that I just feel like a hamster spinning on a wheel lately. Why? Because I have so many different projects running (web projects, personal projects, etc.) that I just can’t seem to get finished. I can start fifty of them but can’t ever finish one. Two examples I can think of at the moment are my Downtown Short Pump website and the Deep Run Marathon Dance DVD I need to have completed soon (that one will get done because I have a deadline, but I’m having a hard time getting around to it for various reasons).

The other reason I can’t sleep is I keep having these dreams lately that my life is completely stagnant and not going anywhere. I just woke up from one. Well, I suppose they aren’t exactly dreams, but rather subconscious feelings I have as I sleep because I still feel them for a while when they wake me up during the night. It’s hard to describe, but it’s this feeling that my life is two-dimensional and I’m just going through the motions, doing insignificant, meaningless things just because they’re part of a routine or something. It’s driving me insane at the moment trying to figure out the root of these feelings because they’re not an isolated chain of thoughts. I know the fact that I’m going absolutely nowhere isn’t completely true because I have some things going for me right now, but I have this nagging discontent that I just can’t seem to shake. I really need to figure it out.

One more thing is that everything in my life feels so fluid right now. Sometimes it feels like I’m on one of those moving sidewalks, like at the airport. I’m moving on down the line while everyone and everything else goes on by, or vice versa. Either way I feel out of place in my own life and the worst part is I can’t figure out what I need to do to change it.

It’s not like I’m necessarily searching for something of greater meaning in my life beyond the temporary thrills, because I have really focused on putting God at the center of my life more than ever in recent days. It really is true that by doing that, many of life’s problems seem to be less complex. At the same time, however, I don’t think I’m where I need to be.

There are also moments when I have these very satisfying feelings of thinking I’m just a few steps away from being where I need to be and being totally content in my life, but once again I don’t know what it is I need to do or change to get to that point. It goes much deeper in some ways, but as open and transparent as I am about my personal life, that’s as far as I think I can take it on my very public blog. There’s just only so much you can say without unintentionally offending certain people (and that could happen because sometimes you can’t judge someone’s tone by reading words on a screen as opposed to having a face-to-face conversation).

These are all things I’m going to pray about and ask God for guidance with in my life, as well as talk to other people about. I just thought that if I was awake and couldn’t sleep, it might help to write it all out. At the same time, though, if you’d like to offer up any suggestions via a comment, please do so as it would be much appreciated.

Considering My College Options

When I was up in Charlottesville this weekend, I started thinking more seriously about exploring my options for next Fall. While VCU is a great school for doing anything with the arts, I don’t know that I’m getting the full college experience I once envisioned. I love Charlottesville and hope to one day live around that area, so I’ll definitely be giving UVA a closer look. I realize it may be a lofty goal, and that some of the demographic could be comparable to a larger body of the Deep Run type population, if you get my drift, but I’m going to consider it.

I also plan on visiting JMU (I also loved the campus there). According to our family friend, Sue, who we visited in Charlottesville this weekend, there’s more of a diverse mix of students as opposed to UVA’s demographic. Finally, I’m going to take a look at Virginia Tech. As you can see, I really want to go to one of the “mountain” schools. But all of these schools are just a maybe. I may very well stay at VCU, but I just want to explore other opportunities. I’ll keep everyone posted.

2008 New Year’s Resolutions & Goals

I thought I’d have some time to really go into detail on all of these, but that’s not the case and by the time I have enough time to do it, the year will be well underway. Here’s what I wanna do this year, in no particular order:

  • Get in shape - I’m running each and every day and am going to do some weight training.
  • Eat less - I’m not necessarily going to change everything I eat, just eat less of it.
  • Play the guitar - I have a nice guitar and took some lessons but I need to stick with it.
  • Have a weekly podcast - I did for a while last year, but I need to keep up with it.
  • Spend more time with family - ‘Nuff said.

2007 was amazing and I can’t wait for what 2008 has in store!

Goals

So 2008 is still nearly a month and a half away, but I have a lot of short and long term goals that I’m going to start taking the initiative to achieve even before next year. Here are my big two right now: 

Find a new job: I wasn’t able to get renewed at the Attorney General’s Office because of budget constraints and my last day is November 30th.

Finish cleaning out my room and start painting it so I can get new furniture: I have junk in boxes still from as far back as middle school. It’s ridiculous. I’ve pretty much cleaned everything out, now I need to paint. After that, I’m getting all new furniture from IKEA. I’m still sleeping in the same hard-as-a-rock twin size bed I’ve had since I was six or seven. And if I move out sometime soon, I’ll have new stuff to take with me.

I’ve got a lot of other changes and improvements I want to make in my life, but doing these two will really get the ball rolling on the rest of the stuff. 

Influence That Impacts

Yesterday was Friend Day at Richmond Community Church. Pastor Rick started a new series, “Influence That Impacts.” He had some interesting insights into how we are influenced by other people and how we influence them, as well. I took some notes during the sermon. Here are a few great points he made:

  1.  “We become aware of what others’ influence makes us feel like, not how we make other people we influence feel.” This is so true. We all talk about how others make us feel, but we don’t often think about how what we do makes others feel.
  2. “It’s not where people are in their lives, it’s what they think they aren’t that holds them back.” Many people are held back by fear, especially fear of failure. Moreover, a lot of people think they can’t positively influence someone else’s life because of what they think they’re lacking or because of a shortcoming. I’ve experienced this before. We all have our downfalls, but we can still have a good influence on other people.
  3. “Your influence is determined by the choices you make.” If you’re going to have a positive influence on someone’s life, you need to make smart choices and set a good example.
  4. “There are three types of people, generally speaking- Well Poisoners (those who discourage others from reaching their goals), Lawn Mowers (absorbed in themselves), and Life Enhancers (positively influence others).” This pretty much summarizes people’s personalities if you think about it. People are either going to bring you down or uplift you, or just not care at all and tend solely to their own self-advancement.

This is going to be a great message series, full of insights about how to reach, connect with, and influence others in your life.