The Paradox of Paradise

Paradise seems pretty straight-forward. It’s paradise. What’s so paradoxical about that?

Golden Gate Park

As I walked through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, nothing seemed paradoxical at all. The grandeur of the place was almost overwhelming: the trees, scents, waterfalls, and landscape all seemingly imported from another world. As I walked through paths like a child discovering colors, I could not imagine a much more beautiful place.

Blossoming Flowers

Cross at Golden Gate Park

That was, until I went to the restroom.

Ripe and blossoming with stench, it appeared men had closed their eyes and starting spinning just as they started to do their thing. It was like Dodgers Stadium had made a deal and traded one of its restrooms to Golden Gate Park for a couple palm trees. Why is it at the most beautiful places, sometimes have the most disgusting bathrooms?

Bathroom

Taken back by the sharp contrast, I hurried to the nearest flowerbed to fill my senses again with all that is good. As I looked down, I was surprised by another paradox.

Tracking Chips
Surrounded by serenity, apparently immorality still existed.

PARADOX

As I walked through this park of paradoxes, I started thinking that if filth can exist amongst such beauty, than the flip-side must also be true: beauty must also be found in the ugly. In those moments that seem so dark and dingy, there must be glimmers of light, if we choose to look for them. In the trash heaps, flowers must grow.

Beauty and filth never exist void of the other. There is beauty all around us. And there is ugliness. There is healing. And there is pain. Manure is poured all around so that a garden can grow. Death and life can be seen in the same plant, on the same day. The choice is up to us which we’ll choose to see.

Falling Flowers

And I think; we need to see both. In this paradox of paradise that we call Earth, we can’t hide our eyes from either side. Because  both the beauty and the ugly are real, and both have something to teach us. Each side declares something about redemption, in their own way. The dirty bathrooms and the blossoming flowers.

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”  ~ Fredrick Buechner

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Are You Good at What You’re Good At?

Ricky Bobby - Excellent

Are you so bent on self-improvement that you forget about the parts that are already improved? I know I do. If we are going to be truly honest with ourselves, we must put both our weaknesses under the microscope, as well as our strengths.

Sounds easy enough? Well, where do you excel the most? Are you utilizing these strengths at work? At home?

As I began to wrestle with these questions, I realized I knew less about what I was good at, then where I was lousy. Weird. You would think knowing what you are talented at, and then building upon those talents would be as simple and straightforward as a chef baking a pie. But how many of us must give ourselves permission to be truly talented at something? We spend so much time trying to bring that “D” up in math, we forget about the “A” in English.

“Each person’s greatest room for growth is in the areas of the person’s greatest strength” (Marcus Buckingham).

We must extend credit to ourselves where credit is due, than take time to build on those talents. It is in those places where we already feel the most apt, that we will actually approve upon the most and be able to make the biggest contributions. It is also in those places where your actions will make you feel the most alive. Instead of consistently beating ourselves up for where we fall short, what if we consistently built upon a strong foundation laying right in front of us.

“Building on your strengths isn’t necessarily about ego. It is about responsibility” (Marcus Buckingham).

Growing up in a Christian subculture where there is much more emphasis placed on being sufficiently cloaked in humility, it is hard to train myself that it is all right to build on my strengths. I think many Christians, myself included, immerse ourselves in a false-humility where we feel like we should never feel too good about ourselves, lest we be judged.

God has made me very specifically though, with distinct strengths and talents. Therefore, by failing to build on what he has given, am I not then failing to worship him by best utilizing his design?

Only by operating out of authentic personal being will I be able to offer sustaining, nourishing substance to others, as well as myself.

So what are my strengths? What are your strengths?

Be honest with yourself – the bad as well as the good. It’s freeing.

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Posted in Fail Proof Your Twenties, Know Thyself, Quarter Life Questioning | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

What is Your Vocation? What is Your Calling?

What is vocation? What is calling? Both are such broad terms they could fill an entire canvass with a faint beige – you know it’s there, but can’t really see it.

I really struggled out of college trying to find my “calling” and my life’s vocation, a search that kept ending in frustration and dead-ends. It seemed my calling was a box full of jagged puzzle pieces that didn’t fit together.

But over the course of this last year, now four years since I walked that graduation stage, I’m realizing that “vocation does not come from willfulness, it comes from listening” (Parker Palmer). Vocation comes from understanding what the everyday details of our lives are shouting. Vocation is so much larger than a job, more complex than a title, more intrinsic than a name that someone else gives us. Vocation is not based on a job, it is based on our deeply rooted identity; on a specific name that was woven into the fabric of our being from before we were even a blip on our mother’s radar (Jeremiah 1:15).

CALLING AND VOCATION DEFINED

To live our vocation, is to live an intrinsic calling that transcends circumstance. “Experiencing and living by a calling provides a fundamental orientation to everyday life” (Banks and Stephens). We must reorient our ideas that calling is only met through a specific activity or role in this world. Our calling will include roles and activities, yes, but it is so much greater, fuller, and richer. Calling and vocation is your entire life, not just a portion of it.

Fulfilling our callings does not need to be grandiose to be worth meeting. It does not need to be saving millions of lives to be worthy of our efforts. The best-served vocation is simply where “your deep gladness and the world’s hunger meets” (Buechner). A simple definition, yet so complex in this increasingly changing and moving world.

To begin down the path of vocation we must begin by asking the right questions of ourselves, to discover the right answers. We must tell ourselves the truth of whom we are, and who we are not, if we are to live out the freeing reality of our true life’s vocation. A job can’t answer these questions for you or me.

MY LIFE’S CALLING

Therefore here’s my calling. To be a man who lives with passion from his passion, inhaling God’s breath to breathe into others through my words, my writing, my leadership, my influence, my time, my resources, my prayers, and my whole being; a breath as powerful and life-giving as giving someone mouth to mouth.

In whatever job, no matter how mundane or grandiose, in whatever niche I occupy on this Earth, this is my calling.

What’s your calling?

Any ideas?

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Posted in Fail Proof Your Twenties, Is There More Than This?, Is this the Real World?, Know Thyself, We are 25 - 35 and we're proud of it | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Easiest Ways to Become Rich and Marginally Famous: Eradicate Traffic and Homelessness at the Same Time

Homeless With You While You Work
What if I said that you could become rich and marginally famous by fixing two major problems like homelessness and traffic?

Don’t think it’s possible?

Well have you ever been stuck in a traffic jam on the highway and wondered, gosh there must be a faster way?

Ever seen a homeless person on the corner street and wished you could do more than just give him a couple bucks and wish him luck?

Well then you my friend are the perfect candidate to take part in my new business/non-profit called Homeless Pool.

Last week, I paved the way to fame and fortune by cornering a very lucrative market of Holiday music, as I introduced the rockingest Thanksgiving Jingle this side of the Macy’s day parade. This week I’m completely outdoing myself by solving, oh just two little problems you might have heard of: Homelessness and Traffic.

Paul, what’s Homeless Pool and how does it fix my traffic and homeless problems?

First, great question. Second, let me tell you.

Homeless Pool is a service that pairs weekday drivers with local homeless people, creating a carpool literally forged from heaven.

HOW HOMELESS POOL WORKS

Traffic in LA

For a small monthly fee, you will have an assigned homeless person waiting for you every morning at your front door, ready to ride with you to your job. With your trusted companion sitting in your front seat, now you can watch that Red Sea part as you cruise down a magical piece of pavement called the carpool lane. Wave to all those selfish-single-suckers stuck in the freeway parking lot, as you and your homeless person laugh and drive all the way downtown.

When you arrive at work, your homeless person will spend there day outside surrounded by businesses, making their panhandling much more lucrative and then be back to the car by 5:00. Also, your homeless traveling companion will be paid quite handsomely by Homeless Pool. Thereby, allowing the homeless to work while you drive to work.

SOUND TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?

It’s not. And apart from the financial and traffic-splitting benefits, imagine how both the business man and homeless man will benefit in so many more important ways as their relationship blossoms;  conversations enriching and teaching both sides. Lives will literally be changed, whilst in transit.

Homeless Pool – Say no to traffic. Say no to homelessness. Say yes, to changing lives.

If you want to sign up,  let me know in the comments below.

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Posted in Changing Lives, Quick Ways to Become Rich and Famous | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

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