Perpetual Learner

I am regularly called upon as a defacto tech support guy for family and a few friends. A role I fill with honor and pride as most often I am fixing problems or answering experience based questions, two things I enjoy doing at my core.

When helping I often surprise myself and others with how much I can do. How quickly I am willing to dive knee deep into the issue and start sorting it out. I do not shy away from getting into the nitty gritty of the issue and start boiling it down to the core issue. Usually when presented with the opportunity I am able to research and finagle my way around the information-super-highway with ease until I have the complete issue brought to a close.

My ability to lean into the issue is what makes me most enjoy the process. I am not intimidated by the little computer or the software making it run. I trust myself to figure out how to fix any issue I create while trying to fix the problem at hand.

I never shy away from helping with tech support.

I regularly shy away from other sorts of skilled work. Skilled work like carpentry, pottery, and gardening.

I know these are skills I could have, but I have no interest in them. I have no drive or fire to figure them out. I have effectively stuck my head in the sand in regards to these skills. I do not want to have them because so little of my life needs them. Plus, once I dig into these skills, they require so many tools that are effectively single use tools I cannot see myself using for any other purpose.

I am ashamed to say it but for many skills and crafts, I have effectively stuck my head in the sand and I do not care to learn any more about them. I am happy to stay as ignorant now as I was before. There is a healthy medium place between where I am and a master carpenter. But for now I am as unskilled as the plank I am not holding.

Where are you sticking your head in the sand? What area could you be more knowledgeable or skilled? Who can teach you more about this area?

Learning,

–JT

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All Things to All People

Last post I talked about my natural skill of analyzation and how I am working to not substitute my ability to analyze for being faithful. However, it is so dang hard not to try and help everyone through analyzing. I want to analyze everything. Collect all the information, make decisions, help others make decisions, and be right about all of it. It is so hard to stop myself. I just get so much joy from it all. 

It makes sense to do something I get energy and joy from. I have a hard time keeping it to a tame level. Staying out of business I don’t belong in. Though, I have to remember how I got to where I was. I did not land there by actively making decisions from an unhealthy motive. I was making unhealthy decisions about myself and others because of a long series of unhealthy decisions I made.

The irony, I landed in an unhealthy place because I made too many unhealthy decisions originally based on healthy motives.

I made the decision, the minute assumption, my ability to analyze was necessary for all people to use. Not only my ability to analyze; but, me analyzing. I with a capital E-Y-E, — I — decided, — I — had to analyze for everyone else and fill in all the gaps. For the good of everyone else — I — took on more than I should have and buried myself in tasks and details which were unhealthy for me to be buried in.

Now I am in a place where I see my mistake, misaligned assumption. I see the lie I bought into. I am making moves to not be buried in those details and bonded to this lie. 

What small lie are you buying into?

In Truth,

–JT

Decentralization

When I am in a situation where I need to make a decision I use my ability to analyze to substitute where my faith should be and I do this based on fear. I am afraid of the outcome; therefore, I restructure my process so that I am at the center gathering information and analyzing everything going on around me until I have a solid grasp on what my next step should be. 

This process is moderately logical as I everything together, assemble all of the information and move forward. However, it starts to break down when I reach the pressure point where I am not the center of the universe. I might like to think I am; however, I am not. I am only a small part of the much larger picture I get to be a part of. Re-centering my life so that I am truly relying on the conversation of trust and freedom written into the scriptures I live by. This means I have to stop collecting and analyzing everything. I will run out of memory and explode. I must start taking my time and remembering what is important to remember and analyze. Then I will not be frustrated with all of the things that are out of place. There are many things in life out of place. It is not my job to fix them all. 

This is freedom. 

Where in your life are you trying to put yourself at the center of the universe?

Outside the center,

–JT

PS: As I reread this post in preparation to post it today. I realized how far I have to go before this will truly be something I am good at. I have swung back into the middle of overanalyzing, not trusting.