I’ve noticed that we are beginning to redefine the term rivals and that is puzzling. It’s even a little bit scary as extremism continues to destroy the fabric of our nation.

“If you are from Michigan, you are born hating the whole state of Ohio. Go Wolverines!”

“I’m a Mac person. If you don’t rock a Mac, your are stupid. I mean it.”

That church over there, I really can’t stand the way they do ministry. They steal sheep and stuff. Pisses me off.”

What is a rival?

A rival is a person, team, company, or other organization competing against another person or team, etc.

Please notice this is a neutral term. You can be rivals and be friendly. You can be rivals and have a similar goal. You can be rivals and both strive for the same goal on the same planet without animosity.

Example: I’m a Notre Dame fan. I grew up in a time when Notre Dame football was dominant in college football. And every Fall we played Michigan and USC… our rivals. Now, I never really cared much about USC because they were so far away. But the truth was, outside of that one game, we all wanted to see Michigan do well.  Because if they did well and we beat them, that made us look better. To this day I consider Michigan State and Michigan to be some of my favorite teams to watch on Saturday.

What is an enemy?

An enemy is a person who hates or dislikes another person, or is nasty or mean to the person he is an enemy to. The opposite of a friend.

You see, an enemy and a rival are two different things completely.

Competitive rivals make everything better.

Enemies seek to destroy you, your reputation, your organization, and your relationships with everyone you know.

Having a rivalry for your ministry, organization, church, and even yourself… is a very good thing! We are hard-wired for competition. To deny that is to deny something intrinsically human about yourself.

But to label a rival an enemy? That also reveals something deeply disturbing in your heart.

Check yourself.

Hey mom & dad. I don't want to be a god. I want you to be in charge.

Children were not always worshipped as the gods of the American family.

In part three of this series, lets examine the effects of the Baby-god myth on parents and teenagers. You can catch-up by reading part one & two.

School vs. Work

In fact, for most of our nations history we didn’t keep track of children very much. We didn’t have things like compulsory public education in every state, or child protection agencies, or children’s hospitals, child psychologists, or even pediatricians.

It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that school became mandatory. And it wasn’t until the unions forced child labor laws through that high school became part of compulsory eduction. Unlike the European system of mandatory compulsory education, our public education system is built on the belief that:

• Children under 18, ideally, shouldn’t work at all.
• Everyone should go to college.
• Everyone, given the proper education, would want to go to college.
• Not going to college is somehow a failure of the American dream.
• The American dream can only be achieved through education.

The “all kids are meant for college” lie is very popular among educators. (Duh, maybe they have a vested interest?) Whereas, in Europe, students are given the choice to go on a college-prep course of study or a trades-oriented track, in the United States we don’t have such a system. While it exists, de facto, in almost every high school– it’s hardly celebrated.

If children have become our gods, achievement is our offering.

Labor laws amplified youth culture

The Great Depression gave the labor unions the ammunition they needed to finally get child labor laws passed in America. Believe it or not, not everyone was in favor of removing children from the workforce. With kids out of the workforce adolescent culture, as we know it today, took root. When children of the Great Depression and post-World War II baby boom hit their teen years and didn’t head off to work they began to hang out together and a sub-culture exploded.

The need for a college educated workforce

If you think about jobs in America over the past century you can see why culture has dictated the “all kids must go to college” mantra. Technology created the office job. A move from an industrial/agricultural economy to an economy based on white collar jobs (administration) required workers who were more polished and more highly educated. (Of course, many now see this as a trap. The debt required to enter the workforce puts you, fiscally speaking, decades behind a peer who goes into the trades.)

So society created the need for a college-bound student while those same students weren’t allowed to do much in their high school years. (Traditionally, people 14-18 worked!) Those post-puberty & pre-workforce years have really become a holding pattern. Too young to work but too old to be children. These kids, with all sorts of time on their hands, got creative with all that time. (Remember sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll) There wasn’t a massive youth culture prior to this because this age group was traditionally occupied with more adult endeavors. More on that for a different day.

What does this have to do with deifying children?

By the 1980s parents had come through youth culture and were appropriately afraid of it for their own children. In their boredom they smoked enough pot and had enough sex to realize that they probably didn’t benefit themselves in the long run. And with the college-lie now in full effect, and the further lie that if you went to the “right school” you could get ahead in life, parents just started to work backwards. It was a logical pendulum swing to protect kids from the damaging effects of youth culture by sheltering them and keeping them busy.

• For Rex to go to the right college, Rex had to do well on the SATs.
• For Rex to do well on the SATs, Rex had to go to the right school.
• For Rex to fit in at the right school, Rex had to act, dress, and do activities with the right kids.
• For Rex to fit in with the right kids, Rex’s parents both have to work, plus figure out how to get him to the right activities.
• For Rex to do this, mom and dad were going to have to give every waking minute thinking about Rex and his future. (Or earning the money to afford his future)

Through the 1980s this myth developed, it metastasized in the 1990s, and became parental law in the 2000s.

All kids are not meant for college

I know this is educational heresy but we all know it. Walk on any high school campus and you will see the vast majority of kids who are done with education and are stuck in a holding cell called high school. The college-prep kids segment themselves out while the vast majority ghost walk through the process and are culturally forced to head off to another holding cell– community college or state university.

Those who are going to excel, do. Just as they always have. (Just like those who invented standardized tests intended to identify those kids, not as a tool for choosing the minimum, but to find those who could do the maximum) Those who aren’t going to excel, aren’t. But now that high school graduation is a basic requirement that we all must legally achieve– college has become the new high school. And grad school has become the new undergrad.

Effects on the American family

Deifying Rex has come at a high cost of the American family. With more than 40% of children in America now born to single mothers, single parents are under incredible pressure. Even in more traditional homes, the need to put Rex on a college-bound path leads to all sorts of sacrifices.

• If Rex is going to go to Yale, he needs to be in the right pre-school. (Um, really?)
• If Rex is going to go to Michigan, he needs to be in football by age four. (Um, really?)
• If Rex is going to go to Penn State, we need to live in the right neighborhood because they have good schools. (Um, really?)
• Part of Rex getting into Berkeley is being well-rounded, so Rex needs to go to music camp. (Um, really?)

On and on. We never stop preparing our kids for something we don’t know if our kids will even want.

Even crazier, parents have convinced themselves that this is 100% their responsibility. Particularly in Christian circles– parents don’t even trust their own parents to invest in the lives of Rex. Parents are so insanely crazed by worshipping Rex that parents won’t hire a babysitter, won’t go on vacation, and won’t allow their child to socialize or do ANYTHING that won’t further a perceived resume.

In my opinion, today’s parenting norms would be considered a psychosis just a generation ago. Parents are addicted to parenting.

Pressure

Parents feel this pressure. There are men and women in my life who don’t want to get married or have children because they feel the pressure. Just the thought of a marriage which has to perform to this level is not worth it– or at the very least, hard to imagine. Marriages crumble by the thousand under the pressure. Marriages struggle through unnecessary debt under the pressure to provide the “right kind” of lifestyle for their children. Parents, raised in a feminist society that tells them they are equals with men, are now making themselves subservient to their children. These “mommy-managers” are now an entire sub-culture to themselves!

Kids feel this pressure, too.

Have you been to a six-year-olds soccer game? The pressure is ridiculous. Parents don’t want the kids to have fun. They want them to learn skills and score goals. Why? So that they can get good and make it on the travel squad. Then what? Well, if they are good on the travel squad, they will play high school soccer. Then what? If they score a lot of goals in high school, maybe they will earn an athletic scholarship. Then what?

This is the pressure/expectations you hear on the sidelines of six-year old kids soccer games.

Have you ever been in a high school cafeteria? The pressure there is ridiculous. Besides all of the social pressure. Besides the horrible food offerings. There are kids studying. There are kids cramming. And then there are the little Rex’s who have given up. OK, that’s the majority of the kids.

With all the pressure to achieve (coupled by all the freedoms we’ve removed from teenagers over the last 40 years) there is little wonder you see so much deviant behavior. And depression. And drug abuse. And self-injury. And risky sexual behavior.

Teenagers disrespect adult authority, largely, because adults disrespect teenagers right to autonomy. And something within us says that when an adult is disrespected by someone we need to clamp down even tighter– having higher expectations and putting them higher on a pedestal they don’t want to be on.

By deifying our children we have put them on an pedestal they cannot stay on. No one can. We expect too much and we don’t give them enough space to grow.

Little Rex, worshipped since conception, will not become a god because he is not God.

Deifying Rex has trapped him. He is miserable. He is fighting for independence. While he is worshipped and deified he has no power.

We have the whole thing backwards.

Postscript: This New York Times article appeared after I published this piece, but does a good job explaining the ramifications of the myth that you have to go to the right school to get ahead in life.
Another Debt Crisis is Brewing, This One in Student Loans

Hi! I'm Rex. I'll be running your life the next 25 years. Cool?

This is Rex. He’s the king of kings and the lord of lords for most families.

Like all babies the moment he popped out changed his parents lives forever.

Born shortly before his physical birth are the high expectations for Rex. Not unlike generations past, Rex’s parents have ideals. They’d like to see him grow up to be a lawyer and maybe play some college football. Either way, Rex will get into a prestigious university with a full ride.

Before Rex was born, Rex’s mom (as her license plate proudly declares) was a manager at a health insurance company. But her family is her top priority so now she’s a stay-at-home mom. Her new job is to pour everything into baby Rex. And right from the moment Rex’s mom found out she was pregnant she has done everything right. She has moved from the manager of 15 employees to the manager of Rex’s life.

We all know this story. We all see it every day.

Parents who think their kid is special. Parents who push their kids into activities and “learning opportunities.” Parents whose lives completely revolve around providing the perfect incubator for their kids.

It’s an ivory tower. By the time most of us in youth ministry see Rex, he’s either living up to the expectations, faking it, or the ivory tower has collapsed.

All hell breaks loose when Rex, at 13, already hates football and just doesn’t have the aptitude to be a lawyer. He likes to work on engines. And that’s not going to cut it for parents who want him to go to law school and be the star wide receiver.

The first two years of high school will be painful until his parents finally relent and allow Rex to be who he wants him to be. Begrudgingly.

Reality

Middle-class American ideals have built an ivory tower which simply cannot bear the weight of the cultural expectations for middle-class children.

There are simply too many gods. Everyone cannot be special. Everyone cannot become a millionaire. Everyone cannot earn an athletic or academic scholarship.

But sit in any stands for any level of athletic competition and eavesdrop on parents talking about their kids. All parents have bought the lie that their kid is special.

They aren’t. Most kids are average. That’s why we call it average.

Ignoring Reality

And yet parents set themselves on a failure-bound path and build their identity through the accomplishments of their children.

The Contrast

For Kristen and I, it took leaving middle-class white suburban America and moving into a melting pot city to have our eyes opened to this.

In Romeo, when we attended parent meetings, we were considered young. Really young. Most of the parents of elementary school children were in their late-30s to mid-50s. They drove massive SUVs, lived in big homes, went skiing in Vail and vacationed in Florida, proudly chased their children around from activity to activity, and couldn’t understand why we looked at them weird when they quoted Bon Jovi lyrics or referenced movies from before we were born.

Kristen and I had Megan when we were 24 years old. Having chosen of life of poverty– I mean working at a church– we had what we needed and splurged on some things every once in a while. At school and church we were constantly reminded that we were too young to be parents. Parents of our contemporaries said to us all the time, “You married so young! My daughter just isn’t ready. It must have been so hard.”

Living at home with an over-bearing mom sounds more stressful than getting married at 21. At least to me.

We lived in a nice house, drove a nice car, and had to budget which activities we could afford to put Megan and Paul in. But we made roughly half what other parents in the school made and were passively reminded of it all the time.

Rex, the Golden Calf

Many families in Romeo worshipped their children. It was a little scary. Little Rex went from school, [where mom volunteered 3 times per week) to a math tutor, [He was only in the percentile on math] to soccer practice, [dad's the travel coach, so lets work on skills] to the house, [gotta do some homework and grab a quick dinner] to hockey practice. [ice time always has kids up late] It wasn’t unusual to see parents do this routine with each child, 4-5 days per week.

Parents were exhausted. Kids were exhausted. Yet no one questioned if all of this craziness really worked.

Kids love it, right?

And the kids were far worse off for it. No time to dream. No imagination allowed. No unorganized play. No time without adult supervision. Even in high school. On and on. Kids were tired and programed to death. And while these children marched through high school achieving a resume-building life, they couldn’t get into great colleges because they lacked the one thing it seemed the big schools valued more than a resume– independence.

Parents were far worse off for it, as well. It put way too much pressure on the marriage to race the kids around all over the place and blow countless thousands of dollar on travel hockey and travel soccer. We’d tell parents about our date nights while watching the kids play soccer and hear things like, “Oh my gosh, you guys go on dates every week? Tom and I haven’t had a date in years.” No wonder Rex was an only child! They spent $20,000 a year on activities but couldn’t afford $50 for a sitter and a date.

What’s up with that?

Rex was the center of their universe.

Simply put, there was no way Rex would live up to their expectations.

By the time they reached our high school group it was clear to see which Rex’s were still garnishing the parents worship and which had been cast off. When little Rex failed to live up to the expectations, Rex was likely to get put on a maintenance budget and largely ignored. (Hence, Romeo is known as a drug town.)

Here in San Diego we feel old when we go to the kids school! When we go to school activities we are clearly a few years older than the majority of parents. (There are a few parents our age.) And the earning power of the working poor is much different than the earning power of suburban middle class. Sure, kids are in activities, but they aren’t worshipped with the same ferocity. Typical kids in our school have a a parent who takes them to school, a grandparent who picks them up and watches them in the afternoon, and sees mom or dad when they get home late in the evening.

There are no Rex’s in our kids school.

The American dream for parents at Darnall in San Diego looks a lot different than the dream at Amanda Moore in Romeo. One dream is achievable/realistic while the other is a statistical impossibility.

This is the lie: A child, put in the “perfect environment,” will succeed at a higher rate than his peers in less-than-perfect environments.

This is the truth: Healthy, happy, well-adjusted children home will increase the likelihood of a happy, healthy, well-adjusted home.

This is the lie: You can incubate a high-achieving child.

This is the truth: Two of the last three Presidents of the United States came from pretty rough family backgrounds. Intrinsic work ethic overcame all other disadvantages.

This is the lie: High activity, camps, travel teams increase your child’s potential of an athletic scholarship.

This is the truth: Few college or professional prospects come out of those camps or travel squads in football, basketball, or baseball. Next level coaches are looking for qualities you can’t control like height, speed, instinct.

This is the lie: A 4.0 in high school will guarantee entrance to a prestigious university.

This is the truth: A well-rounded student will both get into good universities and graduate from good universities.

Hi, I'm Rex. I'll be the king of your life if you let me.

If you are a parent or if you work with parents you are well aware that there’s a lot of idolatry of children going on. In this four-part series I plan on exploring this phenomenon, it’s origins, and its impact on our society and the American family.

How did we get here?

People are waiting longer, much longer, to have their first child. The average age of marriage for a woman has crept past 25. (27+ for males) And it’s not uncommon for people to wait until their mid-30s to begin having children. And when those parents finally pop out a kid– a coronation takes place as the child is crowned king of the parents universe.

It is logical that an older set of parents has had longer to dream about being a parent, more impact of cultural ideals, [movies, television, books, magazines] and more mature in the workforce to have higher wages, more time off, and more flexibility.

Old parents

This is a purely cultural phenomenon. The only reason men and women don’t have children in their late-teen to early-20s is because our society requires it. It’s taboo to marry or have kids young now. (Trust me, I’ve got plenty of friends who married in their early 20s and had kids under 25… they bear the wrath of middle-class culture scorn!)

Biologically, this causes problems. Like it or not, the human body is “ready” in the mid-teen years. In human history this is when women started having children. Interestingly, cultural influence have caused females to enter puberty earlier and earlier. But it’s become increasingly taboo to have sex or conceive children in the teen years. Sexual activity is normative for minors yet culturally we frown on teen moms. Biologically speaking– the body is strongest, the reproductive system is the most ready, on and on. There’s no biological reason for waiting to have a first child until late-20s or the early 30s. In fact, human history is built on young mothers of 14-22. Common sense tells us that when you tell your body “no” to reproduction for 15 years or more, your body just might not want to say “yes” when you are culturally ready. Thus, we’ve seen an increase in physical problems with older mothers.

Culturally, this also causes problems. Middle-class American culture tells a woman she needs to go to college and start a career before “settling down” to be a parent. So men and women marry later and acquire more stuff before marriage. (and debt) By their mid-30s, affluence leads them into the baby worship we see today. The American Dream coaxes parents to believe that each generation has to be exponentially more affluent and educated than the previous generation. The problem is that macro-economics doesn’t work that way. Middle-class parents simply can’t raise children to become more wealthy than they are… there is a statistical glass ceiling to what the economy can bear. Economically speaking, we blame Wall Street for the recent collapse of the housing market when, in fact, the Middle-class bought the American Dream on credit. (Interesting article from Time Magazine, “Older Parents: Good for Kids?“ Written in 1988)

We scornfully look down on young parents. We track the teen pregnancy rate in pitiful, arrogant, ignorance of the fact that in most places on the planet a 16-17 year old mother is normative– and our own grandparents would now be scorned in today’s late-marriage status quo. We’ve put so much pressure on ourselves that our kids will have it better than ourselves that from the time children are in the womb we want to educate them and put them ahead of their peer group. Our culture has created this truism. Young mothers are bad or naughty, older mothers are more prepared and nurturing. But is there evidence that this is true? Doubtful.

The Allure of the American Dream

In my opinion, the root of the baby-god-myth was born in the pursuit of the American dream among Middle-class parents. If little Rex is going to be better than well-off mommy and daddy, we’re going to have to push and shape harder than our parents did.

Sadly, the church joins in

This is a chicken/egg phenomenon as each side would argue the other started it. But any church growth expert knows that if you want to attract parents these days you need an amazing kids program. The hope is that if you can attract Rex and keep him happy, a parent will get hooked into participating in the greater church. This is, indeed, born out of an earnest desire to attract and reach lost people. But the churches desire to reach out to the little Rex’s of the community in hopes of hooking parents has lead to attracting parents and staff who buy into a format of church that idealizes the American dream. A thriving kids program is polished, safe, fun, and good for Rex. It’s bigger and better every year. Even if it isn’t, we strive for that in all we do.

And today’s kids ministry ideals are largely devoid of Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

The church often gives lip service to this truth. But systematically, we are quick to bail on parental responsibility and claim it as our own since Rex’s parents are too busy shuttling him to soccer practice and it’d be too embarrassing to tie anything scripturual as symbols on their hands. Sadly, church is often merely seen as “the holistic part” of Rex’s college resume to parents who are involved “because it’s good for the kids.”  And little Rex picks up on this, in full knowledge that his parents gods are him and the stuff they are acquiring. We wonder why kids check out of church? Maybe it’s just  the way we’ve raised them?

It would be controversial for the church to stand up to parents and tell them the truth. “You are worshipping your children. You are to put God first, your marriage second, and your children third. Children are subservient to their parents!” No– this is heresy in our culture. We all know, intrinsically, that if we were to proclaim that kind of truth the parents and their money which pays for our nice building and staffs would quickly disappear.

Alas, the church is often sad peddler of the baby-god-myth.

More on this later.

I want to see church culture change. I know that if we’d just apply what we believe the church would be the most attractive option on the planet.

And I also know that in order to change the leadership culture within a church you have to do three things.

1. You have to play along to gain access to the people who can change things.
2. You have to gently prod leadership with ideas that are approachable.
3. And sometimes you need to show them your middle finger and just plain stick it to the leaders by giving them glimpses of your vision for reform.

Here are some examples of moments in history when visionaries have extended the middle finger (mostly figuratively) to the man and changed the culture forever.

• 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence and told King George, “Come and get me, punk.“
• William Wallace lead a band of warriors against King Edward in a fight for independence for Scotland. “I’m not your slave, I’d rather die than serve you. Here, look at my butt.“
• On December 1st, 1955 Rosa Parks sat down in the front of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. “What are you going to do about it?”
• George Whitefield lead massive outdoor revivals in staunch opposition to the established church and local laws which required permits to preach. Much of the American evangelical church was born from his disobedience. “We are going to meet outside, where the people are… you know, just like Jesus did. You OK with that, sucker?“
• Martin Luther recognized he could barely move the needle an inch in his lifetime if he worked within the rules of Rome. So he wrote some things down and made his own appointment with the Pope Leo. “You’ll be changing one way or the other, Mr. Fancy Hat.“
• Instead of ignoring the Pharisees and their muttering, Jesus teaches his band of cultural losers that they should go out and try to reach Pharisees. “Sometimes you stick it to the man by going out and loving the man while sticking it to him.”

What’s the problem with this?

• A lot of us are the man.
• In nearly all of those situations, the established religious leaders were on the wrong side of history. Oops.
• We stand in a long time of people who realize… awful hard to stick it to ourselves.

The reason I’m saying this is to remind people like myself that we are, oftentimes, the biggest agents against change. We have our ways. We have our culture. We look at prominence and degrees. As the established religious leaders we give a million excuses why the pains in the neck are wrong and we are right.

World changing men and women come into our lives, observe our behavior and practices, and give us the middle finger.

The lesson from the examples above is simple: When people come to you to give you the middle finger of no-more-fellowship… you need to listen to them. You need to give them the opportunity to be heard.

They may be right and you may be wrong.

You need to look at those people with sober judgment.

Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. – Apostle Paul, Romans 12:2

John Paul Stevens, soon to retire Supreme Court Justice

(Yes, the title of  this post is sensationalistic. But it got you to read it, right?)

All of my life I’ve grown up with versions of this phrase, “Don’t judge someone by their color, race, ethnicity, gender, or religion– judge them by their character and abilities.”

I grew up in a college town, with the University of Notre Dame within my elementary, middle, and high school’s boundaries, we were as melting pot a community as you could get in Indiana. Lots of ethnicities, lots of religions, lots of races. Growing up with that sort of diversity makes you hungry for it. It’s one of the things I love most about San Diego, where we live now.

“Stuff like that just doesn’t matter.” That’s what we were taught. That was really our mantra growing up. And if I’m really honest– that’s what I believe in the core of my being. In fact, given the choice I still prefer to celebrate diversity. Kristen and I exhibit this by where we chose to live and the schools we chose to put our kids in and the church we chose to worship in.

I want my kids to grow up believing in Dr. King’s dream.

Perhaps that’s why I was so shocked to read this piece in Sunday’s New York Times:

With just five exceptions, every member of the Supreme Court in the nation’s history has been a white male, like Justice John Paul Stevens.

But Justice Stevens cuts a lone figure on the current court in one demographic category: He is the only Protestant.

His retirement, which was announced on Friday, makes possible something that would have been unimaginable a generation or two ago — a court without a single member of the nation’s majority religion.

— [moving to the end of the article] –

For his part, Professor Stone said there were ways a justice’s religious affiliation could have an impact on the court. President Obama, for instance, could nominate an evangelical Christian.

Mark Tushnet, a law professor at Harvard, had another suggestion.

President Obama, he said, could use Justice Stevens’s retirement as an opportunity both to honor tradition and to break new ground.

“The smartest political move,” he said, “would be to nominate an openly gay, Protestant guy.” read the full article

So, if I read that right the Supreme Court nomination is open to anyone who isn’t… a white protestant straight male.

I’m not calling it discrimination. But I find it odd. I’m all in favor of choosing people for the Supreme Court for political reasons. That’s certainly a tradition and one of the major privileges of being elected President. And I understand that as our nation has fought to make diversity a value, we had to intentionally place individuals in places of power and decision to communicate that value. All things equal, for more than a generation, we’ve chosen to elevate someone of another race, gender, religion, or whatever.

This has helped significantly communicate, “It doesn’t matter where you’ve come from you can get anywhere in our culture.”

But I wonder at what point does the discussion get back to purely, “Who is the most qualified?” and “Who would keep the courts balanced to represent a variety of worldviews?”

In other words– I’d like to think we’ve arrived at a place in our nations history where it truly doesn’t matter the color of your skin, what nation your parents came from, where or if you worship, what your gender or sexual preference is, or even where your degree comes from.

Have we reached a place where white, protestant, straight, males are not put on the sidelines because of their race, gender, and sexual preference?

Apparently not.

Is this what you're after? Something tells me its not as easy as just buying it and sailing away.

Have you ever noticed that people who have reached the pinnacle, the elusive American Dream, are actually miserable?

“That’s just a Hollywood cliche.” Really? Think about your own interaction with highly successful people… I don’t think it’s a cliche. There are just as many miserable successful people as there are unsuccessful people.

Here are some elements of what we define as people who’ve achieved the American Dream:

• Big lifestyle (cars, houses, travel, jewelry, boats, planes, and other stuff)
• Big notoriety (everyone knows who they are in their circle of influence, people talk about who they hang with, people are jealous of stuff they do)
• Big influence (the stuff that they do makes others think, act, or spend)
• Big power (they get to tell a lot of people what to do, they call the shots, they are monarchy at their work)

While on the surface all of those things sound great, I think there’s a real reason why they are miserable.

They are big, powerful, and wealthy… but none of that has brought them the freedom that sent them looking for the American Dream in the first place. It’s all come with entrapments.

• Big lifestyle comes with a high cost of ownership. Buying stuff is fun, paying for upkeep and maintenance results in a lot of very wealthy people being in a lot of debt. They simply have to keep working just to maintain all the crap they own. You’d think that these people could control their schedules? Nope, they have to work 14 hours per day so they can keep the illusion going.
• Big notoriety comes with a high cost of inconvenience and friendship politics. Within the rich and powerful there is a complex game to be played. You can’t just be seen with “anyone,” you need to be seen with the right people. And if you get too much notoriety you can’t be seen anywhere because going places just becomes annoying. People just wanting 5 minutes so they can say they met you… that sounds like a life full of hollow relationships to me. True friendship has got to be hard to find. Accountability? Yeah, right.
• Big influence is a double-edged sword. This may seem like a lot of fun on the surface, but it comes with a ton of pressure. When the words that you say, the stuff you use, and the thoughts you think effects so many people– that influence comes with unlimited scrutiny.
• Big power also means big responsibility. (You’ve heard that a million times!) Sure, it’s fun to call the shots. Who doesn’t like feeling like the genie every once in a while? But big power comes with the big expectation that you’ll deliver every time. The world holds its breath for Steve Jobs to reveal his latest gadget… but all the pressure is on him to reveal something that doesn’t suck. If it sucks, it was his call and a lot of people lose their livelihood. That’s a pretty stressful place to be every day.

Sometimes when I look at the lives “rich and successful” people lead, I am repulsed. Seems more like a nightmare than a dream. That isn’t success! It’s a life of working 24 hours per day and being stressed about every relationship and decision. Yuck.

I say these things because I’m beginning to dream of a different American Dream.

If I’m honest, my American Dream has freedom at its core. (not acquiring stuff) I don’t want my stuff to own me so I want to make life simpler, not more complex. Buying stuff I can afford with cash is simple. The more I do that the more I like it. Notoriety isn’t nearly as intriguing as having truly deep relationships with a handful of friends. It is nice to be recognized for the right reasons, I can’t lie about that. But big influence? I’m working hard to have influence over my own actions! I suppose if that trickles out beyond me to my neighbors and community… cool, but I don’t dream of me speaking and an army of people doing. (Or watching a reality show about me) Really, I dream of having influence with a small number of people who also have influence in my life. Power? Only if that power leads to doing good for other people and having fun along the way. With that said, the power worth pursuing is to have enough power to truly have freedom.

The old-style American Dream just feels tired and complex. I watch TV shows about them and just feel sorry for their life. This new-style American Dream makes me smile. Simplicity leads to freedom.

Help me work this out a bit. Where does this new American Dream fall flat?

I love to track changes in technology. I can’t help looking my sons Nintendo DS, his prize possession, and remember what it was like when I received by Nintento Gameboy back in the day.

If you are anything like me you are also infatuated with tracking these changes. It doesn’t matter what you are into– computers, television shows, sewing machines– you can look back and remark on changes to the technology you love.

One of my favorite past times is talking about the change technology cycle.

But do we stop to think and think of change as a technology itself?

Wait… did you catch that?

Change is a technology. Absolutely.

Philosophically speaking we believe in change. Our society conveys it and our science confirms it. Change is necessary.

• Change means innovative.
• Change means keeping ahead, keeping fresh.
• Change means alive.
• Change means evolving.
• Change means refinement.
• Change means you are fighting against the effects of entropy.

Does it actually mean those things? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. But we almost always believe change is either good or bad.

When we look at change as a technology we gain the ability to zoom out the lens and examine the underlying currents, reasoning, and relationships which change creates. When we see change as technology we are able to recognize where we’ve been, why we are where we are now, and potentially what will come next.

Amazing? Too cool at the U2 show, originally uploaded by mclanea.

How do I recap the U2 show? It’s an beyond description.

Here are some thoughts from the trip, in no particular order.

1. It was well-timed. A week before my trip to Cincinnati for NYWC and with all the stuff stirring at work, a day away from the chaos was God’s timing.
2. I had good company. Kristen and I rarely get to do a road trip without the kids. And it was great to have Marko and Tash as companions. Technically, Kristen and I were along for the ride since Tash took over driving!
3. Phoenix is a long way away. It’s a solid 6-7 hours away from San Diego. It’s hard to understand because it’s only a 70 minute flight.
4. Bono is amazing. He is a captivating performer. How a man puts out that kind of energy for 2.5 hours I will never know. And his ability to do little moments throughout the show for the fans is incredible. I think I saw him grab a camera and take pictures of fans!
5. The stage becomes the 5th band member. I love production in a show. And this is done so masterfully that the production actually becomes a member of the band.
6. It was worshipful. Hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it. But so many of U2′s songs have deep meaning. There were moments of elation, tears, and just resting in the joy of the show.
7. It was what I needed. Look, it wasn’t a “Beautiful Day.” Tuesday ranked right up there with one of the toughest days of my ministry career. But that song in the show really spoke to me. Finding moments of joy through sorrow was poetic. I keep going back to that song.
8. It was worth the money. Tickets to this show weren’t cheap. Getting there wasn’t easy. But the journey, the show, and the memories of the day made the costs a bargain.
9. I’m still recovering. It’s been two days. And a missed night of sleep is hard to recover from. I am not 21 anymore.
10. We missed the Black Eyed Peas. Seriously, traffic into the stadium was so crazy that we missed all but their last 2 songs. I’m sure they were great. What we saw was a lot of fun.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that this family punk’d the world. In fact, it looks as if the man who scripted the whole incident, less the involvement of the child, sold his story to Gawker.

What isn’t clear is why they tried to play it this way. OK, so you pulled a fast one with the world’s media? Awesome! Why not use the spotlight to look into the camera and say to Wolf Blitzer, “You just got punked!”

Sure, he’d be opening himself up to a big bill from the agencies who wasted taxpayer money playing pawn-like roles in his publicity stunt. But, if he got the last laugh on CNN and then told Wolf that he had a place where people could chip-in to cover his impending legal problems– all of this would have been funny, he would have collected a million dollars, and the Heene family would have pulled something off which would have made Ashton Kutcher blush.

In that moment Richard Heene’s held choice in his hands which would change his family forever. Would he tell the truth and become a legendary prankster? Or would he lie and become a legendary mook?

Richard Heene chose to try to keep the hoax a secret. Even after 6 year old Falcon Heene spilled the beans on live TV. And now the family looks horrible. And now the parents may get arrested. And now the fame they so eagerly wanted will be replaced by visits by the Child Protective Services.

The hoax had the potential to live out an example of Seth Godin’s blog post from the same day. Instead, we’re stuck with this sad story of 3 little kids who may now see their family encounter hard times.

I just wish Richard Heene had chosen the other option. Now that would have been captivating television. “Wolf, the truth is that you… and the whole world… just got punked!“