Me: “It’s all the things. Quirky, weird, amazing, frustrating, growing, dying, changing, finding a rhythm… I feel like I don’t know how it’s going and I know exactly how it is going at the same time.”
Someone: “Sounds about right.”
Open, by it’s very definition, is the Wild West of Youth Ministry events.
We put together a group of local organizers who don’t necessarily know one another or have worked together. We adapt the event to the needs of the community. We host it at a college or other “neutral” location. We bring in a mix of experienced and inexperienced presenters. And no one gets paid…
Frankly, it’s a crazy cocktail. It shouldn’t work. But it totally does.
13-0
Very practically speaking we’ve run thirteen Open events over the past three seasons and not lost money on any of them.
Now, Open isn’t built to make money, we actually give most of it away. But we’re able to take the risks on Open because each person who is part of it comes together for the same reason: We want to advance the cause of ministering to adolescents.
The Road Ahead
Heading into our 4th school year this fall I’m still optimistic about Open. Yup, we’ve had some bumps and bruises. Yup, we’ve “failed fast” on a few things. But yup, the spirit of what Open is all about continues to thrive.
Here’s where we’re at for the 2015-2016 school year as of right now:
If you’re passionate about youth ministry I want to invite you to be part of an Open event. We’d love to have your organization partner with us to pull it off, we’d love to have your ideas for a presentation, we’d love it if you wanted to be part of the organizing team.
I think the one thing that separates Open from every thing else out there in the youth ministry training space: I don’t want to own it. I want to give it away.
Ultimately, Open isn’t about the Cartel. It’s about youth ministry. We don’t create and host these events as a platform for ourselves… we rarely even present! Instead, we create and host these events as a place to learn, share, and contribute to the common thing we can all agree on– we think that a teenager’s life is better with Jesus than without.
My partner in crime at the Cartel has a new book coming out. He has something like 70 titles in the youth ministry genre, been the general editor of a couple Bible projects, and is the general editor of our Cartel publishing line.
But this is Marko’s very first general audience Christian book.
So it stands out that the audience isn’t limited to people who are working in local churches with teenagers, it’s for everybody.
Here’s the truth: I haven’t read it yet. So I can’t recommend it from that perspective.
However, I can recommend it wholeheartedly as a friend who has born witness to the process of creating the book… and the life altering stuff that happened which lead to the creation of the book.
This book kicked Marko’s butt.
It made him uncomfortable. It made him work harder than he wanted to. It interrupted him. I think it drove him crazy and pushed him to places he didn’t really want to go. And, in the end, he’s really proud of it.
Here’s the description:
Why are some people full of hope, while many of us struggle to get past the snooze alarm? Hope often seems elusive—both to explain and to experience. So we find ourselves instead clinging to lesser substitutes. From self-medication to lazy clichés, we apply these balms to our pain and experience little to no comfort. But we know, in our guts, that these replacements aren’t the hope-filled lives we long for, the lives we were made for. Mark Oestreicher gets it. Through hard-wrought experience and robust-bordering-on-desperate theological reflection, he offers here a fresh perspective on Hope, that virtue that God carries to us even as God carries us. Read Hopecasting and discover a good God casting hope your way.
And here’s what Scot McKnight has to say, he’s way smarter than me:
Hopecasting takes us through the joy of holy week, into the exile of darkness and hopelessness, and to the empty tomb of hope. In this book Marko teaches each of us how he has learned to practice a life of hope through the resurrection. What a gift of God this book is. May you discover the reality of a biblical hope that reshapes life today.
Whipser, Secret, Yik Yak, Snapchat, Burnbook, et al.
These are apps low on the “get it” list for adults. We look at them and wonder… “Why would I want that?” And it goes back to a fundamental difference between why teenagers use social media and why adults use social media.
Adults use social media to network. Public benefits that effort.
Teenagers use social media to hang out with friends. Public inhibits that effort.
Remember Monica?
We all remember Monica Lewinsky, the butt of every late night television and shock jock radio joke for a year. But, as she points out in the video below, along the way we forgot that she was a real person. No matter what she does in life she’ll always have an asterisk next to her name.
Last week, Ms. Lewinsky had the opportunity to talk about the impact of her public shaming and offered some challenges for what needs to change in our society when it comes to public shaming people online.
Literally, she isn’t saying anything new. The reason she’s on that stage is because nothing is changing.
In 2007, I wrote a post about an emerging Economy of Hate gaining steam via ad revenue online. In January 2014, I wrote about Reaction Porn, revisiting this concept to talk about the actual economics at play.
Without the economy of hate and reaction porn you wouldn’t have things like TMZ or Buzzfeed, two entities who proclaim their worth as bastions of free speech when in fact they are merely the Larry Flint and Hugh Heffner of the shame business.
Let’s be clear:These aren’t bastions of free speech, they are purveyors of shame. They profit by dehumanizing. And your enjoyment of them, those minor indiscretions of keeping up with the latest gossip, aren’t all that different than looking at pornography. (Not sure if that’s true? Both sell dehumanizing, damaging, and false views of real life. One is about sex while the other is about gossip. Both are highly profitable forms of exploitation.)
Why Snapchat?
The “why” of ephemeral apps is simple.
What happened to Monica on a national stage happens on a small scale at middle schools, high schools, and colleges every single day.
Here’s how: A person makes a mistake… let’s say getting drunk at a party and throwing up. Someone takes a picture of it and it gets spread around the school.
Now, all of a sudden, the only thing anyone knows about that person is that they are the drunken girl who pukes. She’s a slut, whore, idiot. She’s not a human anymore. She’s a character in a narrative. Forget the fact that 25 other people were at that party… she just got labeled. (see The Scarlet Letter from 1850. This isn’t new. Heck, it’s in the Bible, right? How did things turn out for Bathsheba?)
But what is new is that social media moves fast and lasts forever. And most apps offer so little control of privacy, that teenagers actually need methods of privacy.
Literally, to see how ephemeral apps took off watch the video below from social scientist danah boyd, author of the groundbreaking work It’s Complicated, and take note of solutions teenagers were creating pre-2011 to this problem.
So why Snapchat (and Whipser, Secret, Yik Yak, Burnbook, et al.)?
The technology followed the actions of teenagers. They needed a way to say things anonymously or have things they did (from silly to mistakes) disappear… and so these things emerged.
This is exactly the utility (function) that Snapchat’s creators were describing as they created the app, as Picaboo messenger.
“I’m so glad social media didn’t exist when I was a teenager…”
I hear that line all the time. Teachers say it, parents say it, youth workers say it.
Why do we say it?Because we did stupid stuff when we were 16 and it isn’t following us today.
But today’s teenagers do live in a world with social media and they are fully aware that stupid stuff they do, even if it’s exactly the same stuff their parents or grandparents did, will follow them.
Sitting at a table eating overpriced Chili’s chips and making small talk. Walking from gate to gate with coworkers. Starting a shift at the TSA. Sorting bags.
Each day thousands of stories check-in and checkout from the airport.
But unlike your neighborhood library all of the books on the shelves at the airport are fiction.
With Each Heartbeat
We each serve as the narrator in an unwritten best selling novel in which we’re both the protagonist and the antagonist.
Unfulfilled.
Arrogant.
Proud.
Satisfied.
Humble.
Meek.
Kind.
Cruel.
We are monsters.
We are kings.
We are champions.
We overcome.
We stumble.
We despair.
We are desperate.
We are fat.
We are an athlete.
We’re buffoons.
We are savage.
We are superhero.
We are a moment away from being a millionaire.
We are a moment away from being on the streets.
We are loved.
We are lonely.
7 Inch Novel
We live the fiction of our lives, a narrative in our heads, pursuing what we want, neglecting things in pursuit of what we want, utterly blind of dimension for the things we miss or our impact. And it all plays out in the 7 inches between our ears.
We see what we want to see.
We filter the days events to fit our storyline.
That’s the point.
It’s easy to label. It’s easy to presuppose. It’s easy to look at each person as a supporting character in your own narrative.
But to do that is to misconstrue reality to fit your own needs. To do that is monstrous.
The Human Form
Because we are all human. We are all the narrators of the greatest story ever told, our own.
I’m the main character in my story. And you are the main character in your story.
Other people are not extras.
Each is a story.
Each is the greatest fiction tale never published.
We are whole. We are unfinished. We are published. We are unpublished. We are known. We are unknown.
But we are all fully human.
We all have equal worth.
And, while we are largely unseen by one another.
We are seen.
Cover photo credit: At the airport by Andreas Schalk via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Last week, San Diego county schools went coo coo for cocoa puffs about the social media app Burnbook.
Megan, our 8th grader, missed school on Monday. When she came home on Tuesday she said the joke on campus was an assembly she missed on Monday. “No one had the app or had even heard of Burnbook. What is it?”
Yeah, this is what I mean when I say… “Don’t educate 99% of students about something 1% or less are doing.”
Face meet palm. Seriously.
I see schools do this all the time. And it’s why my social media talks are based in principles instead of a single app… let’s educate the 99% about good, healthy habits, and deal with the 1% of problematic students in the counseling office.
So what’s Burnbook?
Basically, Burnbook is Yik Yak for middle and high school students with a couple plot twists.
Plot Twist #1
You opt into a community whereas Yik Yak merely implies a community based on your geolocation.
So when you open the app, you create an account and you pick your community. (Most users would pick their school)
The plot twist is that you can pick a different school…
Just go to the menu, click on Communities, and you can move from one high school to another, or a college or whatever.
I think this is a problem. Particularly for high schools. You don’t even have to be part of the school to talk about it or be in that community? Moreover, you can just hop from rival school to rival school and post whatever you want?
Meh, not a fan of that. I’d rather you picked a community and the app made it hard to switch to another one. Maybe only allow you to do that weekly? Seems like the current model allows for and encourages trolling.
Plot Twist #2
App administrators are unashamed about monitoring communities.
Don’t get me wrong, every app does this to some extent. But the Burnbook crew is intentional about trying to moderate things by being visible, correcting bad behavior, highlighting the behavior they want to see on their other social channels, etc.
For an anonymous and ephemeral app… this is unique. I like that idea. It’s a little old school but in a good way.
Don’t be fooled. All of the other anonymous apps do this one way or the other. For instance, Yik Yak has paid community people on college campuses which make sure the “Yik Yak game is on point”. But Burnbook seems to have a rather old school mindset of community management from the forum days. They are around and real people. It’ll be interesting to see if this can scale up as the app takes off. But I’m sure that’s something Team Burnbook would see as a good problem to solve.
I had a brief chat with Burnbook’s creator Jonathan Lucas about his app last week. Flat out, his philosophy is that school campuses are in need of a way for people to say what’s on their mind. He feels like they can help moderate and sell the idea that this is possible… that teenagers won’t just melt down into being a community that bullies or harasses people online… but that anonymity can and will lead to something positive.
So when I asked him if he had plans to geofence schools based on pressure from school administrators… he didn’t have any interest in doing that. Instead, he said that they are doing anything they can do to work with schools/law enforcement to rat out the bad stuff in an effort to highlight the good stuff.
“The majority of people are good,” said Lucas, but you have to “design the app with the most sinister person in mind.”
To that end, Lucas has implemented several key tools for Burnbook. The first, and most effictive, is a simple down vote system wherein five down votes (perhaps 3 soon!) automatically removes a post. 2-4% of posts are destroyed this way.
He also has a “blur” option for every photo to protect people’s identities.
This launched in September 2014. It’s really small. That’s part of why it was so odd that San Diego county schools freaked out about it. I mean, compared to Snapchat it’s tiny. (And Snapchat is tiny compared to Facebook… even among teenagers who say they don’t use it.)
As of right now they are reporting 400,000 users. (.9% of teenagers in America) Snapchat is about 5.4 million teenage users according to Pew. (13% of teenagers in America) Facebook is well over 50%.
What do I need to know?
There’s a few little side stories which I think are interesting.
First, I got clued into Jonathan Lucas’s faith before I spoke to him… he has an Oswald Chambers quote on the homepage of his app. (see screenshot above) He grew up in a Christian home, in many ways he’s a typical student from any of our youth groups. All of that helps me view what he’s trying to do with Burnbook through a certain lens. He’s a newbie to the development world, he taught himself to code, he’s built a small but very interesting little company. All of these are endearing qualities to me. Maybe it shouldn’t– but it makes me a little less judgmental about the whole thing.
Second, Burnbook is a sapling in a forest of ephemeral, anonymous apps. I’m not saying it won’t make it but I’m not sure it should really be on anyone’s radar at this point, while gaining steam it’s also tiny. What I see in the app and the organization is still beta. But who knows? It could be the next big thing and Jonathan might be on next years Forbes list like Snapchat’s co-founder, Evan Speigel?
Acquisition seems far more likely than it becoming a big thing. (Whisper, Secret, After School, on and on) That’s a fine exit plan for a first time developer.
Third, I’m not sure the idea itself is realistic or helpful or developmentally possible. I’m on the fence about it.
The name Burn Book is a Mean Girls reference. It strikes me as weird that the app has an idea that good can come from anonymously sharing things on a school campus when the app is named after something that happened in Mean Girls.
It’s kind of an obvious clash of narratives. According to Wikipedia (the collector of all truth… ha!) the Burn Book is “a notebook filled with rumors, secrets, and gossip about the other girls and some teachers.”
Geez, I wonder why this would make administrators nervous?
What do I do?
This is the easy part.
Keep reminding the teenagers in your life that there is no such thing as anonymity, only perceived anonymity.
In the end, Burnbook is no different than all of the other ephemeral and/or anonymous apps out there. I like to tell teenagers, “The only one that thinks it’s anonymous is the users.”
Burnbook does a better-than-average job at telling students that their posting are linked back to them via their phone number and that they will absolutely cooperate with law enforcment if you do something dumb, like post a bomb threat. [You click OK to several acknowledgements when you create an account with your phone number, there are reminders… maybe too often.]
But, in the heat of the moment, it’s easy for anyone to forget that that tiny bit of gossip or bragging about an indiscretion ultimately points directly back to you.
There’s no such thing as privacy online.
There’s not such thing as anonymity online.
There’s only the perception of anonymity or privacy.
On Sunday, I had the chance to witness Kristen in run the LA Marathon.
It. was. awesome.
The Road to LA
After completing her 5th Half Marathon last spring she started thinking about LA.
A marathon is intimidating. A 5k or half had become pretty manageable for her. One builds on the next, you know what to expect, and lots of people are happy there… just improve on the last one to better your time.
She spent a month or so toying with the idea. When you consider the length of time it takes to prepare for the marathon– in her case about 6 months of training– and all the things that have to go just right– a few runs during the week, a long run on the weekend, three kids, a husband who travels for work, nutrition, injuries, illnesses, and all the normal stuff– it’s a huge undertaking just to train.
The last several weeks has been a series of longer and longer training runs. We’d wake up early on a Saturday and I’d drop her off, track her for 3-4 hours using Find My Phone, drop off water every few miles, then pick her up at the end.
One week she circumnavigated most of San Diego Bay from the Coronado Bridge all the way down to Imperial Beach then up through Chula Vista and National City to San Diego.
In the week leading up to the race all of the talk was about the heat. An early Spring heat wave pushed temperatures to the mid-90s with 15% humidity on Saturday. That kind of heat and 27,000 runners going 26 miles just don’t mix. The last 24 hours of wondering about the impact of the heat were no good. You wanted to get it out of your mind, but dang– that’s too hot to run that far.
Kristen barely slept on Saturday night. Nerves and excitement and all of that. When my alarm went off at 3:45 am, she was already up and just about ready to go.
I dropped her off at her Santa Monica shuttle at 4:30 am and went back to bed. Our friend April crashed at the beach house, too… I took her over to the same shuttle stop at a pedestrian 6:30 am before heading back to the house one more time to check on our kids. When the race started at 7, I packed up my stuff– a cooler full of frozen towels, my camera, and my phone to meet her along the way.
11 Miles In
My first stopping point was about 11 miles into the race in the business district of Hollywood. My experience in LA is so limited (Despite living just 2 hours south, we avoid LA like new moms avoid sleep.)
A legacy runner, someone who has competed in each of the past 30 years in the background and a high school student, part of a “Students Run LA” initiative, in the foreground. And some dude carrying a cross for 26 miles. This is the LA Marathon.
The first thing you need to know about the LA Marathon is it’s very diverse. Usually, the races Kristen has run in have been predominately 30-something year old white people. But that just wasn’t the case in LA. There were people of every walk of life, every age… middle schoolers and elderly… every ethnicity, and every cause.
But, more importantly, Kristen was in great spirits.
In LA, you get to run with all kinds of people… even guys who run in full Native American head dress for 26.2 miles.
From here, I made my way south from the race course to start navigating through the side streets, grabbed some coffee at Starbucks, and made my way to West Hollywood to try to see her 45 minutes to an hour later.
15 Miles
When I found the race course at exactly the 15 mile marker, Kristen was still a mile or so down the course, so I took a while to stand there, people watch, and cheer folks on.
Here’s something awesome about big races. Everyone comes out to cheer people on, even if they don’t know a single runner in the race. They show up, they cheer, they encourage, and lots of people even bring things to give to runners out of their own pockets… fruit, water bottles, and er– hot dogs and pizza slices, too.
Marathons are full of interesting things… like men with hip length dreadlocks peaking at TV motorbikes.
And when I finally spotted Kristen, she was still having a blast FIFTEEN MILES into her day.
From West Hollywood, I went back to our minivan and started to work my way across town more to get to the next spot on the course, 22 miles, in Brentwood– most famous for being the home of O.J. Simpson. To get there… I had to wind my way through neighborhoods like Beverly Hills… where my minivan made me feel like I was on the cast of Beverly Hillbillies.
Driving through Beverly Hills neighborhood. Saw a lady walking a pink poodle. Is this real? #LAMarathon
From there parking was a real problem. I ended up finally finding a spot about 5 blocks from the race course. And in my rush, I forgot to take notes on where I parked… more on that later.
By this time the heat had kicked in. Racers were super fortunate that an unexpected, un-forcasted cloud base made it pretty pleasant most of the morning, high temperatures in the mid-80s. But that started to burn off late in the race. And it started to get really, really hot.
In this last set of pictures I want to point out some of the lasting impressions I had on the marathon.
The marathon is a community effort. Tons of official and unofficial volunteers make it a GIANT 26 mile long celebration. The family to my right knew a couple runners, but their endless supply of orange slices and ice made hundreds of runners smile.
And don’t forget about causes. I’d say a quarter of the runners were running to raise money for something.
Team World Vision had more than 600 runners, raising money for clean water in Africa.
And– oh yeah– this smiling lady.
At 22 miles, Kristen had never run this far. Notice that she’s smiling and having a great time while runners around her aren’t quite looking so fabulous.
By this time, she was starting to get tired and hot, so she accepted my invitation to take 2 minutes off to cool down… bring on the frozen towels!
Having just come through a non-shady part of the race with 4 miles left in the blazing sun, 2 minutes of cooling off really seemed to help.
And at this point… it’s just a victory lap. Six months of training and it was abundantly clear she’d finish her first marathon!
26.2 Miles
After this pit stop I got a text from April, she was at the finish line and looking for a ride back to the beach house.
The problem was that I was 4 miles away… cell service was jacked up with so many people trying to post selfies… and I HAD NO IDEA WHERE I’D PARKED!!!
Seriously. I was so pumped to go see Kristen at 22 miles that I forgot where I parked. 15 minutes later I finally found my way and was back in the car.
From there, I got lucky and guessed a side street that went all the way to Santa Monica, Colorado Street. And I took that all the way to where I could see the finish line… but then got stuck in traffic. I picked up a very tired April and then we spent the next two hours trying to find Kristen and make our way back to Venice Beach.
Success!
Huge congratulations to Kristen. She made it look easy… if 26.2 miles can be easy.
And I don’t know what her next challenge will be. But I think it’ll involve a bike and swimming.
Yesterday was the big keynote for Apple, announcing the sale date and prices for their new product, Apple Watch.
I’m being more cautious about the watch than I was about the iPad. I thought the iPad was a joke but it turns out to have been a great idea. They created a desire where there was none and now everyone has one.
Personally, I just have zero desire to wear a watch. It wasn’t the technology I ditched, it was that I didn’t like having something on my arm all the time. Even now, when I dress up sometimes I’ll slip on my old fancy watch, and it just bugs me. I can’t imaging having something on my arm that might get hot because it’s connecting to things or having to remember to charge it.
But that’s not what worries me about the watch. I’m convinced that people will buy it, especially next year when they release a $99 version. (That’s their habit.) What concerns me about the watch, for Apple, is that they have a monster inventory issue that will eventually kill them.
Think about it like this: They used to have one phone, the iPhone. And in the United States it worked only with AT&T. Great… it’s easy to make and inventory something. This is the Henry Ford model of mass production. (A model that is driving the growth/success of Southwest Airlines, by the way.) But the iPhone 6 has tons of models and options. You can chose different colors, different storage sizes, and different mobile carriers. It’s confusing for customers because they can’t just walk into a store and ask for the latest iPhone… now they have to make a lot of choices. And it is incredibly expensive to stock. Imagine being a retailer… to sell the iPhone 6 you have to stock tens of thousands of dollars in iPhone’s in all of your stores. Think about that from a global perspective and you’ll see that Apple must have BILLIONS of dollars in inventory for products that their own system is constantly making obsolete. (People only want the latest phones.) As an investor this huge shift in business model in the post-Steve Jobs Apple keeps me away from buying their stock. It’s popular. But boy is it risky.
Into that comes the Apple Watch. There are 25 different models currently available, with nearly unlimited options.
Take the case of Best Buy
Imagine the risk as the buyer at Best Buy? You have 1050 stores and your customers are going to expect each store to have all 25 models on day one. So let’s say you place and order for all 25 models, starting with 50 units of each of the 25 models at an average wholesale cost of $175. Each store will be starting with $218,750 in inventory on the Apple Watch. That’s an initial order of $229 million to cover just U.S. stores. Sure, that’s the potential for $500 million or more in sales. But that’s a ton of risk for Best Buy because they just have to take a guess at which models will be most popular to customers.
For a retailer, even one as large as Best Buy, putting $229 million on the line for the potential of $500 million in sales is a lot of risk. In 2015, they’ll do about $40 billion in sales… a $229 million risk on just one of their products in their store is a big, big risk.
And that’s just one retailer.
Now imagine you are Apple worldwide? You have to manufacture for orders to sell to thousands of retailers like Best Buy while also serving your own retail Apple Stores and your online customers.
All of that means that they are paying to build billions of dollars in Apple Watch’s various models without ever really knowing if customers are going to buy them. If it works, the world’s largest company just got bigger. If it doesn’t? You’ll have to account for that loss to stockholders.
In my opinion, even for a company that seems bulletproof like Apple, it’s a very risky step.
I’ve had Apple in my personal portfolio in the past. But right now? That’s too much risk for me as an investor.
The Internet of Everything
Maybe you’ve heard this term, the Internet of Everything? It’s kind of a buzz word and the unofficial theme of this years Consumer Electronics Show. Essentially, the trend is to get everything in your home to connect to the internet so that you can monitor it and control it with your phone. There are funny examples… like a device that let’s you know how many eggs you have in the fridge to more serious devices that control the thermostat or your home security system.
The Apple Watch is part of a movement of “wearables.” Companies like Garmin, FitBit, and JawBone have been making devices that people wear for fitness purposes or to talk on a cell phone. It’s big business and no one is blaming Apple for getting into it, even if they are a little late.
The simple reality is that our phone and these devices are starting to track all of our movements, our purchases, or plans, our calendars, and now that we’re connecting our homes and bodies to them… it’s getting to be a lot of data. You, as a user, are literally a network of everything.
The quick answer is… “No.” Your doctor doesn’t want that data as they aren’t trained to use it, don’t know if it’s accurate, and if you are transmitting data to them they somehow become liable for that data legally.
But it brings up a larger, more important question: Where is all of this data going?
I don’t mean literally. Literally, the data is going to servers and it won’t be long before advertisers and marketers are able to purchase all sorts of data about you that you willingly share so that they can hit you with an ad on iTunes Radio just at the time of day you normally take a break and walk over to Starbucks. That’s literally what is happening.
But, more figuratively, what are you doing with that data yourself? And if we’ve gone from desktops to laptops to mobile phones/tablets to wearables… it won’t be much longer until we’re talking about Apple’s new device, an edible / embeddable device charged by the electrolytes in Gatorade that lives in your large intestine.
I mean, neuroscientists are already perfecting technology that can read your thoughts! It won’t be too much longer until the internet of everything is literally, the internet of everything. Won’t it be interesting to have your phone play a song embedded with an ad for your favorite taco shop because your stomach is starting to tell your brain that you’re hungry for lunch?
I don’t know. All of this is starting to feel like too much. And, as I’m out talking to teenagers around the country, they are getting tired of all of it. I am not saying that the technology won’t be there and I’m not saying that I don’t think people will adopt wearables or even ingestibles… I’m just saying there’s going to emerge some questions about how much data is too much data?
Is This Good or Bad?
I don’t know. But I do know the whole thing is interesting.
And as much as I can’t imagine why I’d need the Apple Watch. Apple has proven, over time, to speak my language and market things to me I don’t really need but eventually want.
Something tells me I’ll be standing in line for a watch sometime in the not-so-distant future.
The air brakes release on the rental car shuttle at the Phoenix airport last Thursday and a packed bus starts to make its way to the terminal.
Peessshhheeeewwww.
I roll my head back and let out a deep, silent sigh. A great day of training youth workers and talking to people about the Student Justice Conference. In just a few hours I’ll be home.
Sandals versus Gators
Business travel is generally a solo activity. People make small talk on shuttles or over a meal at an airport bar. But, largely, I find it’s an insular activity often distracted by keeping up with email, texting, looking at your travel details on Tripit, and stuff like that.
As I tip my head back and let out my end-of-day sigh I noticed something: Everyone in the front of the bus is in a suit. These are men in business suits, with leather bags, expensive watches, and nice shoes. The guy standing directly across from me is wearing high-end shoes made from alligator hide.
I look at my own feet. I’m wearing Tevas. My “business suit” includes casual shorts and an untucked polo. I don’t have a $500 leather briefcase. I have a $50 backpack that a friend gave to me a couple years ago.
Instantly, I feel inferior.
Actually, I feel stupid.
These guys are serious business people. They probably look at me as some schmuck in town to watch Spring Training.
In that moment I felt…. illegitimate.
That Suit Doesn’t Mean Success
This little pity party lasted about a block. That’s when I remembered a couple quick facts.
They are dressed appropriately for the work they do, but so am I.
Based on national averages they bought those fancy clothes on credit. That watch? Credit card. The Lexus waiting for them at the airport back home? It’s financed. I might not have anything from Brooks Brothers. But everything I have is paid for. And I think credit is for suckers.
Based on the same math, many of them are poorer today than yesterday. I made a profit, facts are facts.
The men they are repping probably wears a suit, too. The man I’m repping didn’t ever own a suit and wore sandals to work every day. (Solid Jesus Juke, right there. Adam takes a bow.)
The Scorecard
I don’t have to feel inferior. Despite how I felt in that moment I do, indeed– and to the amazement of my parents– have a “real job.”
In fact, I think I have something a lot better than a “real job.” I have a life’s work that I’m fully invested in, that’s fulfilling and fun and provides a decent living for my family.
And yes, there are moments where I look at big houses on Zillow or look at AutoTrader, and yes… I wish I had more and bigger and fancier and whatever.
I wish I had a boat and a vacation house and… and… and…
But I don’t have anything to complain about. I made my own choices about the kind of life I want to live and the calling I want to pursue.
If I wanted that life it was there for me 15 years ago. I didn’t get kicked out. I quit.
I was there, in the land of suits and gators and big fancy meetings with big fancy people. And you know what? It wasn’t for me.
And just like I had this moment where I felt inferior to the group of men in their fancy business suits… there’s a high likelihood that one of those dudes was looking at me and thinking, “One day I’d like to live a life where I can wear sandals, shorts, a polo, and carry a backpack to work.” Why? Because we all want what we don’t have.
Satisfaction isn’t found in stuff or position or $700 gators.
Satisfaction comes from something far more simple.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
We each serve as the narrator in an unwritten best selling novel in which we’re both the protagonist and the antagonist.
We live the fiction of our lives, a narrative in our heads, pursuing what we want, neglecting things in pursuit of what we want, utterly blind of dimension for the things we miss or our impact. And it all plays out in the 7 inches between our ears.
Imagine the risk as the 