Living Rarefied

I see many many people commit to an idea, not to an action.

I like "do'ers" more than "commit'ers"

Ethan Community, Daily, Feeling

They sound like opposites right?  I argue they are closer than it seems.

I have seen that the root of people who say "oh, I'm a people pleaser" are actually very selfish and when it comes down to it, don't do the pleasing they say they do.

When you commit to everything under the sun, it sounds like you are trying to please others with your time, but in reality you are making less and less time available for those things.  So you end up making a lot of empty promises.

Example:  I formed a support team for my church, so that after the service, we take all the items used in the service, (stage, candles, curtains, clean up the pews, etc.) its about an hour of work after the service, 2 sundays every 6 weeks.  Not a huge committment.  A few of us were talking about doing this team together, so I organized it.  Some other people caught wind of the group that was formed (they hadn't been contacted about joining the group because we had a set team, and nobody else expressed interest about it).  People started talking, not to me, but to others about how they felt left out of the loop on the deal.  I didn't feel too bad about the fact that they were possibly upset with me.  If you have a bone to pick, pick it… Don't talk about having a bone to pick.

I sent out an email to a larger group of people, including those who felt left out… Response.. Nothing.. Actually 2 people lessened their committments who were already signed up.

Next time somebody tells me they are a people pleaser, I am going to ask them why they say that and then follow up with my assumption that they probably end up making a lot of empty promises, find themselves stretched too thin, not enough time to more things that are healthy for your body/mind than not, and in the end just end up pleasing themselves.

My hope is that people prove me wrong.  I haven't seen many lately that are trying to prove me wrong.  If you please people, I have nothing against you, but i think your priorities are off.. You should first please God (which doesnt affect his love for you), please yourself and your needs.  Others will be pleased if you focus on those 2 things.  And you'll find life isn't as intense/crazy difficult to manage.  The things you do will be of worth, you might be happier & you wont have Ethan calling you out all the time.

Ethan Community, Surprise Me

There are amazing people in your world. We can be so close to friendship with them and have no idea.

A friend I met on the trip had been on the same support team as me at the Upper Room, the extent of how much we interacted were comments like this. "Where does this go? Not sure, ask Joe." or "Hey great job, see you next week." On the trip and in the short time after I am beginning to see the story that makes up this guy. What makes him tick, what is going on in his head as he breaks down what life is going to look like for him after this El Salvador experience. I am anxious to spend more time with him.
Some others that were close by were a few from a weekend retreat last November. I knew them as names and friendly faces, thats it. I wish I had taken the time to jump out of my comfort zone of the friends I came with to experience life with them.

Another friend I got to know on this trip I first saw sometime early this spring. Steve Weins was giving on February 26th a message about integrity where we ended the time together by going up to big boards on the stage with markers and wrote a word/phrase about ourselves that maybe our image doesn't show. The word I wrote on the board was "lonely". I remember really wrestling with that because of the truth to it, and the fact I had just wrote it in front of 1000+ people. Not everybody could read it as i wrote, but i am sure a few saw it. I remember seeing this person who had sat in front of me alone, after the service standing alone in thought. I remember walking towards this new friend of mine to initiate a conversation, only to be called out by somebody who isn't much more than an aquaintance but helps mask that loneliness I wrote about and I aborted the mission of striking up a conversation with this person. The sad thing is I cannot tell you what the conversation was about that called me away from this person. Was it worth it? Here I sit almost 6 months later and am only now beginning to know this friend. In those 6 months struggles have fallen on my friend, some difficult decisions were made on my end and 1 week in July this stranger was on my team I was leading in El Salvador.

There are other small stories of people I am beginning to experience life with that I am thankful about. These are just a few of the stories that are screaming out to me, what if you would've made a better effort to initiate with them when you first had the chance! Would the stranger have wanted somebody to talk to that night? I know I needed a conversation I could remember. Would my support-team friend and I gotten along if we only talked more while we worked? Or was it the experience we had together in El Salvador that drew out a friendship in a more communal way. Would my retreat friends lasted had I shared more time with them that weekend and after that, or would they have faded.

As much as it kills me to say it was better to become friends on this trip, I think it says something about the power of being in community. Had we talked more and gotten to know each other months, years ago, would the friendships be where they are today and more excitingly, where they are going! I hate "what ifs" cause I feel we are called to live in the present and not dwell on what if this had happened instead. It slows us down from living full lives with those we are with now.
I am so thankful for these new friendships…

Ethan Community, Daily, Feeling

FedEx, here's a few free tips on how to cut costs and customer complaints. The next ones will be billed at my regular rate…
Don't even think about delivering an item to my house when a signature is required. Don't pick it up off the shelf at the local office, don't move it to the loading dock, and most definately don't put it on a gas guzzling truck.

Since you require a signature for most packages, (i've never requested that I sign for it) you have a 110% chance of missing me at home and not getting your precious signature. If I am worried about a package being stolen at my house, I will ask for you to require a signature, or ask to pick it up at the facility. But when your trucks leave the dock at the bright and early time of 8:00 AM, you'll save money by not coming to my house, and most likely most of your route. Here's a new thought maybe for you: I, like most people, have a life and don't look forward or have the time to sit by the front door wait to sign for a package. Please publish your success rates for home deliveries and tell me I am wrong…
Here's another thing to think about. This is regarding businesses who use your services to ship their products. I am very happy for you and your relationship with them… But here's what you need to do… Force them to allow you to ship to a different address than the billing address. That way when a customer wants an item shipped to their offices, you have a better chance of finding somebody to sign for it and thus haven't wasted a driver's time and our beloved earth's natural resources by a useless trip to Mackey Ave. I cannot stand when FedEx is my only shipping option and they will not allow you to submit with seperate billing and shipping addresses, even though they make you enter each one in. You are hurting your business because of this. Its funny that I am not upset with the businesses I buy from, but am upset with you?? Should you be worried that I am not the only one?
Your commercials claim that you save your customers money. How about letting them save even more by making some changes so that you, FedEx, can save some money yourselves!!

(and the "GO" button on the homepage is a little redundant as you redirect the page as soon as the option is changed, and you have a favicon.ico image in your webroot with a Netscape logo.. Might want to look into using your FedEx logo there…)

Ethan Community

I hope you've seen then new VW Passat commercial.  It shows a couple driving through town and as they pass other cars of the "luxury" variety the drivers are all heads out the window with a megaphone chanting phrases.  On is of a blond woman in a convertible, claiming that if people look at her it gives her worth.  Another is a man yelling out "because I make more money than you, because I make more money than you, because I make more money than you…"  Over and over.  And the last is a guy in a red Viper saying "because I am overcompensating for something, because I am overcompensating for something, because I am overcompensating for something…"

I love this commercial because it is so true.  But about 3 times a year I get all worked up about getting a newer/cooler car than my 99 Passat.  My car works fine, gets great mileage, is in 1 piece, never a hassle, always reliable…  Now something is telling me that the Passat isn't cutting it for me anymore, something inside me wants to scream out through a megaphone and that megaphone maybe a new car…

I ran into a friend from HS who I haven't seen in 8 years… His 3 questions were, where do you live, where do you work and are you still playing a lot of golf…  I think the 1st 2 questions were to measure up.  Size Ethan up, how's he doing.  And the last question must just be what people think of me as.  I run into countless people who associate me with golf and thats it.  "Ethan? oh he's the golfer…"  I am passionate about golf, but it doesn't even begin to define me, especially these days…
As I prepare to head back to El Salvador in July, I am pondering these items as to what exactly am I screaming through my megaphone.  I think the things that we scream through the megaphone are things that are actually holding us back.  Last time I went in 2004 I think I was screaming out "because i am the best employee around, because i am the best employee around, because i am the best employee around…"  Well I got back and within a week I quit my job. I'm not looking to do the same this time, but I am ready for another change and would love to hear what I am screaming into a megaphone about and hopefully make a change there as well.  Eventually I would like my megaphone to be silent…  I would like my life to speak for me, in a way that nobody tries to measure me, or measure up to me.  But in a way that somebody can admire the silence of my megaphone.

Ethan Community, Daily, Feeling, Surprise Me

Because its not only open to just your friends…

I signed up for myspace a few years ago as a way to learn about music.. The times have changed…

A week ago I cancelled my account for many reasons. One most is a waste of time for me. I would rather "connect" with people in person vs. comments and myspace messages. Secondly, Myspace is getting a bit shady. I have seen many news stories about the presence of sexual predators, schools and businesses using myspace as an additional background check, and many other things I consider wrong and don't want to be a part of…

Quite a few of my youth group friends found me on there, I thought it would be a great easy way to communicate what we had planned for the week, quick hellos and such. Which it was until I started to realize the content people put on their pages. I don't need to get into it, but its enough to make me very uncomfortable being a part of it. Another reason is that about 1/3 of my friends were my youth group friends and should somebody come across my page, they may take the reason i have 40+ HS friends on there out of context.

Mark Cuban wrote a great post about his addition to IceRocket.com to help parents track whats going on in MySpace… the space their kids are in.

I heard a story recently of a student who was expelled from school for some "extra curricular" activities that happened at school afterhours on a weekend. Photos were taken and posted on somebody's profile on one of the social networking sites such as myspace.com or facebook.com. The photos are public, perhaps the students forgot that, but served as proof to what happened and was enough to get the student expelled.

I end with a quote from a detective who was on the Dateline I saw.

"As a parent, I dont think I could hire a private investigator to get me more information than these kids are giving away on their pages"

Follow up video of a kids perspective…

Ethan Community, Daily, Surprise Me

2 reasons we just can't be friends…

I am finding it more and more easy to figure out who actually cares about me though email and phone.  There are 2 sides: those who contact me, and those that don't.

I can get down to the core of what your intentions with me are based on a few things.

If I call you, email you, or try to contact you.  And I hear nothing back for a few days after you know I made an effort to contact you,  maybe a week.  That is the loudest signal to me that I am not even on the fringes of your radar.  Here is why I have an extreme viewpoint on this but am going to stand firm by it, NOBODY is too busy to write a one sentence response, a call on your way to work, or walking into your office pointing out you got my message but am busy and thats it.  I am 100% cool with that, if you're busy… You're busy…
I just cannot stand to listen to somebody explain how busy they have been and haven't had time to breathe…

Yes you have taken a breath, and yes you have 20 seconds to respond.

The output of my extreme view is that everything you do, everything, is more important than me.  I'm not saying I should be at the top of their list of importance.  But I would hope I am not last… I have enough interest to seek you out and contact you.
This upsets me obviously enough to write about it, but I think my leash has been too long and I have given people too much room to dangle me around.  But I need to continue to give those who seek me out their fair share of Ethan…

Ethan Community, Feeling

My mind races with ideas, thoughts, wonders…  It is an avenue for me to put thoughts out there, get them out of my head to make room to process things that are going on.

Sometimes I have a lot in my head and therefore have a lot to write.  Sometimes not much is going on inside so the posts are few and far between…   The purpose for me writing is strictly for me.  I like those comedians who say they love what they do so much that the show would be the same if the club was empty or if they were in their shower by themselves.  Similar to that, I would write the same if my visitors were in the thousands or if nobody reads it at all…

I love the encouragement I see through comments, discussions, challenges to some of my thoughts, but I struggle with those who are confused as to why I write and why LivingRarefied.com exists.  These are thoughts and for  issues/dilemmas/life problems I go to my family and my core when I need advice or guidance, those are the ones who really know me and I trust.

I don't want this to be thought as being aimed at any one person, I just would like to explain the page I am on with this thing…

Ethan Community, Feeling, Surprise Me

When there's no drama… Why is it that we look for drama? I catch myself so many times when I am on a good run, feeling like i miss some drama or that there must be some coming and God is just prepping me for it. My problem is that I go on a lot of good runs. Its not a problem to have, but it is when your focus becomes "something must be coming" It takes me out of the moment. This is what I call my "calm before the storm dilemma".

But coming home from a great weekend with some close friends and now even closer friends, its kind of that high of great feeling and emotions and that relationships got firmed up a little. I have often heard at summer camps, where the camp speaker talks about this roller coaster ride of spirituallity. They normally give a talk about how to keep it going. My thought from this weekend, is that yes I want to continue this pursuit of fewer friendships but at a higher level of intimacy. I need to stop looking for somebody to show or tell me how and just do it.

To live like Jesus… He did encounter plenty of people, but he only had a few he went to on a consistant basis. For that case, I come in contact with many people on a regular basis, but find there are only a few I really want to pour my time into. I believe that these are the people who want to pour into me. When the road gets rocky, I want to know who I am going to every time. I don't want to think about going to person A with financial issues, or person B for relationship questions or even C for my faith questions. I want to know that my team is trusted and can cover all of those.

It sounds selfish, but is it selfish to love a few extravagantly rather than love many poorly?

Ethan Community, Feeling

My new ways of trying my best to be honest and not sugar-coat everything, even down to the simple question "how are you doing"…

I guess yesterday somebody didn't want to hear how I was really doing. I was asked how are you really doing. So I took this as an opportunity where I had to be honest and not hold back.

I have a few reasons for this new way of trying to be honest in all times, especially when asked. One is that bottling it up, keep it inside to stir is a bad bad idea and has never worked in my favor. For a friendship to grow I think honesty needs to be there all the times. Many times people will not receive the truth very well which is the very reason we sugar-coat it… To protect them… But is that really protecting them?

I found out yesterday it works both ways, it may hurt the one you speak the truth to, but it also hurts yourself. As the bringer of the truth, you can look bad, all of the sudden you aren't the nice guy anymore. But was I ever the nice guy because I sugar-coated things? Unfortunately struggles exist and things aren't always smiles and laughter. But we try to make it seem like that's our world by covering up the struggles and sweeping them into the closet to try and forget about them. But they grow and you get to see them time to time when you go get clothes out of your closet, so they never go away.

any other thoughts on honesty?

Ethan Community