I have been through some challenging times lately, but in the grand scheme of things, it is no big deal. Challenges make you better and allow you to grow if you face them with gratitude. I haven’t done a very good job of that lately. I’ve tried hard, but ultimately, failed.
I think it can be really hard to give thanks if you wrap yourself up in one goal and it doesn’t happen. Please learn from my mistake. Realize anything is possible, but in God’s time, not our own. Some people are blessed with clear paths, but most of us have twisty roads to success.
Life isn’t always fair, but life is always beautiful, if we look hard enough.
There is a major concert going on this weekend in Birmingham and I can’t help, but think of two of my favorite musical artists who will be in town, Jason Mraz and Katy Perry. Recently I have been able to follow them on Twitter. Twitter has shown me what positive people they are 140 characters at a time.
I am so thankful for their music and the impact it has had on my life.
Waiting for My Rocket to Come by Jason Mraz and Room for Squares by John Mayer are my favorite albums of my college years. They opened up my mind to a different way of thinking. Mr. Mraz’s lyrics are genius. They are filled with wisdom and have helped me through some difficult times. My favorite lyric at the moment is:
“It takes a hole to make a mountain.” -Jason Mraz, Life is Wonderful
I have really held on to that line in recent weeks and I hope other people can find value in its beautiful message as we are all facing uncertain times.
I have just discovered Ms. Perry’s music in recent months and it is such a breath of fresh air to me. Beyond her lively music Katy’s story gives me so much hope. It doesn’t matter how many failures you encounter, keep striving for success. Katy really reminds of the little engine that could. Her story helps me to keep chugging along even if the track seems covered in barriers.
I admire Jason and Katy’s demeanors. They are both having a blast with life and give thanks often. They are rocking out on their paths and appreciate the beauty in everyone.
I am so thankful for my ability to write and ability to receive inspiration from such wonderful artists. Please give thanks. It makes life better.
Thanks for reading
Chris
Showing posts with label Jason Mraz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jason Mraz. Show all posts
Friday, May 1, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
What Kind of Writer am I?
My friend from graduate school Pushpendra Mehta is working on his second book. Push has decided to get my take on some things for inclusion in the book. I feel Push and I show a small glimpse of what is possible in the world because even though we don’t see eye to eye on some topics I respect Push greatly because I know his heart is filled with love and he believes what he says.
It also happens to be his birthday today. Happy Birthday Push!
Push wanted me to write a bio. I don’t know if this is what he had in mind, but here is my journey as a writer.
When I was in elementary school I thought being able to write children’s books would be a great job. I wrote stories about an imaginary rabbit and an imaginary dog that eventually was named Ruf Ruf. I became discouraged when no one could read my handwriting, thus keeping my story inaccessible to everybody else.
When I started to understand how a library worked. I thought, “Man, it’s going to weird to see RAT on the side of my book.”
I sure didn’t show any talent for writing in sixth grade when this A and B student got a C- on his book because I over used the word things.
Sometime in high school I decided I wanted to be a sports journalist. I even wrote a few game reports for my school’s website.
I became discouraged when I talked to a local journalist who told me how hard his job was. Suddenly I let fear take over my decisions and decided I would study business.
Writing was not a big part of my life in college. I took four writing classes over the course of eight semesters and somehow I was completely oblivious to the fact that those writing classes and my higher-level marketing classes made up the majority of my memories in the classroom.
After my undergraduate years I decided marketing as I knew it wasn’t creative enough for me. My next stop was the Integrated Marketing Communications program at the Medill School Northwestern University.
I started really learning about writing at Northwestern even though I didn’t realize it at the time. Marketing Communications is more about the ability to convey ideas then anything else. Public Relations really boils down to treating people well. Convey a clear and honest message and be good to people.
My advice is learn wherever you can. Truly grasping communication for the first time happened in a café in France. Understanding the power of silence and white space happened in a copyrighting class.
Suddenly my formal education comes to a close and all I know I want to do with my life is move down to Birmingham and play some wheelchair rugby. I sit on my butt for nine months waiting to figure out what to do. All I pretty much do is read books and watch DVDs. One night I’m reading this book about remarkable people. I’m on this chapter about Mark Twain and it hits me like a lightning bolt. Mark Twain was a premature baby and had a hard time sleeping! I could write a book too!
Just as quickly as I came up with the idea I dismissed it. If I wrote a book who would want to read it?
Long story short Birmingham has been a wonderful journey, but I have fallen on my face so many times. I started trying to write my first book about a month after I moved down here, I was so embarrassed, so scared. For a long time I only told about three of my friends what I was working on while sitting in my apartment. I gave up at some point on my first attempt.
In the time span of a couple of years I tried and failed at doing online research, selling vitamins, a custom shirt idea, search engine optimization and oh yeah six other attempts at writing books. I used to be so embarrassed by my writing and I don’t know why. I figured it was something cool people did; something creative people did, and I never categorized myself as either of those.
Through all those failures I gave myself an education. I made mistakes and I learned. I read a lot. I read the bible, I learned about the law of attraction, Joel Osteen showed me it was okay to give praise the way I wanted to give praise.
I took the skills IMC gave me and learned to see the world in a new way. I have learned so many life lessons from the music of John Mayer and Jason Mraz. Somehow, someway their way of looking at the world rubbed off on me. Lines just pop in my head all day. They come from all genres of music, movies, books and life experience. I can’t write a piece of music, but I can write a piece for the web.
Nine short years ago I was scared to talk to most of my classmates because I was sure they didn’t like me. Now I have the confidence to proclaim to the entire world I think just like a world class rock star and I’m proud to be that bold! As John has taught me have the courage to be “Bold As Love”!
I now know you don’t have to consider yourself to be cool or creative to be an artist, you just have to believe in yourself and find your medium. I fully believe God wants every single one of us to create. Art can be anything. Broaden your definition and keep your mind open.
What kind of writer am I? I’m a human being just going down my path. There are more then seven billion paths out there for the more then seven billion people out there in the world.
Sometimes I stumble and sometimes I fall, but I always get back up eventually. My human siblings please remember to love yourself today and everyday. Growth is the objective, not perfection. Anything is possible!
As always thank you for reading!
Chris
It also happens to be his birthday today. Happy Birthday Push!
Push wanted me to write a bio. I don’t know if this is what he had in mind, but here is my journey as a writer.
When I was in elementary school I thought being able to write children’s books would be a great job. I wrote stories about an imaginary rabbit and an imaginary dog that eventually was named Ruf Ruf. I became discouraged when no one could read my handwriting, thus keeping my story inaccessible to everybody else.
When I started to understand how a library worked. I thought, “Man, it’s going to weird to see RAT on the side of my book.”
I sure didn’t show any talent for writing in sixth grade when this A and B student got a C- on his book because I over used the word things.
Sometime in high school I decided I wanted to be a sports journalist. I even wrote a few game reports for my school’s website.
I became discouraged when I talked to a local journalist who told me how hard his job was. Suddenly I let fear take over my decisions and decided I would study business.
Writing was not a big part of my life in college. I took four writing classes over the course of eight semesters and somehow I was completely oblivious to the fact that those writing classes and my higher-level marketing classes made up the majority of my memories in the classroom.
After my undergraduate years I decided marketing as I knew it wasn’t creative enough for me. My next stop was the Integrated Marketing Communications program at the Medill School Northwestern University.
I started really learning about writing at Northwestern even though I didn’t realize it at the time. Marketing Communications is more about the ability to convey ideas then anything else. Public Relations really boils down to treating people well. Convey a clear and honest message and be good to people.
My advice is learn wherever you can. Truly grasping communication for the first time happened in a café in France. Understanding the power of silence and white space happened in a copyrighting class.
Suddenly my formal education comes to a close and all I know I want to do with my life is move down to Birmingham and play some wheelchair rugby. I sit on my butt for nine months waiting to figure out what to do. All I pretty much do is read books and watch DVDs. One night I’m reading this book about remarkable people. I’m on this chapter about Mark Twain and it hits me like a lightning bolt. Mark Twain was a premature baby and had a hard time sleeping! I could write a book too!
Just as quickly as I came up with the idea I dismissed it. If I wrote a book who would want to read it?
Long story short Birmingham has been a wonderful journey, but I have fallen on my face so many times. I started trying to write my first book about a month after I moved down here, I was so embarrassed, so scared. For a long time I only told about three of my friends what I was working on while sitting in my apartment. I gave up at some point on my first attempt.
In the time span of a couple of years I tried and failed at doing online research, selling vitamins, a custom shirt idea, search engine optimization and oh yeah six other attempts at writing books. I used to be so embarrassed by my writing and I don’t know why. I figured it was something cool people did; something creative people did, and I never categorized myself as either of those.
Through all those failures I gave myself an education. I made mistakes and I learned. I read a lot. I read the bible, I learned about the law of attraction, Joel Osteen showed me it was okay to give praise the way I wanted to give praise.
I took the skills IMC gave me and learned to see the world in a new way. I have learned so many life lessons from the music of John Mayer and Jason Mraz. Somehow, someway their way of looking at the world rubbed off on me. Lines just pop in my head all day. They come from all genres of music, movies, books and life experience. I can’t write a piece of music, but I can write a piece for the web.
Nine short years ago I was scared to talk to most of my classmates because I was sure they didn’t like me. Now I have the confidence to proclaim to the entire world I think just like a world class rock star and I’m proud to be that bold! As John has taught me have the courage to be “Bold As Love”!
I now know you don’t have to consider yourself to be cool or creative to be an artist, you just have to believe in yourself and find your medium. I fully believe God wants every single one of us to create. Art can be anything. Broaden your definition and keep your mind open.
What kind of writer am I? I’m a human being just going down my path. There are more then seven billion paths out there for the more then seven billion people out there in the world.
Sometimes I stumble and sometimes I fall, but I always get back up eventually. My human siblings please remember to love yourself today and everyday. Growth is the objective, not perfection. Anything is possible!
As always thank you for reading!
Chris
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Brain Poppings Test Run
Hey Everybody! I wrote pretty much the whole day today through a combination of emails, USQRA work, and a targeted piece that won’t be on the blog and many random sentences here and there.
I really wanted to share something with everyone, but a regular piece just wasn’t going to happen. Some days I start lists of ideas. Sometimes they are useful sometimes they are not, I thought why not share them with my readers and see what they think.
The late great George Carlin had sections in his books entitled brain droppings. They took on a very similar format, but I don’t like to think of my wonderful gifts from the universe as waste, so I changed the title up. The first half is thoughts I have been pondering or ideas that just popped into my head. The second half is quotes that have caught my attention recently.
Brain Poppings March 7-March 9
The most any person can do is speak and act on his or her truth. We would be able to accomplish so much more in this world if we just embrace what really is rather then guessing what the right answer is. The truth is always the right answer.
I read in a recent Joel & Victoria Osteen electronic devotional that said a new study concluded the average young child laughs 200 times a day. The average adult only laughs 4 times a day.
- Sign me up for preschool for the rest of my life. :) I challenge us to raise the average today and everyday. Decide to laugh 5 or more times today.
- Why is it considered mature and cool to keep joy inside while people outwardly complain about the Mun-days and how tired or sick they are as an acceptable convention of society?
Call me a geek if you want, but I’m happy and I know it. (Clap. Clap.)
You have a lot more time to observe the landscape while pushing up a hill when compared to pushing on flat ground.
You always control your mind. Don’t waste any energy wondering “what if”. Know you will be successful.
“It is always about the number of times of you get up; it’s never about the number of times you fall down.” -Modification of famous multicultural proverb.
Love BIG goals and embrace them. They will make you better even if you don't reach them exactly.
Outside forces are never the challenge. Being your best is the ultimate challenge and we can do it when we set our minds right.
Before we can eat a great meal, we must set the table. Enjoy setting the table and be thankful for your hunger being satisfied before you get to eat.
“I’ve got a plan, I gonna find out just how boring I am and have a good time.”
-John Mayer New Deep (One of my favorite songs of all time.)
I interpret this to mean don’t worry about being cool; just be happy.
“You can turn off the sun, I’m still gonna shine” -Jason Mraz The Remedy
“It’s takes a hole to make a mountain.” -Jason Mraz Life is Wonderful
“To be a prisoner of something means to always be attached to it. Be a prisoner of hope.”
Joel Osteen
“There comes a time in everyone’s life when all you can see are the years passing by and I have made up my mind that those days are gone.”-Rascal Flatts I’m Movin’ On
“I can’t sleep, I’m dreaming way too loud.” -Eli Young Band So Close Now
“You do know that any time you decide you want to be different you can just start, right?” - John Mayer via Twitter March 1st 2009
I hope you enjoyed this experiment. I would like to do this more often because I feel sometimes having the nuggets of inspiration without any further details could be most helpful. Please let me know yeah or nay.
Thank you so much for the continued support! Thanks for reading
Chris
I really wanted to share something with everyone, but a regular piece just wasn’t going to happen. Some days I start lists of ideas. Sometimes they are useful sometimes they are not, I thought why not share them with my readers and see what they think.
The late great George Carlin had sections in his books entitled brain droppings. They took on a very similar format, but I don’t like to think of my wonderful gifts from the universe as waste, so I changed the title up. The first half is thoughts I have been pondering or ideas that just popped into my head. The second half is quotes that have caught my attention recently.
Brain Poppings March 7-March 9
The most any person can do is speak and act on his or her truth. We would be able to accomplish so much more in this world if we just embrace what really is rather then guessing what the right answer is. The truth is always the right answer.
I read in a recent Joel & Victoria Osteen electronic devotional that said a new study concluded the average young child laughs 200 times a day. The average adult only laughs 4 times a day.
- Sign me up for preschool for the rest of my life. :) I challenge us to raise the average today and everyday. Decide to laugh 5 or more times today.
- Why is it considered mature and cool to keep joy inside while people outwardly complain about the Mun-days and how tired or sick they are as an acceptable convention of society?
Call me a geek if you want, but I’m happy and I know it. (Clap. Clap.)
You have a lot more time to observe the landscape while pushing up a hill when compared to pushing on flat ground.
You always control your mind. Don’t waste any energy wondering “what if”. Know you will be successful.
“It is always about the number of times of you get up; it’s never about the number of times you fall down.” -Modification of famous multicultural proverb.
Love BIG goals and embrace them. They will make you better even if you don't reach them exactly.
Outside forces are never the challenge. Being your best is the ultimate challenge and we can do it when we set our minds right.
Before we can eat a great meal, we must set the table. Enjoy setting the table and be thankful for your hunger being satisfied before you get to eat.
“I’ve got a plan, I gonna find out just how boring I am and have a good time.”
-John Mayer New Deep (One of my favorite songs of all time.)
I interpret this to mean don’t worry about being cool; just be happy.
“You can turn off the sun, I’m still gonna shine” -Jason Mraz The Remedy
“It’s takes a hole to make a mountain.” -Jason Mraz Life is Wonderful
“To be a prisoner of something means to always be attached to it. Be a prisoner of hope.”
Joel Osteen
“There comes a time in everyone’s life when all you can see are the years passing by and I have made up my mind that those days are gone.”-Rascal Flatts I’m Movin’ On
“I can’t sleep, I’m dreaming way too loud.” -Eli Young Band So Close Now
“You do know that any time you decide you want to be different you can just start, right?” - John Mayer via Twitter March 1st 2009
I hope you enjoyed this experiment. I would like to do this more often because I feel sometimes having the nuggets of inspiration without any further details could be most helpful. Please let me know yeah or nay.
Thank you so much for the continued support! Thanks for reading
Chris
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