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Ask your heart "What do you want?" What does it say and what are you going to do about it?
This is the question I have posed upon my heart over and over as I went through college and even more so now that I am done (even though I intend on doing more). To answer this question I have to focus on my purest desire with no mention of the word risk, failure, or content. Though I do think it is good to be content, I don't like the word that much lately. I somewhat fear that contentment can easily set us up to become a hollow shell of a man. Where once existed fire and passion now is a glass eyed mirror of yesterday's dreams with the label of content. I prefer to be content with living in desire; living in inches of being consumed by fire. To take in all the beauty that the eyes can bear to see before welling up with so much wonderment all is fuzzy and disappears. So what do I want?
I'm going to paraphrase Thoreau here... rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth. (Into the wild)
I want what maybe many men are afraid to want. I want to be the uncommon man, the man who comes in from the garage early, the man who plays with his kids as if he once was one. I want to walk in faith and trust, living in peace with my partner. In short, I want to be a family man. It is with humor many of you knew this before I did. It is as I often say (humor intended) that beneath this man mountain of rugged handsome awesomeness lays a gentle giant with a heart of gold and fist of steel. To love willingly, protect fiercely, and forgive quickly. I think we all knew I was a big softy long before I was able to admit it. I want to be David, the man after God's own heart. If my time in this life is training for the next life I want to live with desire. Not the desire that sends people spiraling into credit card debt but the kind that makes fathers skip the man trip to spend the weekend finding the perfect wood for the fort (or God willing a castle) that needs to be built. I want to be a man's man with my friends having the perfect amount of Coronas from time to time, and to have a little lemonade with my beauty in the hammock.
This is all great and fine but what about a job? Therein lays the hard part. I can't talk all I want about my desire to create the family I never had; to raise healthy and happy children, but a career is a whole different story. I cannot turn the wheels of the economy or create a market where there is none. In a true ironic fashion my downfall is that I am passionate about too many things to hone in on one career path. It is a paradox. What I don't want is to trade that fire for chrome and linen. I don't want a 100k yearly salary in exchange for my soul.
I am content with walking in desire towards a path, of a career that has reward and brings me joy, and a family I can love and protect, I may walk forever and never get those things. But I hope that if that is the case and those things are not for me that I walked in desire and never gave up or settled for a glassy eyed contentment.
So in the last post I asked you to ask yourself what you wanted. Were you honest with yourself or did you mask your real desire with something more attainable?
What did you come up with? -DH-
"We need to know who we are and if we have what it takes. What do we do now with the ultimate question? Where do we go to find an answer? In order to help you find the answer to The Question, let me ask you another: What have you done with your question? Where have you taken in? You see, a man's core question does not go away."
John Eldredge, Wild at Heart
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