Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up
Navigating Twenty-Something Suburban Life
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Guest Post: The Potent Power of Pursuing Your Passion
One of my favorite things about blogging is the people I meet because of my blog experiences. Take for example, Peter Normandia from Yin vs. Yang. I discovered him through Jonathon Mead over at Illuminated Mind. Peter isn’t necessarily someone I would discover on my own but because of connecting with other people through the words they share, I now have the chance to share with you a guest post by Peter. Enjoy!
I do not have all the answers, or possibly even any, but I do know what my past experiences have shown is key to living a good, satisfying life.
It all starts with following your passion.
I believe I am probably most passionate about being creative. Be it film, business strategies, web applications, camp programs, blogging, or making marketing videos, if I am creating, I am happy. There is nothing better for me than creating something no one else could have ever possibly made exactly the same. It gives me a great sense of pride and accomplishment.
I believe this to be true for everyone.
It is natural to feel this way as a human being. It does not matter if you create football plays, Jiu Jitsu moves, a school curriculum, happiness, cinnamon rolls, better employees, poems, home runs or the best pooper scooper in the world. If you are creating, you are going to have a deep sense of pride. You are going to have something that you can call your own. Something no one can ever take from you. Hence, the incredible sense of accomplishment.
Even look at the change over the years in the pride people put into their work. Things that were handcrafted were always better than the counterparts from the factories. They just were not made fast enough. So factories won out and the Industrial Age was born. Unfortunately, lost in the work was the pride and sense of accomplishment of someone passionate about what they are building. Instead, you had people screwing in one screw 5,000 times a day. Hard to find passion in that I would imagine.
What do you create?
I live for the butterflies I get before revealing my latest creation. It’s what drives me to get through the tough part of creating it in the first place. Having a great idea is one thing. Executing it to its completion is the real accomplishment.
That’s why creating something gives everyone such a sense of pride. Like a real tough day at the gym, you made it through the work load. Instead of giving up, you pushed yourself to reach your goal. It is not easy to travel a path no one has before you. It is not easy to risk failure without a scapegoat. It is certainly not easy to go out on your own. These are all of the reasons people wind up giving up their passions.
I know, because I once gave up mine.
When I graduated film school, I took a year to try and become a writer/director. One year, that’s it. Then, because I was getting married, and desperate to start my adult life, I completely put my dream on hold to get a job in the hot mortgage industry. Two years later, we all know how that went. However, it’s not because of that. I could have done something else and been very successful in terms of finances. It still would not have been my passion.
We have one life that we all are guaranteed. The rest is up for debate, and unfortunately, I’m not sure if we will ever have all the answers. So for this one life we do get, we really owe it to ourselves to get the most out of it. Be yourself, live your passion, and give the world what it has never experienced before:
You.
My experience has clearly showed me that living your passion beats building up your bank account, keeping up with the Jones’, or looking the part of success. Whenever I am feeling down, I just go back and look at some of the things I have created. It always lifts my spirits, and gives me the energy I need to continue on.
As the great blogger Steve Pavlina recently tweeted on twitter,
” What are you doing to contribute to the lives of others? If the answer is little or nothing, that explains why your finances are suffering.”
Think about what you are passionate about. Think about the joy you get out of it. Think of the job you would be able to do if you could just do what you were most passionate about. When you’re done smiling from the thought, think about how warm it made you feel inside. Now, think why on Earth you are not doing that.
Then answer this question in the comments section…
Are those reasons more important than getting the most out of your life, and subsequently becoming a better person for everyone?
Guest Post: Disconnection and Suburban Poverty
Today’s guest post was written by Gary Alloway. Gary is a graduate of Penn State and Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also a part time pastor at The Well. Hassling Gary is a hobby for Brian and I (more so for me, Brian might just be along for the ride) - at the moment, my favorite thing to hassle him is whether he is Gen X or Gen Y and his preference for Bright Eyes.
This is the first of two posts by Gary about suburban poverty. I hope it makes you a little uncomfortable and I hope it makes you want to change something.
When most people think of poverty in America, they think urban or rural. Yet more than half of those in poverty in America live in suburbia. Bucks County (where I live) is one of the wealthiest counties in Pennsylvania, yet 5% of the county lives below the poverty line. While the problems of suburban poverty often mirror those of the city, the defining characteristic of suburban poverty is disconnection.
In suburbia, communities do not function as integrated units. We do not know the neighbors. We rarely walk anywhere in the community. We do not know who owns the stores in which we shop. Public places, such as parks, community centers, or local cafes, almost never serve as meeting points. As a result, all of our relational encounters are voluntary. And birds of a feather flock together. To the middle class, the poor become invisible. We do not see them, hear them, or know them. Most people in suburbia are ignorant of the poverty in their own backyard. It is common for churches and other community organizations to seek to help the poor, driving past the budget motel and the low-end apartment complex on their way to the inner-city.
Because we are disconnected from those in poverty, we do not build communities that accommodate the poor. Low-income housing is neglected in favor of faceless high-end housing that will increase the tax base (as though someone who buys a characterless house on a characterless street in a characterless town will have a great investment in the community). The poor are forced to scrape for housing they cannot afford. Budgets become fragile, making homelessness a real threat. Those who can afford housing often do so by working hours that disconnect them from their families.
When low-income housing is built, it is usually tucked away behind the strip mall or next to the railroad tracks or off the highway; places we drive by at 75 mph and hence, never see. The end result is very small ghettos – pockets of poverty that mirror the worst inner-city neighborhoods, but due to their size and location, are invisible. It is hard to overlook the 25 square miles of poverty in North Philadelphia (though we do our best). It is very easy to overlook the apartment complex. We do not know the poor, so we do build communities that accommodate the poor and their isolation is furthered. Disconnection breeds disconnection.
This disconnection is difficult to overcome because suburbia presumes the automobile. Without a car in suburbia, you are screwed. I work with single parents trying to overcome poverty in Bucks County. Imagine trying to coordinate day care, a job, school, and visits to your case manager when you live in a town where the bus comes once an hour to a stop that is half a mile away. Imagine getting to the grocery store and back. The middle class do not ride public transportation so they do not invest in it. And the bus becomes the ghetto, a small convoy of the poor, disconnected from their community.
Even the most motivated person has trouble overcoming suburban poverty. I used to work at a homeless shelter in downtown Denver and within a ten-minute walk, one could reach the free clinic, the day shelter, the food bank, the social security office, and hundreds of jobs. But while I was there, gentrification was dispersing poverty, pushing the poor into the outer rings of the city and into suburbia. Bucks County has many social programs to help the poor, from welfare to job training programs. But they are disconnected. The locations are disconnected. The organizations are disconnected. Those who take advantage of them will find themselves trying to put together a puzzle of pieces that don’t create a clear picture.
Urban ghettos can be places of immense oppression, where the depth of suffering is palpable. But urban ghettos can also be places where tragedy binds residents together in vibrant community. The suburban poor are more likely to find themselves alone – isolated from communities where prosperity is the norm – a silent anhedonic suffering. Physically, socially, and spiritually, suburban poverty is an experience of disconnection.
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