20th Anniversary

It's the moment you never thought you wanted, more details to follow.


Today, July 25, 2012 is the twentieth anniversary of my becoming a legal adult.  That's right it's my birthday!  In the spirit of the upcoming Hobbit movie, I wanted to give all 3 of my readers a gift.


So, here it is.


Wisdom from 20 years as an adult, for free. 


(And a big announcement in the end, that doesn't mean scroll to the end, you'll want to earn this announcement by reading EVERYTHING. Trust me.)

• CHANGE YOUR OWN OIL - When I learned how to drive, my Dad showed me how to change a tire and change the oil in my car.  It's cheaper and in his immortal words, "That way you'll know it's done right."  Learn how to take care of your stuff.  With the help of message boards, youtube videos, and websites I've fixed my car, our AC unit, our washer and our dryer.  With all of the knowledge we have at our fingertips, take advantage of it and be self-sufficient in taking care of your things. 
•  LIVE THE GOLDEN RULE - Looking back on my 18th birthday, I see that my 18 year old self and my 38 year old self had two different understandings of the concept of what made someone have great spiritual stature. There were things that I thought were absolute truth when I was 18 that I've come to understand are completely false.  For instance, I believed that certain social behaviors were complete, infallible signs of someone's lack of understanding of spiritual matters.  I believed that if a person used certain words, consumed certain beverages or watched certain movies that they were unregenerate, low down dirty scum and I felt pity for them. Now, I'm more of the mind that how someone treats another human being is a far better indicator of their spiritual state. The way a person treats a waiter, a cashier, their spouse, their kids, their co-workers, their employees, or their boss says, to me, everything about their spiritual walk.  I don't care how much theology they've studied, if they're inconsiderate of others, they fail the test.  Don't fail the test, love others, serve others, be kind.
• MAKE FRIENDS - We moved a lot while growing up, so I didn't really have close friends until college. In high school I hung out with some people but we never really shared life. Since I turned 18, I've been blessed to have several folks I consider close, true friends.  People that I could call at 3 am and if I needed them they would be there.  These are important people to have in your world.  Life is rough and unpredictable, your school, job, boss, pastor will let you down, make sure you have people you can count on in those situations.  If you're reading this and you're one of those handful of people whom I call friend, thank you.  Also, be a friend, don't just take someone else's friendship, give friendship to others.  It's risky and you'll probably get hurt at some point, but  C. S. Lewis said that the only place we are safe from the perils of love, is Hell.
• DON'T TOLERATE BULLYING - Bullying is in the news just about everywhere nowadays and it's definitely something that needs to be addressed.  I haven't spoken about this to many people, but I feel like I need to share.  I was a victim of bullying pretty much from 6th grade through High School.  Name calling, physical abuse and some of it could be classified as sexual abuse.  For a long time, this clouded my perceptions of people.  It took a while to trust people and begin to share my thoughts and feelings with others.  In some ways I'm still healing from some of those names and situations.  If you find yourself in a situation where someone is trying to take advantage of you, use you, or abuse you, leave it.  Maybe not forever, but for that time you need to get out of it and I don't care who the person is, a spouse, a friend, boss, pastor, separate yourself from that person until you can deal with it on a level playing field.  Get a mediator involved, just don't put yourself in a place of persistent hurt.
• GET UP, STAND UP - We all have baggage, I just shared with you some of mine.  It makes me so sad to interact with people that continue to live with their baggage, waiting on someone or something else to take care of it for them.  It's called having a 'victim mentality' and I think it pervades more of our of culture than we think.  I had an episode earlier this year with my blood pressure and I'm now on medicine.  Now, I can get mad at my genes for causing this, at McDonald's for serving me bad, sodium-rich food, at the gym for being too expensive, and at my job for being too stressful.  Or I can look at the situation I'm in, get up off my rear, and do something about it.  If I wait on someone else to fix my high blood pressure, to give me a better job, to make me a better spouse, parent, citizen, I'll be waiting a long time.  Don't wait, do something, right now, today.

Hopefully those lessons are helpful to you.  If not, well, forgive me.


And for those of you who've made it this far, here's the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

Since I was 4, I've loved to draw.  I started learning how to paint when I was 13 and fell in love with oil painting.  I went to the other side of the continent at 18 to learn more about painting.  And then I got a job in retail.  Now, my retail job has paid the bills for a while now and I'm thankful for the opportunity to provide for my family, I LIKE my job, but I LOVE to paint.  So I thought rather than wait until something happens with my painting, why not do something about it.  So today I'm launching my own store where you, yes, you can purchase a piece of me, of my art.  I know this won't replace my day job, but part of the artist's satisfaction in creating art is in sharing the art.  So here's the link to the store, it's under construction and I hope to add more pieces as they come about over the next few weeks.  Stay tuned.


Adam's store


If you like something buy it, if you want something let me know about. I'm open to commissions and finding new ways to make folks happy with something for their walls.


Thanks for reading this far, man, you're a trooper.  Have a great one!


Peace,
Adam