Stardate: -316027.15

With today being the first Wednesday since August that I did not work, I find myself loving my new flexible schedule. There's something about working 30 or 40 hours a week that really seems to stifle my passion for living, my God-given creative approach to existence.

I'm not necessarily saying that I won't ever work full-time in one job again (though I admit the thought is appealing at the moment). What I am saying is, I want to feel challenged, to have a daily realization that my life is not boring, that each day can bring it's own unique sense of 'interestingness'. I want the freedom that for me, to some extent, is inversely proportional to how much I feel like a slave to my schedule, to my overriding responsibilities.

I'm not saying that I want to be free of overriding responsibilities; rather, I'm saying that I want my everpresent, all-important responsibility to be following God, and loving people, and somehow aligning everything in my life to fulfill that responsibility. Perhaps you might think that I'm just caught in the quarterlife crisis, and having a streak of optimism that enables me to see the silver lining in impending change. However, I think my 'problem' is much more severe than that. I don't want to settle into anything immediately, and so dull that inner feeling that drives me to move, to innovate, to morph. Certainly, I'll commit to things involving schedule, family, friends, and spiritual life. But in all that, I hope to continue dreaming, and praying, and really doing both of those as one action.

I suppose the crux of what I'm talking about can be described by something I actually do periodically. I'll take a notebook pad, or perhaps just a couple sheets of paper, and I'll write down some combination of two categories: Where I am today, and where I would possibly like to be in a month, or six months, or two years. The backbone of this exercise for me is brutal honesty, and absolute freedom to dream. Nothing is off-limits. Nothing is unchangeable. Nothing is impossible.

Wherever I may be right now, I look at every area of my life critically. Where do I want my spiritual life to be? Do I want to have memorized another chapter of the Bible? Do I want to be on worship team at church? Do I want to read five spiritual classics? What about my friendships? Do I want new friends? Do I want a group that I can hang out with once a week? Who in particular would I like to know better, to hang out with more?

My point is, if I'm going to be a God-inspired optimist, then I'm going to be one who dreams, makes goals, works towards those goals, and later looks back and marvels at what God and I did together. God is much too radical and innovative for me to sit on my hands and think about what might be, what He is capable of doing in my life, yet not actually take steps and move towards the horizon.

Then I'll get another notebook pad, and I'll do it again.