This week I thought it would be fun to team up and blog with one of my best friends, Thom Loeffler. Thom and I have had countless adventures together and encourage one another to be dreamers or chance takers. We constantly dream of how to serve others and glorify God in all we do. Seven weeks ago, I scribbled about taking a leap of faith and pursuing what you are passionate for after we both attended the Storyline conference in San Diego. I would like to revisit this topic because, in a way, Thom is a good example of someone who took a leap of faith and still is in pursuit of his hopes. After visiting Haiti with a local church in 2010, he quickly discovered that he had a spot in his heart for orphans in an undeveloped country. After returning home from his travels and trying the whole go to school and get an education thing, he could not find comfort; his heart was still in Haiti. Instead of ignoring the problem, he found a solution and packed up his belongings and headed for Haiti. He then spent the last 3 years there living among Haitians, serving the fatherless and helping others who had a heart like his care for those orphans. One thing he noticed was the pride some Americans have when they came to visit. It is not rocket science to know that the citizens of Haiti have it different and they do not have access to some or most of the things we do. Is that necessarily wrong? Should we get them to adapt to our ways of living? ABSOLUTELY NOT! During the 3 years Thom lived there, he humbled himself in this response and had a new vision to stop world hunger by returning to America to open a restaurant with a one for one meal concept. Even though he is still in the beginning stage of this journey, he constantly trying to make his vision become a reality. Here are some words of wisdom of a man I am blessed to call my brother:
-Cowboy Jack
Stop Living in the “ER”
I’m a working class citizen by day, an aspiring entrepreneur by night and a full time dreamer. The truth is I suck at three out of three of those things. It’s because I spend too much time in the “ER” with the rest of us. And to be honest I don’t think there’s too much space left in the waiting room.
Now I’m not talking about that dreaded place of worry, germs, battle scars and high prices. Instead I’m talking about OUR hunger. Our hunger for things that seem biggER, fastER, hippER and cheapER than the things we already have. The “ER” is where excess thrives and where genuine dreams go to die.
It’s 2014, I believe we are both blessed and cursed to live in 2014. Just think of all the great things that we have that we didn’t years ago and most of these things are a result of people not living and spending too much time in the “ER.” Great! Right? Wrong,
The problem with this is we are living to compete with comparison. To catch up. To stay ahead. That new car your friend has? Great! Now you want newER! That killer new position your co-worker just landed? Ugh. You wanted it now you want bettER! The story is everywhere and it’s all the same.
Now how does this kill dreams? Well the dream of our generation is unfortunately the praise of success by excess and all its fanfare - too much time going after the ER and not focusing on what matters.
It’s easy to dream because no one really fails at it until you start living those dreams with your eyes open. We start with big aspirations followed by huge steps like moving or quitting our jobs because that seems to be the thing that dreamers do, see in our dreams we don’t fail nor do we take baby-steps to get there. By taking cues from other people, we jeopardize our full potential.
-Thom
Now that you've heard from Thom, what do you think? Let's discuss!
