A dear friend told me once about a mission trip she took to Nicaragua. She said that one of the things that struck her the most was the way the people treated visitors to their homes. The areas of the country they were visiting were exceptionally poor, with residents living in basic dirt-floor shacks and spending the majority of their days trying to survive and feed their families. Regardless of how little they had or how little they had eaten, when a visitor came by their home they stopped what they were doing and brought out the folding plastic lawn chairs. They all sat together in the meager accommodations and talked. When the visitor left, the folding chairs were put away and the struggle to survive resumed. Instead of focusing on what they did or didn't have to offer from a material perspective, these people focused on their visitors and freely offered something far more precious: their time and attention.
My friend may not realize this, but she lives this way herself. She may have a home with carpet and tile and wood flooring and she may have creature comforts that the people of Nicaragua can't possibly imagine, but she will drop whatever she's doing and invest time and attention (that she doesn't have to spare according to the standards of most Americans) in anyone that genuinely asks it of her. And you know what she creates when she does this? She creates relationships that have meaning to both people. She creates a feeling of self-worth in her friends. People that interact with her for any amount of time feel valued and loved. She teaches me daily by example that people are worth creating meaningful relationships with.
There is another image that comes to mind when I think of a folding chair. This image is of my husband, who owns a CrossFit gym. I have many memories of him bringing a folding fabric chair into the middle of the gym floor to either sit and watch (read: coach) others working on their weightlifting or sit to rest between his own weightlifting sets. My husband has always been kinda competitive by nature and until recently wasn't known as being particularly patient either. I have watched him over the last few years create his own coaching style and help athletes create the best version of themselves possible. He teaches me daily by example that while it isn't always easy, and you aren't ever finished, working to create the best version of yourself possible is a worthwhile investment.
Interestingly enough, my husband (from this point forward referred to as "Punk") lost his jobby-job in July. He was a District Manager for a large big-box sporting goods chain. He was great at his job. His job provided us with enough money that we were at a stage of life in which we didn't lack anything we needed or really wanted. The one thing Punk's job didn't provide for our family was a lot of time to be together. We started to use "stuff" as a way to fill the void. Supporting the idea of consumerism that supported us, I suppose. Thankfully, some of the void-filling stuff came in the form of a CrossFit gym and all the equipment in it.
Punk didn't have much time to invest in the company he created prior to July. He was so busy being consumed on all sides by consumerism. When that fateful day came at the beginning of summer, he suddenly had a lot more time on his hands. He spent the first two months or so sending out resumes and looking for the next best thing that wouldn't require uprooting our family from North Carolina to California or Mississippi or Texas or some other might-as-well-be-a-foreign-country place. While they aren't plastic or fabric or folding, we pulled out our dining table chairs almost nightly and had the most meaningful conversations we'd had in quite some time. I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but it happened that the resumes were no longer being sent. Phone calls from recruiters were no longer being entertained. Somewhere along the line Punk decided that he would be happier running the business he created and signing both sides of his check than going back to the hyper corporate world of retail consumerism. I would like to think that our dining table conversations played a part in that decision somewhere along the way. I am thrilled that THIS is now our plan A with no fallback plan in sight. I am excited to see where this journey takes us next and grateful for all the people the gym has brought into our lives. Punk is teaching me daily by example that something worth creating is something worth fighting for and deserves to be nurtured.
My last mental image of a folding chair is the most recent. I tend to enjoy right-brain activities. I KNOW, right? Who knew? My problem is finishing them. I have exactly nine blog drafts at the moment, an unfinished painting on my easel, the perfect puppy-to-be in mind, and notecards on my computer that I've been needing to finalize and send to the printer for...I dunno...a couple of years? I have had multitudinous diversions keep me from my artistic pursuits over the years. Some of them have been important and others admittedly not so much. I recently surmised that I might be inclined to sit at my easel for longer periods of time if I had something more comfortable to sit on than the hard wooden swivel stool I had been using. Turns out I was right. Wanna know what fit the bill? A folding pack chair! Much more comfortable. And portable. This year I want to focus on allowing my desire to create override my fear of no one appreciating my creations. I want to teach myself daily, by example, that creativity is not bound by proximity and that if the creation satisfies the creator--that is enough.
If, in my process this year, one person is positively impacted by a concept, relationship, feeling, art piece, or any other creation of mine then that will be far more valuable than any cost of any good required to create any of it. So now I challenge you: where can you fit a folding chair into your plan this year? What will you use it to create?
There is another image that comes to mind when I think of a folding chair. This image is of my husband, who owns a CrossFit gym. I have many memories of him bringing a folding fabric chair into the middle of the gym floor to either sit and watch (read: coach) others working on their weightlifting or sit to rest between his own weightlifting sets. My husband has always been kinda competitive by nature and until recently wasn't known as being particularly patient either. I have watched him over the last few years create his own coaching style and help athletes create the best version of themselves possible. He teaches me daily by example that while it isn't always easy, and you aren't ever finished, working to create the best version of yourself possible is a worthwhile investment.
Interestingly enough, my husband (from this point forward referred to as "Punk") lost his jobby-job in July. He was a District Manager for a large big-box sporting goods chain. He was great at his job. His job provided us with enough money that we were at a stage of life in which we didn't lack anything we needed or really wanted. The one thing Punk's job didn't provide for our family was a lot of time to be together. We started to use "stuff" as a way to fill the void. Supporting the idea of consumerism that supported us, I suppose. Thankfully, some of the void-filling stuff came in the form of a CrossFit gym and all the equipment in it.
Punk didn't have much time to invest in the company he created prior to July. He was so busy being consumed on all sides by consumerism. When that fateful day came at the beginning of summer, he suddenly had a lot more time on his hands. He spent the first two months or so sending out resumes and looking for the next best thing that wouldn't require uprooting our family from North Carolina to California or Mississippi or Texas or some other might-as-well-be-a-foreign-country place. While they aren't plastic or fabric or folding, we pulled out our dining table chairs almost nightly and had the most meaningful conversations we'd had in quite some time. I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but it happened that the resumes were no longer being sent. Phone calls from recruiters were no longer being entertained. Somewhere along the line Punk decided that he would be happier running the business he created and signing both sides of his check than going back to the hyper corporate world of retail consumerism. I would like to think that our dining table conversations played a part in that decision somewhere along the way. I am thrilled that THIS is now our plan A with no fallback plan in sight. I am excited to see where this journey takes us next and grateful for all the people the gym has brought into our lives. Punk is teaching me daily by example that something worth creating is something worth fighting for and deserves to be nurtured.
My last mental image of a folding chair is the most recent. I tend to enjoy right-brain activities. I KNOW, right? Who knew? My problem is finishing them. I have exactly nine blog drafts at the moment, an unfinished painting on my easel, the perfect puppy-to-be in mind, and notecards on my computer that I've been needing to finalize and send to the printer for...I dunno...a couple of years? I have had multitudinous diversions keep me from my artistic pursuits over the years. Some of them have been important and others admittedly not so much. I recently surmised that I might be inclined to sit at my easel for longer periods of time if I had something more comfortable to sit on than the hard wooden swivel stool I had been using. Turns out I was right. Wanna know what fit the bill? A folding pack chair! Much more comfortable. And portable. This year I want to focus on allowing my desire to create override my fear of no one appreciating my creations. I want to teach myself daily, by example, that creativity is not bound by proximity and that if the creation satisfies the creator--that is enough.
If, in my process this year, one person is positively impacted by a concept, relationship, feeling, art piece, or any other creation of mine then that will be far more valuable than any cost of any good required to create any of it. So now I challenge you: where can you fit a folding chair into your plan this year? What will you use it to create?
