My theme for 25 was reading. I didn’t set any goals for how many books I wanted to finish, I just wanted reading to become a part of my life again — I think I stopped reading for fun…wow…it was a long time ago. Anyway, I had been keeping a list of books to read, so I just picked one that sounded interesting and ran with it.

I think the first book I finished last year was The Silence of Adam. I don’t remember the order of the rest of them, but I did end up finishing about 10 books (and I’m getting close on #11). When I’d finish a book, I would move it to the bottom of the list — to kind of serve as a reminder of what I’d read recently. I also ended up dividing my “to read” list into books that I had on hand, and books that I had yet to buy. This helped me quickly pick a book that I wanted to read — like, say Velvet Elvis — right before hopping on a flight out west.

I’m planning to keep my reading list updated (even though the one on this blog is not), and a couple of the books that I hope to start over the next year are No Man is an Island by Thomas Merton and The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman (that one looks intimidating, it’s so thick).

The thing I’ve tried to allow myself to do while reading — which has helped a ton — is simply stop when a book starts to lose my interest. Being a stubborn, goal oriented person, this was a little difficult to do at first. The way I look at it now though, is that if I’m really reading for fun, it shouldn’t seem like a chore to finish off the last hundred pages of some rambling summary and analysis. Instead, when I lose interest in a book I just stop and move on to another one on my list that happens to pique my interest.

So, with my birthday rapidly approaching (actually, here today) I’m sort of still working on a theme for 26. As of right now, I think it will be related to a few things I learned while reading Becoming Who You Are. But hopefully I’ll get it figured out in the next week or so.

Some of my favorite time sinks are perusing the latest headlines on ESPN or CNN, checking a few news feeds (including Dilbert) in Google Reader, playing a round of sudoku, or checking the hit counter and referrals to my other (more frequently updated) blog.

None of these activities are totally without value, but I do think I could stand to do them about 90% less often.

There are quite a few tricks or hacks that I’ve tried in the past to limit the amount of time I spend on these time wasters. Among them:

• Declaring a “news fast” or taking a week off of Google Reader
• Deciding in advance that I’ll only check certain sites at certain times
• Only allow myself to waste time after accomplishing at least 30 minutes of work, especially when I’m putting things off

And earlier today I stumbled across another little hack, which I’m going to try more often: the hack of substitution. Really what I’m looking for when I want to check the latest headlines is some sort of mental stimulation, some sort of distraction. So if there’s something more productive that I can distract myself with when that urge comes, I figure I’ll come out ahead.

Most recently I’ve substituted scripture memory for the urge to check the news. And you know what? It’s working. I get that same sort of release by taking 5 minutes to review a passage as I do when I take 5 (or 20) minutes to review the latest news.

The trick now is retraining my mind to go for something better than what it’s been conditioned to go for. We’ll see how that works out…

So I went to this tailgate party with a bunch of other grad students. I only knew a few people there, so it was a nice opportunity to meet other grad students and find out what they were in to. I struck up a conversation with a few different people and got to know them — just getting the basic facts about where they were from, what they studied, etc.

One conversation in particular stands out in my mind, mainly because it was in this conversation that I realized that I wasn’t really listening to what other people were saying. Here’s how the conversation went down (after the introductions):

Me: So what do you study?
Random Guy #1: I came here to study ______ (some field that I’ve never heard of before and can’t remember the name of).
Me: Oh, that’s cool.
RG1: Do you know what ______ is?
Me: No.

And so he went on to explain what it was he was studying, and why he came to Purdue to study it. The thing that bugged me was that my response (“Oh that’s cool”) was completely scripted and I wasn’t really listening to what he said. Sure, I was paying attention, but to be honest it was as if I didn’t truly care what he was studying — it was as if I didn’t care about him.

So I’ve been thinking about what it really means to love others, to truly be interested in them and who they are. I don’t have it figured out, but I do know that it involves more than surface conversations in which I’m only half engaged and half interested in the responses.

The occasion that I’m speaking about was actually the subject of my last blog entry (I know, it’s been forever since I’ve written here). But I’ve been thinking a lot about that experience and what I learned from it. It opened my eyes to the fact there are many instances during a normal day when I’ll have the desire to do something, but for whatever reason will restrain myself. Most of the time I think the reason is that I’m unsure of how others will respond — or what the outcome of my actions will be.

I’ve begun to realize that I’ve created a sort of safety net for myself and my reputation by “filtering” everything that I say and do. Any time I act on instinct, there’s this area of the unknown that I enter into. In reality the unknown is always there — we never know what will really happen — but I like to think that I can control it.

So what’s the word? Inhibited. Another good word would be filtered, but most of the time when you filter something it implies that what was filtered out was bad–and I’m not sure that’s the case…

While making plans to be spontaneous may sound a little odd, it was a lot of fun! I gave myself the freedom to act without thinking at least once during the week. At first this was a bit difficult, because I like to think through everything I do. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it took awhile for me to get used to looking for opportunities to be spontaneous — and it’s not so much looking for opportunities (you’re not supposed to try to be spontaneous) as it is being open to the urge to pursue them.

So a couple weeks ago as I was walking back from the gym I noticed a group of students standing outside of a cooperative house a few blocks from my apartment. The students were holding up signs and recruiting people to something, and my first reaction was to cross to the other side of the street (so as not to be recruited . When I realized that they were collecting shoes for Haiti, my first thought was to go back home and give them a pair, because I have a lot of shoes…way too many shoes for a guy — seriously, I’m pushing like 14 or 15 pairs. And while that includes one pair for every major sport, I have more than a few pairs to spare.

My second thought was that the apartment was a long way off and I might as well give them the shoes I was wearing. Here’s where it gets interesting. The part of me that likes to think things through told me that I should go back to the apartment first and decide if I really wanted to give away my shoes. After some evaluation, I mused, I could decide that I need all 15 pairs that I have — besides, based on the number of shoes scattered in the yard, it looked like the students had quite a haul anyway. What’s one more pair of shoes?

It was at this point that I stopped myself and realized that this was a perfect opportunity to be spontaneous. So I began walking toward the tent and students, prepared to do just what I had first thought of doing. And I walked home barefoot.

I used to think this was cheesy but I’m beginning to come around to the idea. We only have so many years on this planet, so why shouldn’t I be intentional about what I do with my time while I’m here?

That said, picking a theme for an entire year of life sounds intimidating and difficult. When Brandon does it, it’s implementing a habit or lifestyle change that will last the rest of his life. That’s way too much commitment for me. What if I don’t like my theme? Just a year is a good start I think.

So this year I’m making my theme reading. We’ll see how it works out. I’d like to read 10 books during this, my 26th year of existence, which would be 9 more than I read last year. I’ve already finished one, which is the NOW Habit. Because the book is all about not procrastinating, I’ll post my thoughts on it later.

This got me thinking: Am I a passionate person? I don’t think so, but I’d like to be. Passionate people are totally sold out, “all in” on whatever they’re passionate about. I like to play it conservative so that I’ll come out at least a little bit ahead — in the stock market they call that “diversification”. I call it a net gain of zero.

What does it take to have passion? Do people decide to become passionate? Or is it a sort of personality thing? Can people just be passionate in general?

I’ve met a few passionate people in my lifetime, and passion is not simply intensity, feelings, or being strong-willed or hyperactive, Passion involves sincerity, deep desire, thought, emotion, abandon, and a million other characteristics. Most of all, a person’s passion is tied to something. What am I passionate about?

So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Here’s what I’ll probably be posting about in the next couple weeks:

• Reflections on my 25 years of existence
• Passion
• Indifference
• Final thoughts on The Now Habit
• Colossians 2:6

That’s not a firm list, but maybe by putting them here I’ll be more apt to follow through on writing about them. So, Ned, there you go. Now get off my back

So I wouldn’t say I have a severe problem with procrastination.  I guess the reason I bought the book (other than a recommendation) was because I never feel like doing work NOW.  Work always seems better tomorrow, when there’s more time to finish and perfect everything.

But anyway, I’m enjoying the book so far and thought I’d share a few reasons I’ve discovered why I put things off.

I think of doing everything at once

Or more accurately, I think of finishing.  Thinking of finishing isn’t a bad thing, but sometimes the finish line seems so far away that it’s discouraging and I don’t want to start.  To compensate, I’m trying to simply think of starting instead.

There’s not enough time

This is related to the previous one.  Often I’ll have a free 20 or 30 minutes but won’t want to start on a big project because I know I won’t be able to finish it.  That’s the big reason I haven’t done much with this blog.  Every time I think of a post to write, I feel like I need a solid hour to get it done.  In reality I probably don’t need that long, as long as I avoid the next pitfall…

I try to do everything perfectly

In theory it seems like a good idea to just get the first draft out there and then continue to make progress from there, but I really don’t want to release anything that’s half-baked.  That said, it’s unproductive for me to piddle away for an hour perfecting something that took about 30 minutes to start.  Ordinarily I probably wouldn’t be posting this right now (it took me about 15 minutes to type up) but I thought I’d begin applying some of what I’ve been learning.

It ain’t perfect, but it’s a start.

The last morning I was in St. Louis I went down to the lobby of our hotel to pick up a boxed complimentary breakfast for myself and the three other people in my room. My intent was to get four boxes, but when it came down to it, I was afraid to ask for any more than one.

Why was I afraid? I think it was because I knew there was a chance of rejection, or getting a “you must be crazy” look. It sounds silly, but I had to go back to ask for a second box. Of course the hotel staff were more than happy to give me a second box, but as I was walking away one of the workers asked me if I only needed two.

“Well, I have three roommates” (I think it’s funny that I didn’t answer with a firm “yes” or “no”).

This is where the lady behind the counter decided she’d take the opportunity to teach me a lesson.

“Well why didn’t you ask for it? Come here. Look at me, I want you to learn from this. If you want something, you gotta ask for it. You never get what you want if you don’t ask for it.”

Such a simple lesson, yet one that I can probably apply every day for the rest of my life.