Live Ourselves Into A New Way of Thinking.

"We do not think ourselves into a new way of living, but we live ourselves into a new way of thinking."
This approach is changing my life - or it is at least changing the way at look at my life - either way, it is having an effect. Because it is rare that one comes across something that actually changes the way that we live. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few times when my approach to living changed, and in every case I had not idea that my life was changing, only that I was following the path that my life was taking. But at some point I woke up and realized my thinking had changed dramatically about most everything. I had lived myself into a new way of thinking.

My list goes something like this:
*In the 8th Grade I decided that I no longer wanted to try drugs/massive alcohol consumption/etc. My Dad and I had a long and influential talk about making hard choices and sticking to your guns.
*Completing my confirmation class at Home Moravian in the 9th grade. I met amazing people, began to build a community, started journaling, and started to understand faith in things that I could not see.
*Traveling to Europe for a month with my high school friends, when I was 17. I returned to North Carolina believing in myself, and believing that I could do anything that I wanted to do.
*Having our children. This is actually the defining moment of my life. Like Dionysius Exiguus in 525, I now date my history as BC (before children) or WC (with children). It changed so much about me, that I can not begin to list it all.

Throughout all of this, I have spent most of my time thinking, thinking, and thinking. I mean, it makes sense that I would have a journal/blog to document both the reflection and the philosophy behind so much of what I do. But nowadays, I am learning that at times I have spent way too much energy thinking, and not nearly enough energy in the doing. I am learning that for most things that matter in my life it is not about acquiring more information, and it is certainly not about acquiring knowledge for the sake of knowledge. For me, it is about living a life, and taking what they give you. . .ya know, "living myself into a new way of thinking."

I was telling Jessica just last night, that I really believe that most beautiful things are simple things. Like great songs, good stories, amazing sports plays, children, pictures, houses, faces, etc - the simpler the better in many cases. And for those who create beautiful things - I doubt that they sit around and think their way into that beauty. It is not that we do not have a vision for something before we attempt it - but in most cases, especially in art, we just follow our hearts - and wake up to something beautiful that we have created. As far as stories, we write what we know. As far as athletes making amazing plays - they have to take what is given. Visually, we paint what we want to see. And it is beautiful in the end. And we are touched by it, and we walk away seeing our world differently.

Jessica and I knew that we wanted to have children, we had thought about it a lot. But we could not know what kind of children they would be, and we certainly could not know how these children would change everything about us as individuals. We were simply open to the adventure. We bought the one way ticket and took our chances. And now we are new people. And nothing looks the same to us anymore.

We live ourselves into new ways of thinking.

How about you?