The Quarter Life : Career

It is time, time for the next installment of The Quarter Life. If you aren't familiar with The Quarter Life, visit the first installment here on my blog, and here on Aaron's blog. The second installments can be found here and here. Aaron's new blog on career should be up shortly. Read that here. Caught up? Read on.

Aaron said this would be challenging. Of course it will be. What am I supposed to do here, offer up advice on a career decision? I don’t know if I can do that.

I can tell you I love writing. By deciding that I would like to write for a career I made a logical decision by connecting my love to a potential career. I think I picked an illogical career though. I say this because, like many things one can become, you don’t become a writer, in terms of a career, just by going to a university and receiving a BA, an MFA, or a Ph.D. Instead of initials after a name, a writer seems to be forged by years of living in poverty, being broke, overcoming a drug addiction or defeating alcoholism, and spending years of his or her life in solitary confinement, mentally speaking. And then there is the nagging question: am I any good at this, or am I completely wasting my time?

I was just watching Chariots of Fire (1981), a true story, and there is a great scene in which Harold Abrahams is talking to his trainer (played by Ian Holm, as made very famous by his role as Bilbo Baggins) about wanting to be a faster runner. Ian reluctantly agrees to do his best, but adds “We can’t put in what God left out.”

I guess what Ian Holm says strikes a cord in me because I don’t know what God left out in terms of writing talent. I like to think that he didn’t leave much out, but to be honest, I don’t know. And, since I don’t know, and still love writing, I keep on doing it, hoping that years of practice will eventually help me find out if God has put in anything at all.

This thinking ushers in a search for validation, which I try not to seek in my career, but I realize validation is important for me. It helps motivate me. Thinking I am okay or good at something isn’t enough to convince me that I should spend my days reading and writing. Here is some validation I have experienced in the past: an “A” on a paper, a high hit-count on my blog, a community newspaper’s decision to publish my words, and friends and family complimenting me on something I wrote. These are all great forms of confirmation, but I have become hungrier for a different kind of validation.

A regular writing gig. A paycheck directly related to my words. Appealing to strangers, perhaps even acquiring a fan base beyond my intimate circle of friends. These are all lofty achievements that, at my age, would be extremely rare for me to have. Nonetheless, these are some examples of validation that a successful writing career might bring about.

When I think of a career as a writer I usually arrive swiftly at contemplating my validation. Am I any good? Yeah, my mom says she enjoys my writing, but I am her son. Am I pursuing something that is going to bring me to my 60s without one feature length article or book to show for it?

These are the kinds of questions I fend off everyday. Sometimes my doubt runs rampant. I’ll have a whole week to produce something and I don’t. I can’t even seem to write anything worth showing to the public. I flirt with the idea of abandoning the pursuit altogether.

It is during waves of doubt, dryness, and my lust for validation that I realize my love for writing isn’t going to take me to that many places if it remains about me. I become even hungrier for a different kind of validation, but something clicks this time. There needs to be something living and breathing inside my words, something universal. To produce writing like this there needs to be a major harvest on my soul, experiences, and my life. When I sit down with a notepad or a computer and really try to hash it out this way I usually come up with something that at least one of you might relate to. If there is a connection, then I feel like I have done my job.

It is hard to think of writing right now as a career because I am not getting paid for it and I don’t do it forty hours a week. In fact, it probably sounds a lot like a hobby. You could call it that. I guess I won’t take offense. If my hobby turns into my career I would be pretty blessed, and even more fortunate if my readers can relate on a spiritual level to my material, forging a connection we share in a relationship with Jesus or questions of faith, truth, and life.

If I were a Presbyterian missionary people would connect my work to a God that I serve and glorify (hopefully) with the work that I do. I have grown up valuing this connection between my faith and work. So, I would love for people to see in my career something that suggests a higher calling. Don’t get this confused for self affirmation. I want the validation to be directed toward God, hopefully, if I am that lucky, through a little part of my work.

That is the ideal scenario, but what if I end up doing humor writing for a career, how are people going to get some God out of that? And what if I end up reviewing books for a living? Am I going to feel like I should be doing something else to promote the true love I know? No, because regardless of how successful I ever become as a writer, I will know that God made me passionate about words. I believe I am honoring Him by using them.

However, I shouldn’t completely ignore the questions that arise. By answering them I can find a better path or clearer thinking. However, most of that doubt and questioning is going to keep me from the one thing that I want to develop into a career. I once said, on this blog actually, that a man can’t hear much of the world if he spends all his time on it looking for affirmation of himself. I don’t want to waste my time here doing that, but I still really want to write, and if I didn’t write, it would be to deny one of the greatest passions God has put in me.

During a conversation in Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell is trying to convince a friend that he must run in the Olympics (Paris, 1924) first before he goes on to missionary work in China. He says this:

I believe that God made me for a purpose, for China, but he also made me fast and when I run I feel his pleasure. To give that up would be to hold him in contempt. You were right. It’s not just fun. To win, is to honor him.

I can’t say that I am a fabulous writer with as much confidence as Liddell says he is fast, but I do know that to give up now would be to deny what I know for sure God has put in me, a voice.

*After refusing to run the 200m on the Sabbath, a race Eric Liddell could have easily won, he took first in the 400m. He died as a missionary in occupied China following WWII.

The Quarter Life: Romantic Relationships

Round Two of The Quarter Life is here. If you're new to this blog since we started The Quarter Life, I suggest checking out Aaron's first post and mine to see what it is that we're doing up in here.


It is April 6, 2007. I am 78 days out from my wedding. My fiancée and I will be moving to Milwaukee after our honeymoon in July. She is one month away from being a pharmacist. I work at Starbucks. I don’t know what I am going to do in Milwaukee, and I don’t care too much because I am moving there with the person on this earth that I love the most. We have been criticized for having a faith that convinces us that God will provide and that we will remain a strong, cohesive, faithful, and loving married couple despite our inability to foresee any emergency, financial predicament, and catastrophic event in the future.

I don’t know about emergencies. I don’t know what I will do when they find me. And, in a way, I don’t care. It isn’t in my interest to live a safe, comfortable life. Lots of people want Kate and me to live that way—safe and comfortably, but we aren’t going to trade our dreams and future together for a safer timeline and a more comfortable marriage. The truth is, when it comes to marriage, there is no safe timeline and there isn’t a comfortable, worry-free marriage. I know some of those reading right now are followers of Jesus. You must know then, that following Jesus isn’t safe, comfortable, and worry-free, but you know it is the best, and that is why you live the way you do. Once we commit ourselves to Jesus, Jesus wants to commit us to others, work, and services; all with the hope that we will spread the good news.

Why do I think there is no safe timeline for marriage, and why do I think marriage isn’t going to be a walk in the park? I think this because I want it to mirror much of my relationship with Jesus. I don’t want to carryover my mistakes, from my personal walk with Jesus, to married life, but I want us to love one another like Jesus loves us. Trying to do this even throughout my engagement to Kate hasn’t been easy. Often, we have failed to trust and love each other in the way Jesus trusts and loves us. We haven’t broken under the pressure to give up though, and in the last two months we have taken big steps in understanding the marriage that God is calling us into.

It is comforting going into a marriage knowing how my relationship with Jesus has blessed my life, but I am learning that in order for Jesus to also bless my marriage with Kate, I am going to have to be unselfish, loving, and forgiving on all new, elevated levels. Naturally, I want to spend the rest of my life with Kate, but becoming aware of the new demands that will be put upon me can be incredibly intimidating at times.

By the logic of many, getting married is too much of a risk. Watch a movie or television and you might think it is impossible to be married without having an affair. Sexual promiscuity and adultery are not only easy to find in the media; they are at times, sold to us as the new school, as if to say commitment is the old school. I wish that weren’t true, but since it is, the Christian romantic relationship and the Christian marriage can potentially be stronger testaments to Jesus’ influence in our lives. However, this means the Christian romantic relationship and marriage is subject to closer examination and criticisms. There is more pressure on us to follow Jesus’ commands and to love the way Jesus did. While trying to do so, it is hard to not be on a moral pedestal; that is, to think in my head that my relationship with Kate and our coming marriage is morally superior to others simply because we love Jesus. Instead, I like to think of our romantic relationship as morally inferior to others. It is irrelevant if this is true, but I think this mentality helps to keep humility in my approach to any romantic relationship or marriage. A humble approach helps Christians to not discredit a relationship or marriage if it isn’t Christian. I, and I am sure many others, judge too quickly the secular relationship. Any evidence of our doing so, will further us from God’s people, and the ministering Jesus speaks of us doing will no longer be possible. We should not judge, and instead, approach all relationships with love, compassion, and humility.

On the flipside of this, we have the Christian approach to other Christian relationships. Hold on, I need to say this first: I hate using this word Christian because it carries so many stereotypes, unrealistic expectations, and it has a lofty tone to it. With that said, as Kate and I begin our journey as a married couple, I hope we don’t assume a Christian relationship is right just because it has been labeled as a Christian relationship. I also hope that Kate and I will not be given the benefit of the doubt because we are in a Christian marriage. The ministering that can be done inside the community of believers is huge and it is vital that we don’t forget about that “Christian” marriage right next to us that might be rotting from the inside out.

In closing, I don’t know what to say for a conclusion. This could have gone many ways. I tried not to do a history lesson of my romantic relationships leading up to Kate. Instead, I tried to focus on where I am at right now, recent thoughts, and a little about the future with Kate and Jesus and what that means to me…everything.

The Quarter Life: Friendship and Community

If you haven't visited Aaron Boeke's blog, go there now. Okay, so you know where that is. That's good. Now whenever you see "The Quarter Life" in my blog title you should read my blog and then go to his blog, or vice versa, because we have started a new series on life in our 20s and a lot of what that entails. Our first topic is Friendship and Community.


I have a community of friends that are as unwavering as anything God can give me, except salvation and forgiveness in Jesus Christ. We all have received a Gift greater than one another, and that Gift is continually bringing us closer.

Not too long ago I thought of these friendships as simply that, friendships. I was sold on the fragility of friendships throughout my life, but an odd thing happened when I left for university in Laramie, Wyoming, we became closer. While I was growing deeper and stronger with friends in my hometown I witnessed college, time, and distances separate my new friends at the University of Wyoming from their hometown friends that had been split by a high school graduation.

I took a journey to find out what was keeping us that close. It didn’t take much searching to know that something greater than me, you, us, and our friendship binds us together. What started out as a curious inquiry into Christianity, or a required trip to church, has developed into the community of brothers and sisters that I still find myself underestimating. I know other families like this are hard to find because this one isn’t broken. Though we are made up of broken pieces we are made new and whole by what binds us together. We have all had opportunities to walk away, to grow apart, to pursue life alone, or to find a new community. No friends have proven to be as great. No community has proven to be as strong. No time too long. No distance too far. No struggle too agonizing.

I am still young, but I know I have found friends that will be with me the rest of my life. Just like other friendships and communities, the one I am a part of is fragile. We are susceptible to envy, anger, discontent, and the tragedy of human nature. We have weathered all, and we will weather them again. You may think I sound presumptuous about the future. How do I know we will weather the storm again? How do I know we will continue to grow stronger? Well, I can’t predict the future, but I still know someone that will be there, Jesus, the foundation of this community that feels no borders, and that knows no condition not worth the love that we have been given, and the love we all try to share.