Six Things to Remember About Monetary Wealth

1. There is no absolute standard for how wealthy is too wealthy.

2. A rich person who spends thousands of dollars on something seemingly extravagant is being more responsible with his money than someone who goes into debt to buy something unessential.

3. Everyone, no matter how rich or poor, buys extravagant things and calls them necessities. 

4. Spending less money than other people does not make you superior to them.

5. Other people’s money is their business, not yours.

6. From somebody else’s perspective, you are a stuck-up extravagant money-blowing wealthy person who should give more of their overblown salary to those who really need it. 

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

~~~

Baker Beach, San Francisco, California

Facebook Ads Are Weird

At the age of 24, I solidly inhabit the Internet generation. Although I remember the days of dial-up, when I could read an entire act of Macbeth while waiting for the AOL homepage to load, everything about the Internet seems pretty normal to me now. Despite some yelling and screaming at my slow wi-fi connection, I get the general principle of how things work.

These aren't the offending shoes.
But they are most certainly not
 approved by hobbits or elves, either.

Except Facebook ads. Facebook ads continue to baffle me. And you know what? It’s not even really the ads in general. It’s just one that I saw. No matter how many times I try to forget it, it just keeps circling back in my head.

This ad showed a ridiculously high-heeled and uncomfortable-looking shoe. Its caption? “Elves and hobbit approved.”

Can we all just pause for a moment and marvel at how horrible this caption is? 

Not only does it make the editor in me scream and die, but… seriously? Who thought this would be a good idea? What makes them think that a girl who likes Lord of the Rings wants trendy shoes? Don’t they know that hobbits don’t even wear shoes?!

Ah, Facebook ads, you never cease to amuse me. Or make me want to tear my hair out. Either way, I’m kept entertained.

~~~

Enemies, or Lack Thereof

As a kid, I was always upset that I didn’t have any enemies.

Sure, sometimes Eric annoyed me, Christian teased me mercilessly, and Mary got on my nerves, but we were all on the same side. In a crisis, I knew we were fellow soldiers in the great battle against… well, there was the problem. Who could we be against?

There was a neighbor girl we didn’t like, who was rude and made fun of us for being homeschooled. But Mom said to be nice to her, because she came from a messed-up family and was dealing with a lot of pain and hurt. Way to use sympathy to ruin a perfectly good enemy, Mom.

For a while, I was annoyed that our neighbor girls up the street screamed so much. I tried everything I could think of to construe it as an enemy attack, but it never held any water, so I gave up.

Ultimately, I realized there was no one in my life I could abjectly hate. I solved this problem in my usual fashion: I wrote a story. 

In the stories, the heroine and her trusty band of siblings and friends had to fight in self-defense against neighbor kids who literally wanted them dead. They had epic battles in the woods, fighting with sticks and using stealth and strategy. The enemy neighbors made bombs by setting pine cones on fire, and one of them tried to run over the heroine in his parents’ car. They almost killed her brother, leaving him for dead in the woods. But against all odds, the heroine was able to bring about peace in the end. I can’t remember how, but I think that she showed mercy to one of her enemies and used it as a way to proclaim the good news of Jesus.

In telling myself these stories, I discovered something that I didn’t process until years later: as much as I thought I wanted an enemy, I really just wanted everyone to get along in the end. Without the stories, I might not have figured that out.

~~~

Use Your Words (or, Fearfulness in Evangelism)

This article from the Voice of the Martyrs blog expounds on the famous St. Francis quote in a powerful way.

Read it here.

~~~

Travel Tip Tuesdays: 10 Simple Ways to Make Any Trip Miserable

Are you worried that your trip, vacation, or long-term sojourn is just going to be too much fun? Never fear! I’m hear to tell you 10 simple ways to thwart the enjoyment of any trip. Sound good? Read on…

1. Go into debt to take the trip. There are few things more miserable than financial distress, so if misery is your goal, this is the first way to go about it. Forget saving up for a trip or spending within your means… just blow as much money as you like and pay it back later (with interest)! 

2. Have unrealistic expectations. Think that the vacation will be unbroken sunny days with your itinerary going exactly as planned… think that your month of sojourning will be a rapturously meaningful finding-yourself experience… think that all the problems you have at home will magically vanish when you take to the road. These are all excellent set-ups for disappointment.

Bonus point: Get jet lag. You won't be able to enjoy anything.

3. If traveling with other people, quibble over insignificant things. Challenge every little decision, bring up endless unhelpful possibilities to any variable, and complain behind the decision-maker’s back. 

4. Also, when traveling in a group, be either really selfish, or a martyr. When you demand that everything is your way, or you let everyone else make the decisions and drown yourself in feelings of martyrdom, you are well on your way to a really miserable trip.

5. Spend money on things that don’t matter. Obligatory presents for people at home, expensive hotels, food that you don’t really want to eat, a museum that bores you to tears— you have unending options for this misery-inducing step.

6. Stay chained to your schedule. Create an unrealistic itinerary (see point #2) and stick to it, avoiding flexibility or spontaneity of any kind. You’ll be miserable in no time!

7. Don’t take any rest days. Go, go, go for as many days as possible, all day long, until you’re completely burnt out. This makes you extra grouchy and sucks all the fun out of any trip.

8. If something goes wrong, freak out. Instead of thinking about how to solve the problem or adjust your schedule, have an emotional breakdown. This will make you miserable, and with a little practice, you can make everyone else in your group miserable as well.

9. Be rude and withdrawn toward everyone. Don’t smile or chat with anyone on the bus, at the hotel, or on the street. Make no effort to reach out to anyone, and keep yourself secluded in a little bubble of pure, lonely you.

10. Worry about everything. This is the most sure-fire way to be miserable— and it’s also the easiest. There are always a million things to worry about when you’re on the road, so if you spend just five minutes on each one, you will entirely ruin the trip.

So there you go— ten unbeatable steps to create stress, grouchiness, and just plain misery on any trip. If that’s your goal, it’s easy to succeed. If it’s not your goal, then you need to put in some effort to avoid it. After all, sometimes it’s best to know what not to do.

~~~

On Introverts and Extroverts

Around the time Zachary and I started dating, I began learning about introverts and extroverts. He is a major introvert, and I’m an extrovert, so there were some basic communication problems. I was stunned to realize that there are two basic types of people, who have a starting point that is so far apart, it’s hard to relate to the other. That was my first real introduction to the concepts of introversion and extroversion.

As the Jung-Myers-Briggs test becomes more popular, the public consciousness of these differences in basic personalities is becoming more widespread.  This is a good thing. It’s helpful to know whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, because that helps you understand the way you relate to other people.

The biggest revelation for me was that introversion and extroversion had nothing to do with how shy you are. An extrovert can be painfully timid; an introvert can be ridiculously outgoing. The nature of your base personality is the way you relate to people. 

It’s simple to remember, the Internet tells me: introverts spend their energy when they’re around other people, whereas extroverts gain their energy from other people. We get images of introverts ducking into the corner of a party to carry on a one-on-one conversation, and extroverts yucking it up in the center of the room with seven people. 

Again, this kind of analysis is helpful, but it’s important to remember that people don’t fit into neat little categories. For instance, I’m an extrovert. This is clear by the fact that I mostly experience life as it happens to me instead of as it happens within me; I can sympathize with and instantly befriend practically anyone; and I prefer conversations with three or more people to one-on-one interaction. However, that doesn’t make me a social butterfly with boundless energy who knows no strangers.

I am painfully shy. I usually forget this fact because I generally inhabit my comfort zones (people I know, social situations that don’t require me to say anything, etc.), but it’s a fact. (Growing up as a homeschooler, I felt forced to be outgoing because everyone was just waiting for every homeschooler to prove the “undersocialized freak” stereotype.) I would rather take a vow of silence than call someone on the phone. If attending a party of people I don’t know well, I have to spend at least an hour getting myself mentally psyched. I often get nervous about talking too much and would rather have another person carry the bulk of the conversation. When I’m in a social situation that falls outside my comfort zone, I just want to hide in a corner by the punch bowl. One-on-one interaction is incredibly draining, even with people I love. And I greatly enjoy reading, journalling, and working through my thoughts in my writing.

Knowing whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert is very helpful. But when you’re figuring it out, remember that there are many shades of gray. Stereotypes are useful, but it’s important to remember that they’re still just stereotypes.

~~~

Sunken boat, off the coast of Key Largo, Florida

100-Word Memoir: Stars, Planets, and Fish

One night when I was little, Mary and I were lying awake when Dad walked in, carrying a flashlight. He said, “Your glow stars aren’t bright enough.”

He held the flashlight against the glow-stars and planets on the ceiling. He lit up the glow paint on my poster of deep-sea fish. The three of us cuddled together, watching the whitish-green patterns shine in the darkness. Whenever they started to fade, Dad relit them.

The effect was magical. We sat for a long time, wrapped in darkness with the stars and the planets and the fish all aglow.

~~~

Goofing Off with My Sister. As Usual.

When Mary and I first visited California, we thought that Montara State Beach looked enough like a desert to merit wrapping our sarongs around our heads for this picture:

I guess Mary liked it in California, because she kept going back until she moved there to stay. I miss you, sisser.

~~~