* Jedd Thoughts, Intentional Living

The Thief of Joy: Comparison

Every year I write a birthday post reflecting on something I’ve learned in the past year about myself (and thoughts about getting older). It’s a great way to see where I’ve been, who I am today, and hopefully reflects the person I am working towards becoming.  


This one’s for you. Who? You.

It’s also for me. I’m writing this post for myself. I’m hoping that when I’m 66 and maybe 99, I’ll somehow come back to this post and remember the greatest lesson I’ve learned so far this past year: Continue reading “The Thief of Joy: Comparison”

* Jedd Thoughts, Intentional Living

The Thief of Joy

Taking a break from Facebook and Linkedin
I think I need to take a break from Facebook and LinkedIn.

I have a problem. The other day I found myself spending a couple hours browsing through friends and acquaintances’ FB timelines and Linkedin profiles.

Someone had a baby. Another person is traveling somewhere awesome. They are eating something that looks really good. He got a promotion. She’s doing something cool. They are hanging out with each other.

Seems all standard stuff right?

For the most part, social media is a pretty handy tool. It helps us stay somewhat connected and aware of what others are doing. But what happens when we start to look at other peoples’ lives and start to compare them to our own?

Therein lies my problem.

I’m sure this is an issue many of us face. It just so happens that I am Continue reading “The Thief of Joy”

* Michelle Thoughts, * Peace Corps

Habit-Less: Living with Intention

I took this phrase from a similar, but not exact quote that I saw on pinterest. It ties in with the quote I used in the first of this series, the Intentional Habits post. The image is of our friend, Thomas, on a ropes course at a staff team building retreat with us (about a week after Jedd and I first met). I just think this phrase makes a fantastic motto. It also sort of sums up why we are taking two years off to do Peace Corps, which we consider to be like a “Sabbatical”- a time to pause from life as we know it (our habits) and do something different that forces us to re-evaluate our values and how we live. Hopefully we’ll come back with life-long lessons, new ways of seeing the world, and resolve to help us live a fuller life- a life out of intention.

Speaking of living with intention, I’ve listed below some interesting posts from several bloggers I follow. Continue reading “Habit-Less: Living with Intention”

* Michelle Thoughts

Intentional Choices

If it is important to you, you will find a way. If it's not, you will find an excuse.

I’ve always loved quotes and recently started collecting them on my pinterest board. I thought it would be kind of fun to create my own images to go with them, so this might be a new “mini blog series” for the next couple weeks. I’ll share briefly what the quote means to me or how it relates to the mission of our blog: simply intentional.

I think the above quote is extremely true. Oftentimes we say something is important to us, but the true test is whether we actually put our time, energy, money, and effort into it. When what we say- or even believe- is important to us, does not line up with  our actions, we are sadly deceiving ourselves and not fully living the life we intended. So here’s a question for all of us to consider then: What am I putting my time, energy, money, and effort into? Take a second to think about what exactly you spent your waking hours on yesterday, what purchases took up a lot of your budget this past month, what has been occupying the majority of your thoughts. Sometimes my answers start to sound like things I’d be ashamed to call important: watching TV shows online, buying food that just gets wasted or that degrades my health, thinking bitterly about other peoples’ behaviors. If these are the opposite of what’s important to me, it’s time to try being more intentional with my time, energy, money, and effort, like spending more quality time face-to-face with people I care about, buying only what I need, bettering my health, and reflecting on how I can continue to improve my own character.

Other related quotes:

We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.  ~Marcus Fabius Quintilian

There is no such thing as a list of reasons.  There is either one sufficient reason or a list of excuses.  ~Robert Brault

For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing.  ~Romans 7:19