Engaging Life

Life moves so fast these days and I find that I have trouble keeping up. The subtitle of this blog is 'Learning to live and love and be engaged in the everyday, ordinary moments' and yet I find that many days I forget to engage. Engaging seems to be a conscious decision that I have to make. Thankfully, this has been a week full of conscious decisions to slow down and engage and for this, I am so grateful.

This week I experienced fullness in life in a number of ways through engaging:

1. Being fully present at my boys swim meet (which means I left my phone in my pocket!)
2. When texting a long distance friend, I accidentally called him. I noticed before he answered but decided not to hang up and talk if he did answer. That conversation was wonderful and it was refreshing spending time actually dialoguing instead of texting.
3. A visit to the hospital to spend about 20 minutes with a friend who was there turned into an hour long stay as we laughed and talked. I learned so much about this amazing person as I just had the opportunity to sit and listen.
4. Having breakfast with a friend who I haven't shared a meal with in over a year. His life stories were amazing to hear and I learned so much from him about life, redemption and second chances through our conversation.
5. Relaxing on my back porch one evening with a couple of friends talking about politics, travel, religion, girls (our wives) and more. 
6. Falling asleep aware of the sound of rain on my roof.

Engaging life is a beautiful thing. May we all spend more time practicing engagement.

How about you? Where did you engage life this week?

Ordinary Moments

I was 16 years old; hauling my dirty clothes to the laundry room, grumbling about it the whole way. That's when my mom stopped me and said,

"Brian, routine is good. Ordinary is good. Life is made up of ordinary and it's in these ordinary moments that we can experience life at its fullest if we just pay attention."

We live in a society where ordinary is not really seen as a good thing; extraordinary is the goal. If we are not intentional, I believe that it would be very easy to spend all of our days striving for the extraordinary at the expense of missing the ordinary. 

I spend lots of time focusing on the next thing, often times hoping that it is anything but ordinary. The next meeting. The next meal. The next date night. The next paycheck. The next kid. The next whatever. I still, at times - 18 years later - get annoyed when I have to spend my time cutting the grass, cleaning the garage, repairing a broken chair or prepping a meeting, driving to an appointment or exercising. All very ordinary, mundane, routine events.  Yet, all opportunities to engage in the moment. All opportunities to experience the fullness and richness and beauty of life if I would simply engage and be present in those everyday, ordinary moments. 

Maybe today would be a good day to practice living and loving in the very ordinary moments. Perhaps, we would experience life differently and more fully if we stopped looking ahead to the next thing and simply enjoyed and experienced the current thing. Maybe today we could experience the beauty and richness of life right where we are.

Living a Bigger Life

One of my greatest fears in life is the fear of living a small life. For the past few years I’ve been trying to figure out what kinds of thoughts, habits, ideas and practices lead to living a small life compared to the thoughts, habits, ideas and practices that would actually lead to a big life.I spend a great deal of time thinking about this, reading about this, and observing the habits of those whom I think are living big lives.

Here are a couple of things that I have observed and learned about what makes for a big life…

1. Be generous with your money
People who live big lives are generous. They are generous with their time, their energy and their money. We live in a time when money is everything. It is rare these days to find people who are willing to part with their precious dough. It’s interesting though at how fascinated and inspired we are when we hear stories of people who are willing to give away their hard earned money. People who are able to give away the most precious commodity known to man are people who are not owned by money, but instead own it and make it serve them.

2. Regularly do things that aren’t for your own benefit
Most people live their lives completely for themselves. It is a rare thing for people to get outside of themselves and do things for others that will in no way, shape or form benefit them. Sadly, when we live only for ourselves, it leads to a very small life. Conversely, when we begin to regularly serve people and do things that aren’t for our own benefit - our lives become increasingly bigger.

3. Have ambition
People who live bigger lives want something. They have dreams. They have goals. Of course, these dreams and goals usually don’t revolve around themselves. If one’s dream or ambition is to get that car they’ve always wanted or to get that bigger home, well, let’s face it….that makes for a small life. Our goals for the end of our year can’t simply be all about having a better body, better health and reading ‘x’ amount of books. There is nothing wrong with these goals, but there has to be more. Our big life dreams and ambitions must be outside of ourselves and for the sake of others.

4. Be You
Many times, we don’t even realize that we are each created uniquely and the most amazing thing that we have to offer humanity and our planet is our self. People who take time to figure out who they are, what they love and what they have to offer have the potential to live some of the biggest lives. Figure out who you are and be that person (unless that person is not generous with their money, rarely does things that benefits others and has no ambition. If that’s the case, then figure out who you are and don’t be that person. Instead, work on becoming the kind of person that lives a big life.)

5. Learn to love
People who live big, love big. Learn what it really is to love people. Learn to love life. Learn to love moments and to love seasons. Don’t be a complainer or a pessimist. See the good in people. Don’t look for problems, but instead look for opportunities in how to live and love bigger.

What about you? What do you think makes for a bigger life?

What kinds of things have the potential to keep one stuck living a small life?

Time to Dance

I have a new morning routine. My new routine is designed to help me slow down and be more engaged in this good life. In my new routine, I try to get up before the rest of the family (as I did in my old routine), but now, instead of getting ready and hurrying off to Starbucks before work (old routine), I now stumble straight into the kitchen. I usually put on some type of music to set the mood for a happy home when my people wake up; something that is conducive to worshipping God – usually a little Dave Matthews, U2, David Crowder, Norah Jones or Veggie Tales. Normally, by this time, the boys are awake (and it does not matter if it is 5:30 am or 7:30 am – If I’m in the kitchen, somehow, they know it) and we begin working on breakfast. After breakfast everyone goes to their rooms, gets dressed, brushes their teeth and whatever else needs to be done.

It’s during this time, that I make my way to our playroom and set the ipod to any number of songs that immediately signal to the boys….it’s time to dance. It’s kind of funny because they know what these tunes are.

As soon as my people hear, I Got a Feeling (Black Eyed Peas), Hey, Soul Sister (Train), Christ is Risen (Jeremy Riddle), I Just Haven’t Met You Yet (Michael Buble), or any other number of songs – they dance their way to the playroom – no matter what they were in the middle of. Literally, sometimes they arrive with a toothbrush in hand, sometimes with just one shoe on, sometimes with no pants – no matter what they were in the middle of – each Jeansonne boy finds his way to the playroom, moving to the music (even our 15 month old…he can’t talk but he can dance!)

For the past number of weeks, it has been the greatest moment of most of my days. Me and my boys dancing it up together, for minutes each morning. Unfortunately, these boys are learning their moves from me, but that’s another blog for another day. (If you need an image think of an NFL player’s touchdown celebration and combine that with Ellen’s mad dance skills.)

It’s a fantastic way to start our day.

Now, dancing with my boys might just be for a season, but dancing with my boys each morning has reminded me and will hopefully instill within them, that no matter how busy and/or serious things get in our lives…..

It’s good to make time to dance.