Introducing: Life of a Peculiar Pilgrim

Introducing:  Life of a Peculiar Pilgrim

I've decided I am going to work at developing a few different directions in my blogging.  My first new blog will be called, "Life of a Peculiar Pilgrim" and it will be exploring some of my unconventional exploits along with the adventures of others on the road less traveled.  Some of my counter-culture currently involve home schooling, freelance writing, a few upcoming entrepreneurial prospects, travel hacking, debt free living and (gasp) life without cable.  I also have a extensive Life (or bucket) list I am in pursuit of that will blow your mind.

I want to share a couple of links to peculiar or unconventional living to spark your imagination:

Take Phil and Chaldea at http://livingunconventional.com/ who have refit a school bus to be a home.

Or Conni Biesalski who lives as a nomad and you read her adventures here http://www.alifeofblue.com/

Or my hero, a true outside-the-box thinker, Chris Guillebeau, who tells us that we don't have to live our life the way everyone expects us to.    I highly recommend his site and this article in particular  http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/unconventional-ideas/

Then there is Rolf Potts whose book, "Vagabonding An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel" was the beginning of this adventure for me.  You can read about his adventures and the philosophy behind vagabonding at http://www.vagabonding.net/

I will be posting more to Life of a Peculiar Pilgrim soon.  Love to have your input!!

PILGRIMAGE

PILGRIMAGE

This word has cropped up a number of times in the past month.   It is not a word that is in our modern-day vocabulary much so I took note of it. 

Ironically, I have a band named Pilgrim.   It is an exploration of music with very interesting original arrangements.  I play fretless and fretted bass In the group -it is more often than not, the lead instrument- which is not a usual voicing for any genre.  It is one of a number of musical groups I have worked on, each with it’s own unique creative voice- Part of my pilgrimage of musical expression.

I have been on a spiritual pilgrimage which has taken me through years of ministry  and serving to what I consider a more honest and authentic expression of my faith.

Our efforts into homeschooling have definitely been a pilgrimage and it is nearing it’s end as our second son enters his final years of school.  When we began our journey in educating, people looked at us like we had grown a third eye out of our forehead.  Now it is considered more mainstream, though still unconventional.  We truly entered uncharted territory in this effort.

I have been on a pilgrimage to regain health and physical fitness since 2009 when I discovered I had type II diabetes.  It has included swimming, biking, lifting weights and walk/runs.

Last year I read Rolf Pott’s book, “Vagabonding”, and it has awakened in my life a desire to experience the world and to travel.  We saw the film, “The Way” and it further has enflamed our wanderlust for a pilgrimage to discover, work, serve and live out of a backpack for long periods of time.  We became members of Chris Guillebeau’s Travel Cartel and are learning the skills of travel hacking – our first planned destinations are New Zeeland and Costa Rica. 

Recently I began a pilgrimage to start my own business as a writer.  I started a blog called More Than Words and I am in the final stages of editing several books, which I plan to self-publish and release as e-books.  My goal is to become self-employed in the near future and that is a peculiar journey as anyone who has done this before knows.   I am also developing several other businesses and income streams which will allow us to be free to move about.

I have created a Life List (you might call it a Bucket List) with a multitude of rich and exciting goals to achieve.  From visiting places around the world to learning and experiencing accomplishments that you might find outlandish.  I have broken the list into one, five and ten year goals but I am also open to doors opening unexpectantly.

For me a pilgrimage is an adventure of trust and a stretching of both personal abilities and faith.  It is an encounter with the unexpected, an opportunity full of opportunities.  Sometimes it is as simple as throwing together a knapsack and jumping over the back fence and other times it is involved as coordinating dates for a round the world air ticket.  I am ready to simplify my life, reduce my possessions, and spend some time with my wife on a pilgrimage.

30 Things 

1. I have never even tried smoking, pot, or any kind of drugs. Never. Ever. Really. I don’t need it.
2. I have never been drunk. I don’t feel my life has been damaged or deprived in any way. 
3. I have done many things of which I am ashamed. 
4. I have spent 29 years with one woman, never had sex with anyone else and I feel damn lucky.
5. I had 2 college professors that told me I wasn’t good enough, I believed them and quit. I desperately wish I hadn’t. 
6. I love my country, but I think it’s been ruined by professional politicians and the media. I don’t know if it can be fixed. 
7. I spent 20 years of my life working at churches, mostly with student and worship ministry. I use to think about planting a church, but I don’t think I have the qualities to succeed. I have seen what pastors must do and it is unattractive to me now. 
8. I feel closest to God when I am doing mission work or serving in my community. I am in a bible study that is my church. 
9. I wish I could make more money only so I could give more.
10. I think it is incredible that thousands of children die everyday from preventable causes simply because they are poor. Why do we do nothing? 
11. I have been to third world countries and I know that even in my meager income bracket, I am rich. I feel some animosity toward people who use their wealth only for themselves when they could help so many.
12. I think sports in schools are a distraction. I think public schools need a epic overhaul. Teachers union won’t allow it.
13. I think many sports have been ruined by performance enhancing drugs, unscrupulous thugs who can perform but have no moral character and high dollar contracts. 
14. I have done prison ministry for a number of years, I think prisons are too nice. I also think there needs to be a system of restitution for victims.
15. I spend most of my free time reading, writing and playing musical instruments. 
16. I have kept a journal since my first son, Adam, was born in 1989.  I have always enjoyed writing and the simple idea of pencil on paper. 
17. I believe that we are part of an actual spiritual battle with angels and demons.
18. I have been a salesperson and a debt collector and I have very little patience with them. 
19. I am not very patient and I don’t suffer fools well. 
20. I tend to be very polite unless I'm pissed off. 
21. I forgave my Dad for all the cruel things he said to me. I still haven’t forgotten them. 
22. I can’t go back to the places I have worked and lived, it feels like walking over my own grave. Too many regrets. 
23. My wife learned she had leukemia in the summer of 2006. I have lived in fear since then even though her medication seems to have it under control. 
24. I have recently decided that I want to travel the world and live in other countries. 
25. I have never been arrested, never been the cause of an accident, never had a speeding ticket. 
26. It is hard to be a fat guy missionary in a country of skinny people.
27. In 2009 I discovered I had Type 2 diabetes, I hate needles. I began to change my lifestyle of eating and exercise and I came to a point when I could regulate my blood sugar with oral meds and exercise. I have lost over 150 pounds since then. 
28. I use to believe that if you worked for other people, you would never make what you were worth. I believed that self-employment was the only way to earn what you were worth. I have learned without a degree, that is true.
29. I worked with Hospice as a chaplain, I believe the terminally ill should have the freedom to die with dignity and free from pain and it’s nobody else’s business. However, Jack Kevorkian was a self-promoting ass.
30. We home schooled our boys and I am confident we have produced 2 damn fine men. 

~ Jeff Peters

When Ethics Catch Up With Technology

Is your tech a right or a privilege?  

Some businesses that have held a policy allowing employees to bring your own devices to work are starting to trend in directions designed to protect their businesses and productivity. 

An emerging trend is that companies are imposing a rule on employees that BYOD (bring your own devices) that these devices must submit these devices for blocking and tracking the same as company devices if they are to be used on company time and premises.  Businesses are concerned about productivity, protection against viruses and mal-ware and maintaining control of sensitive company data.  Perhaps the lost production is driving this trend more than ethics;  

"Employees spend an average of 1.86 hours per eight-hour workday on something other than their jobs, not including lunch and scheduled breaks, the survey found. Based on those averages, employee time-wasting costs U.S. employers an estimated $544 billion in lost productivity each year.  More than half (52%) of the 2,706 people surveyed admitted that their biggest distraction during work hours is surfing the Internet for personal use. (Price Tag for Lost Productivity: $544 Billion, Leslie Taylor, INC Magazine)

According to "a survey by Gartner Inc. of global CIOs showed that 38 percent of responding companies expect to stop providing mobile devices to employees by 2016. Like it or not, employees -- presumably even those who travel a lot -- won't get company cellphones.   By the way, you get to bring in your devices so IT can install not only anti-virus software but mobile device management tools that will track your browser activity and scan your stored files for anything that doesn't fit the company culture.  It's not even clear from Gartner's research whether the CIOs plan to subsidize employee use of their own devices for business purposes."  (BYOD is Taking a Dangerous Left Turn by James M. Connolly)

Could government agencies, and schools be next?  Certainly government agencies have tightened the screws on employees in light of recent leaks. Schools are badly behind the productivity curve in the battle to regulate BYOD .  Most school staff will testify to growing issues with discipline regarding electronics including bullying, threats, cheating, and disruption of the learning environment. Texting, tweeting and video posting is the high tech note passing. Students consider their devices a right and their ability to use it whenever they please their free speech. Take for example the battle over this Stockton, CA school's effort to restrict students use of social media with a contract.  It is unlikely the contract alone will work, as most schools have a internet user agreement that limits most social media, pornography and video and these contracts and firewalls are regularly breached by tech-savy students. Using the business premise of BYOD at school would mean students devices be fitted with anti-virus software, mobile device management tools that will track your browser activity and block inappropriate sites, even texting during school hours.

The ethical questions of whether it is right to be spending time using personal devices to post videos, and chat in Facebook at school or work take a backseat to safety and the bottom line. Unfettered technology may yet be brought to serve and not distract from productivity.

Take Criticism Like A Champ

Simple tips for learning how to take criticism like a champ.

• Listen to everyone, no matter how painful.

• Acknowledge good points made by the other side.

• Admit when you make mistakes and learn from them.

• You can disagree without being disrespectful.

• Depersonalize criticism by not identifying with it.

• Know the difference between your core values and when you are just being stubborn.

• Try your best to never resort to personal attacks or insults.

• You can understand someone’s point of view without necessarily agreeing with them.

• Consider criticism a necessary component to growth and personal evolution.

• Actively encourage others to give healthy and constructive criticism.

Taking criticism like a champ takes practice and experience. You need to be willing to face it on a daily basis.

The Reluctant Parent

THE RELUCTANT PARENT

Working with kids as an educator and youth pastor, I have encountered parents from time to time who have admitted that they did not want children, don’t like parenting or even that they don’t like their children.   I try to be understanding, my wife and I have two boys, we home educated them and honestly we were sad to see them move on.  Empty nesting is a depressing condition for us, so to hear this from a parent is a mystery I want to unwrap. 

I have long held that the point of most significant growth for me as a human being was becoming a father.   I have several friends that for various reasons chose not to have children, that I thought would have made great parents.  Because they choose career, rejected the idea of being parents or perhaps, most sadly, were unable to conceive for medical or physical reasons or were unable to find a mate --to me they seemed a bit stunted.  Children change you, they enrich you.  They draw us out of some of our reckless selfishness, I think, and give us a cause greater than ourselves.

When a mom says she hates her kids, I scratch my head.   When a father says he doesn’t want visitation after the divorce, when I hear a mother disown her daughter, ask me to “fix her kid” or overhear a conversation that includes the words “I never wanted kids, I wish you had not been born” I am shocked, but it no longer leaves me speechless.  Sometimes these are words spoken in anger or decisions made out of spite.  While this is regrettable and can leave lifelong scars, it is not a crime.  It is the cases where there is true sustained neglect or abuse that concern me.  Honestly, I wish judges would remove children permanently from the criminally negligent.  That negligence should be carefully defined, with a three strikes clause, so that even family could use this system to correct a course.  I believe that the problem is epidemic, especially among the less educated.  There are so many parents that have willfully decided to not parent or raise their child responsibly and this is the reason for many of the problems with crime and education failures in inner cities.  That is not who I am talking about, however.  

I am referring to people who have decided that parenting is simply not for them, there is resentment in having children, because it represented a loss of freedom, an inconvenience or because it is a reminder of a poor choice in timing or partner.  These are not people who are ignorant of adoption options, or are financially unable to provide for children.  They have decided that they don’t like kids.  They don’t want kids.  There is resentment, not enrichment.  I want to explain to them that children don’t get to pick their parents either but learn to play the hand they are dealt or learn to tolerate their lot in life until they can move on independently.  I want to remind them that there are no perfect parents and no perfect children.  The fact is that have a certain selfishness and ambition that is not conducive to parenting.   Sad how some desperately want children in this world and some that desperately do not want children.  If only we could get these people together.

Excerpts from The Art of Non-Cornformity

Another excerpt from The Art of Non-Conformity by my hero Chris Guillebeau

 P. 214-215 The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau

Measure Work in Output, Not Hours

I can sit at a desk and surf the internet for eight hours, but it doesn’t mean I’ve done any real work.  Which is more important- showing up for eight hours or actually doing the work?  Believe me, I know very well how to waste an entire workday (I’ve done it far more often than I’d like to admit).  If I were to compile a log of how I spent my time on such a day, it would probably look something like this:

1.     Shuffle papers around. 

2.     Leave g-mail or Outlook open all day. 

3.     Read the news…over and over, from multiple websites. 

4.     Become upset about an e-mail thread  and spend 30 minutes crafting an elegant reply (bonus points for using passive-aggressive language).  

5.     Rearrange the file cabinet. 

6.     Pay bills and check online banking. 

7.     Check up on a few favorite blogs.

And so on.  You could probably add to the list, right?  Throw unproductive meetings into the mix…

The point is that none of this work really matters, which is why I like to focus on deliverables (output) instead of hours.  If I spend eight hours staring at the screen and reading the news, the world is not a better place.  If I spend 30 minutes working on a project that will add value to my readers or customers, at least some part of the world is better off.  My deliverables are articles, essays, product creation, interviews, and so on.  An artist‘s deliverables may be canvases, songs or something physical.  If your work is client-focused, the deliverable is whatever you provide for your client.  Whatever your deliverables are, think about those instead of the actual hours you spend getting to them.