Writings

A note to my future self (and to whomever else this may concern 🙃): When you chew on questions like “should I go to the gym?” or “should I go for a run?”, almost always there’s at least some resistance you encounter which makes answering with a “yes” challenging. Often the inner monolog goes something like, “that’s too hard”, or “meh, it’s not worth it”. Because of that, it has been not-uncommon for you to chose the path-of-least-resistance, and not put in the work… to not get sweaty....

This morning, on day 8 of the 2023 Israel—Hamas War, my amazing girlfriend is mediating a dialog/debate between a Muslim and a Jew, about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Last night, she was studying in preparation for the discussion, and we ended up talking a bit about the history of the conflict. I mentioned that a few years ago I had listened to the “Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem” series by the MartyrMade Podcast....

Triggers are not to be avoided. Triggers are instead designed to highlight those places in our hearts where we still are in need of growth, and where we still need God to walk with us towards healing. Don’t avoid triggers. Study them. Learn from them. Walk, grow, and heal through them. ~ Adapted from Debra Fileta

There’s an quote often attributed to Abraham Lincoln that goes something like: If I had five hours to cut down a tree, I would spend the first four hours sharpening the ax. While it’s doubtful he actually said this, I find the implications of the quote to be useful, especially when it comes to thinking about self-development and self-care. There are countless tasks, challenges, and obstacles we navigate in our lives that involve just learning enough to get by....

Download Audio Blog It’s often pointed out that, in contrast to a majority of other religions and faith systems, the emphasis of the New Testament is what God has done for Humanity, instead of what Humanity needs to do for God. With rare exception, the idea of “striving” is basically not present in the exhortations of the Christian scriptures. Instead, the emphasis is on receiving the gift God has given, which no effort on our part could have accomplished....

I’ve been thinking about scarcity and abundance this week, and wanted to share some of those thoughts! To start, I’ve been slowly listening through Bible Project’s 15 hour course about Genesis 1. One thing I noticed come up a few times is the idea that, in the creation narrative on page 1 of the Bible, Elohim forms creation with a goal of setting up a place for humanity to thrive....

I don’t want to be a part of an “us” that makes a “them” of the world’s most vulnerable people. ~ John Green in Why Are Poor Countries Poor?

TL;DR: Those SMS authentication codes SUUUCK when you’re an expat who doesn’t always have access to the same phone number. TOTP is a fix to that, allowing you to access your accounts without needing to be able to receive SMS texts. The tutorial video below teaches what TOTP is, how it works, and how to use it. I use and recommend a paid Bitwarden plan for less than $1/month to manage my TOTP codes....

I just wanted to quickly highlight a really cool thing that happened in the world this week. Whether you know it or not, there’s a pretty decent chance you have come across something created by brothers John and Hank Green at some point. They are insanely prolific siblings, both having written several books, running several companies, building educational content that is being used around the world, and helping build medical infrastructure in impoverished countries like Sierra Leone… among many other things....

“You don’t need to catch up. You just need to show up.” ~ Ryder Carroll, creator of the Bullet Journal