Living Better

Who has the time, energy, and willpower it takes to live better?

And what business do I have implying people aren't already living the best they possibly can by blogging about it?

I don't know the answer to either of those questions, but the need to live better is filling my mind lately. When something's on my mind, I experiment. Mistakes, victories, setbacks, and questions are avalanching through my life these days, and blogging about it seems like a helpful part of the discovery process.

I hate to sound arrogant by voicing my opinion on what living better means. I'm writing these things because I don't know! Still, I need a hypothesis, so here's where I'm starting.

Living better is doing whatever makes the relationships in my life more alive.

It seems like a tricky thing. To make all those relationships richer I must improve myself, but I'm convinced self-improvement is a dead-end. An awful lot of people tried to teach me how to "be the best 'me' I can be," but they all left me flat. Maybe I can make my point with a quick analogy. If I frequent the gym to have the best body I can have, I'll either love my new body and become a jerk or grow depressed at my lack of progress. (Ask me how I know ... you'll find the answer filed under "Mistakes.") If, however, I hit the gym to improve my ability to serve people, I succeed. I taste the reward of being more helpful, and I don't even mind that I still look like "generic nerd #3."

Forgive me in advance when I sound like I'm proclaiming life's answers. Half my experiments turn out really badly, but I have to try them anyway. Anything I talk about out here is a work in progress. Failure and mistakes are part of the process.

So, The Familyhood Church blog just may warm up again. If I generate any momentum, it will be on the subject of practices that help and hinder my efforts to live better. Writing always helps me sort out my thoughts, so to some degree this is a selfish endeavor. I won't kid you, though. I crave feedback. If mere writing were enough, I'd journal. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Kevin