By the way, readers (all 3 of you, Bryan Amy and Ariah), Amanda’s gonna be taking a turn again soon. Sorry about my hogging of blogging here. :)
I met a really nice guy yesterday. He’s a technician with an ophthalmic company and drove down from Gallatin to install my new equipment (they decided just to replace the whole system, and it’s now mostly up and running again). He’s a really hard core fisherman, fishes in tournaments and stuff, and he told me stories and stories about his life and job and fishing, etc. Was quite quick to state how well he did through his career, how me made really good money, and a couple of time threw in there the ol’ catch phrase “course god’s been good to me” to cover all the bases.
I gathered from what he said about being on his 3rd marriage and having traveled on the road so much as a sales representative and technician for so many years that he’d made some mistakes with infidelity. He said “being on the road is so hard, ‘the grass is always greener.'” Now an older guy, probably around 60, married to a woman for 15 years. So good job, I’m glad he settled down and maybe is being true. But here’s the point.
As we were talking about fishing, he was describing the new bass boat he bought a few years back. Said he bought almost the nicest one you could get, cost him about 40,000 bucks. Told me it was a single console, but that if he were to buy again (or if I ever buy a bass boat – haha, mine will be more like 400 bucks) definitely get the dual console (what does that even mean?). Then, get this, he thought about it for a few seconds and said this…
“That was probably…yeah, that was probably the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, not getting the dual console boat.”
?!?!? When we’re a nation full of people on their third marriages who think that their biggest mistake was failing to upgrade their boat, when our recreational decisions are more important than our relationships and lifelong commitments, we’re damned.
Daniel and Amanda's Weblog 
we have been in this conversation a lot, where people ask us about our lifestyle, then we tell them about it, then they say something like “that’s great for you guys, but Jesus doesn’t call us all to ‘drive beater cars and give away all of our stuff.” first of all, I have a nice car. it’s not a beater. Its nice, darnit. I wish they would stop saying that, at least. So, rather than evaluating their behaviors and trying today to be better than they were yesterday, they justify their behaviors and somehow go from not driving beater cars and giving away every last item they own to dreaming about the next bass boat that will have a dual console (I don’t know what it is either). If there is a slippery slope, that’s it. We haven’t given away all of our stuff and we struggle all the time not being attached to it, but letting go of the idea that the real mistakes we make are about our money and our stuff is not a far cry from discounting the idea of smallness and sacrifice
that John the Baptist and Jesus both talked about.
great post. Amanda, i think it’s your turn. take the wheel, girl.
Comment by bryan — October 3, 2007 @ 2:41 pm |
Daniel, you are a really good writer. I’m with you, and I agree with what Bryan was saying too.
We are so blind to our own problems and values even when they are staring us in the face.
Then again, maybe you, me and Bryan should go in together and get a dual console baby!
Comment by ariahfine — October 4, 2007 @ 5:32 am |