My name is Ben. I am husband to the most amazing woman, co-founder of the band Sidewalk Prophets, and a student of life. Running has literally changed my life this past year. (I lost 125 lb.) I have learned a lot about discipline and the lessons learned have poured over in to every area of my life. With this blog I hope to share a bit of entertainment, and inspiration as well as keep a journal of the places I run. If you're feeling helpless, hopeless, and lost... I am here to tell you that I have been there and I think I may be able to share some insight that may help you. Thanks for reading.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Covert Operations…Life Behind a Beard.
I’ll be the first to admit that my facial hair has become a bit out of control. It’s been 7 months or so since I stopped grooming my face and in those passing months I have learned a lot of interesting things.
First of all there are the obvious complications that come with beard-growing. Food in the whiskers, people not recognizing you, airport security questioning your motives for traveling etc… These are all things I got to experience first hand over the past half year.
So those are some things you would expect to happen when you grow a giant beard. Here are a few things I wasn’t very prepared for in this endeavor. People assuming that I am a gruff guy because I look mangy (this typically led to no one sitting by me on Southwest flights), random people complimenting my beard (it happened in amusement parks, walking down the street, the bank- everywhere), my favorite of all of the unexpected things that happened after I grew a beard was what I like to call the “Beard-wearer Guild of Respect”… Any man who has a real beard takes great pride in being one of just a select few that is able to pull off the beard. Whenever you are bearded and in public and another bearded man spots you- there is an unspoken, divine connection that takes place in which your eyes meet and a nod is exchanged- this exchange is simply affirmation that you are the two coolest people in the vicinity.
If you know me at all- you know that I am a goal setter. I don’t like to make commitments and not achieve them. This beard was the result of a commitment to run 26.2 miles. On Nov 20, 2011 in Philadelphia I honored my commitment to run the marathon with a giant beard. It wasn’t easy but as I am continually learning- life is not easy. Life requires effort- I started saying that a couple years ago when I really began to learn about discipline.
Life requires effort..every day from the moment you get out of bed choices flood your life. Some of us let these choices dominate us in to comfort and others break through to find the reward of fighting against comfort. My hope is to be an encouragement to those living comfortably and also to those who are fooled in to thinking they are NOT living comfortably.
My hope is to be used as a spark that might ignite the fire in others who are desperately seeking to change their lives. Start looking at your choices one at a time from the moment you wake up. Ask yourself what is right- then do what is right. I’m not saying be perfect - I am saying to fight when you fall and to progress instead of wilt. Be encouraged!
More thoughts to come…as soon as I shave this beard!
I Took a Nap?!?!?
It happened… It finally happened! I took nap. Let me start off by saying that this has been a great Monday. I got to drive Carie to work (this doesn’t happen when the band is on the road obviously) and I got to pick her up from work. I also took her car in to the shop and spent a couple hours updating this week’s New Video Monday
Luckily having some work to do made the waiting for her car to be done pretty quick. Her car mostly needed an oil change but in addition to this she had a bad socket for her front right blinker. I think they finally fixed it! No more irritating broken turn signal clicking!
We headed straight from her work to get dinner (Mexican food). We branched out and tried a new restaurant today and I think we may actually end up going back there. In case you’re wondering what I got (i’m sure you aren’t but i’ll tell you anyway) - the dish I get goes under a few names; pollo loco, arroz con pollo, special #5, pollo gringo etc… essentially it’s grilled chicken, rice, and beans. Most of the time it comes topped with the super awesome white cheese but I ALWAYS get it plain and it tastes just as good. Cheese is one thing I would encourage people to cut out of their diet. I know it’s one of the best tasting foods (trust me I know) but you can save your heart some trouble by not eating most cheese. Alright, back off my soapbox. So we had a really good meal and then we came home.
I have been reading Malcolm Gladwell’s most recent book “Outliers” which theorizes why/how brilliant people are just that, BRILLIANT. I’ll dedicate a post later to this book as soon as I am finished reading it. I’m also still in the middle of his other book “Tipping Point”…which is equally fascinating. I’m really beginning to realize that I appreciate sociology more than I thought. Understanding who people are, and why they do what they do can really help in learning to love. At least it’s given me perspective on understanding other peoples perspective.
So there I was…in the middle of reading the book when IT happened! The next thing I knew I was drooling on my pillow and it was storming outside. I know that a lot of you out there nap frequently but for me, there has to be a cataclysmic series of events that take place. I am for all intents and purposes a “busy-body”. I am anxious and always working on something. My brain is super ADD which get’s me working on about 20 things at once and always leaves me forgetting at least 1 minor detail. But for just a moment today, I took a nap! It was too good of a moment not to share with you. Now back to life!
