30 Before 30: Day 30 - A New Decade Begins

I would be lying if I said that my life hasn't been interesting, especially the past decade. I would also say that my 20's have been the most interesting, frustrating, challenging, life-changing, adventurous, and revealing time of my life so far. That's why in this series of blog posts I've focused on that time period.

I've had enough experiences in the past decade to write multiple books and who knows how many screenplays that I could make into movies.

Some of those experiences I have put into movies.

But now I'm 30! The "Dirty Thirty" as some people call it. The big 3-0. A new decade to learn even more craziness about life.

Looking back now on the past decade, here's a number of exciting accomplishments:

1. I graduated college with a Bachelor's in Communication Arts.
2. I survived the Army after 3 1/2 grueling years (and made some pretty awesome friends).
3. I made a feature film (written, directed, shot, edited, and sound design done while I was in the Army in Hawaii).
4. I made several short films, multiple which have been in film festivals, a couple which have won awards.
5. I've lived in Chicago, Hawaii, and Los Angeles since leaving Kansas.
6. I was able to visit Ireland and Scotland.
7. I completed a 2-year acting Conservatory.
8. I worked with Bradley Cooper and Cameron Crowe on "Aloha."
9. I finally learned how to talk to network and have met lots of really cool people!

Now for a few things that have been difficult:

1. I've learned the very hard way what it means to have a healthy relationship.
2. I've questioned just about everything I grew up with in order to understand what it is that I believe and who I am rather than just following what I was brought up on.
3. I went into a ton of debt because of my initial time in college.
4. I spent 3 years living in a room with no window, sometimes working a swing shift in a building with no windows.
5. I've messed up at most of the jobs I've had more times than I can count at least once, so horribly that I've felt really bad about it.

Well, that's what I'm remembering right now. But I guess I'm old now, right? So it's okay.

Nah. I'm just starting. I have a lot of friends right now turning 30 this year. Most of them seem to be a bit terrified of moving into that next decade. Me? I feel like I'm just getting started. I'm actually quite excited about the next decade!

One of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis, didn't actually publish the vast majority of his works until after his mid-thirties. Most famous directors we know didn't get their major starts until their 30's.

On top of this, people tell me I only look 24 or 25 so I'm well on my way to being in a good position as an actor as well since I look younger then I am.

And here's the biggest thing I've finally found: confidence.

I used to have none. I had no self-confidence. Because of this I really had no outward confidence. It's still always a bit of a work in progress but it's gotten better. It also helps to not care as much what other people think about you.

I won't go into on this blog because I think I could write a whole book on it (which I just might someday) but there are a lot of things from my formative years growing up that I feel didn't help me as I got older and instead hindered me in certain things.

That's also why I believe we need different people in our lives to help us along and guide us because no one person can do it properly. We're just all too imperfect and different. Sometimes the things that a person needs can't be received from a single person so another person comes into to help out.

I believe God created us to be interactive and communal beings. Whether or not you believe in God or no higher power, some other form of believe, I still think, just from the nature of seeing humans, that we all in some form desire love.

So, my friends, in the end of this blog series, I want you to know you can all be accepted without judgement by at least one person in this life, even though there will always be people who judge us no matter what we do.

And in the words of the wonderful and talented Doug Jones: "There's love."

30 Before 30: Day 23 - Friends Who Disagree

When I was younger, I had this thought in my head that anyone who I was friends with should think and believe similar things to me. I think this came out of the idea that people were trying to teach me that certain people will be good influences and others negative. Instead this lead to the believe that anyone who believed something different shouldn't be my friend.

I definitely don't think this anymore.

In fact, quite the opposite. It might partially be because I'm older, but a large number of the people in my life don't believe the same thing as me and also disagree with me on a number of things.

My blog post from yesterday is just one of those things (a touchy subject I remember calling it).

I appreciate these people. Some of them are my closest friends. It doesn't mean I just change what I believe but it does open a positive discourse. And I have to be careful to make sure "discourse" is what I intend and not "argument."

I dislike arguments and often debates, as they often turn into arguments. But discourse allows for all sides to speak their thoughts and learn from one another what they think. I think this is part of being human.

Having friends in our lives who don't agree with us enriches us if we can have civil conversation.

I cherish all the people in my life who I've developed a bond of friendship with. I have friends from all different walks of life and many of them believe very different things then me. That doesn't mean I can't be friends with them.

That's ridiculous.

But it also doesn't mean I have to agree with them. And that's alright.

But I should still love them.

There are some things I can learn from them and other things they can learn from me. We all can continue to learn as we grow older. I certainly have. I've learned a lot of things, especially in these last ten years, that have made a lot more sense then they did in my teens. I had no idea what I was doing then.

Also, we can't just negate the experiences of others just because we haven't had them. Sometimes it's difficult to understand what someone has gone through just because we haven't. Sometimes people have views on things because of this. And the older we get and the more people we meet, the more experiences we understand.

We're all made up of stories. A life is a number of stories that add up to a whole. We can never know all of the stories. There are too many. But the more time we invest in people, the more stories we hear, the more we understand about the people that surround us. No one single person has the same experiences throughout an entire lifetime but there are things we share. And it's in those things we share, those commonalities, that bonds of friendship are formed.

Now, I leave you with some quotes on friendship:

“However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.” 
― Albert Einstein

"Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit." – Aristotle

"To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it. . . . Affections and Eros were too obviously connected with our nerves, too obviously shared with the brutes. You could feel these tugging at your guts and fluttering your diaphragm. But in Friendship- in that luminous, tranquil, rational world of relationships freely chosen - you got away from all that."
-C.S. Lewis "The Four Loves"

“The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Courage. Kindness. Friendship. Character. These are the qualities that define us as human beings, and propel us, on occasion, to greatness.” 
― R.J. Palacio, Wonder

“One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people.” 
― John O'Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom