I really have no idea how to take compliments about my video work.
I believe that we are all fragile souls at the core no matter how thick the walls are that we put around our true selves. I've got plenty of walls, and most are thick. But when someone tells me that I'm good at what I do, sometimes it cuts right to that fragile part of my soul and makes me want to break down and cry. If that ever happened, through my tears I would just say "THANK YOU!" It means so much to me to hear that. I never expect compliments for my work and often times they catch me off guard. My journey just to receive a meaningful compliment has been so long. Most of the time I had no idea what I wanted to do or even how to get there. It all started as a hobby by making videos for fun with my friends for fun and posting them to youtube. I went to community college, not film school. I worked at a camp by myself for 3 years with cheap cameras and 8 year old iMacs. I didn't know what a c-stand was until about 2 years ago. Basically I did almost nothing before I moved to Lincoln that validated me in my work, but I kept going after it because some people believed in me. When it comes down to it, I'm just a guy who loves making videos and wants to keep getting better. The drive I have to be better has only grown as I've improved. It's insatiable. My journey is really just beginning.
Sometimes I have a hard time believing the compliments, because I really struggle to look at my own work objectively. But if it's true and I possess an ounce of talent, I can only credit the God who gave me the talent and is helping me improve. Really, it has nothing to do with me. Don't tell me I'm awesome, because I'm not. Tell God He's awesome. My goal is simply to make the best videos I can with the talent God has given me. It's unreasonable to believe that I can make an awesome video every single time. I'm going fail. As validating as compliments can seem, my only true validation is found in knowing that I'm only able to create because of my Creator. My work is for His glory, not my own.
When the lights go out
Every night the lights go out.
And you're alone.
Maybe there's someone sleeping next to you that you deeply love. But at a certain point everything is taken away and it's just you, alone in your thoughts as you wait for the mystery of sleep to overtake your consciousness.
In this short window of complete solitude, the realization of mortality comes. This life will end. When? We don't know, but the day is coming that will be our last. Is it this week? Is it this year? Will I live to see my grandchildren? What will the death of my body be like?
This body that I'm in is merely a house for my soul. Everyone who has ever known me in this world recognizes me by this body that exists only in our physical world, but it's not actually me. If this body is in good enough condition to be shown at a funeral, those attending will look at my body with sadness, as if all that I was ceased to exist. In reality, none of what I was ceased to exist. Yet memories are all that's left of me to those who knew me in this body. Those memories are fragile shadows of reality that will ultimately be shattered when the bodies of those carrying them die as well.
But we will still be alive. We will step into the next stage of life. When the lights go out we face the uncertainty of our immortality. Our souls long for truth because we know that there's more than this world and the bodies that house our souls. We have purpose. We know it. There's something out there that put us here, something that made us, and we long to connect with this being.
Faith is a difficult thing in a physical world. Faith is believing in the unseen, in things not experienced. I know not to touch a hot stove not because I have faith it will burn me but because I know it will burn me from experience. The body I live in has never died before, so I can't know from experience what that's like. Yet I have faith- faith that there's a Creator of the universe that loves me and will redeem me despite of my flaws. A God that has so much more planned for me than whatever my quick years in this body on this earth will offer.
When the lights go out, I'm alone in my body but not in my spirit. When the lights go out, all I need is faith.
My struggle with listening
I wasn't born to be a great listener.
From the time I was a baby, I've had problems with my ears. I kept getting ear infections as a kid and eventually permanent tubes had to be placed inside my ears to help with drainage issues.
When I started to talk, most adults had no idea what I was saying, and many of my words were simply me trying to imitate the distorted sounds that I heard. By the time I started school though, I could talk perfectly fine, and I could hear well enough to not need any sort of assistance to get through school.
My hearing wasn't the greatest, but it certainly wasn't a handicap. Mostly I just didn't think about it because I didn't notice it. I remember some "constructive criticism" about my listening skills at parent/teacher conferences, but since I hated constructive criticism until a few years ago, I mostly just brushed it off. I figured they didn't know what they were talking about or didn't like me.
My teachers weren't the problem that time that I failed the annual hearing test at school. I just made jokes about it and told everyone that I wasn't really trying to listen during the test anyways, which was true. When I came back for the re-test, I managed to do something that probably no other normal kid would even think of trying to pull off- I cheated on my hearing test. It wasn't my proudest moment in life, but I wasn't about to let some doctor tell me that my hearing was bad enough that I needed special treatment. The nice lady who administered the test was also nice enough to wear glasses that day. I had to press a button when I heard sounds of various pitches, and whenever she started the sounds on her end I could see a light turn on in the reflection on her glasses. "I don't even know why they made you come back here," she said after I aced the test. "I don't know either," I replied, as I smiled and realized that I passed a hearing test because God blessed me with good vision.
My good vision didn't see the giant moth flying towards me at maximum velocity with enough time to duck. One fateful Sunday morning I was before my senior year of high school I was detasseling and a giant, bird-sized moth plunged straight into my ear at about 1000 mph. I've told this story a billion times and I don't feel like getting into the details but I'll summarize. Large moth flies into left ear at full speed, get's stuck too deep in ear to reach. Moth is still alive inside ear and shakes violently near my eardrum repeatedly, which sends me to my knees in gut-wrenching pain over and over again. I'm taken to the emergency room. The doctors take their sweet time and finally have to pull the thing out with the longest pair of tweezers I've ever seen in my life. Fortunately, that incident didn't cause me to lose all my hearing in my left ear, but it probably caused me to go from about 70% hearing in that ear to 50%. The ongoing ear infection that followed for a year and a half probably took that down to 40%. I'd guess my other ear to be at about 90% based on tests I've taken that I didn't cheat on and from my experience judging what other people can hear and what I can't. So that brings us to today.
Here's the thing- don't feel sorry for me. Those stories about how my hearing came to be less than 100% have absolutely nothing to do with my weakness. I just find them to be an interesting part of my journey in discovering my greatest weakness. Sure, sometimes I don't hear what people say for legitimate reasons, but more often than not I find I didn't hear not because I couldn't, but because I wasn't listening.
I remember one time when I was a teenager and my best friend Micah was over just hanging out in my room. I was playing video games and he was talking to me, when all the sudden I noticed he started to say the "whats" for me. He'd say, "Hey Bill, do you want to go workout later? What? Bill, do you want to work out later." When I asked why he was saying what and then repeating himself, he said it was because that's what always happened anyways whenever he talked to me so he was just getting it out of the way early. That was when I started to realize that I often said "what?" after almost anything was said to me. Was it because I didn't hear it? Not at all. In fact, usually if they didn't repeat themselves I would realize what they actually said just seconds later. The problem wasn't that I didn't hear Micah, the problem was that I wasn't listening to Micah.
Getting married called this to my attention even more. Lindsay needs me to listen to her a lot more often than my friends ever did. I get home from work, sit down, and she's talking to me about her day and other things, which I am actually interested in, but somehow I'm still not listening. I hear her, I'm nodding my head, I'm saying "yeah," and "oh really?" at all the right times. I even make eye contact. I'm zoning out for whatever reason, thinking about something else, and not giving my wife the attention she needs and deserves. Two weeks later we're driving somewhere and she reminds me that we'll be needing to go over our budget to purchase some snacks for a family gathering, and I'm caught totally off guard. "I told you about this two weeks ago, remember?" I insist she's never told me. She insists she has. Then somehow my subconscious brain takes me back to the one-sided conversation we had after I got off work that one day, and I realize that I heard her but didn't listen.
I have to concentrate as hard as possibly can to make sure I'm listening when I'm around people who would be less forgiving than my wife. When I'm at work, there's countless tiny little conversations with important information about something I need to do throughout the day, and I have to concentrate as hard as I possibly can to have average listening skills and not miss anything major. Technology helps me at work because I can put important events on my calendar and automatically be reminded, or I can send myself an e-mail with key information. I listen enough to survive in the work world.
Regular conversation is a struggle sometimes as well. We all know what it's like to talk to a good listener. Not only are they genuinely engaged with what you're saying, but they seem to care and almost always say the right things at the right times. People who have talked to me enough times probably wouldn't describe a conversation with me being anything like that. Sure, I can fake it if I have to for a little while. But there's way too many conversations where I'm distracted by my surroundings, or thinking about something else, or just thinking about the next thing I want to say. That last one is a killer and I know a lot of other people struggle with that too. That's probably why I'm better at internet conversations than real-life conversations. I have to wait for the other person to respond, I have to read their response, and then I take time to formulate my response. If there's anything great we could learn from internet communication and apply to real life, that might be it.
It's not that I never have genuine conversation and that I never listen. It's just that I miss a lot of opportunities and I catch myself pretending to listen way too often. The funny thing is that pretending to listen is probably harder than actually listening. It's not fair to the person I'm talking to. If one person isn't listening in a conversation, why even have it? Sometimes you'd be better off talking to yourself than to me. No, really.
I'm sure that I'm my own toughest critic, but there's times when it drives me crazy. One of my strengths is communication, but since I'm not a good listener my God-given ability to be a great communicator is utterly wasted at times. I hate it.
It's not like there's some easy cure. Listening isn't just something that I can just turn on and off like a light switch. I think listening is a skill that some are born with, and I wasn't. It's true. Listening just comes naturally for some people, but for others it's a struggle to develop. I can't emphasize this enough. I am a person who is aware of the struggle and I desire to be a good listener with all my heart. But I'm still not a good listener, and I'm actually quite terrible at it sometimes. It's probably my greatest weakness, and I can barely put into words how incredibly frustrating it is to want to be a good listener and to not be.
Lebron James first dunked a basketball in 8th grade. Even before that, it was very obvious that he was a gifted athlete who could become a great basketball player. Me on the other hand, I'm 5'5 and my vertical jump might make it over a cinder block on a good day. I once placed 3rd in a free throw shooting contest...because there were 3 people in my division. Two years ago some friends convinced me to join their rec basketball team. "It will be fun," they said. My season highlights included air-balling a layup and getting schooled by a girl. It wasn't fun. I was born with pretty much the exact opposite genetics as Lebron James, and it's no wonder that I struggle out on the court. But it's also worth mentioning that I never practiced. Yes, I'm naturally a terrible basketball player but that doesn't mean I couldn't get better. In fact, I'm confident that if I devoted myself to practice every day for years and years, I would certainly be better than I am right now.
The way I see it, my listening skills are no different. I want to get better, and I'm glad that I see my weakness more than ever before. It's going to take years of effort, and in the end I have to accept the fact that I'll probably never be the Lebron James of listening. By God's grace, what? By God's Grace maybe someday I'll be a decent enough listener to see my communication skills blossom in new ways. I'll start to have more of those genuine conversations that I feel I'm constantly missing out on now.
If God made both of my ears able to hear 100% again, you'd call it a miracle. Well I say it would be a bigger miracle if God teaches me how to listen.
From the time I was a baby, I've had problems with my ears. I kept getting ear infections as a kid and eventually permanent tubes had to be placed inside my ears to help with drainage issues.
When I started to talk, most adults had no idea what I was saying, and many of my words were simply me trying to imitate the distorted sounds that I heard. By the time I started school though, I could talk perfectly fine, and I could hear well enough to not need any sort of assistance to get through school.
My hearing wasn't the greatest, but it certainly wasn't a handicap. Mostly I just didn't think about it because I didn't notice it. I remember some "constructive criticism" about my listening skills at parent/teacher conferences, but since I hated constructive criticism until a few years ago, I mostly just brushed it off. I figured they didn't know what they were talking about or didn't like me.
My teachers weren't the problem that time that I failed the annual hearing test at school. I just made jokes about it and told everyone that I wasn't really trying to listen during the test anyways, which was true. When I came back for the re-test, I managed to do something that probably no other normal kid would even think of trying to pull off- I cheated on my hearing test. It wasn't my proudest moment in life, but I wasn't about to let some doctor tell me that my hearing was bad enough that I needed special treatment. The nice lady who administered the test was also nice enough to wear glasses that day. I had to press a button when I heard sounds of various pitches, and whenever she started the sounds on her end I could see a light turn on in the reflection on her glasses. "I don't even know why they made you come back here," she said after I aced the test. "I don't know either," I replied, as I smiled and realized that I passed a hearing test because God blessed me with good vision.
My good vision didn't see the giant moth flying towards me at maximum velocity with enough time to duck. One fateful Sunday morning I was before my senior year of high school I was detasseling and a giant, bird-sized moth plunged straight into my ear at about 1000 mph. I've told this story a billion times and I don't feel like getting into the details but I'll summarize. Large moth flies into left ear at full speed, get's stuck too deep in ear to reach. Moth is still alive inside ear and shakes violently near my eardrum repeatedly, which sends me to my knees in gut-wrenching pain over and over again. I'm taken to the emergency room. The doctors take their sweet time and finally have to pull the thing out with the longest pair of tweezers I've ever seen in my life. Fortunately, that incident didn't cause me to lose all my hearing in my left ear, but it probably caused me to go from about 70% hearing in that ear to 50%. The ongoing ear infection that followed for a year and a half probably took that down to 40%. I'd guess my other ear to be at about 90% based on tests I've taken that I didn't cheat on and from my experience judging what other people can hear and what I can't. So that brings us to today.
Here's the thing- don't feel sorry for me. Those stories about how my hearing came to be less than 100% have absolutely nothing to do with my weakness. I just find them to be an interesting part of my journey in discovering my greatest weakness. Sure, sometimes I don't hear what people say for legitimate reasons, but more often than not I find I didn't hear not because I couldn't, but because I wasn't listening.
I remember one time when I was a teenager and my best friend Micah was over just hanging out in my room. I was playing video games and he was talking to me, when all the sudden I noticed he started to say the "whats" for me. He'd say, "Hey Bill, do you want to go workout later? What? Bill, do you want to work out later." When I asked why he was saying what and then repeating himself, he said it was because that's what always happened anyways whenever he talked to me so he was just getting it out of the way early. That was when I started to realize that I often said "what?" after almost anything was said to me. Was it because I didn't hear it? Not at all. In fact, usually if they didn't repeat themselves I would realize what they actually said just seconds later. The problem wasn't that I didn't hear Micah, the problem was that I wasn't listening to Micah.
Getting married called this to my attention even more. Lindsay needs me to listen to her a lot more often than my friends ever did. I get home from work, sit down, and she's talking to me about her day and other things, which I am actually interested in, but somehow I'm still not listening. I hear her, I'm nodding my head, I'm saying "yeah," and "oh really?" at all the right times. I even make eye contact. I'm zoning out for whatever reason, thinking about something else, and not giving my wife the attention she needs and deserves. Two weeks later we're driving somewhere and she reminds me that we'll be needing to go over our budget to purchase some snacks for a family gathering, and I'm caught totally off guard. "I told you about this two weeks ago, remember?" I insist she's never told me. She insists she has. Then somehow my subconscious brain takes me back to the one-sided conversation we had after I got off work that one day, and I realize that I heard her but didn't listen.
I have to concentrate as hard as possibly can to make sure I'm listening when I'm around people who would be less forgiving than my wife. When I'm at work, there's countless tiny little conversations with important information about something I need to do throughout the day, and I have to concentrate as hard as I possibly can to have average listening skills and not miss anything major. Technology helps me at work because I can put important events on my calendar and automatically be reminded, or I can send myself an e-mail with key information. I listen enough to survive in the work world.
Regular conversation is a struggle sometimes as well. We all know what it's like to talk to a good listener. Not only are they genuinely engaged with what you're saying, but they seem to care and almost always say the right things at the right times. People who have talked to me enough times probably wouldn't describe a conversation with me being anything like that. Sure, I can fake it if I have to for a little while. But there's way too many conversations where I'm distracted by my surroundings, or thinking about something else, or just thinking about the next thing I want to say. That last one is a killer and I know a lot of other people struggle with that too. That's probably why I'm better at internet conversations than real-life conversations. I have to wait for the other person to respond, I have to read their response, and then I take time to formulate my response. If there's anything great we could learn from internet communication and apply to real life, that might be it.
It's not that I never have genuine conversation and that I never listen. It's just that I miss a lot of opportunities and I catch myself pretending to listen way too often. The funny thing is that pretending to listen is probably harder than actually listening. It's not fair to the person I'm talking to. If one person isn't listening in a conversation, why even have it? Sometimes you'd be better off talking to yourself than to me. No, really.
I'm sure that I'm my own toughest critic, but there's times when it drives me crazy. One of my strengths is communication, but since I'm not a good listener my God-given ability to be a great communicator is utterly wasted at times. I hate it.
It's not like there's some easy cure. Listening isn't just something that I can just turn on and off like a light switch. I think listening is a skill that some are born with, and I wasn't. It's true. Listening just comes naturally for some people, but for others it's a struggle to develop. I can't emphasize this enough. I am a person who is aware of the struggle and I desire to be a good listener with all my heart. But I'm still not a good listener, and I'm actually quite terrible at it sometimes. It's probably my greatest weakness, and I can barely put into words how incredibly frustrating it is to want to be a good listener and to not be.
Lebron James first dunked a basketball in 8th grade. Even before that, it was very obvious that he was a gifted athlete who could become a great basketball player. Me on the other hand, I'm 5'5 and my vertical jump might make it over a cinder block on a good day. I once placed 3rd in a free throw shooting contest...because there were 3 people in my division. Two years ago some friends convinced me to join their rec basketball team. "It will be fun," they said. My season highlights included air-balling a layup and getting schooled by a girl. It wasn't fun. I was born with pretty much the exact opposite genetics as Lebron James, and it's no wonder that I struggle out on the court. But it's also worth mentioning that I never practiced. Yes, I'm naturally a terrible basketball player but that doesn't mean I couldn't get better. In fact, I'm confident that if I devoted myself to practice every day for years and years, I would certainly be better than I am right now.
The way I see it, my listening skills are no different. I want to get better, and I'm glad that I see my weakness more than ever before. It's going to take years of effort, and in the end I have to accept the fact that I'll probably never be the Lebron James of listening. By God's grace, what? By God's Grace maybe someday I'll be a decent enough listener to see my communication skills blossom in new ways. I'll start to have more of those genuine conversations that I feel I'm constantly missing out on now.
If God made both of my ears able to hear 100% again, you'd call it a miracle. Well I say it would be a bigger miracle if God teaches me how to listen.
Some Honesty
One year and 10 days ago, I moved my young family from Maranatha Bible Camp where Lindsay and I had lived for 3 1/2 years. During that time both of our children were born, and there was so much change in my life it was ridiculous. I can summarize that change by saying that I basically became an "adult" ...or at least I got old enough and gained enough responsibilities to where I couldn't run from being an adult anymore.
I don't know that I ever wanted to be an adult. I really liked being a teenager. I had an awesome group of friends, super cool parents, a great place to call home, endless hours of free-time for even more endless fun, and a bright future where my limitless potential would certainly lead to fame and whatever else I wanted.
Time passed and I had to grow up. I have so much to be thankful for. I married the woman of my dreams, and we have two awesome children together. Nothing in this world has made me happier than my family has. Never once have I come home at the end of a day and not been excited to walk through the door. My wife is so much more incredible than she thinks, and she's such a great mom. Judah is a super smart kid, and he never runs out of energy or happiness. Olivia is absolutely adorable. When I look at her my heart melts- that's my little girl. I just want to wrap her up in my arms and protect her from everything that's bad out there. I can't even process how fast they are growing up.
I love them so much. I feel so passionate about being the best father and husband I can be that sometimes I probably set impossibly high expectations for myself, but I think that's a good thing. I need to keep pushing myself to try to live in the moment before it goes away. I'll fail often, I know that, but by God's grace I hope that I can positively impact my wife and kids' life, and that they'll know how much I deeply love them.
Being a husband and father is my favorite part of being an adult. My second favorite? Still trying to figure that out. Honestly, being an adult is really hard sometimes. It's not the constant challenges or inevitable failures, it's not the time-commitments or heavy burden of responsibility...no, what I dislike the most is the fact that deep-down I feel like I have no clue what I'm doing or how I should live my life as an alleged "adult."
I moved to Lincoln for opportunity- work opportunities and growth opportunities. When I first moved here I was very intimidated by the video production culture. I was an inexperienced wildcard. I was almost entirely self-taught and had shown potential in my previous work. I cannot think of a single video production professional I've met in Lincoln that either went to film school or has a Bachelor's degree in advertising or a related field. I really didn't know what I was getting into, and there wasn't a lot of reason for me to think that I'd be given any chances.
Initially I had to take a "day job" as a cell phone salesman with the hope of someday working full-time in video production. I got a chance to film some weddings for a very established wedding production company, and even though I was super nervous and made mistakes, the owner still liked my footage enough to keep hiring me. Another company brought me along with them to a shoot in Minnesota as a production assistant. When I went on that trip I barely knew the difference between a c-stand and boom-pole because I had honestly never been on a production with standard industry equipment. I was the least experienced person at that shoot by far, which was the total opposite for me because I was used to being the most experienced person when making videos with friends. It was an eye-opening experience, and I was so intimidated the whole time I barely spoke. That's not the real me.
As the year went on, I kept getting opportunities. The company that brought me to Minnesota gave me an editing opportunity, which was something I actually knew a lot about. I did well, and they gave me another project and another. Soon enough they asked me if I'd be interested in a part-time position which I replied heck to the yes.
So I stayed busy with video stuff on the side, and I actually really enjoyed my "day job" as a cell phone salesman. There were some things I couldn't stand about sales in general, but I had the personality and skill set to be very successful and impress my bosses. I really liked the guys I worked with, and I was fairly content there but I knew it wasn't my passion. I was contemplating if and when I should quit and try to do video full-time when I found out that I really wouldn't have a choice on the matter because my store would be closing at the end of June.
God provided, and I was fortunate to be able to increase my hours at the video production company I was working for. They couldn't bring me on full-time, but I at least had enough work to avoid the unemployment lines. I started looking for a full-time video job and interviewed for two jobs but didn't get either. I promised myself I'd be honest in this post, so here's some honesty- not getting those jobs really upset me. I felt I was very qualified for both jobs and thought I nailed the interviews, but as I said I didn't get either job. I kind of took it personally. I had spent almost a full-year working in the industry and gaining "legitimate" experience, but apparently I still had too much of a "wildcard" vibe for both places. I had never interviewed for a job and not gotten it before, and I think I'm still learning to process that. I guess that's part of being an "adult," right? I know I should just get over it, but part of me still wants to just prove them wrong. I think I already have, because even since those interviews my portfolio has improved dramatically. I know that's the wrong attitude to have, but it's just how I feel.
One thing that I struggle with is knowing how to let negative experiences motivate me in a positive way. I've always struggled with that. Looking back over the years, I definitely see a pattern of that big time. Why did I become a good wrestler in high school? Because I wanted to prove the people wrong who said I wasn't a good athlete. Why did I always try to be funny and the center of attention? Because in Jr. high people thought I was annoying and I was mad to feel unimportant. This post is already super long and there's so many layers to this that I think it really needs to become it's own post sometime.
Anyways, when it came down to it I didn't get those jobs because God had a better plan. I know that, despite my feelings. I needed about 10-15 hours and was praying for God to provide when my church called me up and offered me a position with the youth ministry producing videos...with 10-15 hours per week. It was pretty cool to see God provide so clearly, and also I had really been desiring to connect deeper with people in my church, but for some reason I just didn't do it. That's probably the real reason God gave me that job. That job has been a huge blessing, and for God's glory he has used me to create some pretty amazing stuff.
So that's kind of the story of my past year. It's been an interesting ride.
Still though, despite improving in my video skills a ton, I still struggle a lot with confidence. It's weird because it's something I don't really remember ever having a problem with before. I remember ever since high school taking pride in my ability to communicate well and just be myself around anyone. God has humbled me in that area big time. I don't know how to feel confident in the adult world. I'm pretty much new to the adult world and I kind of equate it to how I felt when I first became a teenager, back in Jr. High. At first I was totally uninhibited, but I quickly learned that "myself" wasn't good enough for pretty much everyone, and I actually came across as super annoying. I hated myself for the first few years of being a teenager. It wasn't long until I started to use negative experiences to motivate me to show people that they were wrong about me and somehow make them pay for hurting me. I learned to put on the face and say the right things so my "true" annoying self could be suppressed.
I kind of feel like I'm in Jr. High all over again only this time much better looking and with better hygiene sometimes. It sucks. The most I ever felt comfortable enough to be myself in Lincoln was at the cell phone store that I'm no longer employed at. For some reason when I work around people in the video industry I feel like some sort of fake, no matter how much I'm told otherwise. I receive a lot of compliments for my work, which are good because it helps me know I'm doing a good job, yet they don't seem to boost my confidence. I don't think this problem is fixable by anything I can really do. I'm at the mercy of God to give me back the confidence I need to be myself, because for some reason it's mostly gone missing for the past year and 10 days of my life.
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