What I Look Forward To Each Week

On finding joy in each day.

It’s become obvious through this little writing project of mine that many of us still have attention spans. I am deeply grateful for the many words of encouragement I’ve received each time I’ve put something out here.

It’s fun and very heartening to have an outlet full of people who don’t mind reading something a little longer, where I’m able to explain myself more completely and use words that might be too “collegiate” for some ears. Most of my writing work is commercial, focused on explaining things with the simplest and shortest language possible. In that world, we know people won’t read it anyway. Here, I know the words get through.

Thank you all.

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I’ve been reflecting on joy lately. In a world that seems systematically set on robbing us of so many good moments, it feels like rebellion to look at my time and realize that there is truly so much that brings me happiness each week.

Today, I thought I’d talk about what I look forward to often.

Evenings spent in nature

While our adventures are consistently less epic than they were in the past, we are spending so much more time outside than ever before. Every moment feels precious, so even just a half hour outside on a trail with the dogs adds so much happiness.

We are all so busy. I’m as guilty of it as anyone: saying yes because I want to help and want to impact so much. I’ve grown far more careful of any “yes”, making sure that anything I do is aligned alongside people with shared visions and goals.

So many evenings, most of them in-fact, are spoken for. It’s a nearly automatic “no” anymore for anything else. Weekends are even worse. So when we have a chance to get outside one evening, we take it. I really don’t want to out-busy my life to any extent that would prevent that.

Little adventures bring me close to the world. I’ve gone out in every season and in most any weather, observing things few others make the time to see. That’s important to me.

Storytelling work

Most of my job is storytelling work, in one way or the other.

I’m really grateful to enjoy my job. That wasn’t always the case, even after learning that I’m bad at being an employee and starting on my own thing. Chasing work to “scale” was never at the core of what I wanted to do and I’m extremely grateful to feel like I’m on the other side: telling stories and helping organizations grow where I can have true impact.

I start every week excited to jump in. Whether I’m behind a computer organizing work or behind a camera, it’s easy to see now that I’m where I belong. All the rest that we do at Aspire serves to tell the stories: the websites, the strategies we write, and all the technical issues we solve are just there to forward someone’s story and bring a dream to life.

With a hearty workload now, that’s allowing us to hire some and grow again. I can’t wait to see where it takes us and I’m looking forward to that.

Run Club. Oh, Run Club!

I can safely admit it now: Christiansburg Run Club is monumentally bigger than I ever thought it could be. Our numbers and each member’s commitment to each other is incredible. A dozen of us ran a freaking ultra this weekend together.

Run club forms the basis for a community that I truly value and could not be as happy here without. Like many clubs, it’s about more than the activity itself. We get dinner together, babysit each others kids, go for bike rides, and move furniture together. I could go on for a very long time about how much joy that brings me.

Monday and Thursday evenings, every single week, are joyous.

Adventures, chickens, and this wonderfully strange life we lead.

This final section will be “all the rest”: Kristy (who is reflected in all the rest too), chickens, tandem bikes, our rambunctious dogs, a camper van nearly as old as we are, and all the adventures and misadventures we find ourselves on.

Looking at the present, I can’t say I’m surprised exactly by where I am. I’ve always leaned into what feels good and never worried too much if it’s typical or not. Chasing status or things was never part of my plan and never will be. All these simple things bring me joy.

I hope I can look back decades from now and find that it only grew stranger from here.

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Thanks for reading this, you people with actual attention spans! I’m glad you’re here and support this work. If it wasn’t for your kind words, I’d probably still be writing—that’s the kind of stubborn person that I am. But your words do truly help and I’m grateful for them in more ways than you know.