Life

Quit School Now!

According to James Altucher, you don’t need to go to college.

Check out his article here:

I will have to say, I don’t remember a whole lot that I learned in class while in College.  I do think it’s very valuable for some professions, but most of them you need to go for additional education/training beyond a basic degree.  I think the life experiences of College are probably just as valuable as sitting through half the classes they require in order to get that piece of paper.  I know I learned so much through meeting some great people, figured out more about who I was and grew as a person just being in that environment…and I think that was way more beneficial than learning the FOIL method (first, outer, inner, last for those of you who have forgotten already) .  A degree these days is pretty much a mere prerequisite when applying for jobs…it’s funny however that you’ll find in the interview holding tank that there’s people with grad degrees sitting in the same row of poorly upholstered chairs as people who just started working straight out of high school.  A lot of times experience is irreplaceable, regardless of how many pieces of paper in a frame you have.  Knowing the right people is also a much quicker way to find yourself sitting in a cubicle than getting that extra minor in underwater basket-weaving.  Trust me, I value “education” and think that it is a critical part of life for whatever you’re going to do, both for a living and recreationally, but the proper type of education is what’s needed and it seems that the current system could use some tuning.  In this economy there are a lot of theories out there, but I think now is as good a time as ever to steal a thought from the Dean of Harvard as seen in “The Social Network”…”Harvard undergraduates believe that inventing a job is better than finding a job”…emphasis on the undergraduates…you don’t need a degree to make that happen and they aren’t gonna teach you how to do that while sitting in class…if they had a formula for it they wouldn’t still be there teaching a bunch of hungover frat boys how to do simple accounting.

It’s All Fun and Games…Until Someone Loses an Eye!

This is so dumb it’s stupid…imagine you’re kickin it at a party and somebody yells, “Yo! It’s time for Eyeballs!” Then somebody grabs a bottle of Smirnoff and tips their head back. Except instead of drinking straight from the tap, the fool pulls his eyelids apart and dumps a shot of vodka straight in his eye! Sounds ridiculous, I know, but it’s happening and folks are losing their sight and having all kinds of issues from the damage to their eyes. Supposedly, taking it to the face gets you drunk faster, but doctors say there’s no clinical evidence that backs that up.  The only evidence is coming from those who chugging Goose through their peepers…same people that’ll tell you that the rash is a souvenir lets you know it was a successful night, or that you know it was a great time when you can’t remember any of it…sound logic and reliable sources if you ask me (I hope you’re pickin’ up the sarcasm cause I’m layin’ it on pretty thick…Tommy Boy)!  You can read up more on it here.

There are clubs in Vegas that have folks doing this to get better tips and it’s been in the news both in the US and UK. We saw it on the Today show today (on our way over to X Games coverage) and there are tons of YouTube videos. Have y’all seen this around you? What do you think?  If you decide to do it, post it on YouTube so we can invite Antoine Dodson over and laugh at how dumb you are…fo real!

Don’t Drink the Water…(said in best DMB voice)

One thing that we care about here at We Minus Me is our health.  We believe our Creator gave us these bodies and we should take care of them…and that highly involves what we put in them.  We want to pass along any info that we run across that will help all of you take care of your bodies as well.  This is something that really concerns us and think that you guys should look into it as well.  It’s actually quite scary…Check it out here:

The Children of Bhopal Still Play…

I watched a lot of ESPN yesterday and saw several different stories that spoke to me.  This one literally ripped my heart out.  This is one of those stories that really puts things in perspective and helps you see that most of the things that we think are so important are really not at all.  It challenges us to recognize that there are issues in this world that are so much bigger than the ones we face in our daily lives and we need to not only change our attitude towards our own situations, but we also need to consider ways in which we can make a difference in this world and help those that are so much more in need than us.  Read the story at this link below and take some time to reflect on your own life and also on how we can help those across the world like the Children of Bhopal.

The Children of Bhopal Still Play

50 Ways to Love Your Neighbor…

I heard of this list while listening to one of my friends speak the other day about how Jesus loves the Outcast.  This is a list that a guy named Shane Claiborne put together and it is a pretty challenging and radical list to say the least.  However, I bet if we tried some of these things…it would be world changing…most likely for us just as much as our neighbor.  Try some of these…or some of your own…and let We Minus Me know the results:

1. Fast for the 2 billion people who live on less than a dollar a day.

2. Contact your local crisis pregnancy center and invite a pregnant woman to live with your family.

3. Ask your pastor if someone on your church’s sick list would like a visit.

4. Join an open AA meeting and befriend someone there.

5. Adopt a child.

6. Mow your neighbor’s grass.

7. Volunteer to tutor a kid at your local elementary school. (Try to get to know the kid’s family.)

8. Grow your own tomatoes–and share them.

9. Ask a small group in your community to meet regularly for intercessory prayer.

10. Build a wheel chair ramp for someone who is homebound.

11. Read the newspaper to someone at your local nursing home.

12. Plant a tree.

13. Look up the closest registered sex offender in your neighborhood and try to befriend him.

14. Throw a birthday party for a prostitute.

15. When you pay your water bill, pay your neighbor’s too (they’ll let you… really).

16. Invest money in a micro-lending bank.

17. Ask the next person who asks you to spare some change to join you for dinner.

18. Leave a random tip for someone who’s cleaning the streets or a public restroom.

19. Write one CEO a month this year. Affirm or critique the ethics of their company (you may need to do a little research first).

20. Start tithing (giving 10%) of all your income directly to the poor.

21. Connect with a group of migrant workers or farmers who grow your food and visit their farm. Maybe even pick some veggies with them. Ask what they get paid.

22. Give your winter coat away to someone who is colder than you and go to a thrift store to get a new one.

23. Write only paper letters (by hand) for a month. Try writing someone who needs encouragement or who you should say “I’m sorry” to.

24. Go TV free for a year. Or turn your TV into a pot where flowers grow.

25. Laugh at advertisements, especially ones that teach you that you can buy happiness.

26. Organize a prayer vigil for peace outside a weapons manufacturer such as Lockheed Martin. Read the Sermon on the Mount out loud. For extra credit, do it every week for a year.

27. Go down a line of parked cars and pay for the meters that are expired. Leave a little note of niceness.

28. Write to one social justice organizer or leader each month just to encourage them.

29. Go through a local thrift store and drop $1 bills in random pockets of the clothing being sold.

30. Experiment with creation-care by going fuel free for a week–ride a bike, carpool, or walk.

31. Try only reading books written by females or people of color for a year.

32. Go to an elderly home and get a list of folks who don´t get any visitors. Visit them each week and tell stories, read the bible together, or play board games.

33. Track to its source one item of food you eat regularly. Then, each time you eat that food, pray for those folks who helped make it possible for you to eat it.

34. Create a Jubilee fund in your Church congregation, matching dollar for dollar every dollar you spend internally with a dollar externally. If you have a building fund, create a fund to match it to give away and buy mosquito nets or dig wells for folks dying in poverty.

35. Become a pen-pal with someone in prison.

36. Give your car away to a stranger.

37. Convert your car to run off waste vegetable oil.

38. Try recycling your water from the washer or sink to flush your toilet. Remember the 1.2 billion folks who don´t have clean water.

39. Wash your clothes by hand, or dry them by hanging to remember those without electricity or running water. Remember the 1.6 billion people who do not have electricity.

40. Buy only used clothes for a year.

41. Cover up all brand names, or at least the ones that do not reflect the upside-down economics of God’s Kingdom. Commit to only being branded by the cross.

42. Learn to sew or start making your own clothes to remember the invisible faces behind what we wear. Take your kids to pick cotton so they can see what that is like (and then read James).

43. Eat only a bowl of rice a day for a week to remember those who do that for most of their life (take a multivitamin). Remember the 30,000 people who die each day of poverty and malnutrition.

44. Begin creating a scholarship fund so that for every one of your own children you send to college you can create a scholarship for an at-risk youth. Get to know their family and learn from each other.

45. Visit a worship service where you will be a minority. Invite someone to dinner at your house or have dinner with someone there if they invite you.

46. Help your church congregation create a Peacemaker Scholarship and give it away to a young person trying to avoid the economic draft, who would like to go to college but sees no other way than the military.

47. Eat with someone who does not look like you. Learn from them.

48. Confess something you have done wrong to someone and ask them to pray for you.

49. Serve in a homeless shelter. For extra credit, go back and eat or sleep in the shelter and allow yourself to be served.

50. Join a ministry at a prison close to you. Remember that Jesus said he would meet you there (Matt. 25).

Money Can’t Buy Me Love…

Here’s a perfect example of the We Minus Me “mentality” in action…It’s rad to see someone doing something good for others and using their money/fortune to bless those that need it.  It’s also amazing to have this perspective on money/life versus the one that so many people have these days.  I’ve thought so many times about what I’d do with the money if I won the lottery…part of me would want to do the same as Violet and Allen, but I know it would be much harder once you had that cheddar in your possession.  We can all learn by taking a page from their book.  I’ll link the story Here, but also post below:

A retired Canadian couple who won $11.3 million in the lottery in July have already given it (almost) all away.

“What you’ve never had, you never miss,” 78-year-old Violet Large explained to a local reporter.

She was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer when the couple realized they’d won the jackpot in July.

“That money that we won was nothing,” her tearful husband, Allen, told Patricia Brooks Arenburg of the Nova Scotia Chronicle Herald. “We have each other.”

The money was a “headache,” they told the paper–mainly, it brought anxiety over the prospect that “crooked people” might take advantage of them. Several people called them out of the blue to ask for money when the news first broke that they’d won the jackpot. So they began an $11 million donation spree to get rid of it and help others, the Chronicle Herald reports:

They took care of family first and then began delivering donations to the two pages’ worth of groups they had decided on, including the local fire department, churches, cemeteries, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, hospitals in Truro and Halifax, where Violet underwent her cancer treatment, and organizations that fight cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes. The list goes on and on.

Violet told the Canadian Press that they retained about 2 percent of the money for a rainy day.

“It made us feel good,” Violet told the Chronicle Herald. “And there’s so much good being done with that money.”

The Nova Scotia couple have been married more than 35 years and quietly saved up the money that Allen made as a welder and Violet made in retail before retiring.

“We haven’t spent one cent on ourselves because we’ve been too busy getting everything looked after and with my health, I have to wait to get my health back to get the energy to do anything,” Violet told the National Post. “We’re not travelers anyway. We live in the country and we’re proud of it. Money can’t buy you health or happiness.”

Now their neighborhood is abuzz over their good deeds.

“People who know them just know that’s the type of people they are—they’re just happy to have each other,” local restaurant owner Lori Hingley told the Canadian Press.

The prize was in Canada dollars (roughly equal to U.S. dollars at current exchange rates).

Eat More Chikin…

We Minus Me and Chick-fil-a joined forces this past Spring Break 20Ten to show some love to College Students. We gave out hundreds of Chick-fil-a’s Famous Chicken Sandwiches on the beach in Panama City and of course the students loved it! This is a commercial comprised of some of the students’ excitement and appreciation over the goods.

New Card…

Here’s one of our new cards that will be given out all across the country…one slant on what we’re all about.

Life is a Highway…Part 1

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Southern California…but if you have, you’ve probably noticed that the driving out here is different than a lot of other places.  I remember the first time I drove in California (I didn’t live here yet)…I think there were 8 lanes on one side with cars bumper to bumper and no one was driving slower than 80…and that was in the far right lane that was getting on and off the interstate!  I don’t really get nervous when I drive, but this was seriously insane like Shaun T!  I swear when we first moved out here I thought I was going to have to change my name to Dale and start putting massive stickers all over my car.

Driving out here has been a learning experience and has inspired me to write a couple blogs about my auto adventures.  The first lesson can be illustrated by this story:

I was in a hurry the other day to get to a new townhouse that we were gonna check out and the open house was only going to be happening for 20 more minutes.  As I was driving this lady was going like 30mph in front of me, acting like she was going to turn, then not turning, then turning again…meanwhile internally I’m considering pulling out my blow-dart gun and hocking one right into her back tire so she’d conveniently swerve out of my way.  After she finally turned, I glared over at her trying (enough to say I tried) not to let her see the Stink Eye that was naturally forming on my face due to her Helen Keller-esque driving skills.  I noticed that she was looking down at her cell phone and I deduced that she was looking at directions by the way she was having issues figuring out where to turn.  I proceeded on, punching the gas and flipping the NO2 switch in my tricked out Toyota Prius so that we could hopefully make the open house.  One turn before our destination, the little blue dot was of course behind on my Maps App (DANG iPhone) and I missed the turn I was supposed to make.  Immediately realizing my mistake, I hit the brakes because I was in the right turn only lane approaching the light and wasn’t sure where to go to get back to my destination.  I turned into the left lane and decided to go straight through the light to cop a “U” and out of the corner of my eye I saw a lady waving her arms furiously and honking her horn as if she loved Jesus.  At first I was like…WTF Mate?  Then God slapped me across the back of the head…not literally because I probably wouldn’t be able to type right now if He did…it was more of a metaphorical slap.  “You’re a Hypocrite” were the words that rang in my head.  What do you mean I’m a hypocrite?  Whoa Whoa Whoa…it’s totally different!  I mean I know that this lady and I both were looking down at our cell phones in order to follow directions and that we both missed a turn which caused us to unexpectedly hit our brakes, unavoidably affecting the cars behind us while simultaneously ruffling their (my) feathers…but it’s different.  She’s…uh…she’s a WOMAN for crying out loud!  AHHHHHHH I’m a Hypocrite!

This was a serious revelation…and I mean one straight from God.  Hello my name is Russ and I am a Hypocrite.  This was definitely a shot to my pride, but it made me laugh at the same time.  I realized we are ALL hypocrites…there’s no getting around it.  There’s no point in going around acting all high and mighty as if our stip don’t shink.  We all just need to admit that at some point in time, regardless of how hard we try or how much we lie to ourselves and others, we are going to act in a hypocritical fashion.  We need to realize that we shouldn’t treat people in a manner in which we wouldn’t want to be treated due to their mistakes.  The silver lining to this cloud is that there is grace…and forgiveness.  We are all human…we all make mistakes…but we need to chill out and extend this loving grace to each other when these mistakes are made.  Think of the condition of our society and world if we all made the effort to do this…it might put the car horn people right out of business (and boost creative usage for that 3rd finger).

God slapped me in the head so that I’d realize that I need to start practicing what I preach and stop expecting to be treated differently than I treat others…but He did this to make me better, not to be a legalistic tyrant.  He wants to extend the same grace and love He showed me to you and anyone else who wants to accept it.

Do You?

Brooke’s Story…

Brooke’s Story from We Minus Me on Vimeo.

To me, this story epitomizes We Minus Me…this is what we are all about…meeting College Students right in the Gutters of life and loving them with the authentic love that has been shown to us by Jesus.