My 2023 Year in Review

Well, following my 2021 and 2022 reviews, this is my 3rd in a row. Meaning we have a streak!! ?? 2023 was a wild year. Truly, truly, so many ups. So many downs. This year felt like two half years. One where I was substitute teaching and was in control of my schedule and another where I was working at WK and was not in control. There is a lot to be learned and gleamed from both.

My list of goals as defined in what I was looking for in 2023 are as follows:

• Perform Improv or Stand-Up 12 times by June. (Miss)

I only did this 10 times total. And I was at 0 by June. My best pal at work (Bianca) had a family member who was a really great improvisor and we got to do classes with her probable 8 or so times. I also did standup once with my friend Michael from WK. One thing I’m realizing is that standup might not be in the cards for me right now. Just because in order to do standup, you need to be at an open mic for 3 hours for 3 minutes of standup, while with Improv, everything second you’re doing improv you’re learning and getting better.

• Write 6 blog posts by June. (Miss)

I didn’t write hardly any blog posts. I did get a chance to teach (biblically) at morning prayer about 12 times throughout the year and got to do 4 larger teachings for Night School and once for Door of Hope. But I don’t think it exactly is the same thing.

• Hang with Jesus 90% of my mornings. (Miss)

This was probably one of the biggest switches in the year. The first 6 months of the year, I was at 90%. The second 6 months of the year I was down around 35%. This was a MASSIVE contributing factor towards how I felt as a person. -

• Read 80% of my days. (Even if it’s just 1 page) (Miss)

I was at about 90% for the first 4 months of the year, then it dropped to around 70% for the next 4 months, before eventually plumiting to around 20% the last 4 months of the year. Overall, though, I still read a pretty good amount for the year. It just looked like 3 books a month in the beginning and eventually less than a book a month by the end of the year.

• Be in a gym 3x a week. (Even if my workouts aren’t great) (Miss)

Didn’t miss a workout through the month of April. Barely worked out after the month of June.

• Play in 3 tennis tournaments in 2023. (Hit)

This one I achieved, actually! Feeling pretty good on the Tennis side of things.

• Move into a house with people I know & love. (Hit)

I did do this! It’s been filled with highs and lows, but I got it done.

• Run “The Life” (ministry event) 12 times (Hit)

We ran the life about 8 times, but we also roasted a 100 lb pig and started this thing called Night School which met 12 times during the summer alone. So this was taken care of too.

• Rebuild my supplemental (freelance) income streams to $2k/mo. (DNF)

Didn’t/am not doing any freelance stuff, but I did get a full time job? So Idk if it’s a pass or a miss.

• To be able to give someone a quality 2 hour tour of the history of Portland. (Miss)

I know way more about living in Portland, but I don’t know much about the History. Miss.

Health

Health in 2023 was weird. Well, actually not all that weird, but like most things in 2023 there was a sharp change of events around May/June and my start at Wieden and Kennedy. Looking back, I didn’t miss a single workout through the month of April. My life rhythm was pretty sweet on account of my gym being directly on the way home from my substitute teaching shifts. Meaning I got off work around 3:20 and then had to drive by the gym. Which was ideal because a) the gym was less busy at that time and b) I had to get my workout in pretty quickly or it would get super busy.

When I started my job at WK, though, I fell out of rhythm. 1) because work took up so much time but 2) because I didn’t have the muscle memory (pun intended) of integrating exercise with my new life. There were hopes of working out at the company gym or the 24 hour fitness (where I was already a member), but it never took off. One underrated thing about working out at the same places and doing the same workouts you’ve done is that it requires very little brain power. Even now, going back to my substitute teaching gym, I find it much easier to get workouts in.

Moving into 2024, I am thinking about joining a gym like Orange Theory or something where I just don’t have to think about what I’m doing. I’m also interested in group fitness because of how much I enjoyed working out at the placed called the K-Zone Academy when I was living in NC.

Another huge factor on my health was my lack of cooking. This is also attributed to WK and also because I moved into a new house. Similar to working out in unfamiliar gym, cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen has just enough of a mental factor that I didn’t cook nearly as much as I would have liked.

Work

Compared to last year when I had 8 jobs, this year was pretty simple with two: 1) Substitute Teacher and 2) Copywriter at WK.

Being a substitute teacher was awesome. I did my application for WK while substitute teaching. High School subbing is ideal because most of the work is to\ be done on kids laptops (whether that’s good for education is another story). Your main goal as a sub is to keep everyone alive and make sure you don’t lose control of the classroom. We all know what it’s like to have a sub. The kids are looking for an easy day. I’m looking for an easy day. If we all do our job, everyone wins. And then you also get chances to hang out with high school kids who, despite the eroding nature of TikTok, still have pretty interesting brains. I miss subbing sometimes.

On the WK side of things— gosh — this is going to take a lot of reflection.

This story about my wrist watch serves as an apt illustration:

The program started on May 30. The week before the start, I drove to Boise, ID to see my friend Tim who was having baby. Also, 8 hours in the car each way seemed like a good opportunity to clear my head and have some time of reflection. I’ve missed long stretches on the road during the last two years of being planted in Portland. I had just ordered a digital watch and it wasn’t as simple as previous watches to set the time. When I got to Boise, I set the time ahead an hour and 3 minutes. I always move a watch forward about 3 minutes or so to give myself buffer. I never switched it back, and so from that moment on my watch was 1 hour and 3 minutes ahead. I had also entered the wrong date of the month, and so every time I looked at the watch I had to do some random mental math. If anyone had looked at my watch it would have, on all accounts, been the wrong time. Then, about 4 months in, I was playing an advertising league softball game and I took a ground ball off the wrist which exploded the band and I stopped never got around to a) getting it fixed or b) getting a new watch.

That is how time in the program felt. From the moment it started, it felt like I was strapped to a rocket and blasted off and the gravitation force kept my arms by my side so I couldn’t really change anything. Then after 4 months, all of a sudden the rocket cap launched off and I was drifting in an oxygen-less environment and was saved at the last second by Christmas break.

Maybe that sounds intense. And that’s because it was. I also decided to enter into a significant romantic relationship at the same time as launching one of the largest ministry endeavors I had, too. So it’s not all WK. And I’m not saying that someone else couldn’t have made it work. I’m just saying with what my capacity was (and is), it felt like I was damn near out of control.

The program was nuanced. Cool at times, interesting at times, lame at times. It was 12 people who were ‘not competing for a job’ that were 1,000% competing for a job. There were really no rules, no guideposts, no directions for getting a job outside of seeming like you’re cool/impressive and talking to important people within the walls/trying to prove you have ‘good ideas’. It felt like a wicked problem , in the sense that the rules of getting hired felt incomplete, contradictory, and had changing requirements.

The job is cool. On day one, we were told we were ‘professional idea havers ’ and moved in that direction for the next 6 months. I went from having no idea about advertising as an industry to understanding it pretty well. I understand new business, a client, a brief, at pitch, and idea, and an execution. I understand the difference between an insight and an idea and what OOH means. I got a chance to get coffee with so many different people who were kind and generous with their time and their thoughts. It was really good in many ways, but I also am dealing with a lot of what feel like inbred contradictions.

The problem that I’m currently dealing with is an overwhelming distraction & a sense of purposelessness because I kinda got strapped into a rocket and blasted off. I’m not the only one, & perhaps for me it happened later than it does for most. The classic ‘post college get a job and an apartment & figure out some rhythms & car payments & student loans & all of a sudden there isn’t much time to think about if this is what I want to be doing’.

• I’m dealing with a variety of tradeoffs and & ‘almost’ future options, but I’m not sure if it’s going to build out bad habits. Allow me to explain: Within my job, there are some parts of it that are really cool. I can show up late sometimes— like 11AM or when my first meeting is. For the most part, there isn’t anyone breathing down my neck (unless there is, like when a deadline needs to be met or we need to push a lot by the end of the year).The ‘work’ is actually pretty cool. The process of it (the means, not the ends) is fun. I get to think of ideas and generally have a ‘problem’ I’m trying to solve in a creative way that fits into a client’s parameters. The parameter is often lame but it’s testing to have that type of restriction. (Ad’s will not be cool 99.9% of the time)The people I work with are pretty smart. There is a certain amount of stick-to-itiveness & dealing with rejection & the process of brainstorming that is admirable. Creative Director’s ability to listen to an idea while ‘keeping their eye on the prize’ (client’s wants) is impressive.Each of these come with a downside, though:
• The work process is boom or bust. Sometimes you’ll have no work for a week and then all of a sudden you’ll have a ton of work due in two days and you’ll have to work overtime or through the weekend to get it done. You don’t know what is coming when, which makes it really hard to build life or outside-work rhythms. I’ve had to cancel dinner plans multiple times with friends because work was going crazy and it’s also hard to manage your energy because you don’t know when the next two week push is coming.
• This might be one of the biggest problems. And as a disclaimer, I don’t want to sound like a little biotch. I’m getting paid to write stuff. That isn’t very common. But the ‘almost sweetness’ is kind of the problem? It seems that we have quickly traded any sense of ‘purpose’ for an easier chance to grab ‘ease and security’. Two things I’ve heard (and said) is “My job isn’t that hard” or “It allows me to live”, but does it? Or does the lack of purpose eventually lead us to become purposeless in other areas? The some way that ‘saving energy’ by not working out leads us to become more tired & have less energy to work out. To be a farmer is tough. Waking up early, working long and grueling days, going to bed tired and then doing it all again. To be a plumber isn’t glamorous. You’re dealing with [literal] sh*t all day. But at the end of the day, people have food and running water. And at the end of my day what— Allstate has a slightly better brand perception or Visa maybe makes a little more money? Gross.
• The fact that the people I work with are smart but are solving problems that are useless for most of society is one of the things that makes me sad. Again, it’s a privilege to be able to choose what type of work I get to do. But so much of it is a waste of human capital. Now, even within that there are multiple scenarios. Maybe this is a job that allows people to be able to take care of their families or to not work a ton, but invest time in other areas of the world that are beneficial. Maybe it’s a step where I learn more about this world can eventually help brands that I think are good for the world. Maybe I develop a skillset or meet people that move me more towards helping earth and for now I get paid to practice writing? Idk. There are a lot of ways this could play out.
• A lot of feeling what I’m feeling is because I gave up things for this job that I don’t want to give up in the future. Things like morning prayer, consistent time with Jesus, working out, friendships, standup/improv, etc. It can all be chalked up to a learning experience, but I just want to name these things so I know what I’m not willing to budge on moving forward.

Relationships

Hah. 2023 man. What a year! Fr fr. Dating, leading along side folks. Adding work relationships in and totally limiting my time. Trying to stay up with family. Trying to stay up with friends. Trying to go deep. Portland people moving all around? Friendship dynamics changing. Wild Wild Wild. Need I say more? Yes, I need, because this doesn’t make a lot of sense yet.

Living in a place for a while is a beautiful thing. I’m not sure if I can count 2 years as ‘a while’, but it is long enough for the initial luster to dull slightly and for things to settle a bit.

I have a tendency to get spread thin. I like meeting new people and then those people are interesting and soon enough I am getting coffee with 38 people but only seeing them once every 3 months. I was a part of two church communities, which leads to my spreading. I also started a job half way through the year with co-workers and office dynamics and expectations. I also also started to date someone half way through the year which, to do well, requires a significant amount of time/energy/commitment. I also also also took on a ministry endeavor (Night School) that added to people/expectations/commitments.

Needless to say, while I was surrounded by people, there were times I felt more like a ghost than a person. I felt like I was floating through a lot of my days and people had a hard time actually getting through to me.

Moving into 2024, rather than give 50% to 20 people, I want to give 100% to 10 people. I’m not sure if those are the exact numbers, but that is the sentiment.

I am blessed to be where I am. I just want to steward my relationships well.

Jesus Thoughts

TL;DR: A long obedience in the same direction. Keeping hope high. Trying to see Him in every movement that I can. He is so worth it. Less Church. More awareness of God in every moment. More awareness that He loves me and sees me and I can relax into his presence. Come to the Father, all who are weary and He will give you rest. He gives us a path. He gives us an ox. He gives us Himself. He’s all I want man. He’s all I want.

One of my favorite thinkers, Mark Sayers, has a phrase: “crisis precedes revival”. If you look around, there are ample crises. Being in Portland over the last two years, I have met more young people authentically following Jesus than any place I’ve been. I have met more older folks with an acute understanding of the cultural moment and waters we are swimming in. There is an anticipation of a strong movement of God, perhaps similar to the Jesus People movement in the 1970’s. It’s hard to plan on something like that happening, but I just want to steward the small slice of the pie that I have been entrusted with.

We launched something this summer called Night School and on the off weeks we had something called Study Hall. Night School was basically a Bible Study on the book but more so the person of Jeremiah. Study Hall was a thing where we all showed up, someone shared a 6-minute version of what they believed the Gospel to be, and then we all read silently for an hour. You could read anything you wanted (books, novels, articles, the Bible, truly anything) and then for the last 30 minutes, people went up on stage to read excerpts from their reading that was exceptionally powerful. It was one of the coolest things I’ve been a part of and I’m excited to be a part of it again this upcoming summer.

My personal relationship with Jesus was nuanced. At times this year, I felt Him so powerfully and closely. At other times (mostly during the later months at WK) I was so distracted that I barely spent any time with Him and was unaware of His nearness in my day to do.

Moving forward into 2024, there is an increasing desire from myself and those around me to commit ourselves more fully, to consecrate ourselves, and to increase in our spiritual disciplines (prayer, fasting, silence, solitude, service, etc.). Not for the goal of earning anything, but just because we are feeling an increased desire and it seems like a movement of God is coming soon. We’re not sure exactly what or when or how, but we just want to be ready.

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This is a 3000 word giant. If anyone read all of this, you’re insane. If anyone read some of this and skipped to the bottom, you’re really kind and probably much more sane. I wish you all a baller 2024 <3.