Did You Know The Human Brain Stops Growing At 26???

Blog 3:

I turned 26 last week.  So yes its official…. I am the most intelligent I will ever be right now, in this very moment.  Thank you Donald Miller for that lovely piece of information.  If I hadn’t just read the newest Donald Miller book “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” I would not have this lovely little nugget of truth (awesome), except that I also would not have just finished one of the most inspiring books I have ever read (thank you Shauna for the recommendation).  I actually think the timing was perfect to read this book, right at my quarter-life crisis.  The book is all about making your life a story worth telling.  He talks about how most Americans don’t tell good stories with their lives; they tell fine stories but not the type of stories that people would want to watch on the movie screen.  He talks about how, “No one wants to watch the story about a guy who works a desk job to save up for that Volvo and then in the end he gets the Volvo and drives off the lot because its just boring”.  Nothing wrong with a desk job or a Volvo, but if that’s all we have its not much.  He also talks about how if we make better stories for ourselves then we stop looking to movies or other things to tell stories for us, and our lives just have more meaning (and I like movies, but he’s right).  He says it more much eloquently and also in a much funnier way, but that’s the gist.  Its just good, really good so read it.

  All this to say, I am now on this side of 30 and I hope I am starting to take some steps to tell a good story with my life.   I just celebrated what might have been my favorite birthday yet.  Your early twenties are a lot, I mean A LOT, of fun, but they are also filled with a lot of growing pains.  Graduating college and leaving some friends, first heartbreak, first real-job, first crappy apartment (thank you IV), first car that I own, being broke, and realizing that all of the things you thought you wanted or would get are not at all working out like you thought they would.  But they are all good things to learn.  And time passes and  I become more aware everyday of the things that I don’t know, but I have to say I like this side of  my twenties.  It kind of feels good and it doesn’t feel like my youth is ending or anything dramatic, but it feels like I actually have “lived” a bit and learned some things and survived some others. 

  I spent my 26^th birthday with one of my best friends Katie in an orphanage in Kenya.  For birthday presents I got a 2 liter bottle of warm coke, 4 Cadburry chocolate bars, and the funniest birthday card I have ever read from the kids in the Childrens Home (best quote was when one of the girls told me she wish me to be like Noah and reach 600 years old).   All the kids sang to me and gave a little speech, and then they prayed for me.   And we all laughed and danced a little, and I think I had a smile on my face most of the day.  It was a good birthday.