More than just an Easter message.

This is definitely something more than something to apply to your life than just on Easter. We should be thinking of this everyday.

This just made me laugh

I saw this picture and decided I needed to share it. That is all.

One of my new heroes.

So in a previous post I mentioned how I was reading, and loving the book Yes Man. The author, Danny Wallace, of this book has seriously become my new hero, and not because he has a great first name. You know that time where you had a great idea of something fun and interesting to do, but then chickened out at the last second, or started doing it but lost all dedication to it. Yeah, he doesn't chicken out, and he definitely follows through. In his first book, which I read by sneaking it off the shelf of the BYU-Hawaii bookstore where I worked, called Join Me, he accidently starts a cult, or a collective as he would rather it be called. In a fit of boredom and curiosity, he took out an ad in the paper stating, "Join me. Send one passport-sized photograph to..." and then he published his address, to see if anyone would join him. As to why they were joining him, he had no particular reason, but soon had to find a reason as people actually started joining him, so he started the Karma Army. Funny thing, the website he started in to bring people into his collective is still there, and if you want, you can still join. He seems like the type of person that everyone would want in their group of friends to make life much more interesting, as he comes up with various projects. Whether it be crazy things like trying to start his own country in his apartment, looking for the center of the universe in Idaho, saying yes to everything for 6 months or something a little more normal like tracking down all of his old friends from elementary and high school, a sort of twisted profoundness comes from it. For example, in Yes Man, no other statement has hit me harder than, "Every good thing in your life has come from saying yes to something somewhere along the line." Or when he realizes that sometimes saying no is a freeing experience and is okay, as long as you don't let it prevent yourself from missing out on life. In the end, he's become one of my new heroes and I strongly recommend picking up one of his books, and I guarantee you'll become a believer.

More enlightenment

Dannyanism Proposition of Enlightenment #42 article C: If at some point it you think you're drowning, and in your struggle you think this just might be the end... just stand up. Chances are, the water will only be about a foot deep, you'll be fine.

Another something new to listen to... Cubworld.

Introducing, Cubworld, aka Jacob Kongaika. It's funny how I came across this guy, he went to BYU-Hawaii with me, his dad was a vice president of the school, and his brother taught one of the classes I took. Now, I knew he was a musician, I'd heard him play but I had no idea that this would come of his few little gigs here and there at BYUH. But I didn't really hear his stuff until a student in my news writing lab did a profile on him and I went to his website. It's absolutely amazing. It doesn't really fit any particular genre per se, and I could probably make up a new genre like acoustic alterna-R&B, but you can just consider it in the genre of awesomeness.



Right now he's not on any major label, but should definitely be on one. Do yourself a favor and head over to his website and have a listen. Then go to iTunes and get the album, help him out, and help him get the recognition he definitely deserves.

Your new path to enlightenment...

I've decided that I want to be like Confucius and start my own -ism, Dannyanism, and start open up a new path to enlightenment. So like Confucius, I'm gonna guide everyone down that path toward enlightenment through vague little sayings, limericks, poems and stories. Get what you want out of it.


Dannyanism Proposition of Enlightenment #72: Sometimes when your brushing your teeth and your brother announces that he just used your toothbrush to clean the ball that he plays fetch with the dog with, you just gotta keep brushing and finish up.

How in the world did I get myself into this situation?

I've come to the realization that I live to ask myself this question. Now, I don't mean asking it in the negative way, like when I'm facing the consequences for doing something wrong or stupid, but when I end up in doing something amazing, awesome, strange and/or completely surreal, just by taking going out and doing things. I am by no means a daredevil, but I love adventure, I love seeing and experiencing things that few others have ever done before.

Over the past month I've been reading the book, Yes Man, by Danny Wallace (yes that stupid Jim Carrey movie is based off it, but the book is way way way different). In the book he decides to say Yes to everything for 6 months, and it leads him on some absolutely crazy adventures, that he normally wouldn't have gone on, and changes his life in the process. This is the way I want to lead my life. Not necessarily saying yes to everything, because sometimes you just have to say no, but saying yes to things that I normally wouldn't say yes to.

Last year, my trip to China was a prime example of a time where I said yes to something I would normally say no to, citing lack of means to go. Now, I am definitely paying for it now, having no savings and a bit of a credit card bill, but I wouldn't change it for the world. Who else can say that they hiked the Great Wall of China and camped out on one of the towers? I personally know of only 8 or 9 other people (because they were with me). Or, who can say they once stood on a street corner in Beijing with a box full of cats, and then went for nachos later on that night? I can only think of one, and he was with me at the time (that was a pretty weird moment in life, huh, Chris).

Either way, I loved the fact that while I was doing each of those things I was able to ask myself, "How in the world did I get myself in this situation?" And just smile.