Biscuits and Gravy

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When you look back at your life can you identify a time where anxiety helped your situation? If you’re like me the answer is never. Anxiety is like the comfort food of the human condition. We know it doesn’t help us in the long run, but the high carb sentimental indulgence makes us feel better in the now. 

What if we collectively decided to put aside the gravy and actually pursue something in the short term that will benefit us down the road? I’m not immune to anxiety or worry. In fact, nobody is. These emotions come from a place of yearning for security, safety, and success. Years ago, it became obvious to me that being optimistic about the future costs the same as being negative. Being an optimist doesn’t mean you believe everything will work out perfectly it simply means that it will work out like it supposed to work out. I’m ok with that. I’m not in control of anything other than the way in which I respond to a perceived good or bad experience. That’s just it, we don’t really know what is best for us until years have passed and we can appreciate the fact that the greatest disappointments of our life were actually get out of jail free cards. 

I don’t pretend to have a crystal ball that predicts what’s next. From experience, I can tell you that there will be many good and bad things in our future. The good will be great and the bad times will make us feel like the good times are never coming back. As human beings, we are hard-wired to hold on to the negative thoughts from our past and transpose those insecurities to our future. I for one reject that notion and proclaim that the best is yet to come. 

Today is a new day. Today has never existed before. All the negativity that is suffocating you from last week is knocking at your door hoping to ruin another one of your precious days on this planet. Don’t let it. If you are reading this, take a deep breath and shout at the top of your lungs – you are not the boss of me! You are an independent, unique, one of kind human being that has been gifted with the intellect to reject self-doubt and failure. Today is your day to turn the ship back into the storm and declare that you are a force to be reckoned with. 

Full Speed Ahead,

Matt Davenport

Biscuits and Gravy
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What Can Possibly Go Wrong?

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This is never going to end! These words have crossed my mind several times in 2020. What if? What then? Words of doubt eventually lead to anxiety. Accepting the fact that you are not in control quickly puts anxious thoughts into perspective. 

Recently, my family was fortunate enough to take an RV trip. As we pushed off from Orange County, I felt reasonably confident we would get to all our destinations on time and intact. Besides the mountain of snacks and luggage, we packed our 5 kids and for good measure, my sister and brother in law saddled up for the exploration. Yes, you read that right, we had 9 people in an RV headed East in hopes of enjoying a perfectly flawless summer vacation. What could possibly go wrong?

In life, we make plans that, looking back, were entirely naive and maybe even delusional. Yet, we make them because we are optimistic and have a romantic notion about the winding road ahead. Somewhere along this twisted path we become control freaks and do everything in our power to drive in a straight line when the road clearly calls for power steering. 

There we were having a blast and enjoying the scenery when an errant golf ball aggressively searched out and destroyed our windshield. This event was not in our bullet-point plans but proved to be a chance to learn how to patch up glass with duct tape and nail polish. We had another learning opportunity on the return trip when both back tires on the left side of the RV blew at 70 mph. Is this the result of the 2020 curse pursuing us as we drive or is this simply the way life goes? We make plans and we assume we are in control of them. Turns out we are not, and we never were. 

Here’s the upside, the movies we watch and the books we read are not about people who lived a predictable and always favorable life. No, we are most deeply interested and invested in those who overcame. Those who were beat up and told they would never amount to much yet persevered. The stories my kids will tell of this fabled voyage will not be about the campsites we made it to on time, rather they will tell THEIR kids about the time dad was forced to use nail polish to hold our family adventure together.  

Have Fun,

Matt Davenport

What could possibly go wrong article
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Pack a Parachute

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Skydiving is a hobby that I have never really understood. Excited men and women have driven out to remote locations for decades in hopes of jumping out of a plane. Personally, I find flying in 700,000 lb. aircraft at 500 miles an hour 35,000 feet above the earth exhilarating enough. That being said, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane requires a well-packed parachute.

If life is like flying in a jumbo jet at supersonic speed, then 2020 has been the equivalent of jumping out of that jet. The past 4 months have allowed me to see more clearly just how stretched we all have become. We do our best to balance work, family, friendships, hobbies, exercise, kids’ sports, and self-improvement like a high wire act. Our one foot in front of the other routine requires an amazing amount of tension to support the show we work so desperately to put on. If you listen close, you will notice the music has stopped and all that is left is the sound of glass shattering in the background.

I’m not trying to be dramatic, but have you considered that the life we had before COVID was not sustainable. The life we previously referred to as normal was actually insane. We absolutely need tension to keep moving forward but sometimes we need to appreciate the fact that things may not work out as we intended. Our margin for error had become so razor-thin that it was almost inevitable for our sandy foundations to wash away with the tide.

So here is the encouraging part. The parachutes in our lives represent the opportunities for us to safely land and maybe even have some fun on the way out of a terrifying change in altitude. Let’s be honest, we think we are smart, and we chart out a course for our lives that we think we can control and enjoy. Wisdom tells us to pack a parachute because the best parts of our life happen when the turbulence is so rough that we don’t fear jumping out of the plane we look forward to it.

Enjoy the flight,

Matt Davenport

Pack a Parachute article
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YOU ARE NOT DISPOSABLE

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Some time ago, disposable cameras were all the rage. They were fun, primarily because there was a bit of suspense baked into the outcome. One would never quite know if they captured the right photo until weeks later when the camera roll was dropped off and then picked up at a tiny house in the middle of some random shopping center. Nowadays, everything is digital and quick. We are able to evaluate, edit, and retake a photo that may not quite have left the impression we had hoped to remember. 

For a long time, disposable razors, sandwich bags, and other one-time use products were considered both convenient and cheap. Now we know more about the effects of these products and have made a giant swing back to carrying eco-friendly jugs of water, shopping bags made of burlap, and paper straws. I’m all for long term sustainable practices because it’s part of stewarding and protecting what we have been given. Personally, I prefer to simply skip the straw and not have to deal with the paper ones, but I appreciate the effort people are making. For most of us it takes time to look beyond the now and ultimately understand the importance of appreciating the original. 

Disposable cheapens the product and ultimately debases the intrinsic value of that in which it is attached to. You may have recently been laid off and left feeling like a juice box casually thrown to the wayside. Over the course of time life has a way of beating you down to a point that you feel disposable.  You spent years working and now what? Some executives made a business decision that has now affected your whole life and most likely your outlook and personal self-worth. 

I’m here to tell you that you are not disposable! You cannot be made by the thousands and there will never be someone quite like you. Situations don’t dictate who you are they provide opportunities for who you are going to be. The reality is that all those tiny houses that used to develop film are gone. Change is inevitable, change is good and sometimes change that is forced upon us is life’s way of getting you back on the road you were initially intended to walk.

You are 1 of 1,

Matt Davenport

YOU ARE NOT DISPOSABLE Final Edit
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