Not sure

I don't really know the direction that I want this blog to go. In fact, my thoughts rarely have any sense of form or collectivness. It usually involves random thoughts that happen to make it from my brain to the keyboard. Blogs are funny things. Even though we want people to read them, sometimes we want to write things that we don't want people to see.

Controlling my thoughts has been quite a challenge this summer. This job teaches me so much about how my thoughts correspond to my actions. If I think about friends back home or activities I would rather do during the day then I usually don't hit my goals for the day. Figuring out how to balance the line of not going crazy and still desiring to do well has been tough the past couple of days. I keep letting my thoughts wander into how much money I'm not making and how much I am spending. It's something that I can't entirely control. I mean sure I could skimp on breakfast and save $5, but that's not the point. I've discovered that I need to just let go of all my fears of the summer. Whatever they are I just need to conquer them. Now. I want to finish strong this summer and to do that I need to just completely trust that the summer will turn out exactly the way it is supposed to.

It's amazing to me that I can learn the same lesson over and over again in one summer. Even day to day or week to week. I know it may be because I'm only human, but sometimes I really think do not understand myself. This summer is supposed to teach me so that I can carry these lessons over into my life after the summer. It's easy to focus on reading good material in the morning and praying daily when you're driving around by your self all day. I'm worried that I'm not really learning all of the things God has in store for me this summer. I need to figure out how to remember and retain different teachings from the summer. Anyway, enough of this pish posh or a blog.

What do I need to really be motivated?

I asked this question the night after I stopped work on Saturday. It was Saturday, the end of the week, and also Independence Day. As I sat on my bed and looked back at the week, I know I didn't give it my best or that I didn't work my hardest. That feeling is what motivates me the most. My summer is not about the money because I have everything I really need. It isn't about Matt anymore obviously because he's gone. So it's pretty much all on myself now. Sure there are still times when I want to quit, they occur daily. I just have to keep telling myself that I could never face my family or friends if I did. I would not be able to face the fact that I quit simply because it was hard. There would be no other reason.

Anyway, enough mental talk. Today was absolutely nuts. Austin and I have to get North Dakota state permits to sell and also city permits. We drove to Bismark to get our licenses (which is an hour and a half drive). We left straight from our HQ and drove there, got our stuff taken care of and went back home to start working. Well I went to City Hall only to discover that we had the wrong paperwork and didn't really get our state license. I drove back to Bismark only to discover that I could not get my permit until the Southwestern Company sent in a Surety Bond to back me. So 463 miles later, I started working outside of the city and finished the day with a sale. Even after all that frustration and crazy amount of driving, God still decided to bless me with success. Someone said this last week, "Success is being right in the center of God's will." How true that is. I want that so badly, but in order to get it, I have to give up everything. It's a tough process, but he's slowly churning my soul like butter. That really doesn't make sense, but this is my blog so who cares?

So my address is wrong.

I was wondering why I hadn't gotten any mail the whole time I had been here. I asked Bernie what the mailing address was and he told me that they had a PO box. Good. So I have to go get one of those on monday. If you sent me something, it probably will be returned. Sorry...

Talks with Bernie

So I thought I was learning a lot about life when I was out on the bookfield, but tonight, I got a new experience. I have been getting home at like 9:30 ish and usually Bernie is still up. We talk about the day shortly and then I try to ask him a question about his experiences. Tonight I wanted to know which summer was his toughest. He told me his third because his father committed suicide right before he went out for the summer. I can imagine that incident would have some measurable effects on one's thoughts during the day.

It gets crazier. I met a guy today that told me how he almost sold books but didn't. He then proceeded to list all the reasons why he couldn't sit down with me because he had no money and he was on food stamps. It makes me wonder if he would have been in that same situation if he had sold books... Interesting. After I told Bernie that story he told me that his mother had MS and died when he was in high school. He could have received food stamps and money from the government but chose not to. He worked at his uncle's hardware store for super long hours; some nights he worked until midnight. This was all through high school. Most of his jobs were just as tough after that. When working for the railroad he had to drive nails with a sledge hammer all day in Montana. Some days it would be 120-130 degrees and they didn't have water out there. THEN, after work they would ask if anyone wanted to work overtime unloading 150 pound barrels of railroad spikes. Of course Bernie agreed. He told me that he was always wanting or looking for extra money and that's why he always chose the crazy jobs.

After all this he told me that the toughest experience of his life was his divorce. He had two children with his previous marriage and two boys now. After these stories he told me he has sleep apnea and is only able to sleep about 6-8 minutes at a time. When he does get sleep he has like leg twitch things which wake him up from his sleep.

All that to say that I thought I had kind of a crappy day and it was hard. Then I talked to Bernie. I did not write this blog for judgment or to make you feel sympathetic for Bernie because I do not think he wants any. I wrote only so that I could have a record to say that no matter what I'm going through, it's no where near as tough as his life thus far. What an incredible man.

Halfway!

While the video is uploading.

I did a video blog in lower quality, but it is still taking forever...

So here we go, this weekend is the 4th of July! Wow! Independence day is here! I really like Jamestown and our new HQ. It's so tight because it is home of the world's largest Buffalo. (Also including 3 albino Buffalo).

On another random topic, I found out about a sweet animal today. It's kind of like a ground hog. It is called a Hyrax. It's a rodent-like animal from African and the Middle East. It could be in close competition with my favorite animal the otter. We'll see. Here's a quick shout out to things that the bookfield makes me appreciate a whole lot more:

Snickers

Reese's PB cups

(Basically any candy)

Ice Cream

Parents

Friends from school

Sleep

Rain Jackets

Shelter (especially when it rains or is hot outside haha)

The cafeteria (even though it may not seem like the most quality food, at least it contains mass quantities of unlimited eating supplies)

frisbee

sitting doing nothing

time

the internet

my car

All that to say, that I have been blessed that I can even make a list of things I am th

ankful for. So many times during the summer I catch myself wishing for more when really I have so much in my life that I take advantage of or just don't appreciate enough. This really helps put it all into focus for me.

Slacking

Yeah, that pretty much describes my blogging. Sorry guys. I know you've been hanging on the edge of your seat wondering about my latest door to door story.

As you all know (I think), I moved to Jamestown, ND. I am staying with a Southwestern Alumni named Bernie Satrom (sat-trum). He's awesome! His house is really cool too. He sold for three summers and his second and third had teams of 5 or more people. His life is pretty much what I want mine to look like when I get to be his age. He has an amazing house. I loooove it. The location overlooks the river and it's all custom built. I am going to try to do a photo walkthrough tomorrow if I have time.

This week has treated me well. I sold a lot of handbooks which are our main product. These are how we really start to make money. The kids books are easy to sell, but do not yield a great deal of profit like the handbooks do. I did get a little distracted and distressed on Friday, but I'm slowly getting back on the right path. I can't believe it's the midpoint of the summer already. It's going fast. In a way I'm glad, but in another way I'm looking at all the work I need to do in order to improve and get what I want out of the summer. I need to go to sleep. perhaps I'll write more tomorrow. paz