#thankful

For all of you United Statesians, it's official. Google has changed their logo to a cornucopia filled with fall foods, Snapchat has a new filter featuring leaves and a turkey, the Macy's Parade has begun, and I smell rolls baking in the morning. It's Thanksgiving.

This is one of my favorite holidays because it's 100% focused on family and coming together. While Christmas is "The Most Wonderful Time of Year" (in my opinion), there are a lot of extra elements that go into the Christmas season like spending money on presents, the politics of separate holidays, Santa, and even Hallmark movies that can distract from the family focus of the holiday season. But Thanksgiving doesn't have those kinds of distractions (except for Black Friday, of course). This allows Thanksgiving's only focus to be on what it was originally intended to represent: being appreciative for the things around you.

It's so wonderful to be able to be surrounded by the people that you love while remembering all of the reasons that you love to be alive. It's really a great way to reset your heart and mind and put the focus back on what we have, rather than on what we don't. After the challenge that I was on this last week, I've really had a change of perspective. (Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out the post here.) It's not that I have more to be thankful for after I did that challenge. It's just that I realize how much more I have always had to be thankful for.

I can be thankful because of the amount of food I have to eat, for sure. As compared to those in poverty, I feast every single day, but especially on a food filled day like this. I can be thankful because, even though the home that I'm in isn't the home I'm used to, I still have a home to live in and family that loves me. I can be thankful for the amazing friends that I have and thankful that the friends I haven't seen in years are doing well. I have so much to be thankful for.

I want to encourage you guys to use today as an opportunity to remember all of the things that you're thankful for, but I always want to remind you to "be thankful in all things" (1 Thessalonians 5:18) and to remember those that have less to be thankful for than we do.

Praying for you and hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving.
Best of luck in the real world and God Bless!
-XTopher

The Adventures of Captain Christopher

Ever wish your life was an action adventure story like those of Indiana Jones or James Bond. I used to think that would be the coolest thing in the world. What if I just had some voice narrating everything I did in some dramatic and action-packed way? Like how awesome would that be?! As I've gotten older, though, I've discovered that it would probably be a terrible idea for my life to be made a radio show. Want to know why? Because this is what it would sound like:

Good evening ladies and gentlemen and thank you for tuning in to 102.3 KLMB "The Boss" (Not a real radio station) On tonight's episode of Lost in Life (not a real radio show), our hero is once again desperately trying to regain the rare and valuable Free-time-ium (not a real item). But with individuals such as Lord Stressage, Count Activities, and the Evil Dr. Homework (Not real people) hot on his trail, will our hero be able to make it to the the temple of serenity (Possibly a real place) in time? Find out NOW! *STATIC*

On second thought, maybe it would be a pick-me-up to hear Morgan Freeman or James Earl Jones narrate my life in that kind of way. Maybe I wouldn't be nearly so stressed. Allow me to offer you some advice: learn to say "no". Learn to say "no" to activities you don't want to get involved in, but you're too nice to say so. Learn to say "no" to activities you want to get involved in but don't have time for. Learn to say "no" to yourself when you want to do something but have other things you need to be doing. Basically, just learn to say "no". It's not worth it to be so overworked. Trust me, I'm there. And now that I've signed my soul away to all of these organizations, I'm stuck wondering how I'm going to deal with it all.

We've all been here and we all have our ways of dealing with stress. Since I'm currently dealing with stress out the wazoo, I will fill you in on some of my ways for dealing with stress tomorrow!

Until then: 

Best of luck in the real world and God Bless,

-XTopher 

#Below750

So this last week I was challenged to live off of the same budget that people in poverty live off of all around the world. So, for five days, I lived off of $7.50 - that's $1.50 a day. This was part of an awesome project to raise awareness of the conditions of poverty that so many people live in. So, what I did was I went to Wal*Mart and bought bread, peanut-butter, corn, black beans, eggs, and Ramen. My total came out to just below 7.50 and then that's what I had to eat for the week. Then, each night I posted some videos that were kind of a reflection over what I had learned that day. Here's a summary of those reflections:

• Rationing food is really difficult when you're hungry. You see more food. You want to eats the food. But you cannot eats the food, because then you would have no foods to eat on another day. This made Christopher Sad.
• Eating enough is also hard. So, you don't want to eats too much foods because you wants to eats tomorrows. But, if you don'ts eat enoughs today, you will be hungry and tired.
• I'm a student, so I'm not SUPER active, but people who live in poverty often are exerting a whole lot more energy throughout their days and are eating the same amount of food.
• Nutrition goes out the window. In America, we're so concerned with making sure we eat enough nutrients and don't eat too many fats and cholesterol, etc. But, when I was living off of only $7.50, I was paying more attention to which items fill me up and give me more calories than I was with what nutrients or vitamins I received. 
• We don't really pay attention to the amount that we're spending. Before I began the journey, I went to Burger King and got a burger for $7.99. That one meal cost more than what I had to live off of for the next 5 days! 
• Obviously this isn't EVERYONE in America, but isn't it interesting the difference in prices for one meal vs. one week?
• We're picky. I was walking through wal*mart shopping for my week, and I overheard a middle-aged couple arguing over which organic pita bread brand to buy. Meanwhile, I'm just looking for the cheapest items. 
• Authors note: I have absolutely nothing against organic pita bread or the people that buy it. I'm actually a solid supporter for organic farming. However, this really put things into perspective for me. We in America have the luxury of being able to be picky while many people aren't afforded any such privilege.

So, that's some of what I learned through this experience. Honestly, it was really tough, but I'm super glad that I did it! It was such an eye-opening experience and it was a fantastic way to reset my perspective of myself and of others. I encourage you guys to check it out. Just follow the hashtag #SCBelow750 on Facebook or check out Simpson College Spanish Awareness: Living Below $7.50!

Best of luck in the real world and God Bless,

-Christopher Hanson