The United States has a lot of problems.

In fact, some believe that as a country we have no hope.
This might not be a new piece of information for you, and you could even be one of those people who sees the country as hopeless. I mean I read Drudge Report ever single day. I watch 60 minutes every Sunday. I even listen to conservative radio in the car (well only when the local ESPN radio station is on commercial). I have heard all about our collapsing economy, out of control spending, endless war in Iraq, oil spill, and rising jobless rate.

It does not take an expert to figure out that we have problems. But it does take an expert to fix the problems.

I want to let you know that I think I have the solution to all the problems that present themselves today….
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It’s reported that the image above is photoshopped.

To the naked eye this image looks to be a typical command center style photo. But behind every photo is a story, and this photo is screaming with unseen details.

This photo was “taken” in the BP command center for the oil spill.

Upon further investigation you start to see just how photoshopped this image really is:

Thanks to Gizmodo (haven’t we seen them catch other things out in the wild before?) and their investigative work, BP has been busted, again.

As I read this story I couldn’t help but wonder how BP could make such a terrible mistake, till I  realized that I photoshop my own life all the time.

Photoshop is a great tool, but sometimes we can get a little carried away in the “retouching” department. The temptation to make things appear better than they are one button at a time is often the method of choice, and the vehicle we use is often twitter, blogs, or Facebook. Yet, Under the surface our problems still exist, no matter how much we photoshop our appearance, response, or profiles… we will still be the same person.

Can I make a confession?

I “photoshop” myself to give off the appearance that I have things figured out. This is usually masked in my speech. It’s not that I try to be someone else, it’s that I try to stand on the same level as everyone else. I have this idea that if I can be like (insert famous blogger here) or be like (insert well-known twitterer here) then I will be someone and something.

Have you photoshopped yourself?

*kyle

I was 11 years old, it was March and the Nickelodeon Teen Choice Award show was on (I was a sucker for award shows). At the end of the show they would always “slime” an actor or a musician, this year they decided to slime Shawn P Diddy Puff Daddy Combs. As he excepted his award for doing something, he said one thing that has stuck with me until today, “I would like to thank God for this award.” At that moment I realized that Puff Daddy was a christian and I was a christian, Puff Daddy is cool therefore I am cool. From that moment on I would start to look for the “cool” christians that would give validation to my beliefs.

Pretty crazy that I would need a celebrity to tell me that christianity was cool and even a life worth living, but I needed to hear this. Maybe because others followed what celebrities said and like what they did, or maybe it was because 96% of the time it was not cool to be a christian. Whatever it was, I got my validation from celebrities.

Fast forward to 2010 and the same thing is happening, only a little bit more covert. Today we mask this by looking for the approval of celebrities in what we are doing. I am not a 11-year-old boy anymore, I am a 24-year-old guy that now hopes most celebrities are not christians (see Mel Gibson) and instead looks for celebrities stamp of approval. Well, semi celebrities, more like christian world celebrities. Nothing like getting a big name christian speaker, blogger, or musician to stamp their word of approval on you with a tweet, video endorsement or even a post about what you are doing. For some reason the gatekeeper that is the christian celebrity holds the keys to validating a movement or an idea.

Don’t believe me? Go and check out any blog that has had a small amount of success (maybe one big post or wrote a review of someones book) and did not mention “insert big name christian” here in their tweet or replied to their comment in the comment stream. Listen, I am not complaining about this. I have done this as well. Part of the way that I spread the word about scarletcordm.com and prayer for prostitutes was that I got the “christian celebrities” to tweet about it, even Max Lucado tweeted it out. The blog went from getting about 14 views a day to over 1000. But it was almost like I (we) need that stamp of approval to say what we are doing is right. And I see this all the time with people who are looking to get to be friends with “big name blogger a” and “big name author b” because it could make the next “big name whatever”

Even though I have progressed 15 years since Puff Daddy told me I was cool,
I still am looking to be on the in-crowd of celebrity christians. Why? Maybe because I want to be a celebrity christian? maybe, maybe not. Or maybe it is because people have given those celebrity christians approval and validation and I/we are looking for people’s approval and validation.

Whatever happened to finding approval in the Lord?

We might have a validation problem that needs to be flipped on its head.

*kyle

You?

*kyle

I saw this tweet the other day from John that made me think a minute.

See at first I started to say, “ya me too, I am tired of mediocrity and its mediocrityness” but then I realized

I love mediocrity

Mediocrity calls me to settle
Mediocrity calls me to play it safe
Mediocrity calls me to be content with little
Mediocrity calls me to do nothing

Mediocrity is not sexy or even something to be desired, but it is easy and doesn’t call for much.

For someone who is afraid of failure, mediocrity might just be the best thing to be.

How do you reject mediocrity?

*kyle

This post is a part of a blog project for the Idea Camp. For more post on the subject of Pornography and Sex visit The Idea Camp Website or friend them on Facebook here.

A couple of months ago I followed the trend and created a formspring account. Now if you have never heard of formspring let me give you the short version of what it in-details. Formspring is an online service that allows you to ask questions to friends, give answers to questions that have been asked to you, and a great place to learn more about your friends on Twitter and Facebook. By setting up an account you broadcast to the world that your open for questions. I was about 6 questions in when I got this:

A little back story behind this question first. Earlier in the day I got a question from an anonymous person on formspring asking me if I struggle with pornography? My first reaction was, “seriously, you are asking me this on formspring?” I was a little surprised/annoyed with the question because it came from an anonymous person, and is the type of question that deserves a better answer then just a yes or no. You do not go on a first date with someone and ask why they are not married yet? Those type of discussions come after a couple of drinks (I am kidding). Naturally, I did not answer the question. About fifteen minutes after I received the first porn question I received the question above. Feeling that it could be taken that I was hiding something, I gave my reason for not answer the original question and then said that I would like to move that discussion to a different place. Today, I would like to have that discussion.
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Its easy to be a dreamer, everyone is a dreamer, but being a doer is a lot harder.

For a long time I described myself as a Connector.Blogger.Dreamer

But after some thought and some conversation, I realized that I was doing a lot more dreaming then doing.

I do not want to be described as someone who dreamed up a lot of ideas, but as someone who did a lot ideas.

Be a doer not a dreamer.

*kyle

Last night Lebron James made one of the biggest decisions in NBA history. He chose the beaches of Miami over the hometown crowd of Cleveland. For most of you, this was an exercise in narcissism, so naturally this decision brings about all kinds of hate and spite towards one player. My initial reaction to the one hour special, the referring to himself as Lebron James or King James, and to the entire two weeks that led up to “the decision” was somewhat interested but ready for the madness to be over and to focus on more important things, like oil on the beaches of Miami.

To think that any athlete is not looking out for number one is crazy. There is a reason why 96% of Americans have regural jobs and only a select few play a professional sport. Some of it has to do with ability, but a lot of it has to do with ego and selfishness. There is a reason why these guys are where they are today, they looked out for number one and got what they wanted. I really have no problem with what Lebron has done up to this point, that was until he started talking about his real fans. At that point me and Lebron need to talk.

The NBA analyst were chomping at the bit to talk with Lebron (but wasn’t it weird how Jim Gray didn’t seem to care at all) after “the decision” and they played into the game by throwing up softball questions to let Lebron stroke his own ego a little bit more. But an expected question that was met with a very curious answer stuck out to me. Lebron was asked about how he expected the fans of Cleveland to react? His response (loosely quoted) “I expect my true fans to continue to like me.” At that moment, when I heard that response
I knew that Lebron was missing the point. Here is why.

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