Exsisto Castrensis!

Not much has been going on around here...Pam started her new job which will be a big change in schedule because she has to ride the light rail into the city. Hopefully that adjustment will be alright for her.

We've turned the TV off for lent, as well as a few other things and its getting to the point now where its not fresh anymore, it just plain sucks! Continueing on in our committments is tougher and tougher. But as my Dad used to say, "Builds Character Son".

I've been contemplating getting a tattoo for about 8 years now and I think I may be getting close. "Builds character son", runs through my head often. Building character...acting in a way that properly represents the God that I worship and love. Acting in a way that is different from others, because the vast majority don't know what the heck they are doing! Building a good character...

I wanted to get either a symbol or phrase that meant something to myself and each time I saw it I would be remembered of my commitment to it. Originally I was thinking something like "brotherhood" that would remind me of the great friendships I've had since childhood, however, that would only be a strong thing for me if they were to join in the ritual, lol. I also like the saying by lance armstrong, "Live strong". Unfortunately, Lance came up with it first!

In highschool, "Get Saved" was fun for a while. I think I remember having a good laugh with jason many a time. We'd be talking about a news story or friend who was doing crazy things, or had done crazy things. Not like crazy cool, but crazy huh? "Dude did you hear about that NBA player that got caught doing 100mph down I-5 while smoking a joint? ...Get saved!" It became an expression for us. Instead of saying, "thats wack" we would say get saved. Of course the whole point was to get saved, invite Jesus into your heart, and let him change your life...I decided that just wasn't going to fly for my tat.

I would get it in Latin, so that if people would want to know what it meant they could ask me...I think that would be cooler than just having some Old English tat that looks like gang crap, and you have to get close enough to smell the person in order to be able to read it. In addition, others would actually have to ask me about it, which would give me a great opportunity to take the conversation wherever I felt like it.

Anyways, I was thinking about living a disciplined life and how important and central discipline is in my life. Every day I struggle to do right, struggle to love others, struggle to work hard, and maintain my goals. It seems like such a constant thing and important thing to have these days that I might just put it on my body, to remind myself of my commitement to myself, and to others...to lead a disciplined life.

Dictionary.com
Discipline:

1.) Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior, especially training that produces moral or mental improvement.
2.) Controlled behavior resulting from disciplinary training; self-control.

The phrase would be "Be Disciplined" and off the cuff online translator to latin says, "Exsisto Castrensis". Its very easy to go through life and lose who you are. Slowly, for us I feel like TV has come into our lives and taken away something very valuable of ours, time. Our free time is our avenue to creating a life for ourselves and lately, we've been spending the majority of it in front of the TV. Since having the TV off for lent, we've been exposing ourselves to all the other things we could be doing with our time. Listening to talk radio, music, reading books, building RC trucks, going to bed earlier so that we're more refreshed and awake during the days, studying for an exam or learning something new.

For me, being disciplined means two things. First of all it means having goals. Without goals, a person simply doesn't have anything to be disciplined about. In addition, I think that by not having any goals in life a person becomes stagnant in their development towards being a better person.

The second portion of being disciplined involves taking action to meet your goals. Anybody can sit on the couch and say, "hmm, yup, I want to lose 10 lbs", "I want to be an executive", "I want to learn how to fly a plane". Without taking action though, nothing will ever happen. Often times I fail to take action for a number of reasons; fear of failure, simply not knowing how, laziness. However, hopefully by practicing this, "being disciplined", I'll be able to transform myself into someone who is able to take action, and make things happen!

So we'll see. I mean it might take another 8 years to get me in that chair. Might never get it but despite the tattoo I've still been thinking a lot about tweaking who I am a little bit, and moving towards being more disciplined, do what I say I will do, live strong.

Exsisto Castrensis my friends!

-Travis