March 2012
25 posts
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Art, Community & Music.
One of our six challenges has been to actively pursue what we are passionate about; to do what we want to do and not what we have to do. The more I’ve thought about this challenge, the greater I think it is. I know for myself I’ve often fallen into the habit of letting school dictate my life, or society instill in me what I should be doing, and I’ve put off what I’m...
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In Good Company.
One of my favorite things about working on our Thrive With Less documentary has been the people that we’ve met along the way. We had our first “public” community dinner at my apartment last week, and as I took a step back at one point during the evening, standing in my kitchen overlooking 12 or 13 complete strangers deep in conversation, I felt so thankful. It was a small, yet...
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Tiny House Thoughts
Last week was a whirlwind. If you haven’t heard, on Tuesday, Josh, Colin, and I drove down to Indianapolis to catch a lecture about the Tiny House project and interview the originator of this idea, Jay Shafer. My head is still spinning from everything we went through and learned.
First of all, it was so great to take this production on the road and basically work on this production full...
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In the midst of Production
Our wrap date for filming is listed as March 31st, and we’ve been having some really exciting days in the past 3 weeks. Some of the highlights include meeting Jay Shafer with Tumbleweed Tiny Houses, a great community dinner to which a number of people came apart from our group [keep an eye out for the next one], and yesterday heading to Flint, MI to talk with a professor from Mott College...
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Guest Blogger: Evan A.
Hi all! My name is Evan and I am doing my own Thrive with Less challenge! I know Colin as we are in the same major. Reading the Thrive with Less posts and talking to Colin about it a few times I decided to try and do it myself. I always had a problem with the way we live our lives. One of my biggest pet peeves is when other people are texting while they are with somebody. Because of this I...
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Production Excitement!
We’ve had a couple of awesome production meetings this week (even one outside enjoying the beautiful weather!) and I’m so excited about how things are coming together for our documentary. It’s awesome to think about where we started and how far we’ve come throughout this semester. With that said, we still have so much to do! Planning out what shots we need to get, setting...
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Getting excited
Yesterday we had a great production meeting and it really got me excited for what is coming up in the near future from a production stand point. The month of February was exciting because we stepped out of our comfort zones and tried something new, but now that it is March, we are in crunch time for producing our film.
In class yesterday, we spent most of the time looking at our production...
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Kerouac State of Mind
Working on this documentary has been so essential to my new-found state of happiness. Going into this, I didn’t expect to feel… this. For so long it seemed like I put my true happiness on the back burner as I surrounded myself with things that held little to no essential value for me. As I have begun this journey, I have finally started to understand who I truly am and what brings me...
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True Community
While a lot of what I’ve talked about on this blog has been fairly positive, I’ve been thinking a bit about something a little more negative. Not to be a Daniel Downer or anything, but it’s something else I’ve been forced to think about over the course of this project.
I feel like more than any of the other participants in TWL, I’ve faced a lot of criticism from my...
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Take Aways
Having the February challenges come to an end has brought up some interesting thoughts and conversations lately. People have asked me “Is thrive with less over?” and that has revealed a big disconnect between our project and others. This is not simply a challenge to ourselves to see if living without a number of things is possible. It’s not just trying to make tangible the amount...
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Reconnecting.
March 1st brought each of us in TWL to a decision making point. Would we continue with the challenges or would we revert back to our previous lifestyles? For me this burden felt heavy for some reason… Like I had to actually make a choice and stick with it, whether it was to continue “thriving” or to revert back. It felt strange to be floating into March without the actual...
A new month
So far the month of March has been completely different for me. The biggest difference for me so far is that I have been able to go out and see a lot more of my friends which is something that I was missing in February. By going out I have reconnected with old friends and have got to spend quality time with the people around me. By not going out I was cutting myself off from my friends and the...
Reconnecting in March
As I’ve said, my biggest take away from this experience has been that I need to put more energy and value into the people closest to me. Right now, I feel like I spend a lot of my time focused on school and work and making sure that I have those aspects of my future worked out. But I’ve been realizing more and more lately that that’s not all that it’s about and that I really need to take the time...
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Welcome to March
So after 29 days of challenging ourselves to live more minimally, March has arrived. There’s been so much we’ve learned on this journey together, but we’re at the point of looking forward. The February challenges have ended, and we’re all asking ourselves where do we go from here. We’re excited to reach out to our communities this month and challenge ourselves in new...
