The Preface

Take a moment, the next time you're in the shower. It might change your life.

The shower is a great time to reflect. It may be the water rushing at me is so electrifying that my brain becomes active (I have to take a shower every morning, or I can’t wake up). There seems to be an element about taking a shower that stimulates thought. Days get quite long when one has two boys who have more energy than a power plant, so it is good to be alone. I and also a fan of standing in the hot water for a long, long, long time (yours truly has been known to empty our hot water tank in one sitting).  Perhaps the stimulated brain with the extended period of being in one place makes a shower what I call “a great time to reflect”.

It was shower time one morning, last summer, when, there I was taking a shower…. {reflecting}… when it occurred to me that it was time to pursue my dream. I am not a college graduate, in fact, I’ve only completed just under a year of college credits in my life. As a kid in high school, I was not one of those who “knew” what they were going to do next. In fact, I was taken aback when, after graduation, all of my friends left for college and I stayed home to pursue a college education at the local community college (it seemed like a good idea at the time), and pursue a general education associates degree. “That way I can transfer to a four year school to get bachelors in something I really cared about” I said, smartly, to those who would ask. What I didn’t realize was one should not waste the money on an education that they will not be following through with.

I think we sometimes have a false hope that if we continue to do the things that others tell us to do, that eventually we will be okay with what we are doing, even it is fifty years down the road. We live in an environment that opportunities are widely available to us if we so desire to pursue them. So the question is, should we continue to lie to ourselves? Are you doing what you really want to be doing? Does your work provide you with the satisfaction that you are building something worth building? Do you come home everyday wishing you had done things differently? Are you working towards a degree which will hoist you into a career that you know you will hate?

Is there a dream in your heart that you forgot about?

I want to be a writer. Here I am writing of course… but I want to write to change lives.

That morning, last summer, as I was reflecting on… things I reflect on… Football, video games, coffee, my wife, my kids, football… the typical things a married guy reflects on, the voice of the One who has been with me said to me, “It’s time to pursue your dream.” It could have been a hard pill to swallow but I was ready. As I stepped out of the shower that morning, it was as if I stepped out into an undiscovered world, like Tommy must have felt, every time he, and the other Rugrats broke out of the crib and discovered what they were made for.

This brings us to today, as you read this, I am pursuing my desire. I said already, of formal education, I have none, but what I have I will offer to you on this page, once per week. This will be a comedy of my life. The title, A Reconstruction in Jest defines me, my life and my humor. I believe little in life is to be taken too seriously, and yet, I believe we should all be in a place that we are willing to change the life we live in order to pursue the life we were built to live.

Expectations are high and so are the risks, but the risk of losing everything to gain life is greater than saving myself from failure and gaining nothing.

~Nathan