I strive daily to be a better person, in one way or another. Some days I accomplish less, some days I accomplish more. At the end of the day though, I dont believe I have ever done this for another person. I have never felt lead to do better, or be better for someone else. Not for a family member, for a girlfriend, for anyone. I’m not sure why this is.
Throughout life, I’ve always strived to be better “just because”… because something in me tells me I should be. Some part of me encourages me daily to strive for excellence, to not accept the status-quo, to keep pushing when people stop.
I have God, my family, and some great teachers along the way to thank for this.
I couldnt imagine pushing myself this hard for someone else. Apparently this is not a normal perspective. It does explain a lot.
Interesting.
I’m going to attempt the impossible:
For the rest of this week, I am going to work an 8am-5pm workday. Yes, I know I’m crazy… but this 9-7 is annoying.
Let’s go.
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End of week update: EPIC FAIL. hahaha.
I am a fickle character… always having strange dreams…. always wanting to improve myself… always working on some project or trying to fix something.
Dont get me wrong, if life wasnt like this I would be bored out of mind…. still, there are things in my life I want that I dont have. Very simple things.
All in all though, life is going very well for me. In fact, I would say things are quite perfect 
Old habits are hard to break. Ugh, I need to stop pulling on my hair… nasty stress habit…. going to caused the death of my hair, haha.
Ive said this before… but I really wish I had a personal chef. That would be awesome, haha.
Okay, bye bye.
I think I would blog more if I knew there were people reading this… specifically open minded people who would actually respond. In a way, I am glad that people dont really comment… it lets me pretend I am the only person who reads this blog… and thus be more open…. though, at times, like the hiatus I have been on the last few months… it makes me prioritize this thing quite low.
So here is my mind dump for this evening…. (hurry, click away, click away…. go here… that should distract you)
- I have decided to accept my life as it is, enjoy it, and make the most out of it.
- I wish I could go back to around Sophomore/Junior year in highschool and get myself to chill the F out… seriously, I was way too high strung.
- I wish I could have understood grace better, sooner…
- I dislike when people make excuses for their actions… or even worse, lie about things. I respect people who own up to their worst a lot more.
- I think I have undersold myself for most of my life. That is changing now.
- At some point I am going to have to sell my Tahoe…. I will miss that vehicle.
- If I had a personal chef, I am certain my productivity would increase by at least 45% during the day.
- I feel better now that I ever have in my life.
- I find speaking to be more challenging than it once was. While I understand people and conversations more now than I use to… I often have difficulty with word selection… maybe I should read more books.
- As my sister once told me: “Just because there’s a goalie, doesnt mean you cant score”… haha. A wedding band is where I draw the line. Luckily I havent had to draw that line.
- I dont think I could ever date the sister of someone I knew or was friends with… too often they look like their siblings and that is just weird…. especially when their sibling is a guy.
- I have long been attracted to Kate Beckinsale and Anne Hathaway. Well, now Kate is married and Anne is kind of a pansy. I think I’m going to switch to Charlize Theron. Mostly because of the movie Æon Flux
- I’ve decided to stop trying to “balance” my body’s development while working out. I am just going to work everything as hard as I can and let God and his design sort out how my body turns out. hahaha.
- I dont normally work at the same job for this long. It is strange that I have been working full time now for over 6 months…. very interesting.
- I really wish I could wake up earlier and feel fully rested. I probably should stop blogging now and go to sleep.
Hope you life is going as well as mine.
Enjoy the sun.
My skills/experiences/certifications:
- Flying/landing a plane
- Driving a dirt-bike/motocross
- Driving a street-bike
- Riding a street bicycle
- Riding a mountain bike
- Driving a muscle car, exotic sports cars, large van, truck, SUV, dune-buggy, etc… manual and automatic.
- Driving/using large tractor (way too many hours, haha)
- Driving/docking/navigating a 4,000 sq/ft yacht
- Driving a ski-boat
- Driving a turbo-charged seadoo
- Certified to SCUBA dive
- Licensed to carry a concealed weapon
- Studied Mechanical and Computer Science Engineering (several years)
- Studied Philosophy, Political Though, Christian thought (several years)
- Studied Entrepreneurship and Managment of Information Systems (several years)
- Member of Various National Honor Societies
- Member of Sigma Chi Fraternity, Beta Kappa Chapter
- Worked as a Book Publisher
- Worked as Event Coordinator/Planner
- Worked as a High School Teacher
- Worked as a full-time arborist (cutting and clearing trees)
- Maintained 60 acres of grass/fields
- Built and designed several professional and academic websites
- Served as IT consultant for Law Firm
- Managed IT buildout of multiple businesses in Tulsa
- Traveled to 20+ countries
- Had some form of conversations in 4 different languages
- Driven on the autobahn
- Had enough serious relationships to know who I am, what I want, and what to stay the hell away from, haha
- Raised cats and dogs, comfortable with both.
- Had enough arguments and conversations to know how to cut past 90% of the b.s.
- Attended 5 different colleges, each with a specific purpose.
- Driven from Tulsa to NYC… by way of Pittsburgh, haha.
- Snow skied double-black diamond and Extreme Terrane in Colorado (think 10ft. drop to start the run).
- Water skied and knee-boarded
- Snorkeled in various oceans
- Been bitten by fish, crab, and stung by jelly fish
- Swam with a Hammerhead shark (not by choice)
- Swam with Sting Rays and Electric Eels (by choice)
- Free dived (dove) to 30-40ft beneath the surface without air
- Been pulled under by a 15ft wave, ripped through 10-20ft boulders and delivered back to the beach by the hand of God.
- Been involved in two high-speed car accidents, both as a passenger and both in different Honda Accords…. not even a bruise from either occurrence.
- Sorted cattle
- Shot/killed/cleaned various animals
- Built a tree-house
- Built a bed
- Been to church (protestant) as well as Catholic Mass
- Can cook various types of food: pasta, chicken, steak, seafood, etc.
- Can program in 5+ different languages
- Can spend and extended amount of time camping
- Can/Have painted various rooms and pieces of furniture
- Can rebuild a car (have already rebuilt a 65 and a 66 Chevelle, as well as a 77 Trans Am)
- Built a Computer by hand (from parts)
- Can/Have patched a wall
- Can whistle fluently (using several methods)
- Can hear/feel the Spirit of God.
Things I have not done:
- Bungee Jumped
- Sky-dived (out of an airplane)
- Danced (excluding musicals and minor ballroom experiences)
- Gone Rock-climbing (with actual gear and rope on a real rock, not a training wall)
- Piloted a Jet
- Been black-out drunk (as in not in control or forgetting any of the night before)
- Been to Australia or Asia
- Graduated from a University
- Owned a house
- Had children
- Meet/Found the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with
“It’s not enough to have a dream unless I’m willing to pursue it. It’s not enough to know what’s right unless I’m strong enough to do it. It’s not enough to join the crowd, to be acknowledged and accepted. I must be true to my ideals, even if I’m excluded and rejected. It’s not enough to learn the truth unless I also learn to live it. It’s not enough to reach for love unless I care enough to give it.”
Verizon has better 3G than ATT
I really enjoyed living in a fraternity house
A brunette can be just as (if not more) attractive as/than a blonde.
I love Macs… even more than a PC/Windows
Sometimes, the “truth” that really matters is in the big picture… not the details.
I am wrong, quite often.
The way I dress/ carry myself / act matters… at all times.
I love and need to be around people.
I probably took my first few relationships too seriously.
I took a lot of things too seriously in high school and early college.
So what’s the point:
Perspective is key. Once you make enough mistakes and change your preferences enough time… you find out what really matters in your life. And that is a good feeling. It lets you jump past the normal b/s that most people swim around with every time they try to form friendships, to do anything productive in life, or when they try to form or cultivate relationships.
I’m glad I made these mistakes early on… I would hate for the world to have to deal with that version of me any longer than it had to, haha.
Life is good. I look forward to these next few years. Especially since I have no clue where I will be in the next 12-24 months… let alone the next 36.
“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or a gazelle–when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”
I may have stolen that from a facebook profile….
I’ve decided that I should mold zacpenix.com into my online resume/identity space…
Now to just find some free wordpress templates and to jump this blog over to a more reliable server.
Its amazing what eating regularly, sleeping consistent amounts, keeping to a list of the day’s tasks, and cleaning up your place regularly will do for a person… and to think, I’m only four days in on this new life plan, haha.
