Audra Krell

On Purpose

Archive for the tag “abandon”

28 Jan 2010
6 Comments

Shopping Cart Abandonment

So as I was researching this post, I came across an article on why users abandon shopping carts. Excited, I clicked on it. As pictures of upside down shiny metal carts behind Safeway and other carts abandoned in strange places filled my head, I really wanted to know the psychology behind a shopping cart abandoner. Are they people who get a thrill off stealing the cart but then cannot get it up their apartment stairs? Do they not have room for it in their home? Do people drive the cart way out in the desert,dump it in a dried riverbed and see how long it takes to find it's way back to the store? Is it latchkey children with nothing better to do but shove the cart into traffic and run?

Well, it wasn't those kind of shopping carts. Apparently I'm not as tech minded as I thought, as the article referred to electronic shopping carts. People abandon those for all the reasons you might imagine, hidden charges, complicated sign up or sign out, slow internet connection,etc. 

Which made me see that all forms of abandonment are similar. Often people abandon relationships because they discover hidden things about the other person, they feel it's too complicated to get involved, too complicated to get out, or the relational connection is too slow and they give up.

All of those reasons though, focus on the other person, who we cannot change. God created each of us as unique individuals and we are the only ones who can change. 

Today is a good day to take a relational inventory. Ask yourself if you appear impatient, unavailable or non- accepting. 

If you are, what could you be doing differently to start living with intention and abandon?

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Posted in Abandonment and tagged , , ,
06 Jan 2010
11 Comments

Living with Abandon

IStock_000003781332XSmall  It's a new year, the beginning of a new decade. I was surprised to see Time magazine refer to the last one as "The Decade from Hell." 

Wow. 

Not that a lot of horrific things didn't happen over the last ten years. We've won, laughed, loved, lost, cried, shook our fist at the man, grimaced, frowned and furled. But no matter what has happened, I won't characterize a quarter of my life as the "time from hell."

So the next decade is going to be all about learning and living with abandon. I'm going to be open to the places deep inside that never see light, I'll talk about topics I'd rather avoid and I will continue to break free of cultural definitions of self, others and God.

And that's just for starters.

What have you got?

Posted in Abandonment, Current Affairs and tagged , , , ,
13 Nov 2009
6 Comments

The Setup

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When I was young I played with cardboard boxes for hours, making them into Barbie houses. It was all about the setup, carefully designing and placing furniture, wallpaper, clothes and shoes in each room. Barbie was never active. The only thing she ever did was stick her chest out even further and sit sway- backed in a plastic chair, as if she was too good to touch it. I never saw her enjoy her home.

Now as a grown up, I look around and notice most people are managing their lives, but not many are really living. We carefully articulate, masterfully manipulate, caffein-ate, hydrate and medicate. Why have we abandoned our need to participate? The job of arranging life has taken up all of our time.

This season I want to remember that while the set up and lead up are great, if we don't stop and simply live, we'll end up with carefully designed, empty cardboard boxes.

Posted in Abandonment and tagged , ,

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