(From Facebook) The 3’s of Justin Chan …

You’ve been tagged. Write a note with the 3’s of YOU . At the end, choose 10 people to be tagged. You have to tag me so really you just need 9 more people. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

Three Names I go by:
1. Justin
2. JC
3. J-Chan

Three Jobs I have had in my life:
1. Financial Software Engineer
2. Quantitative Analyst
3. Systems Administrator

Three Places I have lived:
1. Toronto
2. Waterloo
3. New York City

Three Favorite drinks:
1. Alexander Keith’s IPA
2. Alexander Keith’s Red Amber Ale
3. Water

Three TV Shows that I watch:
1. 24
2. Iron Chef [America]
3. The Office

Three places I have been :
1. Austria
2. England
3. Scotland

People that text me regularly:
1. Current roommate (Bob)
2. Former roommate (Luke)
3. The Magics (Dave and Donella)

Three of my favorite foods:
1. Ribs (slow cooked on a barbeque thanks)
2. Steak (rare to medium rare)
3. Sushi

Three things I am looking forward to:
1. Christmas
2. Traveling
3. Fall small groups

Three friends I think will respond:
1. Catherine
2. Rodney
3. Katie

Three of my favorite clothing items:
1. Custom shirts
2. Union Jack t-shirt
3. Dark blue jeans

Three places I would like to go:
1. Australia
2. Galapagos Islands
3. France

Three things that will make me cry:
1. Onions
2. Cats and seasonal allergies (if I scratch my eyes)
3. Compassion (either witnessed in person or depicted in art)

Three things that will make me angry:
1. Inappropriate allocation of credit
2. Getting cut off while I’m on my bike
3. Disappointing other people

Three things that make me happy:
1. Making other people happy
2. Playing with puppies and babies
3. A warm sunny day

Copeland’s “Control Freak” starts out as follows:

You lose control when you hold too tight
But turn your head long enough to let it bite
‘Cause faith let me staring at the ceiling through the night
It’s freaking me out

Many people who know me may not know that I am a person who thrives on having control. This is not the same kind of control that is exerted over other people (as I try to fully respect the opinions and freedoms of others), but more the control that I can exert over my own life. I am generally quite risk-averse, so I usually only proceed if I have a fairly high degree of confidence in the outcome.

Sometimes, this works to my advantage. The course that I have plotted is quite predictable and is tolerant to perturbations here and there. So when the proverbial poop hits the fan, I feel that I am able to recover well since I have contingencies planned out. (Read: I am all about having a plan.) All things considered, this cautious and conservative path has led me to a pretty good place.

Sometimes, however, this desire for control is a hindrance. The realm of possibilities is constrained — nay, suffocated — by my Type A behaviour. I can’t help but feel that life would be so much more interesting if I threw caution to the wind and took the risks that I all too often rule out in my head. After all, maybe one of those risks would pay off and the ensuing happiness would make it worth all the while (including past failures).

While I debate whether or not this is something that I could bring myself to do, I am also trying to uncover why I have this thirst for being so calculated. At first, it seems that, in the face of potential scrutiny from my family, friends, peers, and strangers around me, I don’t want to fail in public; I have been wired to think that I am only valuable if I am successful and if other people knew it. This vanity can get me places, but it is utterly foolish of me to pretend that I am without failures or flaws. (And I don’t think that.)

How will I am to admit that, however, is another question altogether. (And I realize that I just did kind of admit it, albeit without specific examples other than this one. Oh, irony.) The fact is that I am very much a flawed man. Like most, if not all, people, I have my share of baggage and dirty laundry. But when I present myself to people, I obviously try to emphasize the impressive and inspiring qualities that I think that I have.

The result of all of this, then, is that I maintain control over who gets to see what of me, but I have a lot of people around me who don’t know me very deeply. I appreciate that, for some, this is sufficient. But for those who are close to me, or for those who want to be close to me, or for those with whom I would like to be close, this is not very fair. My pride gets in the way of being me, but I am somehow holding onto it.

Very rarely have I been truly vulnerable to anyone. When I am, they can usually tell because I get very nervous and my voice gets all shaky.  It is surprisingly uncomfortable for me to open up. But the reality is that, given the choice, I would rather have family and friends who know me for who I am, good and bad, than family and friends who know me for who I show them I am. And I think that I’d rather have fewer people who like me but like me for me than more people who like the me that I usually present.

The road to getting there isn’t easy. Combined with my personal insecurities and the aforementioned pride, there are all sorts of preconceived notions of who I am held by people who know me. I am pretty shy and breaking through my own walls will be hard enough. But I have to do it, somehow. I think that the small group that I have (that is about to end tomorrow.. cry!) is a good place to start since they haven’t had a lot of time to get used to me, and there are a few people there to whom I feel I can open up. Of course, my older friends will have the advantage of already having earned a lot of trust. But we’ll see; for now, these are just words on a blog that mean only a little bit compared to the words that I should be saying into someone else’s ears.

Over the past few weeks, I have been reading a book by Erwin McManus called Chasing Daylight with my Forefront small group. The book started off rather slowly and, I am sad to say, has moved very little from there. McManus clings to one passage about Jonathan and the Philistines and (ab)uses it to say how great Jonathan is and how we should all be like him. Every once in a while, he would throw in anecdotes from his own life to illustrate his point even those feel the same as the passage.

Somehow, he manages to use a lot of words and say very little. Somehow, readers on Amazon laud him for this. I am perplexed by the praise given to this book which, weighing in at over 250 pages, probably could be summarized in less than 10. One thing that I learned from my Grade 12 English teacher is how to be very concise when writing essays; too much flowery language and you’ll lose the reader.

Suffice it to say that the book is lost on me. Perhaps it was unfair for me to lose any sort of hope in the book but a few chapters into reading it (thus settings expectations even lower for the subsequent chapters), but I can only stand to watch the beating of a dead horse for so long. For someone who doesn’t usually read too much, this has been a great defeat. (I am redeemed, however, since the small group has become much less about the book and, instead, more about getting to know great people whose hopes, joys, burdens, and struggles are akin to my own.)

Out of this, however, comes a renewed interest in literature. I am convinced that I have to balance this book out with something elegantly and intelligently written. In previous small groups, I have had the joys of reading very engaging books like A New Kind of Christian and Blue Like Jazz. While I may not endorse everything that is written in those books, at least they were fresh and presented a new perspective.

After lamenting about this to a former pastor, he pointed me to a couple of books: The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller (whose Manhattan church I often attended), and Simply Christian by N.T. Wright, a venerable juggernaut of theology. I have also been toying with the idea of (co-)leading my own small group in October through Forefront and, if I did, this would be a perfect opportunity to explore one (or both) of these books.

What do you say? Do I take the risk?