When I was a child, I would always ask my father - God bless him! - why? Why was something like this, or that? Why did this thing go or this other thing stop? Why was that person this way? Why was I here and now? Why did the sky get dark at night, turn blue and light during the day, and why did rain sometimes fall...

When we aim to quit a habit, we inevitably start “counting the days” since we last participated in that habit. “5 days since I last had a smoke!” or “It has been two weeks since I last had a drink” What inevitably happens is that the person views each and every day as a struggle as they push toward a life without...

I see far too many people down these days. Three years ago, my life was in shambles. The only thing that pulled me out of that hole was to move my body and subsequently my mind. I never thought I would be at rock bottom. And yet, there I was. It can happen to anyone. But, anyone can pull themselves out of that dark...

One of the greatest lies that we tell ourselves is that we will “do it when we are ready”. I recall nearly 2 years ago, I was sitting at the dinner table with some friends, and we were talking about having children, and the timing associated with this (obviously massive) life change. I remember my sentiment being...

The presupposition with Pascal’s wager is that living life from a Christian perspective is a “sacrifice” in the short term, but in the long term (read: eternity) you get the reward from that sacrifice in Heaven. You “give up” the short term pleasures (ie. sins) and live a life “dead to the world”. But, if you have...

In order to live a life in chronic back pain, I have had to adapt various methods to alleviate the strain on my low back. One way I have done this is when I am at work in front of a screen, I alternate between sitting in a chair, kneeling on the ground, and standing at the standing desk. I recommend anyone that...

We must die to the world in order to find eternal life. Give up the chase of the material world, give up the sin, give up the purposelessness, the pointless pursuits which most are completely focused on. Be the one that gives up the world to find everything. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle...

I used to write in massive paragraphs, where I would lose the sentences that I was writing, and it was not a fun time to edit - to say the least. Adopting this new method was easy and is as follows: When you are writing: Write a sentence. Hit the enter key. Write another sentence. Repeat. If you feel that the idea...

I invite you to try one of the most life-altering experiments I have taken up in the past year. It is simple, yet life changing in so many ways: In all of your human interactions, look into the eyes of the other person, and begin to see yourself in Him. Not just figuratively. Look into the soul of “another” and...

The Preface to my Book, Mountain: A Field Guide to Summiting Life is available for everyone to download! You can shoot me an email directly to josh@joshblais.com and I will send you a copy. I am working on a subscription form that will automatically send you the preface upon subscribing to this blog as well. I have...

Setup of basic Debian server# I generally use Debian for the servers I run projects on. These servers are configured to only allow traffic in the door from my Bastion Host that we configured in the last post. Setup a Debian box on Vultr using my affiliate code: Initial setup# Initial update and upgrade with packages...

A guide to install gitea on Debian 11# Here is a quick guide to Install Gitea with Postgresql on Debian 11 Start with a quick system update: sudo apt-get update -ysudo apt-get upgrade -y Setup postgresql# sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt $(lsb_release -cs)-pgdg main" >...