Life with Ken

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Life with Ken values relationships as something that informs how we approach our content. As a lifestyle brand it’s important for us to make that connection with your life. Additionally and moreover, it’s important that we empower you to develop and make new relationships with those close to you. At Life with Ken We realize that this connection is relatively superficial. What’s real is what matters, and what matters is your real world. We are supportive and available but what matters the most to us and is an indication of us doing good work here, is that you are taking what we are sharing, applying it to your life, and seeing real results.

We also respect you and know that some of you are here to stay. That is a reality and prospect we value. The mission Life with Ken is on is to help you live more confidently. This is also a real way of life for me personally. I want to be supportive. We are coming up on our 5th year of doing Life with Ken. When I started I was in a place where I needed healthy good quality relationships, and to communicate with others. It was difficult for me to conceptualize how I could have many various relationships and still feel isolated. This developed my faith and forced me to lean on God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

The desire to belong as one of my classmates once put it, was in me at that time from the perspective of wanting to be vulnerable. I like be comfortable with others, let my guard down, and allowed to be myself. Not being able to express yourself with the people you should be able to do so with is stifling. What made it worse was those people proverbially cockblocking me by not allowing me to flourish and breakaway from them. I couldn’t be myself around them and they didn’t want me to be myself away from them either.

By the grace of God that wasn’t and isn’t something that he or I want for my life. Life with Ken is the byproduct of me having the space and needing the capacity to be myself regardless of what someone else thinks. It’s therapeutic and healing for me to be vulnerable. It’s something I want to explore in a healthy and unique way. Revelation came to me in this area of my life when I realized that the me that I was “forced” to be was disingenuous.

Additionally, the facts on the ground were that no one in my inner sphere of influence cared if I lived or died. Within this context my objective rationale for the situation became, so you don’t want to get to know me, you don’t want others to get to know me, and you don’t want me to get to know me. It’s not my business to know what they were or are afraid of. But it is my business to govern myself accordingly. Without being offensive I didn’t and don’t want to live ruled or influenced by objective losers.

Specifically I am talking about certain family members and people I considered friends at the time. I wasn’t a dater growing up. I felt insecure about my living conditions and didn’t really have the latitude to date. And by the time I did I didn’t have the courage or confidence to try. No one close to me sowed into my life in a meaningful way in that respect. Many times I was made to feel worse about my romantic relationship life, or lack thereof.

Not one person in my immediate family hasn’t accused me of being gay despite their own barrenness and flaws. I’m not and without disclosing private information the people who have teased me rather viciously for not being in a fruitful long term romantic relationship are the pot calling the kettle black. For bad or good I’ve had negative tautologies perpetuated in my life that have kept me from experiencing certain things. I don’t like quantifying or qualifying my relationship life. Frankly if I didn’t think it was something of relative value to mention, I wouldn’t.

In some respects, this is difficult for me because of the vexation it has historically caused. I can’t really explain the feeling of liking someone who doesn’t like you back. Or being naïve enough to allow people to mistreat you thinking that mistreatment means they like or care about you. Or being too afraid to ask a girl out because you aren’t encouraged, confident, or fortified enough to do so. You are afraid of the consequences of doing so and are embarrassed of the other people you are forced to do life with. While at the same time valuing their input to your detriment. It’s like taking on the attributes of your kidnapper.

Those people didn’t mean well for me. They weren’t shining beacons or leading examples themselves. And because of living arrangements and other conditions I was disincentivized to go against that subjective status quo. Typically, people perpetuate maladaptivity because they benefit from it in some way. Maladaptiveness hasn’t benefited me.

If being maladapted benefited me, I wouldn’t be doing this. I’d be well off doing some decent enough paying corporate or sales job, or in an administrative position. Living in a high rise on one of the coasts and having my way however I saw fit… The only way for me to live however, objectively speaking, is for me to become a better person. And in doing so creating better circumstances. I talk about that part frequently throughout Life with Ken. I could go on, but this is stuff that I have had to let go of. That’s required work on my part and Life with Ken has been part of that work.

If I can connect with you through this platform virtually or in real life and we just allow life to happen unincumbered by corruption, it will be a beautiful place to be and see regular healthy human communication between two or more objectively healthy people. What makes this valuable is that it isn’t artificial. On the other side of you stepping into the you that you always knew you are and always wanted (and want) to be, are fruitful relationships that regardless of whether they are for a reason, season, or lifetime, they are meaningful. Quality relationships of all kinds are part of the meaning of life. Humans are social beings. There is negative and positive socialization.

Negative and positive socialization both have their own incentive structure with negative socialization tending to be more lucrative, whereas positive socialization is more substantial. Life is substantive. When you behave or entertain people who behave maladaptively, you dilute the vivid experience of life. There is so much more I could say on this topic because relationships are important to me personally and are fundamentally important as it relates to capital “L” life.

Ultimately through Life with Ken I want to connect with you so that you can better connect with the world around you. This process is a positive tautology allowing me to heal, grow, and mature, while also allowing you to do the same. This is where life converges. This is the Life with Ken lifestyle that we continuously seek to scale. I am living my dreams and helping you do the same. Together we can achieve more. Allow yourself to actualize, flourish, and have your impact reverberate.  

Originally published May 21, 2024.

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