I don’t know about you, but where I’m from summer looks a lot like late nights by the campfire, pool days with your girlfriends, boat trips for the show off guys, tan lines, lots of laughter, good vibes, watermelon and BBQ. If you know me, I love cooking, so my best friend Jordan and I have set out this summer to bring people closer together, away from the alcohol, and mobile devices.
Jordan and I have been best friends for a little over three years now and became absolute best friends at “first sight.” Recently we both went through some major life changing situations. Thankfully, they didn’t change our life completely, but they did change our outlook on so many things, put a new perspective on how we live our lives and we’ve grown so much individually along the way, and are both more then proud of the women we are becoming.
I won’t trouble you with reading this whole excerpt, but once you have some free time I recommend doing so, its a real good, quick read, you’ll love it I promise.
This very excerpt has changed my outlook on life in so many ways. You know how when your a little kid and your parents tell you to do something but your just young and dumb, and think you know it all so you choose not to listen to them, than turns out later on down the road you look back on it and conclude that you indeed should have listened to your parents, well thats kind of how I look at this message. Steve Jobs was a billionaire, he had more money than most of us will go our entire lifetime without touching, and he died as a middle age man at a young 56. On his death bed, a man that had billions, is writing to tell people that money, at the end of the day doesn’t mean anything. Jobs tells us “you will realize that your true inner happiness does not come from the material things of this world. This man, who had all the money that we all dream to have is lying on his death bed telling us to forget about the money, that when you have all that money that you dream of, its not worth it! He goes on to tell us that we find our true inner happiness in the memories we make with the people we love. He tells us “Don’t educate your children to be rich, educate them to be happy. So when they grow up they will know the value of things and not the price.” ONE OF THE RICHEST MEN TO EVER LIVE, is telling us to not put emphasis and meaning on the money we obtain and what that money can buy for us, but to put all of the emphasis and meaning into the people we love, and the memories we make together. Like I said earlier, remember when you didn’t listen to your parents and you regretted it, better listen this time. After reading this, it just really resinated with me, and struck me probably stronger then anything Ive ever read. With my boyfriend in the NBA, sometimes we get lost in the money and all the things it can buy, so after reading this I made it a point to stop emphasizing the meaningless things in my life.
Jordan wanted to impliment this lesson in her life as well, so together we’ve made it a point to spend money on activities, festivals and experiences with friends rather than shoes, purses and clothes. We’re merely just two girls and realistically probably wont change the world, but we figured if we started with our group of friends, and it spread to their group of friends, and to their group of friends then we would be happy because we contributed in helping people make memories, which like Jobs said, is our “true inner happiness.” In implementing this, we stopped going out to bars where we’d be surrounded by complete strangers getting drunk for no reason, and started hosting game nights with our friends with real actual board games, we planned group camping trips, started going bowling, and our favorite one of all, BBQ Sunday’s at our neighborhood pool. It started with just us and two guy friends, then the friends list grew and grew with every week and now we have to rent out the whole pool, and even got a volunteer DJ as well. Since we started it, and are doing it solely for people to make memories that they will remember forever, we provide the pool since we live in a house, therefore we don’t have to worry about apartment pool rules, and we also provide and make all of the food. Only catch, well two catches, they have to bring their own alcoholic beverages if they may, but also its stircky no phones allowed. We’re all adults and realize that actually taking phones up could cause trouble for some, so we don’t go to that extent but for the most part everyone holds each other accountable to not be on their phones. No phones means more face to face conversation which also means, no pictures allowed and with todays social media age, it drives some people crazy to not be able to post on social media, but due to that people have started to bring out actual cameras, and some also bring polaroid cameras. The atmosphere and “vibes” every Sunday at BBQ Sunday are completely unmatched, and I’m so happy a small little excerpt from Mr. Jobs influenced us all to do this. In just a short amount of time we have all already made so many unforgettable memories and its we’ve only done it 4 Sunday’s. The main focus at the BBQ, is nonetheless human to human interaction but also the actual BBQ. Jordan and I love to cook, and are elated to be able to provide food that will aid in making Sunday BBQ that much better. Jordan and I have been BBQing at the house way before we actually started BBQ Sunday, so we’d like to show some friends, girls mainly, just how easy it is to have a backyard BBQ at the house, in liue of bringing people together to make unforgettable memories. The video is posted on my Youtube, but if you are interested in attending a BBQ Sunday, head over to my contact page and leave your information, we’d absolutely love to have you!
Cooking with Dre 