The hype man. The cheerleader. The one whose job is to pour excitement into others. Do you appreciate their work?

I don’t know at what age it is no longer cool to be excited about life or what specifically in our culture steals our joy. But we are in desperate need for some hype men and hype women to be optimistically loud about their passions. We could also really use some cheerleaders who believe in us.

For several years I saw myself as the hype man while serving as an associate pastor. I loved looking at a room full of people (some of whom had just been diagnosed with cancer or just finished screaming at their children or were laid off the week prior) and doing what I could to get a smile on their faces (a visible clue into their thought process of “I’m glad that I am here.”)

It might be cool to glare condescending or to think, “There’s no time for this nonsense. Get to the important stuff.” But I have failed at being cool for 31 years and I don’t intend to start now. When you understand most all of life as vanity, it’s actually easier to be excited about the one thing that transcends the ordinary. Maintain this focus and follow the hype; which is followed by joy–in you and those around you.