Eric Nielsen
What can I say about myself? I like ideas, thinking, basketball, squash, travelling, and shooting the breeze with friends. I love my beautiful wife Valerie and lastly, but not in order of importance, I love Jesus. Ever since I encountered God's grace through Jesus, He's been transforming my rebellious heart to know, enjoy, love, and worship Him more. I grew up in the land overflowing with oil (Alberta) but I have spent the last 6 years in Southern Ontario, having dabbled once or twice in becoming an Easterner. I also spent one of those years living out of a backpack, travelling around the world in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. I graduated from the University of Waterloo in 2009 with a BA in philosophy and political science and I am currently residing in Chicago where I am studying for a masters degree.
So What Do You Do?
What’s more important, who you are or what you do? These need not be incompatible but it seems that we often emphasize one over the other. Judging by our North American culture, what do you think we value more about people: who they are or what they do? I was recently reading about the story […] Read More >
Spielberg and the Shaping Influence of a Father
How much influence has your father had on your life? For Steven Spielberg, his fathers’ presence, or rather the lack of it, went on to shape many of his famous films. In a recent interview for 60 Minutes Spielberg admitted that many of the films he created were influenced by the relationship he had with […] Read More >
Steve Jobs on Death and the Afterlife
What comes to your mind when you think of death? Recently I watched a documentary of Steve Jobs on 60 minutes entitled “Steve Jobs: Revelations from a tech giant”. Steve Jobs has had an impact on my life and millions by single-handedly revolutionizing how we use technology today. He was a world changer. So it […] Read More >
The Freedom of Limitations
Have you ever been in a situation in which you reached your limits? This happened to me recently. This fall, I took a Greek language class. You needed an 85 to move on to the next course for the winter term. I was hovering in the low 80s just before the final exam. I studied […] Read More >
What Can You Control?
According to a recent study published by Reuters, Apple is still the world’s most valuable brand. However in October 2011,Apple’s dominance was overshadowed by the sad news of the death of its founder and CEO Steve Jobs. Earlier in 2005, Jobs’ gave a commencement speech to Stanford University Graduates in which he admitted that doctors […] Read More >
What Cause or Person is Worth the Cost of Following?
As mentioned in the previous post, there is much more worth to following a cause rather than simply being a fan of it. Following yields hard earned fruit while fandom yields little to no valuable results. But of course, there are many things we could spend our life sacrificially following and those things prove to […] Read More >
What Do You Make of the Campus Crisis?
Do you find yourself barely getting by at university? Is it a struggle bearing the load of financial pressures and expectations from family and friends? Turns out, you are not alone. I was recently reading the cover article of Maclean’s September 10th issue entitled “Campus crisis: the broken generation. Why so many of our best […] Read More >
What Makes Someone a Follower Rather Than a Fan?
A follower is willing to bear the consequences of rejection by others, ridicule, being passed over, and laughed at when the cause he/she believes in is no longer popular. Fans disappear when their cause is no longer popular and it becomes costly in either reputation, comfort, or convenience to stay the course. Fans fall away, […] Read More >
Where Does Our Dignity Come From?
This question is significant because its answer determines the ground of our human rights. Much talk about human rights assumes that intrinsic worth and dignity is inherent to what it means to be human. Yet at the same time, it is not self-evident that intrinsic human dignity is anything that can be said to have […] Read More >
Working Out of Rest
Have you ever had a song stuck in your head that won’t go away? Lately I’ve had the theme from “Chariots of Fire” stuck in my head. My wife is sick of hearing me play the song, but I can’t seem to shake it off. This may be because at a young age I watched […] Read More >