I was always told that change is the only thing that is constant and that I could rely on in life. Well to be honest. Not a whole lot has changed. I am still sicker than a dog. I am still waiting to hear the outcome of the majority of my grad school applications. And I still don't know if I have a job this summer. Don't even get me started on social or anything else. I feel like I need an extreme life makeover right now. I think this might be the illness talking though... Give me a week or two.
Seriously, this seems like it is going to be the easiest semester I will ever have at BYU. My classes don't appear like they will be terribly difficult. Right now my biggest obstacle is the weather. I haven't even finished unpacking my car from the holidays and it has been a week. My room looks like the wreckage left from a bomb blast. And my ability to sleep the last couple of days has been limited to a few hours tops from all of my coughing. In fact the love seat in our front room is more comfortable to sleep in than my own bed because I can actually sleep and breathe at the same time. Crazy few weeks and it will hopefully be over soon.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Saturday, January 5, 2013
The Wanderer
I tried explaining this feeling I have to a friend of mine. I feel like I don't know what home is any more. I come back to my parent's home or I stay at my brother's and there are people there that love me. I know that they love me. But for some reason that I can't explain, when I am there with them I feel like I am lacking. I feel like I am missing a piece of me and without it I am out of place. I long for a companion and a family of my own. I know I must be patient. I guess this is the loneliness that I was supposed to prepare myself for. I must have more I have to do to prepare myself for my future. All I know is now I feel like a wanderer going to and fro trying to help where I can and looking to both the future as well as the present.
In the past, I have learned a lot and experienced much. I had hoped that it would never come to this. I hoped I would never feel nothing for someone I loved so much. I feared that if that ever happened then it may have been that I never loved her in the first place. But even now, I still shed a tear or two hoping for news that she is okay. Hoping that she is happy. There is no way to change the past or to say exactly what
the consequences of our choices will be, but we can determine the direction in which our lives can go. We may have lost what could have been ours together but that doesn't mean we still won't each have those same blessings in our futures if we continue to direct our lives towards God.
There has been one more lesson that I still have to learn from my experiences of this last year. I learned that I had to let go of everything and trust God that He would take care of those that I loved when I no longer could. I had to to trust that God would keep them safe, that He would help them find peace, that He would heal them and make them whole. Now I just have to believe that He will do the same for me. Just like any prodigal son tired from his travels, I simply have to follow my feet home.
In the past, I have learned a lot and experienced much. I had hoped that it would never come to this. I hoped I would never feel nothing for someone I loved so much. I feared that if that ever happened then it may have been that I never loved her in the first place. But even now, I still shed a tear or two hoping for news that she is okay. Hoping that she is happy. There is no way to change the past or to say exactly what
the consequences of our choices will be, but we can determine the direction in which our lives can go. We may have lost what could have been ours together but that doesn't mean we still won't each have those same blessings in our futures if we continue to direct our lives towards God.There has been one more lesson that I still have to learn from my experiences of this last year. I learned that I had to let go of everything and trust God that He would take care of those that I loved when I no longer could. I had to to trust that God would keep them safe, that He would help them find peace, that He would heal them and make them whole. Now I just have to believe that He will do the same for me. Just like any prodigal son tired from his travels, I simply have to follow my feet home.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
The Power of Vulnerability
I saw a link to this TED talk by Brene Brown entitled "The Power of Vulnerability." I like the social sciences and trying to understand how people work and tick so I spent a few minutes watching and thinking about what she describes is our way to find true connections in life. I thought I could certainly relate to this subject not only because I feel like I could personally connect to her discoveries but my greatest desire in life is for deep and meaningful connections with people. It is what brings meaning and purpose to my life. So before going into my thoughts on the various topics she brings up, here are a few notes that I took away from her talk that I have embedded below:
Shame is a feeling of not being good enough because of a sense of vulnerability of being seen in a certain way. On the other hand, people that have a strong sense of love and belonging simply believe they are worthy of it. It is a sense of worthiness. She describes a few keys to gaining this sense of worthiness. First, she defines courage as being willing to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart in your complete and honest imperfection. Compassion was described as first treating ourselves kindly and then treating others kindly. And lastly, connection was achieved by being willing to let go of who we think we should be and embrace ourselves in order to be authentic to who we really are. These kinds of people fully embraced their own vulnerability. What makes them vulnerable is what made them beautiful. Embracing this allowed them to say I love you first, to do something where there are no guarantees, and to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. It was fundamental. They stopped controlling and predicting the outcomes and parts of their lives but embraced the power of vulnerability.
Vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness but it appears also to be the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love. We numb vulnerability. We are the most in-debt, obese, addicted, and medicated adult cohort in US history. We try to selectively numb the bad stuff in our lives but it is impossible without also numbing joy, gratitude, and happiness. It is a dangerous cycle. We try to make the uncertain certain. There is no longer place for discourse and discussion, just blame. And blame is a another way to discharge pain and discomfort. We perfect our appearance and try to protect our children but the beautifully painful nature of life is that our children are hardwired for struggle and hardship. It is just makes it all the more a difficult necessity to remind them that they are still and always worthy of love and belonging. They won't make the tennis team by 5th grade and Yale by 7th. Bail outs and recalls and oil spills our ways we continue to pretend that we can live life without affecting other people but that is not the true nature of reality.
If you put shame in a Petri dish; it just needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgment. This is a topic for a different post for a different day but one thing I have realized is that really the two most powerful words when we're in a struggle: me too. It is easier to trust and be a hundred percent ourselves when we know that we can relate. When we know that we are not alone. Still, the only way for that to happen is to have the courage to let ourselves be seen, our whole selves, loving with our whole hearts with no guarantee. Take advantage of the moments when we can practice gratitude and joy when most others would have feelings of terror and catastrophe. Be happy that you are alive. But again, it is simply important to not only realize that you are enough but believing that you are enough.
I honestly found this talk to be very powerful. If I had to put it in my own words I think that when we think about life, many times we compare it to a test. A take-home open-note final that we are taking where the final grade is who we are when it is all said and done. The catch is that there are rules that we and society place on how we take the test and there are certain expectations that we have to meet and certain ways to do it "correctly." However, the greatest goal or commandment that we have is to love and many people are incapable of loving other people because they haven't been able to love them selves. Loving yourself was never explained to anyone beforehand but it is understood by those who have felt true and sincere love as one of those unspoken unwritten rules of the game. So there we sit at our desks with these extensive list of rules and expectations and strategies that are not only overwhelming but impossible to complete in their entirety. So do we just throw in the towel at what appears to be a damning failure to succeed in our pursuit for personal perfection? Well this is the nerd in me because our test is really our personal Kobayashi Maru.
It appears from the outside to be a no-win situation final where we have to accept our failure or our vulnerability in order to find true happiness. The real catch is that what appears to be a no-win situation is really not the case. In our final we can use our neighbor, one neighbor. If we accept God and His sacrifice then we are able to see that although we will never be enough by ourselves, we are more than up to the task when we choose to play Him as a winning member of our team. When we do this we are able to accept our vulnerability, our weaknesses, our mistakes, our continual failures, because we realize that these things do not define us! We define ourselves. We make the rules. We are defined by our willingness to pick ourselves up after we fall, continuing to push forward when others are just trying to stand still.
Too many of us look at other people and try to be their perfect person. We are trying to meet other people's expectations when really it is in the imperfection where perfection truly lies. It is the way rely on one another. It is our willingness to accept love and help when we fall short. It is asking for more than what we deserve in our lowest moments because we know that in our heart of hearts we are better than that. We shouldn't compare our behind the scenes to other people or even our own highlight reels because we will never win. I can say that the hardest thing from personal experience is trying to regain this perspective of feeling that you are good enough again after accepting thoughts of self-doubt and hopelessness. But I can also say that it is just as simple as making the choice and having the courage to continue to repeatedly make that same choice of telling yourself that you are worthy of love.
You are good enough. You will never be someone's Superman until you accept that there is going to be kryptonite to deal with. No one is completely bulletproof but we accept and embrace our vulnerability and suddenly it becomes a strength. If we are willing to accept that we are not going to be perfect and that we are not going to be the best all of the time, we can make the choice whether our vulnerability will cripple us because of fear and shame or empower us to be our best. It is just that simple... Stop comparing yourself and learn to embrace you and what you are capable of becoming. Taking risks is being willing to accept failure when there is a possibility of success. Happiness is not the product of outcome as much as it is effort. Some of the poorest people in the world are the happiest not because of what they have or where they have gone but because they have a clear conscious from knowing who they are and knowing that they have done their best.
Shame is a feeling of not being good enough because of a sense of vulnerability of being seen in a certain way. On the other hand, people that have a strong sense of love and belonging simply believe they are worthy of it. It is a sense of worthiness. She describes a few keys to gaining this sense of worthiness. First, she defines courage as being willing to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart in your complete and honest imperfection. Compassion was described as first treating ourselves kindly and then treating others kindly. And lastly, connection was achieved by being willing to let go of who we think we should be and embrace ourselves in order to be authentic to who we really are. These kinds of people fully embraced their own vulnerability. What makes them vulnerable is what made them beautiful. Embracing this allowed them to say I love you first, to do something where there are no guarantees, and to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. It was fundamental. They stopped controlling and predicting the outcomes and parts of their lives but embraced the power of vulnerability.
Vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness but it appears also to be the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love. We numb vulnerability. We are the most in-debt, obese, addicted, and medicated adult cohort in US history. We try to selectively numb the bad stuff in our lives but it is impossible without also numbing joy, gratitude, and happiness. It is a dangerous cycle. We try to make the uncertain certain. There is no longer place for discourse and discussion, just blame. And blame is a another way to discharge pain and discomfort. We perfect our appearance and try to protect our children but the beautifully painful nature of life is that our children are hardwired for struggle and hardship. It is just makes it all the more a difficult necessity to remind them that they are still and always worthy of love and belonging. They won't make the tennis team by 5th grade and Yale by 7th. Bail outs and recalls and oil spills our ways we continue to pretend that we can live life without affecting other people but that is not the true nature of reality.
If you put shame in a Petri dish; it just needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgment. This is a topic for a different post for a different day but one thing I have realized is that really the two most powerful words when we're in a struggle: me too. It is easier to trust and be a hundred percent ourselves when we know that we can relate. When we know that we are not alone. Still, the only way for that to happen is to have the courage to let ourselves be seen, our whole selves, loving with our whole hearts with no guarantee. Take advantage of the moments when we can practice gratitude and joy when most others would have feelings of terror and catastrophe. Be happy that you are alive. But again, it is simply important to not only realize that you are enough but believing that you are enough.
I honestly found this talk to be very powerful. If I had to put it in my own words I think that when we think about life, many times we compare it to a test. A take-home open-note final that we are taking where the final grade is who we are when it is all said and done. The catch is that there are rules that we and society place on how we take the test and there are certain expectations that we have to meet and certain ways to do it "correctly." However, the greatest goal or commandment that we have is to love and many people are incapable of loving other people because they haven't been able to love them selves. Loving yourself was never explained to anyone beforehand but it is understood by those who have felt true and sincere love as one of those unspoken unwritten rules of the game. So there we sit at our desks with these extensive list of rules and expectations and strategies that are not only overwhelming but impossible to complete in their entirety. So do we just throw in the towel at what appears to be a damning failure to succeed in our pursuit for personal perfection? Well this is the nerd in me because our test is really our personal Kobayashi Maru.
It appears from the outside to be a no-win situation final where we have to accept our failure or our vulnerability in order to find true happiness. The real catch is that what appears to be a no-win situation is really not the case. In our final we can use our neighbor, one neighbor. If we accept God and His sacrifice then we are able to see that although we will never be enough by ourselves, we are more than up to the task when we choose to play Him as a winning member of our team. When we do this we are able to accept our vulnerability, our weaknesses, our mistakes, our continual failures, because we realize that these things do not define us! We define ourselves. We make the rules. We are defined by our willingness to pick ourselves up after we fall, continuing to push forward when others are just trying to stand still.
Too many of us look at other people and try to be their perfect person. We are trying to meet other people's expectations when really it is in the imperfection where perfection truly lies. It is the way rely on one another. It is our willingness to accept love and help when we fall short. It is asking for more than what we deserve in our lowest moments because we know that in our heart of hearts we are better than that. We shouldn't compare our behind the scenes to other people or even our own highlight reels because we will never win. I can say that the hardest thing from personal experience is trying to regain this perspective of feeling that you are good enough again after accepting thoughts of self-doubt and hopelessness. But I can also say that it is just as simple as making the choice and having the courage to continue to repeatedly make that same choice of telling yourself that you are worthy of love.
You are good enough. You will never be someone's Superman until you accept that there is going to be kryptonite to deal with. No one is completely bulletproof but we accept and embrace our vulnerability and suddenly it becomes a strength. If we are willing to accept that we are not going to be perfect and that we are not going to be the best all of the time, we can make the choice whether our vulnerability will cripple us because of fear and shame or empower us to be our best. It is just that simple... Stop comparing yourself and learn to embrace you and what you are capable of becoming. Taking risks is being willing to accept failure when there is a possibility of success. Happiness is not the product of outcome as much as it is effort. Some of the poorest people in the world are the happiest not because of what they have or where they have gone but because they have a clear conscious from knowing who they are and knowing that they have done their best.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
No Resolutions... Just Reflections
I have been thinking a lot the last couple of days about the New Year and everything that entails. Sometimes I will comply with the whole New Year's tradition of resolutions and making goals and everything. It is good to have goals and things to shoot for and even though I kinda have some of those... This year is going to be different. It is unavoidable. I have a college graduation in April when I will be getting my Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering from BYU. The complication with that is my plans for this summer... There aren't any. Well, at least no firm plans that is. We have a family vacation planned but besides that there are too many things that are still up in the air for my liking.
I am trying to get into graduate school and have finished my application to two dual Master's programs. This means that if I am accepted I will graduate from one of those programs with two Master's degrees: a MBA and a MS in Engineering. I have applied to both BYU (3 year program) and to the University of Utah (2 year). In all honesty, I would really like to go to either but currently I am leaning more towards the U of U. I always like to have a little bit of change here and there and I think after 5 years in Provo I am ready for something new. The quandary I have is that BYU would push up my enrollment if I was accepted from next Fall to starting immediately after my graduation in April, meanwhile the U of U would have me start in the Fall but I would need to spend the summer in Utah to get instate tuition. I don't know what to do for a job situation to pay for that. I think it would be fun to be a EFY counselor if I could so I will probably start looking into that sooner rather than later but who knows? Outside of that, my only backup plan for this summer would be that I might move to my brother's home if money gets tight and jobs are scarce for a little bit.
When I think about this last year, there is a lot that I learned and a lot that I feel like I have left to do. I am somewhere still at the beginning of my journey and I still feel so old. I definitely have had many life experiences so far that I can look back on that help me appreciate what I have and what I hope to have. There are also a lot that I hope to improve on, mostly in a spiritual sense. Socially, I found a really interesting link that I will soon write a post about that I feel really describes me and why I think I am not really as odd as I sometimes feel. I had been trying really hard this last semester to really stay on top of myself and keep going to the temple as much as I could but it slackened. I tried to get my sister to come with me since she happened to be out at school with me but it never happened. I should have gone by myself and I will end up doing that more next semester but I really was disappointed but I hope that will change. Especially now that her boyfriend is coming out west for school too. It is up to her but I need to step up my game for myself, as an example, and for my family.
But I was thinking about my sister and her friends a little bit today. She had a group of them over for a little party she was throwing now that we are all back in New Hampshire for the holidays. It was weird because some of them avoided me and I realized that they didn't really know me all that well. It got me thinking that it is probably the same thing with my sisters. They probably don't know me all too well. I was on my mission when my sisters were just getting into high school and then during the rest I was out at college. So this whole last semester was really nice being able to just spend time with her here and there. It is interesting though because as I was getting to know my sister, I was getting to know myself. If there is one thing I know, it is that only on occasion is it a good thing for me to get lost in my own thoughts.
This last year was a year when I loved more stronger and deeply than I have in my own life. I have never been more hurt or cried as long as I have this year than ever before. I have pushed myself to do things that I didn't think was possible. I saw more miracles as of late than I have in a long time. I have been more spiritually in-tune than I have in a long while and I have never been more low either. It has been a year of ups and downs. I was fired for the first time. I was engaged to my first real love. I traveled half way round the world and saw things I didn't know I would ever see. I tried new things, met new people, and hopefully made lifelong friends. I never thought it was possible to feel so loved and so alone at the same time. It definitely was a year of ups and downs and the only reason I have been able to make it through with some reasonable direction and purpose is because of the gospel and my Savior, Jesus Christ.
If it wasn't for my faith, I do not think I would have been able to overcome the more difficult things I had to face. The thoughts that fill my mind most frequently are how my future is unknown and how I must continue to focus on the present. I have to trust that things will get better and that if I focus on the little things and on the people around me, God will guide me and He wants to bless me and my loved ones. Don't give up. Don't give in. It is just as simple as learning to trust Him and have faith in His plan. I have to do as I always have done and continue to push forward. I am just grateful that I have good friends and good family behind me.
I am trying to get into graduate school and have finished my application to two dual Master's programs. This means that if I am accepted I will graduate from one of those programs with two Master's degrees: a MBA and a MS in Engineering. I have applied to both BYU (3 year program) and to the University of Utah (2 year). In all honesty, I would really like to go to either but currently I am leaning more towards the U of U. I always like to have a little bit of change here and there and I think after 5 years in Provo I am ready for something new. The quandary I have is that BYU would push up my enrollment if I was accepted from next Fall to starting immediately after my graduation in April, meanwhile the U of U would have me start in the Fall but I would need to spend the summer in Utah to get instate tuition. I don't know what to do for a job situation to pay for that. I think it would be fun to be a EFY counselor if I could so I will probably start looking into that sooner rather than later but who knows? Outside of that, my only backup plan for this summer would be that I might move to my brother's home if money gets tight and jobs are scarce for a little bit.
When I think about this last year, there is a lot that I learned and a lot that I feel like I have left to do. I am somewhere still at the beginning of my journey and I still feel so old. I definitely have had many life experiences so far that I can look back on that help me appreciate what I have and what I hope to have. There are also a lot that I hope to improve on, mostly in a spiritual sense. Socially, I found a really interesting link that I will soon write a post about that I feel really describes me and why I think I am not really as odd as I sometimes feel. I had been trying really hard this last semester to really stay on top of myself and keep going to the temple as much as I could but it slackened. I tried to get my sister to come with me since she happened to be out at school with me but it never happened. I should have gone by myself and I will end up doing that more next semester but I really was disappointed but I hope that will change. Especially now that her boyfriend is coming out west for school too. It is up to her but I need to step up my game for myself, as an example, and for my family.
But I was thinking about my sister and her friends a little bit today. She had a group of them over for a little party she was throwing now that we are all back in New Hampshire for the holidays. It was weird because some of them avoided me and I realized that they didn't really know me all that well. It got me thinking that it is probably the same thing with my sisters. They probably don't know me all too well. I was on my mission when my sisters were just getting into high school and then during the rest I was out at college. So this whole last semester was really nice being able to just spend time with her here and there. It is interesting though because as I was getting to know my sister, I was getting to know myself. If there is one thing I know, it is that only on occasion is it a good thing for me to get lost in my own thoughts.
This last year was a year when I loved more stronger and deeply than I have in my own life. I have never been more hurt or cried as long as I have this year than ever before. I have pushed myself to do things that I didn't think was possible. I saw more miracles as of late than I have in a long time. I have been more spiritually in-tune than I have in a long while and I have never been more low either. It has been a year of ups and downs. I was fired for the first time. I was engaged to my first real love. I traveled half way round the world and saw things I didn't know I would ever see. I tried new things, met new people, and hopefully made lifelong friends. I never thought it was possible to feel so loved and so alone at the same time. It definitely was a year of ups and downs and the only reason I have been able to make it through with some reasonable direction and purpose is because of the gospel and my Savior, Jesus Christ.
If it wasn't for my faith, I do not think I would have been able to overcome the more difficult things I had to face. The thoughts that fill my mind most frequently are how my future is unknown and how I must continue to focus on the present. I have to trust that things will get better and that if I focus on the little things and on the people around me, God will guide me and He wants to bless me and my loved ones. Don't give up. Don't give in. It is just as simple as learning to trust Him and have faith in His plan. I have to do as I always have done and continue to push forward. I am just grateful that I have good friends and good family behind me.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Lying to Myself
The nicest thing about being home for Christmas is family. Any drama that occurs is created by my siblings and all their friends here at home but I typically don't bring much if any drama with me. Still, being home is a great way to relax because it gives me time to think and reassess how things in my life are progressing. Again, school is going great and hopefully I am on my way to grad school once my recommendations are all in. Religiously... I could be doing a lot better. And socially... I think I have finally come to terms with what my family has been saying all along is my real issue: I am too forgiving.
Maybe it is the fact that I always feel like I fall short myself and it is so hard to make headway in my life. Maybe I do have issues with self-esteem. Maybe it is a higher road than that, I want to forgive others because I too want to be forgiven. Maybe I give people too many chances because I wish that if I love others they might love me back in return. I don't know what my reasons are and I don't know why it has taken me so long but I want to change. I need to pick myself up spiritually and socially. I need to work out my issues and my problems and face the facts. I need to start exercising and spending time to make myself stronger. It is not a bad thing to give people the benefit of the doubt if they actually deserve it but it is another thing to lie to myself wishing that people were more blunt and honest with how they really feel when I know what they are really trying to say. It is time to cut the crap and be me. Time to grow up. Time to become who I need to be.
Maybe it is the fact that I always feel like I fall short myself and it is so hard to make headway in my life. Maybe I do have issues with self-esteem. Maybe it is a higher road than that, I want to forgive others because I too want to be forgiven. Maybe I give people too many chances because I wish that if I love others they might love me back in return. I don't know what my reasons are and I don't know why it has taken me so long but I want to change. I need to pick myself up spiritually and socially. I need to work out my issues and my problems and face the facts. I need to start exercising and spending time to make myself stronger. It is not a bad thing to give people the benefit of the doubt if they actually deserve it but it is another thing to lie to myself wishing that people were more blunt and honest with how they really feel when I know what they are really trying to say. It is time to cut the crap and be me. Time to grow up. Time to become who I need to be.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Breathing Easy
Finals week is always interesting for me. So many people are stressing and freaking out because suddenly their semester is real. They have classes they ignored for the last few months, projects and assignments that are beginning to form either a little too late or sometimes at the last possible second. For me, finals week is typically pretty easy going. I have been busting my butt all semester long and my grade honestly can't change that much any more no matter how I do on the final exams. This semester in particular has been a breeze: one in-class final, one testing center, one take-home, and two oral presentations where one of them I just have to show up and look good.
The other part of finals week that is odd for me is how I end up spending my free time. With a time intensive major like engineering, finals week is fantastic! I suddenly have all this free time that I haven't had all semester! I am more than willing to put in the hours I need to in order to do well but I also have all the rest of this time where I can just enjoy myself! Movie marathons and hours of music are a must for finals week, even the occasional date or two is a nice touch. I have seen a few different movies recently that are pretty good: Sweeny Todd, The Rise of the Guardians, Skyfall (3x), and over the break I will be adding to that list Les Miserables and The Hobbit (which I watched the rest of the LOTR movies in anticipation). And sadly enough, I typically meet the most interesting people at the end of a semester and unless there is a real mutual desire to stay in contact, they more often then not disappear by the time the new year rolls around and I roll back into Provo. However, I am hopeful that things can always change.
But there has been a lot of interesting new artists that I have been introduced to as of late. Here is just a small sample of the music I have been listening to or introduced to lately to get me through finals and back home to New Hampshire:
Anyways, I have been wasting enough time myself. Not much left now and then Christmas is right around the corner! Things will fall into place and when they do. hopefully I will be grateful enough to realize that God was just waiting for me to get my act together and everyone else involved. Anyways, best wishes for everyone going through finals right now and Merry Christmas to all!
The other part of finals week that is odd for me is how I end up spending my free time. With a time intensive major like engineering, finals week is fantastic! I suddenly have all this free time that I haven't had all semester! I am more than willing to put in the hours I need to in order to do well but I also have all the rest of this time where I can just enjoy myself! Movie marathons and hours of music are a must for finals week, even the occasional date or two is a nice touch. I have seen a few different movies recently that are pretty good: Sweeny Todd, The Rise of the Guardians, Skyfall (3x), and over the break I will be adding to that list Les Miserables and The Hobbit (which I watched the rest of the LOTR movies in anticipation). And sadly enough, I typically meet the most interesting people at the end of a semester and unless there is a real mutual desire to stay in contact, they more often then not disappear by the time the new year rolls around and I roll back into Provo. However, I am hopeful that things can always change.
But there has been a lot of interesting new artists that I have been introduced to as of late. Here is just a small sample of the music I have been listening to or introduced to lately to get me through finals and back home to New Hampshire:
|
|
Anyways, I have been wasting enough time myself. Not much left now and then Christmas is right around the corner! Things will fall into place and when they do. hopefully I will be grateful enough to realize that God was just waiting for me to get my act together and everyone else involved. Anyways, best wishes for everyone going through finals right now and Merry Christmas to all!
How Do We Define Ourselves...?
I have always been
a deep thinker and most of the time I keep my deeper thoughts in
private places but this once I want to share a thought that caused me to
take some time to self-reflect. When you think about you... How do you
define yourself? Are we defined by our past? The successes of days
gone by mixed with the lessons learned from failures and mistakes, I
feel only paint a picture of actions, circumstance, and a shadow of a
former self. Some people sadly enough can only see that former self and
they live in the past and forget the future. Others who also suffocate
in the shadows may do so because others may not let them move forward
or forgive or be forgiven for former sins. But again, I don't believe
this paints the whole picture of a person although understanding it may
help to see how far a person has come. The distance that we have
progressed in our lives may add light or compassion to our love and
appreciation of another.
As much as we cannot dwell in the past, we also cannot spend away our days dreaming of a future. Some people define themselves by their goals and their dreams. Life is characteristic of change. Life has unexpected turns and so dreams provide perspective but we cannot equate failure in unfulfilled personal expectations. We need a forward thinking perspective and we need goals in order to arrive at our eventual destination but there is not one profession, there is not one chance, there is not one dream that will lead to happines but there is one way. My testimony and faith in God and in my Savior Jesus Christ have helped me find that way but that is a discussion for another time and another thought. My point is that dreams and wishful thinking only goes as far as the action that accompanies it and is necessary as a part of life... determination, enduring faith, charity for your fellow men, and hope for a future. These things again help to add depth but are unable to define a person.
My impression is that the only person who can know who we really are, outside of our Creator, is ourselves. I was always taught that character defines a man. The thoughts and feelings and things that we do or say when no one else is ever watching. If that is true then no one else really knows who we are! Our outward actions may be accomplished for a variety of motives, many pure and some not so much. At times the way we treat others, a complete stranger or a friend or even family, is a reflection of how we treat or view ourselves. Still, no one else really knows us and so they are in essence unable to define us. They can theorize. They can guess. They can assume. But we define who we are and who we will become. Our past is already written but that does not define the direction of our future. Our world is ever-changing and so we too must adapt our plans, or in the words of Dan in Real Life, "plan to be surprised."
I guess what I am trying to say is that we need to stop thinking of ourselves through titles and decisions and mistakes and dreams. We should not ignore our responsibilities! We should continue to be a faithful spouse, a dutiful and loving parent, a teachable and humble child. We aught to continue to live life the way we have been, unless there are ways in which you can improve or find greater joy or happiness then necessity would deem us to change. But I am trying to say is that if we strip away all those things... a father, a mother, a husband, a wife, a student, a boss, a dreamer, an adventurer, a partier, a planner, in a relationship, married, single, alone... Ignore all of those things. Deep inside, how do you define your character? What personal attributes or characteristics do you have? What kind of person have you become? Are you the kind of person that you always wanted to be? Who are you? Have you taken the time recently to really look at yourself in the mirror and seen yourself for who you really are, both good and bad? This was the question I wanted to pose.
As much as we cannot dwell in the past, we also cannot spend away our days dreaming of a future. Some people define themselves by their goals and their dreams. Life is characteristic of change. Life has unexpected turns and so dreams provide perspective but we cannot equate failure in unfulfilled personal expectations. We need a forward thinking perspective and we need goals in order to arrive at our eventual destination but there is not one profession, there is not one chance, there is not one dream that will lead to happines but there is one way. My testimony and faith in God and in my Savior Jesus Christ have helped me find that way but that is a discussion for another time and another thought. My point is that dreams and wishful thinking only goes as far as the action that accompanies it and is necessary as a part of life... determination, enduring faith, charity for your fellow men, and hope for a future. These things again help to add depth but are unable to define a person.
My impression is that the only person who can know who we really are, outside of our Creator, is ourselves. I was always taught that character defines a man. The thoughts and feelings and things that we do or say when no one else is ever watching. If that is true then no one else really knows who we are! Our outward actions may be accomplished for a variety of motives, many pure and some not so much. At times the way we treat others, a complete stranger or a friend or even family, is a reflection of how we treat or view ourselves. Still, no one else really knows us and so they are in essence unable to define us. They can theorize. They can guess. They can assume. But we define who we are and who we will become. Our past is already written but that does not define the direction of our future. Our world is ever-changing and so we too must adapt our plans, or in the words of Dan in Real Life, "plan to be surprised."
I guess what I am trying to say is that we need to stop thinking of ourselves through titles and decisions and mistakes and dreams. We should not ignore our responsibilities! We should continue to be a faithful spouse, a dutiful and loving parent, a teachable and humble child. We aught to continue to live life the way we have been, unless there are ways in which you can improve or find greater joy or happiness then necessity would deem us to change. But I am trying to say is that if we strip away all those things... a father, a mother, a husband, a wife, a student, a boss, a dreamer, an adventurer, a partier, a planner, in a relationship, married, single, alone... Ignore all of those things. Deep inside, how do you define your character? What personal attributes or characteristics do you have? What kind of person have you become? Are you the kind of person that you always wanted to be? Who are you? Have you taken the time recently to really look at yourself in the mirror and seen yourself for who you really are, both good and bad? This was the question I wanted to pose.
Limited Perspectives and The Right One
I have had a lot of interesting conversations as of late with a variety of different people, friends and family alike. There were a lot of different topics involved but the overall thing that I found most interesting was my own thoughts on perception. By this I mean that as I would discuss various idea or topics with other people it was interesting for me as I listened to focus on the perspectives and perceptions that we all adopted and how those were crucial in the way that we understood things.
We always hear that it is important to make a good first impression, pretty much in every situation. In order to do this successfully, you have to remember your manners, be able to identify from the setting the kind of language that is appropriate to use in the conversation and your role in that conversation, recognize when you are supposed to be a leader or a guest, and lastly you have to not check yourself out at the door. If you are going to make a good first impression you have to be you. Sometimes what we forget is that these first impressions are a test to see if these other people like us or approve of us in some way in an effort to meet their standards: dating, interviews, or strangers in a social setting. When I say that we forget, I mean that we focus too much on trying to meet those standards and just be our true selves.
I understand that we all have a need for being accepted by other people - not everyone and maybe not even whole heaps of people but we want to be accepted by someone else. Everyone will make preliminary and intermediate judgments when it comes to other people and they will make choices according to what they perceive. This is why I think it is so important to be true to yourself and be yourself. I never want someone else to think I am something that I am not and then judge me for it. Still it is also important for us to understand that we don't know why they made the specific decisions. We can't fill in the blanks for their reasoning because we don't know all the facts and extenuating circumstances. Dating examples, if you are stood up on a date you have to think about a few things: how specific were the details (solid time and place or was it relatively vague in order to allow flexibility), are there any number of reasons why they were late or didn't call (travel issues and cell phone issues), and is it possible that life just simply got in the way?
I am trying to say that we all have our own reasons for why something may have occurred but in all reality we won't know for certain. It is easy to choose to be offended or disheartened when we don't get the response that we are looking for but... patience, forgiveness, and an eternal perspective help to keep all things in their proper perspective. Ask questions if you need to but listen with understanding and love. Don't be the hypocrite but be teachable and humble, seeking for correction. This principle is so very important because it would be so sad to actually have to start over and be back at square one when we could have learned from our little failures or mistakes and have stayed farther up on the path of life, fallen forward and not having slipped all the way back to the beginning. It is tragic to have lost so much time and not have learned from the experience.
The other lesson I have learned is simply this: No matter how important it is to make a good impression or to have other people see you in a positive light from their perspective, the way you see yourself and the way that God sees you are most important. Self-worth, self-esteem, self-confidence... They are all based on who you are. You have have justifiable self-worth if you love God, do His will, and care more about what He thinks about you rather than what everyone else thinks about you.
We always hear that it is important to make a good first impression, pretty much in every situation. In order to do this successfully, you have to remember your manners, be able to identify from the setting the kind of language that is appropriate to use in the conversation and your role in that conversation, recognize when you are supposed to be a leader or a guest, and lastly you have to not check yourself out at the door. If you are going to make a good first impression you have to be you. Sometimes what we forget is that these first impressions are a test to see if these other people like us or approve of us in some way in an effort to meet their standards: dating, interviews, or strangers in a social setting. When I say that we forget, I mean that we focus too much on trying to meet those standards and just be our true selves.
I understand that we all have a need for being accepted by other people - not everyone and maybe not even whole heaps of people but we want to be accepted by someone else. Everyone will make preliminary and intermediate judgments when it comes to other people and they will make choices according to what they perceive. This is why I think it is so important to be true to yourself and be yourself. I never want someone else to think I am something that I am not and then judge me for it. Still it is also important for us to understand that we don't know why they made the specific decisions. We can't fill in the blanks for their reasoning because we don't know all the facts and extenuating circumstances. Dating examples, if you are stood up on a date you have to think about a few things: how specific were the details (solid time and place or was it relatively vague in order to allow flexibility), are there any number of reasons why they were late or didn't call (travel issues and cell phone issues), and is it possible that life just simply got in the way?
I am trying to say that we all have our own reasons for why something may have occurred but in all reality we won't know for certain. It is easy to choose to be offended or disheartened when we don't get the response that we are looking for but... patience, forgiveness, and an eternal perspective help to keep all things in their proper perspective. Ask questions if you need to but listen with understanding and love. Don't be the hypocrite but be teachable and humble, seeking for correction. This principle is so very important because it would be so sad to actually have to start over and be back at square one when we could have learned from our little failures or mistakes and have stayed farther up on the path of life, fallen forward and not having slipped all the way back to the beginning. It is tragic to have lost so much time and not have learned from the experience.
The other lesson I have learned is simply this: No matter how important it is to make a good impression or to have other people see you in a positive light from their perspective, the way you see yourself and the way that God sees you are most important. Self-worth, self-esteem, self-confidence... They are all based on who you are. You have have justifiable self-worth if you love God, do His will, and care more about what He thinks about you rather than what everyone else thinks about you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)