A Blessing and a Curse

Sometimes life throws us lemons. It's hard to stay calm in the face of a shit storm, but at the end of the day we are only human. Our inclination is to drown in self-pity, seeking sympathy for our misfortunes. If only others knew how hard our lives would be then everything would be OK. We use our suffering as currency to exchange for misbehavior, making excuses like I just cooked so I don't have to clean, I am on my period so I get to act like a total bitch, or I worked all day so now I can bum on the couch and not help around the house. In these situations we have two options, to be a blessing or a curse.

Why we Love to be Couch Potatoes

Nothing beats lounging back on a couch with favorite junk food and beverage in hand watching reruns of Friends. It's been a couple hours into your slothful marathon but not quite enough to awaken the voice inside your head that insist you do something productive. Lazy hangover (n): the couple hours that follow doing nothing for extended periods of time resulting in emotions of intense shame. We all know the feeling. While we may question our self-worth in our lazy hangovers and claim we will never sloth more than x hours ever again, we all know in the back of our heads that is a complete lie. Just as your college roommate claim they will never drink again after that night, it is universal knowledge that change is hard.

You Can't Run from Your Past

How many times have we heard that the past is the past. That the past is a thing to be forgotten and left behind in order to move on. If something happened to us in the past that was holding us back from living the life we wanted then it was simple to leave it behind. College was a fresh start, somewhere we could runaway to have a new identity, new friends, new memories. Distracting ourselves is also a useful tool. Keeping ourselves busy with work, drinking, or hobbies are all ways to avoid the past. We leave no room to remind us of those painful emotions of death, failure, or past relationships. But no matter how hard we can try to leave it behind us, the only way we can truly learn from the past is to face it.

Find Your Life Calling

A question I used to dread being asked was one we are all too familiar with growing up and sometimes still find ourselves struggling with. What do you want to do? It sounds so simple, like it is something as easy as a want. An impulse we find ourselves indulging in like wanting a drink of water. But a topic could never be more not simple. After all our future does not ride on simply doing what we want to do but is dependent on various factors that need to be considered. Do I want to be a poor street peddling musician that is pursuing passion or a wealthy surgeon sacrificing time for money? Do I even have what it takes to do the job, the ability to fuse words into a relateable message that connects deep with the audience as a blogger? We ask ourselves these impossible questions and find ourselves with no answer to the original, what do you want to do. Sometimes the answer is more simple then we had previously imagined.

Anonymous said...

You have nice points. But why should we take on christian values of not judging when we don't wish to be a Christian? I will be following your posts because it's interesting.

Dear friend. Thank for you appreciating my post even though it seems you are not a Christian. It is encouraging to see you are asking challenging questions expressing at least an interest to understand us more. Not many people give us that opportunity and feel blessed you trust me with such a hard topic. You have provided a very general question so I have to provide a simple answer otherwise risk myself spewing on and on about the topic. For now, I will give you what I can.

_______________________________________________________________

First off, let me address the issue of following Christian ideals without being a Christian. I'm sure your values include no murdering, cheating, lying or stealing as does most of society to some degree. Already you are practicing and believing Christian values. Does this make you a Christian? Not necessarily. 

Second let's address the question on why not to judge. In the very basic definition of the word, judge means to form an opinion about. But what if you are wrong! The lowest level of judging would result in gossip or mean looks. However it does not stop there. It can quickly escalate to discrimination because we judge a sexual offender to be a vile creature. We do not give a second chance to the same innocent 18 year old who was browsing porn on the internet and charged as a registered sexual offender. Is it likely all sexual offenders are this innocent? Probably not, but it is certainly easier to judge them all as vile for efficiency's sake. Now imagine you were that 18 year old. 

It is hard to relate to such an extreme case, but at some point in our lives we are put into a situation where we are discriminated against because people judge us based on who we were labeled as. One thing I guarantee you can relate to is when you were a child. How many times did you hear, oh no you are too young for that. No you can't drive a car because you are 17 instead of 18. We are judged to all be the same category of incompetent children simply because of the misuse of the label. 

Again you have asked a very short question without much detail so I don't want to answer more than you have given me, but I hope I have provided the answers you are looking for. I hope you can e-mail or comment if you needed further clarification or had any more questions: dahnon@gmail.com

All the best,

Dan

Lust: For Work

Your self-worth is not built on being a 'good' blogger. Stop worrying about answering every question perfectly and consistently making life-changing posts. God is not concerned about you glorifying him perfectly without mistake so long as you do it earnestly and for Him. You have friends around you that care about you and do not neglect them because of your work. Don't forget birthdays or rush lunches because you have a post you want to work on. Balance is key and while blogging is work for God it will not be perfect like anything else. Don't feel pressured to answer comments or be distracted by a bad post to the point where it affects your daily life. Blogging is work. Make sure to manage your friends, health, personal interests, and work all equally. There are many ways to glorify God, blogging is only one of them. 

Christians are Not Perfect

People are so offended by Christians and I get why. Christians preach compassion, peace, and love. They claim that their church is a open sanctuary that invites all types of people but you still feel judged. Having a life outside of church becomes frustratingly difficult as the very people who are supposed to accept you accuse you of drinking, smoking, and exile you because you are a bad guy. They don't even give you a second chance immediately labeling you as that trouble-making sinner. But neither do you. You label them as Christians and suddenly all people who attend church are the same hypocrites that chased you away. We are not, give us a second chance.