Thanksgiving

To be honest with you, I hadn't really thought about whether this Thanksgiving would have been something more special or unique than other Thanksgivings I've experienced. I mean, what would you expect? There is going to be a nice meal with plenty of good food, smiling faces to see, and a cozy place to celebrate it all at. What more could be added to the picture?

I started to think that maybe something different was coming because of a friend my sister Cheri had invited to our place. Her name is Erin. She's a very smart, bright, compassionate individual. She's unlike many other woman I have met in my life. It's not often when I meet a woman who can engage me as a scholar would and have a soft, sensitive side to herself that was quite endearing. Our family had talked with her about controversial issues like, the problem of suffering in the world (more specifically the Holocaust) and how to talk with people about contrary viewpoints.

After we had our full, I passed out for nearly an hour or so. I was exhausted from eating so much. After waking up, our family entered the living room, sat down on the couches, and started gathering to talk about what we were thankful for. We naturally went around the room through different people. The first person was Jeremy my brother in law. He's always brief and to the point about matters. He rarely or never I should say provides some commentary on what he is thinking, unless it's an extraordinary moment. I cannot remember who all went after him but sooner or later the discussion came to me.

I had been thinking of what I was going to say. I wanted it to mean something special. I wasn't content to just stick with famous old cliches like "I'm thankful for God, my family, friends..." blah blah blah. By the way, I hope you don't think I am not thankful for God, family, and friends. I very much am. I'm just tired of repeating the same expressions over and over again because of not having something fresh to say. I think people ought to take some time for once, and really do some mental lifting and think of some new ways to express their gratitude.

Well what did I say? Glad you asked. For the very first time in my life, I went around the room and highlighted something good and unique in each person in the room that I had resonated with for some time. I started with my dad. My dad is the reason why I'm a gentleman to women. He treats my mother like a princess. He calls her baby, loves kissing her in front of me and my sisters, and is the hardest working person I know. It is also from my dad that I truly learned generosity. Most people would say that I'm a generous guy. Well yes I have made choices in life but my dad is one prime example of that.

I then went to Cheri who is the middle child in the family (I'm the youngest out of 3). Cheri pulls no punches on what it takes to build a relationship with people. If you want to reap the benefits of love and fulfillment, then you have to put in the time and effort to appreciate that blessing. She is unabashedly realistic on how people are in the real world because she has lived in the real world for such a long time. And I'm thankful to her for impacting my understanding of how relationships work in (1) What I expect from others (2) What I know others expect from me and (3) What God expects from me.

My mother is the most sacrificial woman I know in life. There is no one I know who has sacrificed more than she has. I remember one time, when I was home with her, telling mom of how bad I felt for not cooking any meals for the fact I was too lazy to get to it! I basically told her that I did not think it was fair for her to bear the full burden of cooking and preparing meals around the house. I think she deserved a helping hand.

I moved to Erin and basically told her what I summarized in the beginning of this blog posting (minus the flowering details).

I was also short and brief with Jeremy. Even though I wouldn't say he's a close friend of mine, Jeremy and I have gotten closer and closer to possibly calling each other brothers. I'm not necessarily talking about spiritual brothers even though we are brothers in Christ. I'm talking about having him as a sub blood brother. I say that because I never had a brother growing up.

I moved to Nadyia who was the last person on my list. Nadyia is the oldest of us kids. I appreciate her analytical nature and not quick to buy into any idea out there, no matter how plausible it might seem on the surface. Some people might take this as being a bit judgmental. That very well could be true. But I also think it could reveal an attitude of discernment and wisdom. Be careful and know what you are getting yourself into whenever you are contemplating to pursue something you deem so highly important.

Last but not least, myself. I am so thankful that I have, for the first time in my life, spent so much time investing in myself in so many different ways. I have a personal journal that I have with certain thoughts and guidelines that I try to pray everyday of my life. Even though I have so much to learn and so many areas to grow in, I know I have grown so much over the last several years of life.

One big proof of that is the fact that I have conceptualized what it means to be a healthy person all around in my physical, emotional, intellectual, moral, and spiritual life. I have reflected on it all and I have been trying to incorporate those truths into my regular life. Has it been a struggle? You bet it has. But I am still in a work in progress.

Til' next time folks!

Updates on my life

Hey guys. As you all know, I have not been on here for at least a month or two. There are two simple reasons as to why that's the case, and here they are: laziness and discouragement.

Laziness

There have been many times in my life when I started something - whatever you could call it - but wouldn't finish it. Better yet, I would start something but would for some reason or another not keep it up. Why would this happen so much? I guess one reason at least is because I had thought for a long time that if I wanted to do something, then it was supposed to be natural or easy. But if it turned out to be hard or if I didn't want to do it at some time or another, then I must not really want to do it. This gets into how one can make sense of doing something that requires consistent effort and yet it enjoyable. I think basketball would be a good example of that. I don't dread the idea or act of basketball. I enjoy playing it a lot. But when it comes to reading and writing my thoughts in a blog page - like I'm doing right now - or in a journal - which I haven't done in several weeks or months - I struggle miserably with sticking to those things. 

I have been told that I'm a good speaker and a good writer. I know that laziness has to be broken one way or the other. I have to form habits. Habits are difficult to form from the get go. That's why they require discipline and commitment. But my difficulty is *how* am I supposed to commit myself to something I am supposed to *love* and be *passionate about*? I guess that I have been more of a feelings oriented kind of guy for most of my life than an intellectually oriented guy, that might be one of the reasons why I'm struggling to break laziness. I have a hard time staying committed to something that requires consistent effort which - over time - will become a lifestyle and hence easy to maintain. Why do I have a hard time? Because I have a *extremely* hard time with the "just do it" principle. It's almost like I have to sit and deliberate and think to myself, "When is that feeling of wanting to do this gonna arrive?" It's almost like I have to wait before that feeling of wanting to do something is somehow going to magically spur me on to do whatever I had planned to do in the first place. I feel almost as though that if I just do it - even though I don't feel like it and know that it's right - then I must not have done it genuinely or sincerely. It's almost like sincerity has to come in some kind of emotional form. 

And truthfully it can be simple things that may not be that significant at all. For example, there are things like getting out of bed in the morning, taking out the trash when it's full, washing the dishes in the sink, picking up loose clothes on my bed, flossing and brushing my teeth consistently (I do think this is a very important thing just to let you know) which I know I should do and aren't as huge as spending time with the Lord, reading a good book, getting my homework done, or something else. 

So maybe I just need to scratch the whole "wait till you feel like it" principle when it comes to doing things on a regular basis of whatever degree of importance they might have. I honestly wish the feelings of doing something good and constructive were always there. It's really frustrating that they oftentimes aren't. I can be extremely moody and emotionally inconsistent with myself on any given day if something doesn't go right. 

Logically speaking, it seems to me that doing something logically comes before liking or disliking it. Now there are some things that we don't do and we can know whether we would like them or not (i.e. falling on our heads, getting shot, bitten by a dog, etc.). So I grant that point. But in other cases, we do something because we like it. It's the fact we like doing something that enables us to keep doing it, but we wouldn't have known whether we like or dislike it, if we had never tried it in the first place. So essentially, we have to do something before we like or dislike something.

You might be wondering how this ties into what I've been saying all along. It's basically like this. I'm guessing that since my emotions are reactions based on what is going on with me or what I am doing in a certain situation, I can do something and honestly hope to God that the feelings will go along with whatever I'm doing eventually. I think I have some control over my feelings but not as much as I'd like to have. But I do have control over what I do or am capable of doing. So I can always do something, whether or not the feelings arrive. In fact, Gary Chapman in his book about the five love languages said that (in a relationship context of course) we can speak our spouse's love language even when the feelings of romance aren't there, and that the feelings can oftentimes arrive when we speak their love language. 

Discouragement

I couldn't count to you the number of times I have been discouraged by something in my life. Whether it had to do with being good looking enough for a girl to like me or to having a catchy enough personality, there was always something that could get me down. With regards to reading and writing, I think I get discouraged many times because I possibly expect too much of myself. I sometimes go back and forth on the kind of expectations I have set for myself. Sometimes I will have high expectations because I am feeling confident in a mountaintop way and then other times I will honestly expect little to nothing from myself. Even though I'm specifically talking about reading and writing, I can talk about relationships for a little bit. 

I have gotten discouraged before many times with myself over whether I was any fit for a girl for the following reason: I didn't know how to take things slow or be patient. Because my excitement over making a new friend would escalate nearly out of control, I would end up losing a potential friend. And then I would think that I just didn't have the wherewithal to make good use of having friendships. Discouragement would set in and eventually it would turn into cynicism. I would think all women were suspect and downright hypocrites and just thinking only about their own wants and needs, and not even thinking they had any moral obligations towards men. Of course I knew I was making a sweeping generalization in my mind, but I didn't care because granting the truth didn't make me feel any better. 

But getting back to the subject of reading and writing, I would think that if my day had gone uninterrupted and as according to plan, then I would feel like doing what I already had planned to do, unless something happened. Like if I overslept and didn't feel like getting out of bed at the appointed time, I would feel less motivated to spend time with the Lord or have my coffee or clean up before taking off for school.  

One big factor for me in all of this is that I would have a very hard time getting away from media and just sticking my nose into my book. Technology is a wonderful thing nowadays but it can be a tremendous obstacle potentially to doing things that are really important. I am more likely to check Facebook to see if someone messaged me than I am to read God's word, pray, read a good book, or do something else more important. I know some of you reading this might be thinking, "Man this guy's priorities are out of whack!" and you might be right to a certain extent. And because I would be easily detoured from doing important things, I would get discouraged over 2 things: (1) Over failing to get to what was important and (2) repeating the same thing over and over again. 

So what can I do about discouragement? I don't think the phrase "Just give it to the Lord" will do all the work necessary. It's not because I don't think the Lord can handle my troubles and difficulties in life. I know He can. I just think that some people think that God will just fix peoples' problems without people putting in some effort as well. God doesn't do all the work for us folks, just to let you know. So what can I do? Well, I think I might have to do some digging to find out the real source to the problem. There's always a deep rooted source as to why some people consistently struggle with certain things in their lives. I know that to be true in my own life. Maybe I can explore my past history and see if there are clues in my past that could shed light on why I struggle with discouragement now and have continued to struggle with it. Maybe I could think about certain false assumptions I have about accomplishing things in life and see if they shed light on why I get easily discouraged. These are just ideas.

I think that the possible link to all of this goes back to the fact that I was - from starting out as a boy from elementary through high school/college - an emotional guy who primarily thrived on emotions. Because I want my feelings to be present in everything that I do and I find out they're not often in certain cases, I get easily discouraged and wonder what has gone wrong with me. So maybe I could think that my emotions are not always supposed to be the thing that *pushes* me to do something but rather that the *importance of the thing in question* should be what motivates me. In other words, I shouldn't base my motivation on myself but on what I want to do. I should let the significance of what I want to do determine my level of motivation. I think that might be plausible.

Sometimes using pep talk with myself helps me out of these situations. Like if I am lying in bed and want to get up and get moving for the day but am struggling to find the motivation, I will sometimes say in my head, "Ben nothing or no one is blocking you from getting up. There's nothing physically standing in your way preventing you from getting up." When I say that to myself or will entertain that thought in my mind, it will sometimes alleviate the situation for me. Is it the best way to handle the situation? I don't know honestly. But I know it works.

So I have basically poured out what has been going on with me lately yall about discouragement and laziness and I would like to ask *all of you* who read this post to do this for me, as a way of helping me with laziness and discouragement:

(1) Post a topic on the Facebook group page ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/478602538874355/ ) that you want me to write about or discuss.

(2) Keep tabs on me (however regularly you want; it doesn't have to be all the time) as to how it's coming along.

That would really help me in those areas. Whenever I am asked to write about something important, it motivates me to write about it because I have people who are depending on me to come up with something. If I am depending on myself to come up with something, 8 times out of 10 I will come up with hardly anything or very little. That's the honest truth. It's sad but true. But I'm working on it.

Plus, since most of you guys are believers (yes I do have unbelieving friends on my Facebook group page), I need the boost and support. I can't battle these things alone. So if you could stick to # 1 and # 2, that would be AWESOME!

As a reminder, I'll post (about 1 and 2) on the group page so that people don't forget. Thanks for taking the time to read my ranting about my complicated life. Thanks guys.