We Can Endure; Quit Fighting the Inevitable

I can't help, but notice that everyone is obsessed with money.  I wonder why we continue our endless pursuits of things that will never be?  As if we have one more dollar or one more car or a bigger house or bigger a TV or a fancier vacation; as if when we obtain these things will have anything left to pursue or will we have finally found life's content?  Or worse yet we die trying to capture that which is not even possible and then we are left going to our graves unfulfilled.  

The economy, jobs, bills, clothes, things that contribute to our supposed happiness.  It seems like times are never as good as they seem, yet they are never quite the dismal apocalyptic circumstances that people paint them to be either.  Talk to any person who complains about money, poor or rich, and is seems the problem is never enough.  People act like a factory closing down or a store losing it's business is the end of the world and the fall of modern society as we know it.  You'd never think by watching our 24 hour zombie channels that any business had ever shut down until the last few years.  

I feel for people who have lost their jobs and families who have taken a hit; don't think I'm being callous to other people's bad times, but this country has seen it's fair share of products, factories, stores, towns, several kinds of money makers shut down, and even one "Great Depression" and yet here we still are.  Yet we endured and adapted.  Bailing out corporations and other businesses to me seems like a futile attempt to give the appearance that our government cares and is working to make sure that everyone 'believes' them by spending money we don't have.  Funny that it's called counterfeiting when other people do this.  

I just think there are many more productive ways to spend money especially if they are truly concerned about the state of the country.  At one time agriculture was the biggest source of income for most people in this country and was the main economic source for the U.S., and today only 2% of working families rely on farming as their lively hood.  What happened?  The industrial revolution happened and once again America adapted and survived without bailing out failing farms; of course we still have those money guzzling farm subsidiaries.  

Now we are in what I guess some people call 'Information Age' for lack of a better term.  Information runs our society.  We have internet access in all kinds of crazy places and along with that comes instant shipping, ebay, chat rooms, and buying stocks.  I'm not saying that we shouldn't save jobs if they can be saved and be saved to the point where they will still be beneficial, but if not then it's time to get off a sinking ship before we all drown.  

People will have to find other jobs.  Fear of the unknown is always more paralyzing then the actual job loss.  We've endured this long and we will endure some more.  The end of the Industrial Age in the American sense doesn't mean the end of the working man or America.  It just means we've adapted and changed course yet again like so many times before.

Want to Feel Positive About the Future, but Why?

I’m losing my ambition once again and being content.  That is a warning usually that something bad or at least something I perceive to be bad is about to happen.  Every time I start to feel the least bit loose like I can let my guard down, something seems to happen to shoot fear straight down to my soul.  I’m tired and I want to move on.  I want to enter the next phase of my life full throttle, but I need to be patient and not lazy.  My prayers often go from emotional to mundane and flow freely back and forth.  I want to fill the fire in my stomach to live for God and to be a beacon of hope and compassion for all those who seem to be at the end of their rope and have lost faith in anything good happening.  

I’m not quite as scared on this Sunday night as I have been recently.  I can’t control what’s out of my hands and staying positive and constant in prayer and study in the WORD have kept my heart at peace.  I want to go to church again and I want to worship, but I still feel shame about me and about how I look.  I need to lose some weight, but it’s been harder with ironically enough more free time to stay constant with exercise like I did when I had very little free time.  Overcoming my own vanity seems to be more difficult of problem that i didn't know quite existed. Vanity leads to shame quite frequently it seems.

I refused to rededicate my life before because I knew I’d be a hypocrite.  That is the same reason I didn’t take communion whenever I was at church the few times I went during college and afterwards.  I didn’t feel my heart was in the right place to do so and that it would be far more sinful to partake in my current state of mind.  I sometimes crave that drunken feeling and I don’t even know why.  I guess because it erases all your inhibitions and fears.  You just don’t care about anything and will talk to the prettiest girl you can find.  Doesn't even matter if you make a fool of yourself until the next morning.

Don’t get me wrong either.  I like where I’m at and for the first time I actually think I might be entering something good and decent in my life.  I don’t want to mess this up, but I’d be lying to myself if I said everything was great and perfect because I still have moments where I want to swing that noose around the tower and tighten up and just let go.  Sweet release is how it feels in my mind sometimes.  I just feel like I’m holding out for something that’s never going to happen and I’m just wasting my time by not doing the inevitable.  When I get away from those moments and feel relief and grace I think those are the times I need to provide comfort to other people going through their own torments.  I have a buddy who’s Mom is sick and the Doctors can’t seem to maker her better and another friend who hates his job and just seems depressed about where he is in his life at this juncture.  I know tons of people go through similar struggles and some even more severe, but that doesn’t make their anxieties any less real and I don’t seem to be offering any real comfort to them.  I guess I don’t know how I would even go about doing that.  

I always want to be the hero, but instead I always seem to end up being silent and afraid of offending.  I don’t want my friends to feel pain any more than I want to, but it seems like my own outlook on life just doesn’t bring me much to be happy about; no matter how much I try to act like it does. I guess just prayer and patience to hear the right answer is all I can do.  I just hope I haven't let the answer pass me by.

A Day of Shame Ending in the Cradle of Relief (journal entry from the past)

I’ve had a mixed emotional day.  I just don’t know what to believe or feel about what people tell me anymore.  I walked out to the Electric tower this evening.  I stared at it for a good while.  Not to long ago my mind indulged the possibility of hanging some kind of rope or wire around the tower to make my noose.  Those thoughts came crashing down on my soul tonight.  Just to be relieved of all this pain and anguish seemed like a sweet remedy in my mind.  I’m tired of being scared of tomorrow.  I’m tired of my heart racing when the phone rings or when the mail comes.  I’m tired and I don’t want to go on feeling like this anymore.  I cried earlier and begged God for mercy.  I begged him for protection and grace.  

He has blessed me often with this so much the last few months.  I truly love to pray, but yet I did it almost never until all this self made fiasco entered my life.  I can’t go on paralyzing myself and living in fear and dread.  God has answered everyone one of my prayers and I have no reason to believe that this time will be any different.  Rumors run wild about me and it fills my soul with shame.  I’m embarrassed of what people may think of me and I feel shame.  This has been a double edge sword and God has really brought me a great deal of relief and grace in my time pain and affliction.  

I read and I write.  I love to write.  I love to think of ideas and put them down in my computer or write them in my notebook.  I want to move away.  I feel like with a fresh start somewhere I can reinvent myself.  I don't think I’ve ever been the same person in any chapters of my life at least not fully anyways.  I carry the baggage though.  I don’t want to carry it anymore.  I guess that’s why I turned to God so desperately.  I’m just going to give it all to him.  

I fear his 'Will' sometimes.  I fear that maybe he will allow more consequences of my bad decisions to continue.  I pray and ask for mercy and I’m willing to accept whatever judgment he hands out.  Far too long I’ve hindered myself by making compromises to my integrity and by trying to make deals and blackmails in my head.  I no longer think that way.  A person can’t live an honorable life by thinking he controls his own happiness by extorting God.  It would be laughable if so many people including myself didn’t resort to this huge character flaw.  Make God fit into how we see him and how we think he should behave and if he doesn’t well then I’m not going to do this or I’m going show you.  I’m tired of compromises and selfishly hanging onto my fear and grief.  It hasn’t brought me any good and I’m ready to let go and surrender and hopefully God will allow me to experience true relief and true freedom if HE sees fit.

What is the Point?

What is the point of life?  The famous question asked by great philosophers, biblical prophets, school counselors, and even young lost teenagers.  I wonder how often this unanswered question pushes so many into a life void of any feeling because we can only feel numb after so long.  I know it seems too deep and silly to address such an ambiguous question that has many different answers depending on the person asking the question.  But I feel it is more relevant than ever in the age of 24 Hr news cycles, prescription drugs taken for the soul purpose of fixing your mood, record suicide rates, and endless arguing that lead to war among the masses.  

In the book, 'Fight Club', the main character rides in a car in a storm where the driver lets go of the wheel and asks, 'What will you wish you had done before you died?'  After several answers and several misses from oncoming traffic the driver says, 'Believe in me and you shall die forever.'  I think the line and scenario in the book has very poignant meaning behind it.  I think too much of life is spent is trying to avoid possibilities.  The possibilities, the risks if taken that could possibly lead to a more fulfilling and content life, but fear of failure or inadequacy stop us.  Do the things you only day dream about or too worried about societal judging because of the possible absurdity behind your wants.  We handicap ourselves way too much and let fears of the unknown run our ambitions until one day we wake up and can't remember what makes us happy.  

I'm guilty just as bad as anyone.  I let fear of the wrong decision dictate my next move until I can't make a decision.  I sit idly by on the sidelines afraid to make a move.  I go to bed 17 years old and wake up 30 and can't point to any wonderful moments in my life.  To die forever in the Fight Club sense I think means to live as if you had nothing to lose.  Take chances and risks for the things you care about or make you vital to the world.  Yes there will be failures and hurts and heartaches, but endurance through those things builds character.  Besides I think the answer to the meaning life may lie in a lifetime of failures.