Long Time Coming

                Lately I’ve felt the need for a change. I recently started a second job and the madness of having two jobs that take up all your time during the week and your children’s extracurricular activities taking up the rest is starting to get to me. I’ve felt more tired than I have in a long time. Yesterday was my birthday (hold your applause) and so I don’t know if my age is catching up to me or if I’m really not that happy with my current situation.

                This last 12 months has been quite difficult for my family. We’ve had a bankruptcy, endless collection calls, missed and late bill payments, 2 shoplifting experiences, court dates, community service, sexual escapades, I could go on. These along with now working 60 hours a week or more to make ends meet is hard. There is no better word for it. I used to use this blog as a forum to express my deepest thoughts and opinions. I just don’t care that much anymore. I’ve become more jaded than ever before. I’ve steeled myself against my job, politics, anything that may have consequence in my life. I miss those old days where I could just pick a topic and ramble on ad nauseum. I don’t know if I can muster that much thought to put into something so inane anymore. And I hate that.

                I don’t want to just be a downer when writing here because there is hope. At least I think there is. I’ve been looking for a new job that I can find meaning in. Somewhere that I can be appreciated, looked to as an equal in the position and not just some inconvenient dinosaur that won’t go away. Some incessant alarm that won’t shut off and is constantly reminding everyone that I’m still here. Maybe this can be a return to my former self when I had more hope. When my future held more promise than it does now. I was still in school and I looked at the world as having a multitude of possibilities. I’ve been in this rut so long all I can see are the sides and the sky. I can’t see what’s around me anymore.

                So keep your fingers crossed for me that I can find something that will help define me. Or better yet something that I can define. 

Thanksgiving

Every year at this time we as Americans gather with friends and family to give thanks for everything and anything that we can think of. Personally Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday just because it doesn't descriminate. Anyone can celebrate regardless of their beliefs, religion, race, etc. But one thing that needs to be addressed is what are you thankful for? This year I'm trying really hard to not be bitter or have any hard feelings regarding anything. So what are you thankful for? Family? Friends? Jobs? Country? I really don't know what I'll say this year but I hope I can think of something that is worth being thankful for.

Friendship

How many people do we touch throughout our lives? We've all seen "It's a Wonderful Life." We have seen the consequences of wishing we were never born. But I wonder if they were to make a movie of me how many people would be there to be interviewed? I like to think that I had at least an average number of friends growing up. I don't think I was ever the outcast but I don't think I was mister popular either. I had some really good friends and I had some casual acquaintaces.

Growing up I never had what you could call a confidant. I don't really remember being able to share deep dark secrets with anyone. Then again I don't remember having any deep dark secrets. My friends and I did a lot together. We played ball, rode bikes, built forts, what every kid did. We played video games and stayed up all night watching MTV (back when it was videos). We talked about girls, mountain bikes, the NBA. I had a good childhood.

When I got older, mostly after high school started, some of my old friends drifted away. We just didn't click in the same way that we once did. I think it was different sports that took us in different directions. That and girls. I started getting girlfriends, they started snow boarding. But I gained new friends in high school. I had more friends in high school then ever before. The friends that I had then weren't the same though. We hung out at school and we went to dances as big groups but we never hung around together outside of that. I rarely went over to their houses and they never came over to mine. I was busier then. I had school, a lot of honors classes and I had to work or lose my car. I had big plans so I couldn't change school and I needed my freedom so not working was out of the question.

After high school we all went in seperate directions. I got married, some of my friends travelled, some went on missions, while others went off to college somewhere not Utah. It wasn't until my 5 year reunion that I reconnected with a good friend from high school and we still are in contact today. My adult friends are the smallest group of friends yet but I think that some of them will be friends for life.

If they ever make a movie about me they will interview my family. My mom and dad will say nice things about me like I was a really smart kid and always had lofty goals. My older sisters (not older than me just older than the youngest one) will recount all the times I teased them by taking the heads off of their Barbies or whatever they come up with. My youngest sister will say how we were buddies and attribute her love of video games to me because that was something we connected with. Hopefully my in-laws will have nice things to say about me. I like to think that I've been perfectly pleasant to all of them. I really do enjoy having them as my in-laws. I couldn't ask for a better group. But I will be most interested to see what my friends will say about me. I think they saw me for who I truly was. I never hid anything from them. They saw me at my darkest and brightest. We argued and disagreed and sometimes even came to blows. But that never stopped us from being friends for long. I miss a lot of my old friends and wish we could reconnect at some point. Family loves you because they have to. They're stuck with you. Friends love you because they want to. They choose to.

Left Behind

I've often wondered what my life would be like if my family was taken away from me. Call it morbid curiosity but that's just the way I think. Maybe I'm subconsciously preparing for the day if it were to ever come. It is a huge comfort to know that someday we will be a family again. I don't want to discount that. But how hard would it be to have to watch those left behind to struggle with finances, to deal with their grief, to try and carry on with their lives. This happens on a daily basis. People who go out the door in the morning and never come back. Sure it's hard to imagine, most of us probably think it would never happen to us. I've always thought that people who died "before their time" would somehow know. That they would have some inkling in the back of their mind that they would live a full life. That could just be my paranoia because I've had feelings like that before. There have been times where, when thinking about my future, I would get this feeling that I wouldn't have to worry about it. That something would happen to take care of it. I don't have any rich family so it's not an inheritance that I'm going to be getting. My future is still up in the air. With bills and student loans I don't know when I'll graduate. Maybe that's what my feelings are all about, that I should just work a menial job all my life instead of doing what really makes me happy or keeps me interested. Or maybe I will die early and all this paranoid thinking about inklings is really true.

I don't need to sit here and talk about how devastated I'd be if I lost my family, even one member of my family. But how would I feel knowing I left them here to fend for themselves?

I make Cheryl nervous because of the things that I like doing. Mountain biking, motorcycles, etc. are all dangerous and could get me seriously hurt of killed. I've always had the thinking that living life safe is not living life. I'm not saying to take unnecessary risks but I think everyone should experience the freedom of riding a motorcycle. And not a small motorcycle that can only do 35 mph. Get out on the freeway and gun it up to 90 and see how you feel. The rush and adrenaline are amazing and addictive. I wager that it is nigh impossible to feel bad while riding a motorcycle. It should be prescribed to depressed people. I've only driven 2 motorcycles and 2 scooters in my life but that's all the experience I needed. I'm sold.

You know that pain you get in the front of your head when your kids call you at work to tell you that they're hitting each other? Gone when you get on a motorcycle.

Yes I understand the risks associated with a motorcycle. As my dad likes to remind me it's not if you get hit it's when. My aunt and uncle were in a accident riding their Harley and my aunt almost lost her foot. She'll have problems the rest of her life. 4,376 people were killed on motorcycles in 2010. That may seem high but in that same time 32,708 people were killed in car accidents. 65% of all deaths not caused by natural causes happen in the home. I'll take my chances. I'll live without fear. I won't worry about those I may leave behind because I know they'll be taken care of. I've made sure of that. They will probably be better off financially then when I'm alive. I really am worth more dead than alive. Ouch.

I don't feel fulfilled.

I am once again having some issues with my Sunday religious activities. I don't know why but I am starting to feel really disenfranchised with the whole Sunday school thing. Here's what I mean: when sitting in said class I want to have a discussion. Not about what you did at girl's camp, scout camp, or how you were driving along and the spirit told you to turn before you normally do and you found out later that you missed a car accident. Good for you. I want to discuss the more philosophical points that religion brings up. I have been a member my whole life. I get bored hearing the same lessons over and over because the teachers are too lazy to come up with a new and creative way to teach a topic. I'm not saying I know everything there is to know about the LDS church, what I am saying is I keep hearing the same lessons week after week and that stereotypical seminary answer of read your scriptures and pray seems to apply to a lot of the questions that are asked. Last week in elders quorum the subject of speaking out against legislation that we find morally wrong came up. That's fine, whatever. My problem with that is we want to legislate morals. The only way to do that is to tread on the rights of others. Abortion, gay marriage, foreign wars, health care reform, just pick a hot button issue, no matter what the laws are you are going to infringe on others beliefs. So how do we fix this? We give everyone the choice to choose what they believe to be right. That's where I want the discussion in church to come in. We can do what we believe at that point but to take away that choice I have a problem with. 11th article of faith: "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may." This is one of our fundamental beliefs. And no one thought to mention it. I have a history of ticking people off when I bring my opinions and thoughts to a religious discussion so I keep quiet in church. Maybe I should speak up. That could be interesting.

But this is more what I think Sunday school should be, a debate of what the scriptures mean, what the idea of a higher being means, what is morally right, what are the ramifications of our actions not just to ourselves but those around us. Those are things the elders of the church when it was formed would discuss. Not because they were trying to form a religion based on the thoughts of man but because they were trying to understand what had been put on their shoulders as priesthood holders. Any religion requires more than the ability to read the scripture. It needs to be interpreted by people who are educated in history, philosophy, ancient customs and traditions. Anyone who's read the Bible knows that it is a very difficult book to read. It is very easy to misinterpret what is written. Having the knowledge that the Bible was translated over and over and things were left out and other things added, plus they were written down from oral records that were already a hundred years old or more when they were written down, and the fact that they come from societies that are vastly different from ours makes it a little easier to understand why this knowledge needs to be possessed by those who are teaching it. We have to have that understanding or else we are just making it up as we go.

We have an advantage having a living prophet who is there for us to learn from. I am grateful that we have the teachings of the prophets books that are used as manuals. But with those it comes down to presentation. Let's have a little excitement people. Let's present something that we've actually put some time and effort into, something that you learned from the lesson. It's not that hard.

Maybe I'm asking too much. Let me simplify this. I want a discussion about not just the lesson but I want it to go in a more academic direction, if that makes sense. And I want it presented in a way that you keep my attention. If you don't keep my attention I'm going to be reading my comic books in church instead of listening to you drone on about how He sacrificed for our sins and loves us all and you need to repent to live in heaven again and you should love your family and remember to keep Christ in your heart at all times and go to the temple to receive blessings and pay your tithing and do your home and visiting teaching and love one another etc. etc. ad nauseum. Please give me something I can grasp onto. I'm at the point where I might just stop going to classes because I really don't get anything from them.

Something about church that bugs me

This is going to be short and sweet. Last week in church we had a discussion about how to keep our families safe from outside influences. It turned into political activism where everything we deemed evil and inappropriate should be banned. Instead of outing myself as the LEEBRAL that I am I wrote this down in my phone.

Even though we have all these things going on in the world that we may not agree with we can't loose focus on protecting our families in favor of protecting our community. Is our community important and worth protecting? Yes. Is it worth protecting at the cost of our families? Of course not. We must understand that we can't control everything that happens in our world, country, state, community, but we can control what comes into our homes. We need to focus on our families first. We need to make sure our children can deal with the outside world before we can have any affect on what goes on outside of our house. as long As we are teaching our kids righteous principles and raising a righteous generation the outside world will take care of itself.
We can't legislate morality. It will continue to happen no matter what laws are passed and what things get blocked. In countries where morality is legislated we've seen the results. Pick any country in the middle east and you'll see what I'm talking about. Once you start legislating morality everyone's choices become limited by the moral beliefs of the people on charge. We need to maintain our free will. That can't be taken away through law nor should it be.

rebirth

This time of year comes around and everyone gets the urge to make new years resolutions. Why do we do this? What compels us each year to make goals that we know we most likely won't keep? They're goals that are supposed to make us better in some way; make us thinner, stronger, quit smoking, eat better, to be better people all around. But why do we wait until the new year to do it? What is it about this time of year?

"Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” That's a quote from, of all people, Oprah. What does New Years mean to you? Is it a chance to get it right, or is it a new beginning? I know that people like to see the new year as a signal for change. Out with the old and in with the new. "An optimist will stay up until midnight to see the new year come in. A pessimist will stay up to make sure the old year leaves."

Here is a different way of thinking about it: "We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." So there are some arguments. But what about the notion of rebirth, the idea that we can become new again? There is talk of rebirth in religion. All men should be reborn in the spirit of Christ. That means our eyes are open to suggestion from the spirit and we are more willing to do what is right and what is needed. At least that's how I perceived it. But what about a rebirth in general? "All souls must undergo transmigration and the souls of men revolve like a stone which is thrown from a sling, so many turns before the final release... Only those who have not completed their perfection must suffer the wheel of "rebirth" by being reborn into another human body.” Does that mean literally born into another body? Not necessarily. It could depending on your religious views but I'm going to use it this way; being born into another human body just means that your rebirth hasn't really occurred. You're still the same, a human. You haven't changed into an enlightened being yet. We go around on our wheels and we keep doing the same things. We make the same mistakes, the same choices, we do the same things that we believe are the safe choices. So every year we make resolutions and goals at the new year. Sometimes we are successful but most times we aren't for whatever reason.

"It quite often happens that the old man is subject to the delusion of a great moral renewal and "rebirth", and from this experience he passes judgments on the work and course of his life, as if he had only now become clear-sighted; and yet the inspiration behind this feeling of well-being and these confident judgements is not wisdom, but weariness .”

How true that is. We set goals on how tired we are of something. I'm tired of being fat, I'm tired of being sick all the time, I'm tired of my stressful job. What if we set goals to gain more of the things we love? Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits.

So let's put this together. Why do we make new years resolutions? Because it is a new year, out with the old and in with the new. What kind of resolutions should we make? The kind that make us better but also brings us more joy than the previous year.

And rebirth? Well, that can happen anytime of the year. If we see ourselves going the wrong direction we can change direction and choose another path. We can be reborn as many times as we see fit. That's the beauty of it.

"Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn."

— Mahatma Gandhi