Endeavoring to Not Be Easy

Dating: the elephant in the room, a four-letter-word in some families, and an undoubtedly highly incorporated tradition in modern American society. People, particularly those mid-twenties and under, are often judged by how often or who they date. Though I hold a much different view of dating than is commonly found, I have been susceptible to the lie that you are only worthy of love and esteem if you have been asked out on a hundred dates and dated the popular guy(s). Over recent years, I have been building my confidence and learning to find my worth outside of this extremely shallow ideal.

Tonight, as I was looking through the pictures of a girl I know, I noticed a pattern develop: picture after picture included her and a different boy in various ranges of proximity to each other. As much as I care for this girl, one word came to my mind and refused to be brushed off, obstinately remaining prominent in my mind and, indeed, only growing stronger as I continued to flip through the pictures. The word? Easy. As this thought became fully developed in my mind, I was struck with a new idea (or rather, an old idea presented in a way that struck me anew). Dating constantly, being in numerous relationships, etc. is not the sign of being more beautiful, special, or worthwhile, but is often merely the sign of being easy - easily available. On the flip side, not dating constantly and instead, waiting for one person is not the sign of being ugly, lacking, or worthless, but rather the sign of being hard. Not hard-hearted or stubborn, but rather hard to win. As I said, this is not entirely a new idea, but it struck me with new force tonight. I want to clarify that there are exceptions to this idea on both sides and that every person will not fit into these categories. Still, it is an idea worth considering.

I am not currently dating, not because I couldn't find someone in any scenario, but rather because I refuse to be won over easily with a smile and a few kind words. The person who wins my heart will have to work for it. If he is not willing to, then he is not worth having. In the meantime, I am not pathetic for not dating just anyone. I am waiting, because I refuse to be easy.

The Color Conundrum

Colors are a fascinating aspect of life when considered in many different lights (sometimes literally). A common question to be found on almost every friendship questionnaire or something of a similar idea is "What is your favorite color?" Interestingly, I have rarely encountered an individual who could not instantly answer with a previously determined, and usually long-held, favorite. I am hardly exempt from my own example, having given "blue" as my favorite color since the age of approximately ten. However, very recently this has begun to change and it seems to me that this change has to do with more than simply a change in color preference, at least in how it is considered on the surface.

About a month after I arrived at college, I became aware of an unexplained and sudden attachment to the color orange. As usual, though, I did not just settle for thinking "Oh, I just like this color now, for absolutely no reason in particular." Instead, I tried to consider why exactly it was that I was suddenly drawn to this color. Finally, I came to the simple, yet slightly deeper reason, that I had begun to really enjoy orange because it was bright and cheerful, but in a richer sense than yellow. The adjustment to college was hard (as it is for almost any teenager, whether they admit it or not) and I felt myself desiring bright and cheerful things to assist my temperament positively - hence, my newfound love of orange.

In the last couple of weeks, I was surprised yet again to find myself inexplicably drawn to the color brown. Since I had fairly recently gone through my thought process considering the color orange, I deduced the probable cause for this new pleasure much quicker. Though my thoughts are not fully formed as of yet, I have come to the conclusion I am presently drawn to the warmth that I see in brown. I have come to consider it a very comforting and rich color. It is also possible that my new love is related to my consistent, deep, abiding love of nature and specifically trees. I have recently been pining for the trees and mountains of Colorado and of all the others states that have become so beloved to me. As I consider it further, this likely had considerable impact on my attraction to brown. The reason I do not allow it to be the sole reason is because I have loved and constantly desired to be around nature for as long as I can remember, yet this attraction to brown is very recent. So there must be another reason that sparked it at this moment in time. It is certainly something to consider further.

I find this thought process surrounding colors to be truly enlightening and fascinating in its own way. Clearly, there is more to it than meets the surface.

Trusting in order to Love

Love means trusting someone with every defect, every character flaw, every annoying trait. It means you give them complete power over you and that you trust them enough not to use it against you. Too many people give this power away far too easily. Don't make this mistake. Be careful who you allow yourself to love; be sure that when you do, that person is worthy of your trust.

Interpreting Relationships

The sure test to find out if a relationship/friendship is beneficial or detrimental for you is to judge whether the other person drags you down or lifts you up. If that person inspires in you a desire to be better than you are - wiser, kinder, more loving, etc. - then it is fairly safe to say that the relationship is a good one. If you find yourself acting in such a way that you would not want to be observed by those you love - if you turn into a lesser person when you are with the person in question, then the relationship is probably not a good one. It is pertinent to clarify that this aforementioned desire to be a better person should not be a feeling of insecurity or worthlessness; those feelings would rather be evidence of an unhealthy relationship. You should be content with who you are, sure of the other's affection for you, but yet be inspired always to be better.

In the past, this idea has served me well in interpreting personal friendships and those relationships of others.

Passion Tempered by Reason

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.

- Benjamin Franklin

My Resolution

At this age, it is common to consider the idea of relationships - both friendships and romantic interests - more seriously than perhaps one has done in the past. I have done so myself of late. The main idea I have come to realize with certainty is that I do not want to be the kind of the girl that sits and waits for someone else before she can start living her life. I do not know the future or what it holds for me, so rather than wait for someone else and become indolent, needy, and useless in the process, I am going to live my life. My philosophy in regards to men has become this: If God wants me to be in a relationship or to get married eventually, that is wonderful, but I am not going to waste my time or make mistakes while trying to chase after guys. If someone is interested in me, he is going to have to take the initiative and ask me. I will be friendly, open, and encouraging, but I will not be flirty, pursuing, or desperate. It is the man's place to pursue and the one who is truly interested in me will; if not, it is his loss and I will move forward - not in an arrogant or careless manner, but merely in an independent and confident manner. I am determined to stop waiting for someone else. I am going to become who I want to be; I am going to be confident and live my life. Ideally, someone will see that someday and want to be a part of my life, but if that doesn't happen, I want to be strong enough, confident enough, and content enough to be joyful and comfortable with my life. Each person is only given one life to live and it's too short to spend waiting for someone else who you don't even know will appear. It is also too short to spend grasping at every possibility and person in the process. Be open to the possibility of someone else, but do not be dependent upon it. The point of life is not to be in a relationship; that is an aspect of life and a blessing when it is the case, but it is not a tragedy when it is not the case. The tragedy is the empty life - the life not lived. I do not want to be the type of person whose happiness and contentment depends entirely upon someone else. I need to live my life the way I know that I should and the way I desire to - head held high, shoulders erect, no looking back.

the Confident Ones

"Watch out for the confident ones, the ones with their heads held high and no fear; the strength they convey may just be the walls protecting a broken heart crushed by life."

Dealing with Grief Indirectly

Why do people love sad movies? I've never understood that. I have heard girls on occasion say that they watch _____ when they feel like crying. I've never understood when one would ever feel like crying. Maybe it's just me, but I've never enjoyed crying; it's not a hobby of mine. So I didn't understand in what scenario someone would ever feel like crying. Then just now, I was watching a movie and something occurred to me. Maybe those girls (or just those people) have something going on in their lives which they really need to cry about, but they can't. Whether it's because it hasn't sunk in yet or they are deceiving themselves into thinking it doesn't hurt or for some other reason, they cannot cry about it. So they put in a sad movie and sit and cry over the story. Watching a sad movie in this scenario gives them an outlet, it gives them something else to cry about - something abstract and apart from themselves. It allows them to gain some objectivity about this grief they are feeling, because it allows them to direct it at something besides their own pain. It allows them to finally cry, to relieve (at least partially) the burden of sorrow they are carrying around, for whatever reason.

This may not be the healthiest way to deal with grief, since it is still not facing it head-on and dealing with it, but instead dealing with it very indirectly. It may not be recommendable. But I finally understand it.

One Day Too Late

Tick tock, hear the clock countdown

Wish the minute hand could be rewound

So much to do and so much I need to say

Will tomorrow be too late?

Feel the moment slip into the past

Like sand through an hourglass

In the madness, I guess, I just forget

To do all the things I said

Time passes by, never thought I'd wind up

One step behind, now I've made my mind up

Today, I'm gonna try a little harder

Gonna make every minute last longer

Gonna learn to forgive and forget

'Cause we don't have long, gonna make the most of it

Today, I'm gonna love my enemies

Reach out to somebody who needs me

Make a change, make the world a better place

'Cause tomorrow could be one day too late

One day too late, one day too late

Tick tock, hear my life pass by

I can't erase and I can't rewind

Of all the things I regret the most I do

Wish I'd spent more time with you

Here's my chance for a new beginning

I saved the best for a better ending

In the end I'll make it up to you

You'll see, you'll get the very best of me

Time passes by, never thought I'd wind up

One step behind, now I've made my mind up

Your time is running out

You're never gonna get it back

So make the most of every moment

Stop saving the best for last

Today, I'm gonna try a little harder

Gonna make every minute last longer

Gonna learn to forgive and forget

'Cause we don't have long, gonna make the most of it

Today, I'm gonna love my enemies

Reach out to somebody who needs me

Make a change, make the world a better place

'Cause tomorrow could be one day too late

"One Day Too Late" - Skillet

Letting Go and Moving Forward

The hardest part of moving on is letting go of the past. There are so many phases of life - for some people, there are more than for others. Each phase comes with friends and places that become familiar and beloved. However, to move onto the next phase and meeting new friends and seeing new places, you have to be willing to let go of the old phase. This can be really hard and painful, but it's the only way to move forward. As humans, we were not made to stay in one place, ever unchanging. We are supposed to grow and become better. But growing can be painful; sometimes it even leaves scars, but we're stronger and better for it. So we have to learn to let go and move forward. It's the only way to live the full life we are intended to have. And on the path of life, be sure to appreciate each phase while you're in it - learn and love all you can, but never be too afraid to grow.

Less Like Scars

It's been a hard year

But I'm climbing out of the rubble

These lessons are hard

Healing changes are subtle

But every day it's

Less like tearing, more like building

Less like captive, more like willing

Less like breakdown, more like surrender

Less like haunting, more like remember

And I feel you here

And you're picking up the pieces

Forever faithful

It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation

But you are able

And in your hands the pain and hurt

Look less like scars and more like

Character

Less like a prison, more like my room

It's less like a casket, more like a womb

Less like dying, more like transcending

Less like fear, less like an ending

Just a little while ago

I couldn't feel the power or the hope

I couldn't cope, I couldn't feel a thing

Just a little while back

I was desperate, broken, laid out, hoping

You would come

And I need you

And I want you here

And I feel you

"Less Like Scars" - Sara Groves

Sometimes...

Sometimes the best way to figure out where you're going is to go back to your roots and remember where you came from.

Sometimes the best way to communicate your thoughts is to use someone else's words.

The Problem of Pain

Quotes taken from "The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis:

When Christianity says that God loves man, it means that God loves man: not that He has some "disinterested", because really indifferent, concern for our welfare, but that, in awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of his love. You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the "lord of terrible aspect", is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, nor the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist's love for his work and despotic as a man's love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father's love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes. (pp. 34-35)

The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word "love", and look on things as if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. "Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the divine love may rest "well pleased". (p. 36)

If the immutable heart can be grieved by the puppets of its own making, it is Divine Omnipotence, no other, that has so subjected it, freely, and in a humility that passes understanding. If the world exists not chiefly that we may love God but that God may love us, yet that very fact, on a deeper level, is so for our sakes. If he who in Himself can lack nothing chooses to need us, it is because we need to be needed. Before and behind all the relations of God to man, as we now learn them from Christianity, yawns the abyss of a Divine act of pure giving - the election of man, from nonentity... (p. 39)

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word "darkness" on the walls of his cell. But God wills our good, and our good is to love him... (p. 41)

It is not simply that God has arbitrarily made us such that He is our only good. Rather God is the only good of all creatures... but that there ever could be any other good, is an atheistic dream... If we will not learn to eat the only food that the universe grows - the only food that any possible universe ever can grow - then we must starve eternally. (pp. 41-42)

the Message in the Pain

"Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

- C.S. Lewis (The Problem of Pain)

Looking past the shadow; listening past the echo

(Original inspiration for this post): Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. - Romans 8:26

It has been often impressed upon me of late how inadequate words are to express the feelings and thoughts of our hearts. Especially when I am having discussions regarding the deeper aspects of life - such as matters of religion, ethics, and the reasons people become the way they are - I feel a strong sense of frustration at my inability to communicate as well as I would wish. It is as if the deeper things of life are of a different language - one that is entirely different from any that humans possess - and when we try to explain those ideas in words that can be understood, so much meaning gets lost in the translation. To me, every word, every phrase, and every sentence said out loud is merely a shadow or an echo of the deeper meaning underneath it. As a result, I have developed a tendency to listen carefully to everything people say, often rehearsing the "scene" in my mind many times later in an effort to pick up the meaning that was left unsaid. This is a dangerous skill to practice, because it is very possible to read too much into any given statement; so it is necessary to be careful to acquire a proper balance - reading more into what is said than what is outwardly apparent, but not reading so much into something that it gains meaning the speaker never intended. I am only interested in what was genuinely communicated beneath the surface, not something that I came up with through a careless observation. When practiced well, there is much that can be gained from applying this skill in daily life. You can learn much about people, things they would never have willingly told you, simply through listening, observing, and contemplating the ways in which they express themselves.

I admit to analyzing a great deal as I watch the people around me - often people I don't even know. When such is the case, it sometimes happens that I will officially "meet" someone weeks after I first saw them and by that time, I will have already picked up something about their general attitude and character. It is for this reason that people have often commented on my "ability to pick up things about people quickly"; this has a great deal to do with the fact that I do not wait to "get to know someone" until I meet them. The moment someone walks into my line of vision or I have even the briefest acquaintance with them, I (rather subconsciously) try to learn about them. It is also true that after enough experience analyzing people, it is not difficult to pick up on certain tendencies and motives that are common to most people. This naturally increases the speed at which I can learn about people, because I already have experience to draw on to help explain what I see.

One interesting thing I have learned is that it is especially helpful to observe people in different settings and amongst different people, because I have found through extensive experience that people tend to act and speak very differently depending on their surroundings. As a result, one can acquire the most thorough understanding of a person by seeing them in many different areas and then combining the observations, resulting in one, fairly complete picture.

Interestingly enough, the quote that comes to mind as I write this post is a conversation between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice:

"May I ask to what these questions tend?" "Merely to the illustration of your character," said she, endeavouring to shake off her gravity. "I am trying to make it out." "And what is your success?" She shook her head. "I do not get on at all. I hear such different accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly." It is worth mentioning at this point that, for me, the most interesting people to observe and get to know are those who do not do what I commonly expect. I know enough about humanity and have seen enough of human behavior to understand what is common. It is those who go against this mold that more especially pique my curiosity (although all people pique my general curiosity). It is not my intention to infer by this post that I look at people only as a curiosity, much as a scientist observes an experiment. Perhaps it helps to mention that I analyze my own behavior and thoughts as well as everyone else's. Naturally, through the means of evaluation and contemplation, I have learned more about myself than anyone else. Overall, it is my intention in this post just to share general observations regarding how much can be learned about a person by looking closely through various means at what lies beneath the surface. For it is there, I think, that our true personality and character lies.