mel-web

We often find ourselves in a tough place.  We get overwhelmed with responsibilities, a painful experience, or just the stress of breathing.  So we look for hope and inspiration.  Our past though it may (or may not) be full or triumphs over similar situations, good memories, and wonderful people can also be tough to look at when we’re seeing negativity.  We don’t see the good stuff when we’re currently in a bad state.  We see the compromises we still don’t like, the bad choices we made, the dreams given up, the regret and remorse for the way things went.  So we can’t look back when we are really struggling again.  So we look to the future.

The future holds promise, excitement, dreams yet to come true.  But not so much when we’re not seeing our way through today.  Get hit with “I want that now!” issue.  Pain and frustration with what we have not yet achieved.  Might not even be stuff you can get: personal partner, understanding, timing, financial freedom, or anything else outside you’re control.  They are simply out of reach no matter how much you want them now.

So here we are, hating today, pissed of at yesterday, and frustrated with tomorrow.  Can’t look ahead, can’t look back, and hate the view here.  Now What?

Well, I have good news.  We’re not 2D.  Feels like it though doesn’t it?  It’s me and the world.  Just the two of us at odds.  You and those responsiblities, those needs, those pains.  There is what is inside you trying to get out and what it outside you pressing in.  Well I encourage you to try a new direction.  Up.  Yup, that’s right, toward the heavens.  Try it.  Bend your neck back and look up at the sky (works nicely outside).  It feels different. I promise.

There are days when you want a job, and there are days you love your career.  Jobs are simple, self contained methods of earning money.  You show up, you do your job, you leave and spend the money you made.  Careers are different.  They make demands on your time outside your paid hours, there’s potential to move, grow, and advance.  You invest in your skills and your abilities.   You make trade-offs in your life to do so.  But it feels good to be passionately wrapped up in something.  Today, and maybe next Monday, I’d just like a nice job.

To be honest though you can have nearly any position in the world and treat it as a job or a career.  If it’s meant to be treated like a career and you treat it like a job, well, things might not end well, and probably sooner than you’d like.  I can imagine your always worried that you’re being let go, and that is a scary prospect because you have no idea where you’d go if that happens.  Jobs are dependent on employers and don’t have much of a life of their own.  And if you have a job and you treat it like a career, well, I imagine you’re feeling rather unfulfilled and bothered about how others are not putting in like you do.  Life probably feels rather unfair because you’re not advancing and growing as it feels like you should be.  Balance comes in knowing what you have, and treating it appropriately.

I never wanted a career.  The idea of a job for a while until hubby & kids came along is much more appealing.  I want to be a old-school mom.   You know, great with house work, raising well rounded kids, a good host to neighbors and friends.  All that classic TV family stuff.  So, knowing that college was more secure than finding a suitor I went for a degree I could work from home with: Computer Science.  That’s gone well, a little too well.  Now, about 5 years later, I have budding career I never intended.

I find myself in this career a bit bitter, but a bit excited. I’m loving what I’m doing, and I’m hating getting up to do it.  I imagine someday I’ll have reduced hours and be more at peace with things.  But for right now, in this time, I feel oddly pressed into something I like.  And that just seems contradictory doesn’t it?  How does one get pressured into to doing something they want to do?  Wouldn’t it just happen without pressure?  I suppose it sort of did.  I love my where my career is going.  I can see it working out very well long term.  However, when the alarm goes off in the morning, I’m still going to be dragging me feet all the way to my beloved window seat in the office.

I left that cozy window seat at about 6:15 p.m. tonight after a 1.75 hour conference call with project members from Chicago and California.  I have some more work to do tonight (partly because I’m curious), and that will put me at about 10 hours today (which is quite a bit above my average).  So I find myself with sore eyes, an aching brain, and the curiosity of how I ended up in this career.  It’s a good career, but it’s definitely a career.  Now the balancing act: keep work at work, home at home, and reflect & mature each while not active at it.

I wouldn’t mind a job somedays, but I like where my career is going.

The majority of us listed ‘recess’ as one of favorite parts of ememtary school.  What happened to that?  It became our responsibility to have it on our own, and I failed.  Kinda.

I have a lunch at work, a reasonable break time actually, I should take recess.  Currently, I just read websites and eat at my desk. LAME!  Not that I don’t get great advice, and something I read today is inspiring this post, but what happened to running around?  I realized ‘exercise’ has become less like recess and more like work.  Maybe it’s the lack of playmates. Or maybe I’ve forgotten what fun is.  Exercise happens as a result of playing.  It’s time for recess.

I hereby request you all to contact me.  Lets get together at a park and play.  Disc golf, bicycle, frisbee games, volleyball, swimming, etc. etc. etc.

Call me! We’ll do lunch!

It was so weird for me at first that he never closes his eyes when he kisses me.  Well, actually at first I didn’t notice because my eyes were closed.  I asked him about him about it and I didn’t get some sweet lies about how he can’t take his eyes off me.  I got the truth: it’s just how he is.  He likes it better that way.

I continued to close my eyes under the impression that when I close my eyes I can concentrate more on my other senses.  And I did, and not just with him.  When I was relaxing with music, I’d focus on the sounds.  In the shower on the warmth.  Laying down to rest I’d close my eyes and shut out the world and concentrate on the sensation of my body releasing tension.  Then I got curious.  I started sneaking a peek here and there.  It was uncomfortable at first, and I had to let go of that and embrace the pleasant sights.  I’m finding it complimentary and that in many cases it’s enhancing my experiences.

Last night was the real ‘eye opener’ (sorry couldn’t resist the pun).  I was hanging in the hammock chair in the ManLand listening to music and reflecting on the week. Normally I close my eyes as I listen to take in the full spectrum of sounds in the music, and so I started that way.  Then I peeked.  We had just hung new track lighting above the pool table and turned off all other lights.  It created a great atmosphere, plus I got to admire his handy work: new lights, new bar stools.  The sight warmed my heart.  My eyes continued to drift shut (and eventually I took a short nap) but I felt better each time I opened them again.

There are still times I prefer to have my eyes closed, and there are moments I look forward to feeling comfortable to openly admiring.  I must thank my love for being confident enough to be himself and helping me experience pleasures in new ways.

Now I’m curious though: in what ways have people in your life helped you to enjoy our short stint on this planet?  Have you picked up great insight, habits, perspective, or behaviors from others?  Did you ever tell them ‘Thank you’?  Do you still have time to do so?  Will you? What about God, His Son?  Will you tell Him so?

Just wanted to take a moment this afternoon on lunch and say that I’ve finally moved in with ogg.  I’ve been living in the new house for a while, but not all my stuff was there.  After a strong effort from roomies this weekend I’ve got all but my fish tank up to the new house.  Still don’t know if or when we are having a house warming.  I’d like to have a little open house/BBQ before too long.  Something casual that folks can just swing by have a drink and see the place.

Technology is a fun area of work.  It’s always changing and evolving.  Lots of new ideas and tools come out all the time.  New opportunities are very common to us employees too.  I was sort of recruited to a very well respected company here in GR.  I say “sort of” because if it were not for the president of the company directly encouraging me to apply, then advocating for me after, I would not be writing this right now.  I owe him a very special thanks.

I have been offered and taken a position at Atomic Object.  I look forward to starting on Monday. I thought you would like to know.

I’m saved no matter what, why should I do good and behave?

Answer this in the comments and then I will post my epiphany answer.

It’s a common phrase to say that someone who makes a obviously poor choice that effects others “should be taken out back and shot”.  But that doesn’t solve anything because they don’t get a chance to make up for their wrong doing.

Sitting by the window at work a Hummer H2 pulled up to the ajoinnig suite.  I took a good look at for a moment.  Then exclaimed to in my usual IRC haunt, “What an absurd and ridiculous civilian vehicle.”  My friend appropriately responded with

“Yeah, there is no reason on earth to own one other than to prove to the world you make a ton of money (IE, enough to be able to fill the tank.)”

This of course stirred up some passion in me, and some frustration with the state of US.  No one should be wasting money like that.  No one.  My proposal isn’t that we take someone like this out back and shoot them.  No, No.  I propose that if you have that much money and throw it away so foolishly you should be taken out back and left in a third world country for a week.

Seriously though: we really do need to show people why they’re doing and why it’s a problem.  I encourage you all do it in the little ways.  The simple ways.  We can change this world one little bit at a time.

Sure, God exists.

Yup, Got me a Savior, it’s awesome.

If you agree with those two statements then you accept the basic truths of Christianity.  But are you really a Christian?  To be Christian means to be a disciple of Christ.  That is, to strive to be like Christ.  I keep reading my bible and realizing how crappy I am at this.  I don’t love everyone equally, I boast about myself,  I chase after worldly things that can be stolen, rust, and fade, I certainly do not act as a slave to all others, I’m really bad at being a good stuart, and I’m a complete failure when it comes to evangelizing.  Heck, I can’t even abide by the commandments.

Lucky for me God knew I’d be a fuck up.

But grace and a savior don’t excuse me from my responsibilities.  I find myself surrounded by ‘believers’ that entice me to be lazy in those responsibilities.  These are the folks that may or may not go to church, for the right or wrong reasons.  But they profess to be christians and to spend time with God, and to keep Him close.  Yet their actions say something else.  And if you ask them, they’ll tell you about how they think God accepts what they’re doing, that it’s just bending the rules.  The have an “understanding” with God is what they tell me.

I have finally, after many years of being a ‘believer’, become a disciple.  This has lead to many realizations about how poor my knowledge of God’s feelings.  That’s a crazy notion that I think gets neglected:  God’s feelings.  God has feelings?  God feels for us?  We offend Him and hurt Him?  We can make Him dance with joy?

Do I make Him dance more than cry?  Do I disappoint Him more often than I make Him smile?  Just because I think it’s okay in His eyes am I really doing what He wants?  Am I actually frustrating Him with my misunderstanding of His wishes?  I am serving God in a advisory capacity instead of as an underling?  How does it feel when someone points out in the bible “You’re doing it wrong!”?  How will I know when I’ve meet His wishes? Am I really being a disciple or just a believer?

Even the most heated discussion ends with gained perspective.  Often the conviction (aka stubbornness) of any party involved sheds light on another possible ‘right’.  Sometimes we learn our perspective was wrong.  Some times we find more support for our current conviction.  Sometime we just agree that there is more than one way and neither is more right than the other.

All heated conversations start the same way: peacefully.  And that’s how it started last night.  But at one point someone shared an opinion that wasn’t shared by all.  I walked away at the point when I became overwhelming offended.  I collected my thoughts so that I could make a clear, strong, proper representation of my opposite opinion.  In doing so I used a stereotype that we were both in:  All sportbikers are stunt monkey, wild child, loose cannons.  We both take offense to that stereotype, and suddenly the tables are turned.  We’re all part of stereotypes.  Women can’t drive, sportbikers are crazy idiots, geeks don’t play sports, and the list goes on.

We’re so quick to judge based on surface or first impressions.  We learn their profession before we meet them and suddenly you have a prefixed idea of who they are, what they stand for, and where their morality is like.  Or we see they’re ‘fat and lazy’, or ‘a dumb blonde’, or just ‘dumb’, and refuse to show them the same respect as we do our friends.  Then when we get lumped in, though, we’re offended.  So do we really treat people the way we want to be treated?

Yes, it’s the golden rule… but from where did this awesome idea come from?  The bible of course.  Where else does such timeless advice come from?  Being that it’s Lent and a time in which we are supposed to be renewing and growing our faith, a little scripture seems appropriate.  In Matthew 22 Jesus was tested by the people who tried to trick him into giving precedence to the commandments as though some were more important than others.  Instead he summed them up into two, one of which is the famous golden rule.

Matthew 22:36-40  (English Standard Version)

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

SO.  I learned last night that I’m not seen by everyone I know as perpetuating and feeding the “girls can’t ride” stereotype.  Which I was feeling heavy about.  And so I hope to someday be a far better rider than I am now so that I can pin “girls can ride” up on my private list of overcome challenges.  I want to pin it right up there next to “Girls can catch and filet fish”, “Girls and code”, “Sportbikers are controlled, normal humans”, and “Geeks are active and athletic”.

I think also did a decent job of opening the eyes of someone else to a new perspective on stereotyping.  I can only hope that I’ve passed along some food for thought to you as well.