I have been thinking a lot on this gloomy, overcast Sunday. What an interesting weekened I have had! I was writing earlier, and what I was writing on was on friendships. What do I look for in a friend? To me, I hope to fill my life with friends who are supportive of me, and who inspire me to be a better person. A friend of mine the other day said, "Your friends should be a reflection of the morals and beliefs you have or want to have in your own life". I feel that I have made great strides lately to improving my spiritual condition. I went through a very difficult summer, and after dealing with all of the changes in unhealthy ways, I finally realized I needed to change what I was doing. I have been seeking a spiritual path lately, to become serene in my life. I am realizing that my friends must also be doing the same. Instead of living in the downs of everyday life, I want friends who uplift me, who show me by example that they are not just trying to live life, escaping problems day by day, but instead that they are seeking that serenity in their life as well, dealing with life as it comes, seeking peace with themselves, and offering love to me through their friendship. I have wonderful friends in my life right now, and I often find myself questioning how much I offer to them in their lives. I should be offering my friends the same love, support, and hope that I seek to recieve in those friendships. There is a large difference in admiring spirituality, and actually trying to apply it in ones own life. I hope to be able to move further away from admiration, and closer to living my own personal spirituality. I have to evaluate constantly, and make sure that my own actions line up to those goals, both long term and short term, that I have set in my own life. Spring can be viewed as a "rebirth of the soul". I hope that this spring, I can really live that, and offer new life to my soul. What are my actions today, and what feeling are they based in? Am I living my life based in fear? Am I offering the world, and my community (all persons that I interact with daily) a healthy and supportive view in life? Do I smile each day? Am I only surviving today, waiting for the next thing to change in life, or am I really living and experiencing my own life? What have I done today that I will be happy to (or unhappy to) share with a future partner or my future children? Boy, lots to think about each day!!!
I will first approach this self-realization by prayer/meditation. Each day, I am going to make sure that I take some time out from my daily life, and just listen. I remember when I was a child, I was in my CCD class one day. I asked my teacher a question, �Why is it that God used to show himself to people in the Bible, however, he does not show himself to us today? I have never seen God�. My teacher looked at me, smiled, and said, �Scott, if you look around, and maybe you are too young to understand this yet, but God is everywhere, and God shows himself to us through other people. One day, you will understand that God does show himself to you all of the time, and you just have to be open to seeing him�. I have spent most of my life forgetting what was told to me, but my focus will be, in the next few weeks, to really realize how God shows himself to me, who he uses to show himself, and why that person was chosen as his messenger.
Life is a lesson. Each event in my life, big or small, is just a lesson in the great classroom of life. If I stop learning, then my life slowly diminishes. I must move myself from being a �victim� of life, to becoming a student, ready to accept any changes, good or bad, large or small, that come my way in life. I often say that I am �learning a lesson� but in the back of my mind, I will still try to play victim, often feeling sorry for myself. The reality is, there is nothing in my life to feel sorrow and pity for. I am very fortunate for all that I have, and I am most fortunate for being who I am! Today, I begin to start learning this, and really accepting, in my heart, that I am exactly who I am supposed to be. �This place you are right now, God has circled on a map for you� (Thank you, Kevin, for that quote- I will always remember that!). I often forget lessons that I have learned in the past. I have been speaking over the last few days to a friend of mine who is going through a hard time-- dealing with something that I dealt with several years ago. He is taking a positive step in his life now, and I admire his strength and self-honesty more than he will EVER know. Last night, I thought about my conversation with him. Was it that easy for me to forget the most important lesson I have learned in my life? Yes. I had forgotten, and he will never know, or understand, how much it means to me that he helped me be reminded of this lesson. I hope to be able to look at the lessons I have learned in my life, reflect on them, and hopefully by doing so I will not have to learn that �lesson plan� again. I learn lessons through many different ways-- but more often than not, I learn the lesson by going through pain. Why, once I have learned a lesson, would I need to go back through that lesson again? If I can remember those past lessons, then I can use my wisdom to move on. I often neglect my own personal wisdom.
Who am I? I am a student, a son, an employee, a brother, a cousin, a grandson, a friend, etc. But who am I really? Besides just my physical characteristics, I must be able to recognize myself. I must stop reacting to life, reacting to life out of fear. I must approach life through spiritual means. I must approach my life through the most important means-- love, understanding, and patience amoung other ways. Love to me is one of the most important things in my life. I love myself today, something that I have never been able to do in my life. I hope to be able to learn how to continue loving myself, not in a cocky way, but because I cannot share love with someone else if I have not fully learned how to love myself. I must be happy with the way I look, the way I carry myself, the way that I treat others, the way I treat myself, and how I live my life. I think I currently like myself, but I am hoping to be able to really find out if I do for sure love myself. I know that I no longer allow myself to abuse my body,a nd I no longer loath myself. I try to take care of myself today, and I really hope to be able to learn how to take better care of myself. If I am going to have a family one day, I want to be strong for them, as well as myself.
Optomism. I am not sure if this even fits in correctly at this part of my writing, however, it came to my mind, so I am going to place it here, anyway :-) I try to be an optomistic person today. I used to be quite the opposite � always looking at what was wrong, never what was right. I strive to be able to see the good in all people, and the good in me, and the good in each event in my life. There is good in EVERY person that walks on this earth!!! My hope is that by being optomistic, I can be a beacon of hope to those in my life.
So why 40 days? To be honest, I don't know. I know that 40 days is a �magical� number in many different world beliefs. Why this is, I am not sure, but when I was making the decision to take this journey in my life, for some reason, without question, 40 days seemed to be the appropriate number of days. Once again, this is not because of any particular reason that I am aware of, it just happens to be the number that seemed right. At the end of this 40 day period, will I be a different person? I do not know. I hope that I can at least learn something during this time, and maybe continue to aim for being the person I want to be in my life.
So that is it... well, not really, but that is what I am choosing to share at this time with others. From outward appearances, no one will know that I am �currently under construction�. I will continue to live my life like I always have, day in and day out, but from now until March 5, I will be working on myself a little each day. Rome wasn't built in a day, and I cannot change myself completely in a day. In fact, the reality is, I must always be working on myself, I just choose this coming period to pay especially close attention to certain things in my life.
Thank you for sharing my life with me, your life with me, and I look forward to many more times that you can show me God in my life!
Note : When I mention God in this writing, please know that I am not using the name God to simply mean the Christian view of who God is. To me, using the name God implies my spirituality, my relationship with a power greater than myself, and my relationship with this power is the most important thing to me. I hope to not offend anyone who may not use the term �God� in their own life :-).
