People

Have you ever sat down and thought about the most defining moments in your life so far? It normally isn't the big things that you thought would stand out - like the job you took, or the salary increase you got. It isn't the new neighborhood you moved to, or the car that you bought. These are all material things that have less of an impact on your overall character. It is the little things, that form you as a person, and it mostly involves people.

The people you meet and interact with has a much greater effect on you than you might care to realize. You need people, you were made for people and some people even need you. You have been made strong to be poured out, to live in community and to serve. Some people you’ll meet along your road are distractions others are there to point you in the direction you need to go and some need your direction. But you need to remember that not everyone you meet will finish with you, you might lose some along the way.

Someone had a quote on a social network of some or other a while ago that read: Some people can only stay in your heart and not in your life. That is a very difficult thing for me to put into action. I understand it, I agree with it, but I struggle to cut people out of my life. How do I know who needs to stay and who doesn’t?

How do you know who you need to serve and who is actually distracting you? Who is wasting your time? And also, how do you pour out completely, without losing yourself completely? If you love yourself and then love others as you love yourself, whom do you compromise?

I fear that sometimes the people I try to love, does not need it from me. That they would be far better off without me, or that I would be better off without them. Everyone hurts, has problems and niggles and giggles. Who decides which are real important? Who do you invest your time in and who do you pass on to the next person?

One of my best friends is a very destructive person, towards herself and to me. She seems to have little concept of reality. Every now and again we stop speaking for a while and after a couple of months we rekindle our friendship only for her to promise that she has changed and to apologize for her selfishness. It normally takes a month for her to fall back into her old ways. It hurts me every time, and I’ve lately started wondering if I am enabling her every time I forgive her? Should I now make the cut final? Should I keep on investing my time, energy and emotions?

How do you care for someone who only cares for themselves? But the other extreme is just as difficult – It is very hard to attach worth to someone who does not attach it to themselves. When people are so broken down that you literally have to build them up hug by hug and word for word. That person standing next to the road with his/her sign who looks like they have walked all the mountain roads in life – not for the scenery. People are like eggs, put them in boiling water and they’ll get rock hard, and if you leave them there long enough they will burst.

 "There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature. My attachments are always excessively strong." - Jane Austen

I wrote most of this post a couple of days ago, I read it again today and changed a couple of things but I also had a realization. You know, one of those aha-moments. Assuming we are all trying to bring glory to our Creator (I try) – would we not want to do as Jesus had done? He had His 12 disciples. Jesus knew that they weren't perfect and also that some of them will betray and hurt Him, but He still invested His time and energy in them. I thus realize that no person is ever a waste of time. Invest yourself. People are eternal investments, even if they don’t end up finishing the race with you, impact as much as you can, where you can. I’m still not sure of all the other answers, but I think that if you see someone broken and you have the ability to help with repairs, you should.

Society

 "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" 
- Jiddu Krishnamurti 

We live in a world where a 20 year old boy for no know reason walks into a school full of 6 year olds and shoots 20 of them and 6 grown ups. Where a mother drops her 3 and 5 year old daughters off on a New York street with extra diapers, also for no apparent reason. Where  a 23 year old woman in India dies after a violent gang rape. Where a 10 month old baby is raped by her uncle. We find babies in dumpsters, toilets and left out in parks. Or you can just deposit him/her in a drop box if you feel you can't look after him/her.

How has our world become so negligent of those who are the most vulnerable? The little ones who we are supposed to look after? The world we live in is just getting worse day by day. You can read any news website, in any country, in our sick world and it will tell you the same. The world is full of sick bastards.

I read these articles with tears in my eyes most of the time - I actually don't like reading, listening or watching news for that reason exactly. I can't understand the mentality with which these people operate. The mind of a rapist or murderer is a horribly fascinating thing (with extra emphasis on horribly). Why do people do these things? Is it a sense of entitlement? A feeling of power they get from submitting another person to their will or power?

We all know that the victim is someone's child - but we so often forget that the perpetrator is also someone's son/daughter, someone who also had high hopes for their child. Someone fed that child, hugged him and maybe even loved him. Do you feel failure as a parent if your child turns into one of these perps? Do you wonder where you went wrong? Do you also wonder how his mind now got so bent that his sense of right and wrong is so terribly affected? Does he even know right from wrong? What separates the criminals from the rest of us - or do we all have the capacity to commit horrific crimes no matter how seemingly nice we look?

If we all have the capacity for good I assume we have a similar capacity for evil. So what triggers a person to display either of these attributes? I don't know.

In my first year of high school our principle told us a story that has forever stayed with me. He told a story of two brothers who had the same upbringing and the same alcoholic dad, who never cared much for them or anything in the world. The one brother made a complete mess of his life and also became an alcoholic and the other brother became a successful business man - never drank a drop in his life. When asked why they think they turned out the way they did, both brothers answered "because of my father".

We live in a sick world. Let's try our best not to add grief to it, but to rather add a smile or an encouraging word wherever we can.

Today

Today, I will hold my head up and be okay. This is my pep talk for today. I will smile even when my face starts cracking. I will even smile at the lady who almost drove into me and then swore at me. I will stand tall and sit upright, with a focus that I do not have today. I will simulate togetherness. Why? 

Because I need to. We need to keep up appearances, see. We can't be broken in a broken world - no one would accept failure, honesty or hurt. No one will love you if you are not perfect. You have to put on your face and keep pushing. My mom used to tell me that the world doesn't stop because of your heartache or pain. Nothing else falls apart, except you. Oh and don't worry, when one thing goes wrong they all tend to spiral.

We have this strange compulsion to being what the world expects us to be. And even if we simulate it all perfectly, we still end up feeling like crap, because it is all just a simulation. Like a character in a fantasy game, or one in Days of Our Lives. Not real.

But what is real? Can we fake an emotion enough times and make it believable, or even real? Can we keep on faking and eventually believe what we've been faking? Can you get so tangled up in the masks you wear daily that you don't know which one isn't a mask?

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

When will we start admitting that we are all shipwrecks? Of course you pitch up to work and you do what you're supposed to, and you paste a smile on your face cause nobody wants to look at a sour grape, but don't be someone you're not. Still be yourself. Don't simulate a character to live as, you are better than that. You have unique talents, ideas, experiences and thoughts? Contribute!

There's a difference between striving to be better and faking already being better.

My favorite song...

Oke, maybe not my all time favorite song, but it definitely ranks in the Top 3 (and it has been on repeat for the whole day so far)... The Rose by Bette Midler.

This song is amazing, to describe it in so few words. We all fear to much and take to little chances, but the irony is that even if you don't take any chances what so ever, you will still die. We are afraid to live a little, for fear that if we do we will fail. But failure is a part of life, growing up and learning those lessons again and again. If you have a dream, make it happen.

*Oh, and I was nice enough to provide you with the lyrics to this timeless classic:

The Rose

Some say love, it is a river
That drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
That leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger,
An endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
And you its only seed.

It's the heart afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance.
It's the dream afraid of waking
That never takes the chance.
It's the one who won't be taken,
Who cannot seem to give,
And the soul afraid of dyin'
That never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed that with the sun's love
In the spring becomes the rose.

Love

Love is a many splendor thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love...

But is it really? Can we live on love alone? And how much love would a person need to satisfy his appetite? Can you love a person too much?

I think that the thing you love the most is the thing you think about most evenings before you go to bed and it's the first thing on your mind the next morning when you wake up... but what happens when that love isn't a mutual feeling?

Can we so ferociously now just love something or someone else tomorrow? Do some of us just love in a more intense way than others?

I believe in loving all people for who they are. I also believe that we should not fall in love too quickly, or at all. But we should rather be lifted up in love... Because to fall is to stumble and I don't think it bears well for the relationship if that's the start of it all...

2013 will be my charity year. 2012 was the year I learnt to be patient in all things, it was a year of changes and long periods sitting and reflecting, and determining who I want to be from here on out. 2011 was my travel year - I had a blast!

May you be lifted up in love!

Missing

With the recent death of a family member, and the birthday of a friend that passed away earlier this year, I started wondering yet again what life could be all about... And if we will ever figure out the reason for all this we have here on earth. Sometimes I wonder if those who have left us aren't sitting up there thinking what idiots we are with the things we spend all of our time on.

We make less time for actual people time and more time for social networking. Some of us have become so wrapped up in the package that we are trying to sell to the world of who we are that we forget to love the person and not the package. We live for ourselves and make connections only when and where it can benefit us.

We do not spend our time wisely for we do not know how. Days are wasted and people slip through the cracks. We care too little and give too little, be it time or love. I love how children can still genuinely pay attention and listen, without being distracted by a phone buzzing or a series in the background.

When do we make time for each other? Time is all we have. You can't ever get a moment back, and some you won't want back. They say you have to live without regrets, I don't think that is possible. There will always be something you think you could have done differently, and somethings you most probably should have done differently, but living with regrets is not half as bad as living without lessons. 

One thing we should all try to do is:

Let all that you do be done in love" 1Cor16:14

Send time with loved ones.