Tag Archive
for Life
Tagged as: Life, Relationships, Seen-Around
Jan
27
Search for anything of substance, and you will find that it is quite easy to start believing that there is only one option that will satisfy. And even though it is near impossible to tell whether you have exhausted all possibilities in the world, you know that you will immediately recognize that Perfect One.
The Perfect One is the ideal that you have in your mind of whatever it is that you are looking for. It is going to be recognized and apparent. You are sure of this. Far be it from me to doubt that you could possibly know this for sure.
For example when you are dating, you are looking for the Perfect Boyfriend/Girlfriend. If you are a little better at seeing the bigger picture, you are looking for the Perfect Husband/Wife. But through the good and bad dates, you are evaluating the other person by holding them up against your ideal. Once the other person does not match, you are going to move on. Don’t pay attention to the fact that the person would make a very good match for you despite being slightly too short. Much more tragically than missing a good match in search of a perfect match, though, is being married to someone who you eventually believe to not be the perfect match. When that happens, you might find that you have found the Perfect One in another person. At the very least in this situation you are going to imagine the possibilities of a different life, and at the worst it can lead you to pursue your fantasies. This will obviously hurt many people around in addition to making you a liar (since you could not keep your vows).
Another instance when people look for the Perfect One is when they are house hunting. When you are searching for a house, people often advise you that you will “just know” once you walk into a house. That is rubbish. It is just another way of saying that you should be looking for the Perfect House. Forget the fact that you are looking at houses that would work out just fine. And forget the fact that any house will have its problems. Forget the fact that it’s just a building that will not last!
The horrible thing about this mindset is not that you should have standards. When someone fails to meet your standards for a mate or if a house is completely broken, you should move on. That just makes sense. However, the horrible thing about this mindset is that it will fool you into doing things that do not make any sense at all. You will fall in love with the Perfect One with your heart but not with your head. And then when (not if) reality comes in the form of imperfections, you will be horribly disappointed. And it will hurt.
Can this be fixed? Yes it can! Today you can realize that there is no perfect one, whatever it is that you are looking for. Realize that settling can be just a negative take on this and realize that settling is not always so bad. Settle on something that is acceptable (this seems obvious but don’t settle on something that is unacceptable). If you do not settle, then at least start to believe that the Perfect One will never be found. Move forward with the knowledge that you will NOT find the Perfect One. And if the results match up to your expectations, you are much less likely to get into trouble.
Tagged as: Life, Relationships, Seen-Around
Dec
22
Growing up, I heard the children’s rhyme:
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me
It was assumed that this saying would protect us from other people’s mean words. And when you’re a young child, it is easy to trick yourself into believing it.
But then you get older and you realize the truth. Words are, in fact, more powerful than physical pain. Physical pain definitely has its place. Broken bones, strained joints, diseases, and so on are all painful and uncomfortable (to say the least) to go through. But all of that pales in comparison to the effect that words and emotional trauma can have.
While it’s rather debatable what can hurt a person more, it is pretty easy to see how emotional trauma can scar people for life. The life of a child who has verbally abusive parents can be negatively impacted for good even with counseling. While I do not want to undermine the damage that physical pain can have, the emotional pain is the one that I have seen with my own eyes because it happens all of the time. One can toil for great lengths of time over something, and sometimes it seems like it takes only a single word to make all of that labor futile. Words get at us even through our armor and shields. They needle their way through kinks and prick us to death. And the worst part of all is that it is the words of those closest to us that hurt the most. Well maybe even worse than that is the fact that we are all so horrible in regards to how we use our words.
The tongue: so mighty and so horrible. No one can tame it, but we must try, eh?
Tagged as: Christianity, Life, Read-It, Seen-Around
Oct
30
While I am happy about the fact that I have become someone who questions a lot of what I hear, I readily admit that we all need to live using assumptions. We do not check every fact each and every time otherwise we would go insane! We sit on chairs without checking that the legs will support our weight (although sometimes the chair unfortunately does not support our weight). We figure that our car engine is going to work even though we don’t check it before turning it on everyday. Staplers have staples, light switches will turn on lights, and our e-mail is accessible. These assumptions are slight and imperceptible things that we do. When the assumption does not hold, it is quickly discarded to handle the exceptional case.
But then there assumptions that have a more costly result. When you and your teammate assume that the other is going to catch the fly ball, you could lose the game. Perhaps you and another drive make an assumption that the other is going to get out of the way and an accident occurs. At work, if no definitive statement is made about who is to carry out a task then all involved will think that the other is doing it. Or in the tragedy of Kitty Genovese everyone assumes that someone else will do the right thing. Or infinitely increasing in the depth of tragedy, what happens to someone who assumes that scientists and public opinion are correct enough that Jesus is not the answer?
Let us not assume! Especially when it comes to the important things. Else we are complicit in the outcome, whatever that might be.
Tagged as: Christianity, Life, Seen-Around
Sep
24
I enjoy a board (or sometimes card or tile) game just as much as anyone else. They are good clean fun that often test particular skills and attributes. There are games like scrabble and speed scrabble, which test your vocabulary and literacy; chess, which tests your planning capabilities; and Nertz, which tests speed and awareness.
While I enjoy the games, I do not always enjoy the people that play the games. I mean what is up with people that take games too seriously? Games are fun, and I will play as hard as I can. But it is never appealing when things get out of hand.
In particular there are some games that I cannot stand playing with other people because they tend to get much too involved in them. Settlers of Catan is one of those games. Since so much of the game is the relationships between the players in the game, it is extremely susceptible to antagonism, back-stabbing, and bitterness. All lovely attributes. It is an excellent game if you want to see the ugly in people, that’s for sure. People cannot help but reveal themselves a little bit when it gets competitive.
I will always remember a friend that I knew who was willing to give up a game (in that case basketball) because he was enticed to behave badly while playing. He thought that there were more important things in the world, namely his Christianity, so he gave it up. Admirable and encountered far too little nowadays.
Tagged as: Life, Seen-Around
Sep
08
It’s rather obvious that there isn’t anyone in the world that knows all of the other people in the world. It is therefore logical to conclude that each person will encounter strangers. Some people are good at talking to and interacting with them while others are completely unable to do it. Whether it is in line at the grocery store, waiting at the post office, going to a friend’s party (where there are some people that you know and some that you don’t), or sitting at a wedding banquet, it’s pretty easy to see how you handle strangers.
And I find it rather strange that sometimes it’s actually easier to talk to strangers than it is to talk to people that you already know, especially those that you have not interacted with in awhile, and it’s especially true for those that you only know superficially. With people that you knew before, it seems like it gets awkward after the initial greeting whereas (depending on the strangers) it can be much more enjoyable to find out about a person from the start as the conversation continues.
In my case, I often hope not to have to talk to people that I know superficially previously, especially in situations that will span a considerable time (like the aforementioned wedding banquet scenario). It is worlds less awkward to talk to strangers.
Although if the stranger is out to rob, punch, or otherwise do harm to me I reserve the right to prefer a person that I know superficially. And if the stranger is dull and uninteresting, then I also reserve the right to hate talking to the stranger.