The Butterfly Circus

I'm sharing this video without comment, because I feel like it's important for people to watch and draw their own thoughts without outside influence. It's 20 minutes long, but worth at least one watch for the message.

55 Dollars

I was at BYU for five years. I occasionally sold back my textbooks, but usually just forgot and kept them. I spent hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on these books. Five years of schooling, thousands of dollars worth of textbooks, and I finally went to sell back these books that had been laying around.... and I was able to get 55 dollars back. And I'm grateful for those 55 dollars.

This post isn't an anger post. It's a post on widening and changing your perspective, and a little more if you care to read until the end. Sometimes, we make investments that last a long time and take up a lot of our resources. We feel like we're entitled to more, like something else should have come out of it. But.... the fact is... the world doesn't really owe us anything. People don't owe us anything. Everything we give has come willingly out of our own hands. The textbook companies technically don't have to pay anything back for textbooks, it would probably make them more money to keep selling back original copies of the newer editions, and not paying anything for old books. But, they do give something something for it. They give you something back, and with that something you can go buy an ice cream cone or whatever you please, and think about the fact that you were just given a gift. It doesn't matter whether or not the return equals the investment, I want to pose the idea that maybe there's more to it than that.

It relates a lot more than just to textbooks. It relates to every experience you'll ever have where you feel like what you were given fell short of what you put into it. Maybe what you received out of an investment was an experience, but without the ending you really deserved. Maybe you received a lesson, but a lesson that left you in a worse place. Maybe you received some fund that was miserably lower than you gave. You're going to want to be angry, upset that you didn't get what you were owed.

Instead of being upset, use those experiences to guide somebody else. Teach that lesson to somebody who is naive of whatever you learned. Or use those meager funds just to be a little happier. There's going to be a greater good in those 55 dollars if you look for it. But, you need the patience to look beyond and see what you're really getting.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, somebody came to earth who could see beyond that 55 dollar initial return. He could comprehend beyond that. He came to teach a message of hope, of salvation and forgiveness. He came to inform people of a greater truth beyond each of their own meager returns. He spent is whole life teaching people, giving Himself to a great work. And, initially for that, He was beaten. He was humiliated. And He was crucified after suffering every pain imaginable to mortality. It became so difficult that He pondered aloud if it could all just be taken away. And, when it could not, when the initial return had to be what it was, which was a lot of suffering, He declared, "nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done (Luke 22:42)."

As I'm sure you know, this was Jesus Christ. This was our Savior, the man whose initial "55 dollars" didn't seem fair at all, bringing along more suffering than any of us could understand. But, what he was given at first wasn't the end of the story. What came after the lowest initial return in history, after being put through the greatest agony ever given, was also the greatest return in the history of mankind. It was the Resurrection, and along with that the Salvation of mankind. His patience to look past what He could first see made the Greatest Gift possible. Through being willing to accept what was first paid out, He gave us all something far greater. 

Now, the most important message of Easter is that of the Resurrection, and Christ's triumph over death. Even as I write this, I want the reader to remember the more important message that today, Easter, brings. I just want to share this other perspective, as well, so that we can all remember to have patience, and trust the Lord in what He gives us. It may seem like a hard thing, and we may also ponder if the outcome could be different, but the Lord knows what we and others will ultimately gain from whatever we're given. 

As you're pondering the greater messages of Easter, it may be worth it to also broaden your perspective on your current situation, and to remember the Lord's power to multiply what we're initially given into something far greater than we realize. He had the power to turn the greatest agony into the greatest victory. And Christ had the patience and wisdom to understand this was possible. Remember that, no matter how meager your return, your investment won't be lost. It will all pay off if you allow it to. Allow the Lord to show you what your compensation is truly worth. 

The Nature of Panic and Anxiety

I wanted to take the time tonight to write about something very personal to me, something people around me have struggled with for years, and something I've also had some trouble with: it's the topic of panic, or anxiety. It's something that a lot of people, even most people, at one point struggle with, but the topic gets brushed under the rug.... since, quite honestly, the topic is hard to discuss when there's so many theories about how to cure it. I'd like to do my best to relate my own beliefs on the cause and antidote to anxiety.

First, one thing needs to be established: anxiety is based on fear: fear we can't get a job done, fear of doing something we've never done before... even fear of what could happen if the anxiety doesn't go away.... which all too often dissolves into an attack, an attack brought on by the fact that we feel we have lost control. We have lost control of our body, it's no longer in our hands, and there is nothing within our means to stop the ever-progressing meltdown in our heads.

Fear turns to despair, and despair turns to panic. This is how an anxiety attack progresses. By that point, the fear is more a state of alarm and hopelessness. The body no longer believe it can control itself, as the mind has already relinquished control. Eventually, you lose all control.... control of you hands usually goes first as they go numb, followed by your feet, up to your legs and arms, and it slowly progresses throughout your body until all that's left is the limited use of your mouth to talk. Not many people get to this final stage, but that's the progression if it continues in this way. The people who have been there will describe the utter hopelessness that comes to them at this stage, and that they have all but accepted they may not live.

As for the solution, it's much easier to say than to actually practice... the cause of anxiety is fear, and the opposite of fear is hope. The only way to cure anxiety is through a mindset of hope, and a belief in your ability to control your body. The only way to cure anxiety is to pull yourself out of it. I would emphasize that this has to be done by yourself. Nobody else can decide for you that you can control yourself. You can control your breathing, and even through controlling your breathing you can begin to control your heart rate. If you can control those two, then you can control the re-emergence of feeling into your limbs, and then you finally have control over your whole body. But, you have to believe in yourself. You have to believe that you have the power to do these things, and you must trust that nothing else can control your body as well as your own mind. And you are the one responsible for your mind.

It seems that anxiety and depression has become so commonplace today because people no longer feel they are in control of their situations. There has been an attitude emerging that it doesn't matter what we do, it will not be enough in a world where the control rests with the government and the corporate higher-ups. Anxiety is a cultural problem, because the root of it is the more commonly accepted belief that somebody else is in control of our life and situation. Then, it is apparent that the most effective cure for anxiety is simply to wipe out this attitude. We are in control of our lives. We have every right to determine where we go, as we are the ones who decide what we do and how hard we work to reach our goals.... just as we determine how hard we are willing to work to gain control of our bodies and fight the anxiety.

It's my belief that the cure to anxiety is coming to believe that we are in control of ourselves and our situation, and nothing can take that control away from us.

Where I'm Going and Where I've Been

Since that last post on here, life really took off. I moved to a house south of campus and job searched for two months. I found a job at a company that hired me for their call center, hoping I could last long enough to get the promotion they promised to people who stayed and proved they could handle it. I got into a relationship for a few months. I was promoted to the new position I had been hoping for, and spent a little while handling a case load of my own clients and helping them. I've experienced so much over the past 6 months. It feels like it's been so much longer. And I recently was hired at a job which will be much more difficult, most likely, but also will give me much more financial flexibility in my life.

 I've moved past where I was back when I last posted, I've matured more than I ever thought I could in such a short period. I learned lessons that were difficult to learn, but have made me grow up. Working in that call center, every day I walked in and wanted to quit. Nearly every day I was on the verge of quitting, but something kept me there. Something telling me it wasn't about the call center. Something told me that, if I gave up, I was quitting on something much bigger. I was quitting on an opportunity to prove I could do something, to make something out of myself by doing what I thought was impossible. Then, at my next position, it was difficult in different ways. I told people I couldn't do it, that I was definitely going to quit. I said the same things for weeks, but every week I came back. And finally, I got a new job and made it through without quitting.

So, I'm done telling myself I can't do something. I'm done being negative. I'm tired of it. My last post was about how I made it through school when I knew it was impossible. Over the last 5 months, I then made it through two impossible jobs. At this point, I'm convinced I can make it through just about anything. I'm going to do big things with my life. I'm done telling myself anything otherwise. I'm going to succeed at this job, and then I'm going to do something even bigger afterwards. I spent too many years in high school and early college telling myself life was too hard. I'm not going to let myself get into that funk ever again.

I used to think there is a such thing as somebody who just doesn't have it and is doomed to fail. I've come to the opinion that there is no such thing as a weak person. The only weak person is one who has never been tested and forced to be strong. Every person who is forced to be strong is going to eventually realize they were capable of more than they ever thought.

I also think there's a little more to it, that God gives us our most strength in our hardest trials. People were created to overcome their weaknesses and progress. I've been blessed in so many ways I never thought I deserved.

In other words, life has been really good to me. I'm excited to see where it takes me. I'm excited to live this next stage, to get into a real job, eventually start a family and find out how great things will be.