Sunrise, Sunset

Today as I drove Dugann to his dad's, the sun was rising in the distance. The diffused light caused a spectacular show of colors that changed constantly with each inch the sun rose. The entire sky was lit up bright and it felt like such a refreshing blanket was encompassing the sky infinitely.

Then, I turned westward onto the highway and the sky went dark. The clouds hid the moon that was yet to set and the lack of light gave such a menacing, gloomy feel. It was the exact opposite of the eastern sky.

This display was a vivid expression of how important perspective can really be in a person's life. [Attitude is everything.] We all encounter events that render both positive and/or negative feelings. Perhaps an event has not even caused the feelings, but we wake up with an idiopathic attitude. These feelings can cast our days as brilliant and inspiring or grim and troubling. It all depends which direction we decide to go... in which direction will your attitude drive you? Toward the light? Or toward the dark?

I guarantee that if you choose to follow the darkness, you will always be racing, rushing, trying to envelop yourself in grimace. Because darkness is always naturally less visible at the place where light and dark meet.

If you choose to follow the light, the brightness tends to grow and grow until you are suddenly encompassed by a brilliance that you can neither explain nor cease to appreciate. Light will always win over the dark.

They say that after each night, comes the morning. But what people rarely recognize is the fact that night is not the absence of light! Rather, night is the time in which light is farthest away... light is never absent. If light were absent, this world would be a desolate globe, void of vegetation and creatures. Nothing can live without light.

As humans, we have grown accustomed to describing night as the time that light is absent from us. In reality, the light is never absent from us; it is merely farther away, harder to see, more difficult to reach... but light is always a part of our environment, a part of our days, and thereby a part of us.

Today, I choose to turn away from the ominous darkness and focus on the radiant palette of colors. I choose to allow myself to feel the excitement of not knowing what beautiful horizon will appear next in my journey; anticipating something mildly good, and unexpectedly stumbling upon something wonderful. Just drive...

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

Nothing hurts more than when a seemingly supportive person inadvertently ceases to support you. Tough love is one thing, but when you reach out for support from someone who has always been there, and you are met with unwanted suggestions and a plea of conversion to their wishes for your life, it is very difficult to feel supported by that person.

Support (in my terms) means understanding that my journey in recovery includes certain components and I expect my supporters to accept my decision to satisfy the need for these things in my life. It does not matter if my supporters can understand why I seek this path or why I need these things in my life... what matters is that they find a way to show you compassion and understanding even when their own ideas do not conform to your ways. Support means empowering an individual to do what THEY DREAM to do and showing them that all of these dreams seem impossible but can very shortly become a reality with hard work and determination. Support means validating an individual's concerns and expressing empathy for any situation - irregardless of how it was manifested. Support means recognizing that an individual may not value the same things as me, they may have different priorities than me, but that is not a "selling point" for my advice.

I should not see an individual's dilemmas as an opportunity to convert them to my way of thinking. Rather, I will listen and understand that their needs, wants, perceptions, values, and desires are completely independent of my own and try to support their search for peace of mind and stability within the structure of their own reality. Let me never be the person that tries to convince someone that their noble decisions toward a better future and their attempts at self-reliance are NOT as important as the attempts I want them to make. Let me always be the person that is truly an encouragement and speaks with the words that God would have me to speak positivity into their life so that they would want to continue reaching for the seemingly unreachable goals. THAT is being supportive.

Society tells us that the only way to support a person is to make sure they are going about life in a manner which is logical to the majority. I recall this wise quote from Wade Davis: "The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you. They are unique manifestations of the human spirit."

The Darkness Within

I cannot eloquently express this sense of blackness engulfing my insides, swallowing my motivation and gnawing away at my self-confidence.

And so I must say that I do not know where you came from... but I'm setting snares for you. And when the light returns, I will free you from this prison and suffocate you in mounds of trash as if you never existed. I know you are there... lurking, waiting for the perfect timing. I guarantee you that this will not be the end of me. I declare WAR!

Peer Influence VS Self-fulfilling Prophecy

It is important to be sure that we do not even slightly vary from what we know to be right and wrong - never second guess your own principles to soothe someone else. Doing so would cause you so much guilt that you would begin to internalize it as if you had sinned against them, causing insecurity. That is when people have control over you, that is why peer influence is so powerful, and undoubtedly, the kind of friends you have is so important!

You do not think anything about yourself that someone else spontaneously illuminates for you.

You cannot blame someone else's judgments about you as the reason why you feel insecure and lack confidence. Nobody can convince you to believe anything (about ourselves or other people) that you do not already WANT to believe. Those beliefs which you HAVE but cannot support with facts, when someone presents information, true or false, you tend to use it how your mind feels is best... to support your own theories about the people and the world around you, regardless of how erroneous they might be.

My friend, Barney, has recently brought to light a linguistic fact that bolsters my theory about thoughts: "De-CIDE. The root word 'decidere' means to 'cut off'. [As in] suiCIDE. homiCIDE. patriCIDE. To decide requires a death, and there are no easy decisions. In fact, simple decisions are best called choices. I Kings 18:21 Stop sitting on the fence - make up your mind right now, sir! Fences make you a repeat of the Humpty Dumpty case study."

As I have mentioned before, my own suicidal thoughts have been of this nature - wanting some of my bad traits to die off and other good traits to flourish. Therefore, it is a turning point, a decision in which you assert to ameliorate rather than negate life. Life is full of insecurities - those things you fear you are not good at, those things you are indeed not good at, those things which you desire to be good at but are seemingly not, those which you are good at but cannot perceive it, and those which you are good at that you wish you were not. No person can escape the phenomenon of insecurity, but you can guide it.

If you must be insecure, let it lie in not knowing whether you have spent enough time with your family. If you must be insecure, let it lie in not knowing if you have enjoyed life to its fullest. If you must be insecure, let it lie in not knowing if you have been a good person. If you must be insecure, let it lie in not knowing if you have learned all there is to learn in life. For these insecurities drive you to spend more time with your family, enjoy life even more, be a better person, and cause you to be more apt to learn life's lessons.

Never let your insecurities cause you to adopt the evaluation that another person has of you. Evaluate yourself based on your own ideals, principles, morals, and values. But who can evaluate themselves based on their principles if they do not even know who and what they are? Therefore, KNOW YOURSELF. This kind of knowledge typically comes with maturity, which is why we see so many adolescents with issues concerning self-image and insecurity. Why do we tolerate this? Educate yourself - know yourself - know your principles, your ideals, your morals, and your values - and then STAND on those truths.

Let others' judgments fall around you, but not fall on your ears for that would be a win for the Devil himself, in convincing you that you are not worthy of God's grace and, therefore, would not receive it. In fact, none of us is worthy, and that is the beauty of God's grace - He grants it to those who do not and could never deserve or earn it and asks for nothing in return, save acceptance.

What Mental Pain Feels Like

Why is it that when a person has cancer, we don’t want them to suffer; And when we see they are suffering so much that we know they are going to die, we pray that God would take them quickly…?

Yet, when a person is suffering so much mentally, and nobody can even see how much they are suffering, we try and convince that person to feel better and think positively about things? You cannot convince a mentally diseased person they are well anymore than you can convince a quadriplegic that he can walk. Thinking positively has great results when a person’s thinker isn’t broken. But what about when it is broken? What then?

Sometimes, the pain is so deep, the hurt is such a raw pain, that you cannot even treat it anymore with exercises that are meant to generate thoughts, medicines that are meant to dull the senses, and words that are meant to comfort the soul.

Why don’t we pray for those people, much like the cancer patient, to be eased from their suffering and taken quickly to Heaven?

I believe it is because, as a whole, society does not really believe that people SUFFER from mental pain and disease. If society really believed that, we would not want any person to suffer such undue mental pain, just like we do not want any person to suffer from cancer – whether or not it was self-induced.

Instead, society causes the mental and emotional pain to be worsened by criticizing the reason it even exists in the first place and attaching a negative stigma to it in general. Society causes the pain to worsen. Social conditioning that suffocates a person’s real motivations in life and garners a false sense of self causes the pain to worsen. Families cause the pain to worsen, the people who "LOVE YOU" cause it to worsen by placing obligations upon the inflicted as a means of showing that love, instead of offering them unconditional positive regard and nonjudgmental acceptance. The standards that people imply upon you, by which they measure the kind of person you are and by which they deem themselves as better or worse than you… cause the pain to worsen… and society justifies all of that.

Meanwhile, those suffering from mental pain just have to stay in it, remain a slave to it, all for the sake of allowing the uninflected people in society to keep their large, self-righteous egos intact.

Until you are there, enslaved, trapped in your own mind, criticized for it, and even neglected or cast out because of your deafening pain… you cannot know how disabling mental pain really is.

You can say that God can heal mental pain… but God can heal cancer, too. He doesn’t always heal cancer, so what makes you think He always heals mental pain and even on cue?

In the spiritual sense, it is not for you or I to decide who God heals and who He doesn’t. It is only for us to hope that we are not one of the inflicted, and if indeed we are, to seek His help.

I’m sitting here, waiting and hoping He will heal me, and all these years it has never happened for me. I tried to make it happen for myself; I tried to make life better for myself. I sought every means possible to work and make a living, support myself and my child, get a better education, get certified in various areas to gain employment, pay the various bills I had necessitated, make the right connections, take care of myself physically, seek help when necessary… and after it all, I am still enslaved but far more deadened than before, with even more pain, significantly more problems, and significantly less concern that I will ever be free from it.

There was a time that, when I felt suicidal, it was not that I wanted to literally die, but just that I wanted to kill off all the bad parts of my personality and character and make the good parts even more prominent and alive. I’m not perfect – far from it – but I just cannot find any large, impending trait of my own that I think is so evil; I am 300% better than I was 3 years ago – I am not the person I once was. I kept striving to be better and I made a lot of progress… it is like exercise and females in Corporate America, once you start working your way up, there is a glass ceiling past which you cannot progress. I have put in the work, where is the result? I just cannot keep living this way anymore. It seems that I have nothing left to accomplish… like I have tried every possible way to make a difference to no avail. I give up.

I want you to find peace without me, because I’m praying that if God has nothing else for me to accomplish in my life that He would just take me swiftly so I don’t have to suffer this pain anymore.

Before the wake.

I can't stop crying!!
I've been awake for 2 hours now and I can't stop crying...
I can't believe he's gone...

Why did it have to be him?

I'm crying so hard I'm throwing up...
My whole heart feels like it has broken into a million pieces...
Nothing has ever hurt this bad before in my life.

I don't know if I can make it through the funeral.

On second thought...

In my attempt to be more prepared for the unexpected, I left an entire hour early and arrived at campus 1 hour before class began. I made it there in good time, without feeling stressed, and I wanted to continue uplifting myself into good spirits. So, as I got out of the car, I put on my headphones, plugged in my iPod, and turned on some inspiring music.... then I accidentally locked the keys and my backpack in the car.

Thank God that I had my phone in my pocket. Thank God that my mom has an extra set of keys. Thank God that she was still at home with easy access to that key. And thank God that she answered her phone when I called and was able to make it to campus before class started to let me in my car and drop me off at the front door. By the way, thank God that the weather was excellent - beautiful even.

At first, I was really angry... angry that I did all I could to prepare to be there on time, angry that even though I was not anxious about arriving to school I locked my keys in the car, angry that I had to make that phone call to my professor to warn him that I might be late to class. I was angry that I wanted to improve my mood by listening to music and my effort was wasted by escalating my mediocre mood downward to being a full-blown bad mood. I was angry that the Devil had once again sent these inconveniences to disrupt my schedule and render disappointment and guilt. Cringing in anticipation of the reprimand that I would receive, I made the call to my professor.

Surprisingly, he was understanding. I did not expect him to be completely upset, but I did feel that it was a bad testimony of my efforts to get to class on time, as I gave my word to him that I would do for every remaining class session. I only gave my word to him because I honestly knew that it was going to be feasible. When I got him on the phone line, I explained the situation and where I was and he was rather reassuring about it. When he advised me that if I couldn't make it to class that I should just get notes from someone else, my immediate reaction was to tell him that my full intentions were to get to class on time - even if that meant I would have to wait until after class to get into my car to get my backpack. I was ready to go meet class anyway, even though that uncertain feeling and anxiety knowing that I didn't have class materials was weighing on my mind.

The silver lining was found in that it was Earth Day... I was lamenting how sad it was that I was not going to get to spend any of my time outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. Then suddenly, I was forced to sit outside and wait... I could have gone inside, but I felt drawn to standing in the parking lot to wait for mom to arrive. The sun was beating down, the breeze was blowing gently... the music was flowing into my ears... it felt like that moment had been perfectly orchestrated to teach me to pause every once in a while to enjoy the world's beauty. Too often, we are reminded of the demise of the world and the wicked therein. For approximately 10 minutes, I felt a sense of ease come over me. I do not think I have taken the time to enjoy my surroundings in any setting so far this year. I believe this incident was an act of God.

Alas, my mother showed up like a knight in shining armor with my spare key to unlock the car so I could retrieve my goods and then she gave me a complimentary escort to the front door of the college. What a great mom! I was sure to show my appreciation for her help, but I was also much happier that in the grand scheme of things this would-have-been dilemma turned into a blessing in disguise.