A Bit Manicky

Yeah, that’s right, I just did that.  I was so impressed with myself the other day when I told Stef that I decided to use it in a blog title.  Some people complain at times of being a bit panicky.  While I do struggle with that sometimes as well, now is definitely not one of those times.  Right now I have a whole different set of problems on my hands.  You see, right now I’m a bit manicky.

What is manicky you may be asking yourself.  Well, allow me to try and explain it.  First off, you should probably note the spell checker is picking that word up so it’s probably not a real word.  Crazier things have happened, right?  I mean, if google can be turned into a verb than surely manicky can become a proper adjective, right?

Lately, I’ve got a fair amount going on in my life.  We’re putting the house on the market so I have all these little projects to do.  I have a 2 week orientation coming up in early February in Ft. Myers for the missions agency I’m going to be joining soon.  I will hopefully finally be leaving for Myanmar next month after said orientation.  I’m meeting Stef in Prague in April for a 10 day vacation.  Speaking of which, I’m missing Stef something terrible lately.  I have to find a place for all this leftover furniture.  I’ve got a spot for most of it but there is still a fair amount left to get rid of on Craig’s list or somewhere.

As a result, this has been a trigger as stress can often be for times of either mania or depression.  A trigger is just what it sounds like…it causes something else to happen.  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, right?  Well, not exactly in this case.  Usually you have a cause like stress or lack of sleep that results in an episode of mania or depression.  Then the equal reaction takes place usually afterwards, if you’re manic you get depressed and if you’re depressed you get manic(ky).

Honestly, mania can be a ton of fun.  Right now it’s just kind of annoying though.  I really want to sleep, but my brain simply won’t turn off.  I took what I deemed to be the necessary amount of meds and still nothing.  It’s now past 4:30 in the morning and I can assure you I show no signs of slowing down for a while yet.  I prayer-journaled, I’ve been downloading all my music and TV shows onto my iTunes account to prepare for the bad internet in Yangon and I just had to get a new hard drive due to anger issues.

If you’ve ever wanted to know what it’s like to feel manic, I suggest you go rent or buy the movie “Limitless” that stars Bradley Cooper.  It’s the best description of mania I’ve ever come across, without meaning to.  The main character basically gets on a wonder drug that unlocks his mind.  He suddenly sees everything different.  His mind works faster than anyone else’s.  He’s able to accomplish an incredible amount.  Okay, so that parts a little different from mania.  If you can focus your mania you can get a tremendous amount accomplished, but if you go too manic you can’t string together coherent thoughts and as a result start a ton of different projects without finishing any of them.

In case you were wondering, manicky is now a part of my dictionary for Word, oh yeah!  Who knew it was so easy to come up with a new word and make it feel official??  Well, take care of yourself and stay classy, Twitter and Facebook worlds.

Lessons Learned in 2013

This is a little late.  At first, I was considering writing a blog with New Year’s Resolutions.  It’s not that I don’t have any.  Rather, I read a blog that said if you post them on a blog it has the same effect on the brain as actually completing them somehow.  So, that’s out the window.  This will have to suffice for now I suppose.

The first lesson would have to be that Jesus is enough.  This past year was fairly traumatic all the way around for me.  I resigned from teaching.  I started down a new path for a different career.  Looking back, it was a long time coming.  Back in April, I took a leave of absence for the remainder of the school year due to severe depression.  Through it all though, Jesus has proved He is more than enough.  It’s been a good reminder this year of something I already knew.  Now I just know it on a deeper level.

The second lesson would be that sometimes depression can really get the best of you no matter what do.  Try as you might, sometimes it just won’t let you go.  Go to therapy, exercise, eat healthy, meet with friends, do everything right, and it still sometimes can take over.  That is what I experienced in the winter and spring of this past year.  Depression can be a really crippling thing.  It can sap you of all your energy.  You can sleep 14 hours a day and still end up feeling tired somehow. 

The third lesson is to do what you love as a career.  The past few years I’ve felt a tug at first that turned into an outright tornado force of a pull towards living full time overseas.  I have struggled with this decision for many years but it’s now time to go.  Every summer I go overseas I am really happy, so why wouldn’t I try that full time?  I’m sure the newness will wear off after a while as this is always inevitable.  If I’m doing something that I find value in though I think I will necessarily be better off as a result.

The fourth lesson is to trust in Jesus.  Just because you feel like you finally found your calling doesn’t mean there won’t be any difficulties left in your life.  As a matter of fact, you may face even more difficulty than before.  The hardest thing is the waiting.  When you know what you’re supposed to be doing and you still have to wait for everything to fall into place can just be infuriating sometimes.

The fifth lesson is it’s not all about me.  When we planted the Creek Church 5 years ago that is something we always told each other when we’d get discouraged and couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.  I didn’t get it at all during that time.  Slowly but surely I’m starting to understand, in spite of my stubborn heart.

The sixth lesson is that love isn’t a bad thing.  I didn’t really date for a decade and now I’m in a serious relationship with a beautiful woman named Steffani.  I couldn’t be happier and am really glad I opened my heart up to her finally on a romantic basis.  We tried to date before but I didn’t really allow her in, if that makes sense to you.

The seventh lesson is follow through.  This is so difficult for me for some reason.  I start a ton of different ideas and projects and almost never follow through it seems like.  I have a feeling this will be an ongoing struggle the rest of my life.  Hopefully Steffani will help me with this as we do life together.

The eighth lesson is to risk it all.  Jesus doesn’t call us to be comfortable.  We often lose sight of this in the states.  He calls us to get out of our comfort zone, whether that’s helping a local ministry feed the homeless or going halfway across the world to do something you believe in.

The ninth lesson is to not shy away from confrontation.  Confrontation is healthy and needed.  I sure do hate it though, I can tell you that.  I run away from it more often than not, but that almost never works.  It either produces bitterness in me or leads to misunderstanding for the other party.

The tenth lesson is that family and friends are treasures and should be treated as such.  When you’re at your lowest, that shows you who is a true friend.  I consider my friends down here and from my past to be more like my family.  They always listen, always encourage, always rebuke.  I don’t know where I’d be without them.

Well, ten seems like a natural stopping point.  I was going to stop at seven but decided I had more in the tanks.  Maybe I’ll be able to sleep now, seeing as how it’s 11 after 4, yuck.  Side note, 4/11 is my birthday, so that seems like a lucky stopping point, right?

Political consistency and a willingness to change one's mind

Some guys and I were hanging out last night and we discussed politics briefly.  The subject was Chris Christie and whether his presidential run in 2016 was already over before it started due to the latest controversy.  I happen to respect Governor Christie even while I am a Democrat because I think he’s one of the few politicians who actually reaches across the aisle.  This seems to be lacking in today’s politics to a large extent it seems and I think we would be wise to vote more of these types of people in.  Not that I’m endorsing a Republican or anything, just that we need both parties to work across the aisle more.

One of the guys commented how anytime a politician makes a decision and passes a law, there are unintended consequences.  There have to be when you’re passing laws that are going to effect 300 million people, right?  The unfortunate thing in politics is that a politician can’t say he was wrong and try another route, at least not without being labeled a flip-flopper like Romney was and many others have been as well.

Why are we willing to forgive ordinary people for their faults but not politicians?  I’m not defending politicians here necessarily, I’m simply pontificating on what I think would happen if one of them were to admit they were wrong and made a terrible mistake and are now taking steps to right that wrong.  Whether it was Bush who should’ve said he was wrong about Iraq and pulled out much sooner or Obama who should’ve said he was wrong about the Affordable Care Act; our political climate simply doesn’t allow for our leaders to admit their mistakes and weaknesses.

I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather elect someone who saw something they did as wrong and as a result tried to fix it rather than someone who bulldozed ahead with a project even when it was clearly not working.  I heard Tony Campolo talk back in 2008 about how the way forward in Iraq was to repent, to admit we were wrong and take a new way forward.  He advocated for the Arab armies to take over, an Arab League or something I think is what was around at the time?  Then there’s Obamacare, which as someone pointed out to me recently, it’s a good thing in a way that Obama is going to make sure it works because I’m a direct beneficiary of it.  However, maybe there is a different way forward for healthcare?

In 2010 the Tea Party influenced the election quite a bit and most of the candidates were elected because they wouldn’t compromise on issues.  Well, look how well that turned out.  We had a bit of a hassle with a government shutdown with plenty of blame to cast on both parties, but polls show the House suffered the biggest loss in political support.  Isn’t it a sign of maturity that one is willing to change when presented with new information?  Some wrongly see this as a sign of weakness so allow me to elaborate a bit.

Slavery was seen as a Biblically defensible practice for quite some time in our history.  When people were presented with new information though, they started to change, and that was a good thing, right?  For much of history, women were seen as nothing more than a mere possession like a donkey or mule.  Now we see they can contribute more to an economy than men in some instances whether in the first world or third world and so we pass laws that give women more rights, and that’s a good thing, right?  

My point is that we should be teachable in the least and willing to change our minds when presented with new information.  This should not be seen as a sign of weakness.  Perhaps it’s a sign of weak-mindedness to view a change of mind as a weakness.  I know I’ve been guilty of this countless times, have you?

The Difficulties with Consistency and Hypocrisy

Yesterday, as a precursor to what’s probably in store for the remainder of this next week, I saw several people posting about dolphins being killed in Denmark.  It struck me as odd; not that these dolphins were being killed, but rather the backlash that it had produced in a lot of my fellow Americans.  To me, this is no different than a slaughterhouse in America where we kill pigs or cows.  Somehow though, the people who were disgusted by the dolphin pictures are people who I know eat cows and pigs on a regular basis and even hold it as a weird sense of pride or Americanism.  For an example of this, bring up bacon in a conversation and see what happens.

This got me to thinking about consistency and culture somewhat.  I posted something about how dolphins are to Americans as cows are to Indians and got some hilarious responses, all by men I might add.  It’s interesting how across different cultures some animals are considered sacred while others are not.  Apparently, dolphins are considered sacred in American culture.  I think I witnessed the same visceral reaction on Facebook that one would expect were you to take an Indian and show him a picture of a slaughterhouse in America.  If you are wondering whether this is true or not, simply type in the words “inside a slaughterhouse” in a basic Google search and you will see what I mean.

Let’s widen our perspective a little on consistency for a minute.  For me, it is much easier to see hypocrisy and inconsistencies in the lives of others rather than in my own life.  This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t strive for consistency; just that we need to realize that everyone falls short of being completely consistent in their beliefs and especially their practices.  Personally, I like to think I care a great deal about the environment.  In reality though, I fly every single chance I get.  Not only that, but I don’t even buy the carbon offsets!  To top it off while I’m in the midst of my own confession, I’ve come to the point where I don’t even feel guilty about it anymore.

Another area I struggle with is finances.  I have personally helped others get out of debt or at least get better control of their finances.  In the meantime, I eat out way more than could ever be justified by someone who advocates a good personal spending plan/budget or even someone who advocates for an overall healthy lifestyle.

Consistency is so difficult no matter what level, be it individual, a school, a neighborhood, a city, a church or synagogue or mosque, on a societal level period.  I grew up in the Christian subculture and so will reflect momentarily on what I see as a glaring inconsistency there.  Almost every Christian I know is definitively pro-life.  Or are they?  Those same pro-lifers that stand outside of abortion clinics are often the same people that are defending unnecessary wars?  So maybe a better way to put it would be pro-life until a certain age where you can be held responsible for your actions?  And if those actions are against our country than maybe we’re pro-death in your case as opposed to pro-life?

Just to be clear, I’m pro military personnel, not pro-military, in case you were wondering.  I know that may sound like semantics so let me expound for a moment.  I’m pro-personnel, meaning I’d rather see our soldiers be able to stay at home and work on domestic problems in our own country or at the very least care for their families in person as opposed to relying on Skype from Afghanistan and other far away places.  I’m pro-personnel, meaning I’d rather see our ‘defense’ be just that, a ‘defense’ rather than an ‘offense’ as seems to be the case the last decade or so.  I’d also like to try and protect the psyches of our young men and women from the atrocities of war and the subsequent consequences like PTSD by not having them go over to those countries in the first place.

Back to the original idea of the difficulty of consistency; we all struggle with this.  We would do ourselves and the world around us a huge favor if we were as forgiving of one another as we are of ourselves.  Some people want politicians who won’t compromise.  Isn’t that the nature of politics, to compromise?  A case in point might be Ron Paul.  I have never seen a politician’s supporters be as supportive as that guy’s supporters.  However, as a friend pointed out to me, how many laws has he actually passed during his tenure?  I think my friend said he successfully passed only 2 laws during his entire tenure?  It’s more a matter of what you’re willing to compromise over rather than if you’ll compromise at all.

So, what areas do you struggle with consistency and hypocrisy in?  Let me give you a few of mine to help you start thinking that way.  My most clear ones are as follows; pride, purity, environment, loving others as myself among many others I’m sure.  Maybe to get a clearer picture of my struggles you should ask my girlfriend or my family and friends, I’m sure they could point out a ton that I don’t even realize.