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Just an observation.
Douchebags are popular, and not all popular people are douchebags (but given the number of douches, most are).
I know this because (pick one):
A) I work with a...
B) I live with a...
C) I am myself a...
D) I regularly use a...
douchebag.
Something strange happens here in Georgia. They have these things, called trees, that grow so they can shed yellow dust on everything, poisening some humans (and even dogs). It reminds me of the movie "The Happening", which was mediocre, but the concept is logical: trees will attack you with allergens until you just want to kill yourself!
But some things can be worse, like:
- Styrofoam peanuts, left overnight, can multiply and migrate quickly. They are keen on hiding in tight, inaccessable places. When encountered with free-roaming stryofoam peanuts, run away or capture and place them in an air-tight container.
- Milk, when dropped from a height of about 3 feet, can explode from inside a container leaving splash marks as far as the living room (about 12 feet).
- Shortly after purchasing my car, I got pulled over for not having my tags. That was OK, but then I learned if you have a crack in the windshield longer than a dollar bill, you will need about 220 dollar bills to replace it.
- When I moved to GA, I got stuck at the Atlanta airport for 10 hours. The Atlanta airport likes to play the game "musical gates", where previously assigned gates can be changed at the last minute before departure.
- While I've been accepted to University, I can't enroll until late May, and because I mistook the role of the word "accepted" as "enrolled" I'm stuck paying 500 dollars rent until June when I can live on campus (as an enrolled student) paying 425 for EVERYTHING. Plus, they have a free pool table.
- The store where I work claims to be better and smarter than all other competitors, but even when I apply my 10% discount their cost for groceries is still higher than their main competitor!
- I was seven minutes late on my first day of work, plus I clocked out late. Also, I lost most of my vocal capacity on that same day.
- I won't have enough money to travel and see my friend Hanne when she visits the USA for the very first time!
I guess I can't blame the trees for everything.
From 1 Corinthians, 13-14:
If I could speak in any language in heaven or on earth but didn't love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a loud gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would I be? And if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, without love I would be no good to anybody. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it, but if I didn't love others, I would be of no value whatsoever.
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in tongues and special knowledge will all disappear. Now we know only a little, and even the gift of prophecy reveals little! But when the end comes, these special gifts will all disappear.
It's like this: when I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now.
There are three things that will endure-faith, hope, and love-and the greatest of these is love.
So it's the weekend of Valentine's Day, neatly etched in-between the Christmas season and my birthday on the 16th, and I've heard a lot of talk about love via the Internet and You Tube. A common issue people have with Valentine's Day, and any other holiday for that matter, is the exploitation of the appropriate theme of the day by commercial enterprise. It's a valid argument, if not a cynical one.
Let's not allow the commercial sector to diminish the values that we hold dear. If love is important to you, every day of the year is a potential holiday.
Therefore during these popular holidays I am urged to reflect on the past year, relevant to the theme of the day. So if I take the time to consider what is love, and how I have displayed love throughout the year, I am more likely to celebrate life and love on a daily basis and not just Valentine's Day. Cultural traditions and social pressures can interfere with our personal reverence by insisting that on these "special days" we should drop a dollar or two, but if you make a daily effort to consider what is most valuable to you, this sort of influence becomes irrelevant. That's why for me a holiday is primarily a date marked for reflection.
So I offer my reflection on what I have learned about love this past year, what is love? For me, there is a difference between being in love, and sharing love. The simple difference is that in the second case there are at least two parties active and involved in loving each other, while in the first case there is no other person to receive love. This means I can be in love with a girl, or a car, or any thing at all, but that person or that thing does not reciprocate. Therefore, this is not love at all, but attraction to a need or from a wanting, and confusing that with love means you cannot receive it in return. Attraction is fine, even pleasant, and desire is usually disappointing.
I think love is the product of dedication and trust, both of which require consistent selfless action, not attraction to a fantasy. And only when those two factors are met, and recognized equally, can two people share love. Another issue emerges, however, when love itself becomes the desire. The desire for love can make us forget that we need to develop dedication and trust, together, before we get to share love. This error is understandable because both dedication and trust require hard work, and often sacrifice and compromise together, for the sake of another person who may not initially appreciate or offer these in return.
For this reason love and risk usually meet together in the same sentence. Just remember that what's at stake is only your time and energy, and if you offer this first and it isn't welcomed, it is their loss and your heart will still be safe. This is why it can be so exciting when you find someone who responds to your work, it's actually validating.
Love is like a goad for two people, working together, each trusting, and each dedicated to whatever service is needed from each other. Love is the result of our selfless efforts, the energy that moves us when we feel like giving up. Keep in mind I am not only talking about couples and romance, but of family and community as well. So the better question now is: what is dedication, and what is trust? Make a holiday out of those values!
"If the light you think you have is truly darkness, how great that darkness must be!"
