some thoughts on belief

Recently, there have been lots of opportunities in my life for unbelief, doubt, and despair. While I don't *like* these feelings, it's often easier to live in those feelings than in feelings of belief and joy etc. Easier because it's more the tendency of human nature, not easier because it feels better; it doesn't. 

With all these opportunities arising, I've been trying to figure out how to deal with the negative pressure that builds with negative thinking. I've got a lot of important deadlines coming up, I'm trying to keep my relationships in order, and it gets difficult sometimes. "What if this happens? What if some problem comes up you didn't plan on? What if you mess something up?" Questions like this keep playing in my head, and sometimes I just want to scream for it all to stop. To let me have a few minutes of silence and peace, a moment to collect my thoughts. 

All my life, I've heard people teach about standards and the best ways to ensure you keep them. "Decide now, know what your decision will be. That way, if the choice ever arises, you've already decided." So I've been thinking, why can't that same philosophy carry over into this? Can you simply decide to choose belief, not fear? Why not? I think that it's a very viable idea. I've been trying it, and it's an extremely empowering feeling. I feel like I'm winning more battles in my head, but also in my life. I feel more like the person I was made to be.  Kinda cool. 

Whenever the decision comes to give into fear, or rise above with faith, I choose to believe. 

I believe, and that sets me free. 

Something to be grateful for...

In the summer, I sleep with my window open. I did so last night, and woke up feeling similar to a frozen turkey. Okay, maybe not quite that extreme, but same idea. The days are getting shorter, I'm seeing Halloween decorations for sale, and my friends are all back in school. The calendar is telling me (and I'm finally resigning to the thought) that Autumn is right around the corner, with Winter shortly to follow. If I were to make a list of things I love, and things I can barely tolerate about the end of summer, the latter would far outweigh the former. However, there's nothing I can do to stop the seasons from changing, so I'm going to try and focus on the things that make me happy. 

I love corn mazes. Not haunted ones, just the normal, walk-around-with-your-friends/family ones. I think they're great. Plus, they smell good. 

I love Autumn leaves. Drives through the canyon in the Fall are one of my favorite things. Autumn in Utah is breathtaking. 

I love Thanksgiving. The food is bonus, I just like the family getting together, preparing the food, watching movies, making plans for the sales, Black Friday itself, it's just all fun. 

I love the first snow fall. Sitting on my bed, wrapped up in a blanket, watching it out the window. It feels like the world has stopped for a moment. I also like listening to it. I think it's incredible how well you can hear it.

I love cold-weather attire. I think it's much more classy (in general) than summer attire. I know, no one dresses like this anymore. But I liked the picture.

I love the food. Most of it I can't eat anymore, but I still like it.

I love the scents. Cinnamon, pumpkin pie, evergreen, apples, hot chocolate, sugar cookies, good stuff.

I love blankets, and cold weather gives more opportunity to use them. My cute neighbor lady told me once that she believes that blankets (and quilts especially) have personalities and spirits. At first I thought it was kind of weird, but I actually kind of like the thought. 

I love reading by a fire. Or sleeping. I just like fireplaces in the winter.

I feel like people are often more giving and happy around Christmas. Less self centered, more aware o f the people around them. I love that. I also love giving pennies to the Salvation Army guy. 

With these things sprinkled into the colder months, they're not too bad. Until February and March. There are no saving graces there.

I will mention one thing I don't like at all. Not something I dread, just something I don't like. I don't like Skiing. Not one bit. 

Thankfully, that's something I can opt out of.

Sometimes...

Sometimes people are so nice that you just have to cry.

The other day at work, a ridiculously silly situation happened, and I ended up losing a $50 gift card. Kim wasn't home, so I had to tell Kirk. I was dying. I told him, he was nice about it, but I was still dying. I drove home on the verge of tears. I texted Kim about it when I got home, and she didn't respond for the longest time. All these thoughts are racing around in my head that they're going to fire me, and that they'll never trust me again. By the time I go to bed, I'm still an emotional wreck. Right as I'm about to fall asleep, Kim texted me. "Megan, it's okay. It was just a mistake, don't worry about it. We'll figure it out." And I started bawling because she was so nice about it. Why? I'm not really sure. But sometimes you just have to cry.

From Comprehension to Understanding

In my brain, the difference between these two words is slight, but large enough to matter significantly. By definition, they're pretty similar, but I'm bypassing Mirriam today; bear with me.

It's the difference between knowing which notes to play and knowing how to play them.
It's the difference between seeing someone in pain, and knowing what their pain feels like.
It's the difference between speaking a script, and becoming the character.
It's the difference between being the reader of an autobiography, and being the author.
It's the difference between passing the test, and applying what you learn.
It's the difference between knowing the death rate of children in Africa, and going there and seeing why they're dying.
It's the difference between thoughts and actions.

I think people too often pass through life comprehending a lot of things, but not taking the time to understand very much. Because once you understand something, you're under more of an obligation to act on the knowledge. It would be so much easier to be blind to some things. It would be easier to ignore when things go wrong, to ignore the people in pain around you, and to ignore that not everything can be mended in the way you had hoped. Or would it be? Is ignorance really bliss? Or is it just an excuse to lead an empty life?

Here's my opinion. I think that ignorance is possibly the farthest thing from bliss imaginable. Ignorance is a chain; you can't act when you're under its influence. It ties you down to "comfort," and you never are able to grow. You remain dormant, never really living or breathing. When you start understanding, your eyes open to so much more around you. Some of it will be very painful and unpleasant, but some of it is also very beautiful. After all, you can't taste the sweet without the bitter. And I truly believe, that when you open your eyes and begin understanding, your capacity to influence change becomes greater. I've seen it happen.

Isn't it sweeter, easier, and much more fulfilling to be a powerful influence for good, than to lie dormant, never aware of what truly lies around you? That's what I think, and that's how I choose to live.

My random pleasures

Delicious perfume and cologne.

I especially love the fact that the same one can smell entirely different, depending on the person. Fascinating.

Tigers

Look at that. What's not to love?

Basil

There's something extremely.. comforting about it. I love cooking with it. Especially on...
Homemade Pizza

Pizza from most places makes me cry a little on the inside. Homemade pizza? SOO good.

Mountains

In particular, hiking in them

There's something about being in the mountains, that you don't get anywhere else. 

There's such deep peace and tranquility there. When I'm emotionally drained and hurting, this is where I like to go

Minty Lipgloss

This kind, right here. Other lipgloss is pointless. 'Nuff said 

Regina Spektor

I love her style, I love her music. I love that she dares to be completely unique. 

Anthropologie

Every time I go to Gateway, I come here. it's just... really cool.

pinkpersimmon.tumblr.com

If I could live in this blog, I very happily would. 

The ocean

Okay, this is maybe a tie with the mountains. I need a beach house.

Full moons

Some nights, I stay up extra late, just to look at them

Steinways

Heaven under my fingertips and in my ears

My yellow piano

Not a Steinway, but my baby all the same

Rachmaninoff

Possibly my favorite composer of all time. He gets me. 

Psych

Yup. I love it.

Dancing

I used to dream of being a professional dancer... Never happened, but I still love it. 

These movies

These are my soul movies. I love them very deeply. 

Movies I Love - Part I.

Jane Eyre.

I'd read this book a few years ago and remembered it as sad, long, and semi painful, but when my cousins invited me to go, I figured I may as well. And I absolutely fell in love. It was fabulously done, the actors were superb, and it was very well depicted. Along with being a very well done film, it taught me some things that I've been pondering on ever since I've seen it.

One of the things that especially struck me was Jane's matter-of-factness about life. She had a tragic childhood and youth, was stripped of everything and had to make her own living, and her relatives hated her. Everything very much in order for pity from others and of herself. Yet when asked by her new employer to tell her "tale of woe", she simply says she has no tale of woe, and recounts with plain details her past story. "No tale of woe?" he replies, his voice fringed with sarcasm. So often I see myself and others using anything negative that  happens to us as an excuse. An excuse for pity, for being depressed, for not showing kindness or excitement, for allowing ourselves to become numb, and so forth. This being the case, it gave me a new perspective on trials and how I've abused them in the past. I think it really is abuse. When something unexpected or unpleasant happens, we can learn from it or it can take us down. I've known that for a long time, but I never added in the aspect of how we view it. How we deal with it is one thing, but how we see it is something else entirely. Hmm, food for thought.

Another thing I loved was the scene where Jane leaves from Thornfield. On the day of her marriage to the man she was so very deeply in love with, she finds out at the alter that the marriage cannot happen because he already has a wife. Granted that wife is insane, but a wife is a wife. After an extremely emotional day, her husband-to-be talks with her and pleads "Who would you offend by living with me?" Her reply, "Myself, sir." And then amidst their sobs, she tears herself away and leaves. The two things I liked about this scene was, first, the refreshing perspective of relationships. In society today, I think that the view of relationships in general is very flawed and unhealthy. If you "love" someone, anything is acceptable. There are little to no boundaries, and "love" had become extremely self-centered and for pleasure only. Too often, the media gives this flawed view of love an excessive amount of glory, so it was nice to see a new outlook on it. The second thing I liked was the view of self-respect it gave. Very rarely does someone set a standard of respect for themselves, and even more rarely is it kept. But Jane did exactly that, she knew what was right for her, and even though no one would have known, she had to keep that standard for her. To fail to do so would break her, even more deeply than separating herself from her love. And I feel like the more respect you have for yourself, the more you have for others. So by leaving him, she was showing a greater portion of love than if she stayed. Beautiful.

The simplicity, the sophistication and refinement, the beauty, ahh, this movie is extremely superb. A feast for my soul.

Wake Up and Smell the Smog

A nuclear winter sounds like a horrifying event, one which no one would like to live through. The major problem in this disaster would be the excess pollution blocking out the sun, halting the progress of life as we know it, or more accurately, of life. Plants would stop production of chlorophyll, would stop needing carbon dioxide, and would stop producing oxygen. Although the atmosphere is 8% oxygen, we would slowly suffocate ourselves, simply by breathing, which would only occur if we don’t die from the cataclysmic event, or the poisoning from the toxic air first. The ominous fact is we have begun down this path towards poisoning and suffocation, a surefire way to commit a worldwide genocide.

You might say that this can never happen. The cold war has ended, we have stopped stockpiling our nuclear weapons, we are on positive terms with all other nations with atomic bombs, or at least not pursuing aggression of any form against them. So what will cause this nuclear winter? The world has functioned superbly for thousands, if not millions of year, so the answer is obviously us, and more specifically our actions, which have predicated our downfall due to our use and usage of unclean fuels such as coal and gas.

We can trace this partnership between coal and ourselves back to the industrial revolution in Great Britain, when coal was first used to power plants to create desired products out of raw goods, and progress human civilization positively. This was our first major poisoning of ourselves, and it was followed by many later doses of toxins throughout the world. Like a drug user we recieved momentary surges forward from this, but were always left wanting more. Now the earth is truly becoming poisoned, and we are suffocating with enormous amounts of smoke and industrial haze being poured into the air.

Admittedly, Americans are the worst culprits, producing around 20 tons of carbon emissions per person, compared with the average 18 tons produced by Saudi Arabians and Canadians who are the next largest producers. The Chinese who we view as having extremely polluted cities only produce a surprising 2 tons per person, 2 tons less than the world wide average. What these statistics show is that we Americans are the worst producer of carbon emissions, but being at the top (in a negative way) means that improving should be easier for us.

Of our 20 tons of carbon emissions produced annually, about 82% is produced from fossil fuel combustion. We NEED to work together as a community, a United States community to reduce this number. Turning off all the lights not being used in the house, using public transportation as often as possible in all cities that are visited, and driving a car that has a low impact in the environment are all positive ways to start. Use air-dryers in public restrooms verses using paper towels, which have to later be driven to a dump or a recycling plant, and walk whenever possible. Education about carbon footprints is the key to this process. So now that you have learned, how will you reduce your contribution to nuclear winter?