How did you get where you are going?

This is a topic that I have written on a few times before, but have you ever wondered how you ended up where you are?  Looked at others and wondered what decisions led them to the lifestyle they are currently leading.

It was that one cross road, they idea that it would be, "just this once" when you had that opportunity to chose the "red pill, or the blue pill".  Why did you pick what you picked?  Was it pressure from someone, the idea that it was going to benefit you or even, you knew it was not beneficial, but did it anyway?

Why do we do that? Why did we do that? Think about it.  Good news, it can change. You can change.  Don't let your past dictate your future.  When repent and turn to Christ, we are given a new heart, new desires, new priorities.  Don't let tomorrow be dictated by today.

Below is something I wrote back in 2010 regarding this same grain of thought.

Josh

When did you become you?

September 5, 2010 at 10:14pm

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Have you ever stopped to think when you became yourself?  What brought you to who you are right now?  I was looking around the other day at people and then contrasting that to Emeline and wondered what brought them to that point in their life.  At some point as Emeline grows, she is going to start making decisions.  I am praying that early on she will find her Salvation with Christ and that will shape her thoughts and desires, but even so, as she grows she will start becoming Emeline the kid, teenager, then finally the adult.

What made you who you are?  Think about yourself when you were a kid.  Did you worry so much about what people think?  What you were going to wear the next day, or what you were eating that night?  All it took was a stuffed animal and a nightlight and all was well with the world.  When did that stop being enough?  When did that 1 decision lead to more "1 decisions" that brings you up to you as you read this?  Is this what you imagined yourself to be?  Are you the kind, innocent, person of your youth?  Why not?  Did one person urge you to make a bad choice that started it all.  If you are someone who is always into trouble, think back to before you were, what happened? Why are you doing it now? I know that we are all fallen (Romans 3:23) but when did you become hateful, judgmental, proud, or conceded?  When did you become kind, loving and compassionate?  Have you lived your life the way you wanted to or the way God wants you to?

Who was today about, you or God?  It is never too late to change, to turn (repent) from our selfish ways and desires and put our life into the hands of the Lord Jesus.  If you do not like who you have become, you can be renewed in Christ.

Each decision you make can bring you closer to the person you wanted to be, or closer to the person you never thought you would be.  It is strange to compare a kid next to an adult.  They have it right.  God wants us to have faith like a child.  Why do we pervert that?  Before you make that next choice, or follow through with that next decision.  Stop for a min and think it through.  Is this who you really wanted to become?  Most importantly, is this who God wants me to be.

You big meanie

It is amazing how us humans are such a proud race.  "I'm not going to let someone do that to,,, ME!" The nerve of someone to think the universe does not revolve around me...  I can't imagine why everyone does not realize that in my world I am right, even when I realize I am not.

One thing I will not do is defend the indefensible.  If I'm caught with red paint on my hands and the wall behind me has my hand prints, I am not going to try to defend myself.  However, if you are, in my head, unseasonably mean to me, I will not stand for it.  Most of the time, I am going to look for allies to make sure my indignation is in check, then watch out, I will return fire with logic that at times, can make your head spin.

What is interesting is that when dealing with the "public" I generally will use my logic and stay fairly civil with the opposing side, but with my family, mostly Amy, I turn in to Mr. Jerk pants.  How dare she speak ill at me! I find myself looking for an instant epiphany from her to understand exactly where I am coming from, what I meant, regardless of my tone and what I have subconsciously deemed as an acceptable response/behaviour from her.  I mean, how could she possibly be thinking the same thing about me? I didn't do anything wrong...

90% of the time, if I just walked away and waited 10 min, the disagreement is either a) a mute point or b) not nearly as earth shattering as I thought.  Although, as I mentioned in my first sentence, why would I let that happen, I am right.

The other 10% of the time...ok 90% of the time, what I intended to be nothing more than a factual statement, is construed as a vicious personal attack on Amy.  To me, stating, "dinner is not ready? you said an hour" is really nothing more than a verbal notation that it has been an hour and well, dinner is not ready.  Thus expecting the same logical response from her of, "yep, it'll be about 20 more min."

However, as I'm told, when it comes out of my mouth it sounds something along the lines of "you suck at life and I do not appreciate your efforts to make a tasty dinner for our family". How the translation is lost, I don't know... well, I can't really say that, since a year ago I started this blog with the intention of examining myself and the tone of my voice to try to get to the bottom of it.

I can tell you that I am not exactly there.  I get so frustrated that I hold myself and my words to a much lower standard to my wife than I do anyone outside of my household.  Especially since I have to live with her everyday.  One would think I would put my forth my best effort here at home.

The other item is my desire to resolve any conflict/problem/issue etc. instantly.  It is interesting, I only have that drive to resolve something immediately is if it is bad, or if I feel wronged.  If it meets that criteria, I want it cleared up immediately.  Because of this, when I might actually be right and be due an apology, I generally escalate the situation to the point where I've now stepped in it and started making factual statements.

Learning to stop for a min and walk away is something I have to work on.  I also have to convince myself of the truth that walking away for a min is not a sign of weakness or a way of conceding my perceived victory to the enemy(Amy).  It simply is the wise choice to make sure I don't say something I can't take back.

Mrs. Britt used to talk to me about being careful with my words.  She told me on multiple times that she did not allow gossip or cross words to come from her beauticians.  Running a beauty shop for 50 years full of women will tend to teach you a thing or two about keeping your mouth shut.  I sure do miss her.  She had a lot of wisdom that she attempted to impart to me and for that, I am very grateful.

Till next week, pray that I take a step to step away when the time is appropriate.


Josh


PS. while writing this blog, I had a Semisonic Youtube mix playing on the tv.  Between the fact that when I was 15 I lived in this house and the music is all from the 90's, I sure felt like it was 1997 and I was watching MTV.

Me, nothing to say?

Well, it seems I've made it another week and am back in front of the computer to write my blog.  It took me a while to decide what to write about, at first, I was thinking I'd not have anything for tonight, but those that know me, rarely find me at a loss for words.

This past weekend I did an awful lot of cleaning out.  I had to work in the basement to clean up the leftovers from some mice/rats we had a time ago.  Doing so led me to open lots of boxes of my "treasures".  Some of the things I found were a Polaroid from my 15th birthday, my old pager, a note from my high school girlfriend and some parts to my minidisc recorder.

It was really interesting to me finding these items, because when they were current, I was living here in this same house as a teenager.  Now though, I was looking at these things as a 32 year old married father of 2 kids.

Wow, when I type that out, I sound like such an adult.  It is amazing, I mentioned this a while back on Facebook, but my minds eye doesn't see me as a grown up.  To me, it is still 15 years ago in my head.

Anyway, I digress, where I was going was that finding parts of my minidisc recorder led me to recording some stuff then to editing the files.  That's when I realized that I really missed editing.  In hindsight, I wish I had stuck it out when I was in radio.  Hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

As it goes, all the thoughts in my head turn to pointless ramblings.  Things sound so clear in my head, but as this post seems to be leading is more of a journal entry where I'm allowed to write thoughts out that go nowhere.  So there, I made the post, I make the rules :)

Josh

Schedules

Well, I'm a week in and I'm writing my second blog.  It's been an interesting several days.  A not so great New Years surprise within my family has really kicked my brain into overdrive.  It is interesting how little control we really have over our life.  When things happen that help bring that to our attention, we are forced to look back to the One who does have the control, God.

As I realize I have little control in what happens on a daily basis, I've decided to put more control in my life.  Yeah I know, not a lot of sense in that one.  I was thinking on how I wanted to fulfill my resolutions to make changes in my life and I came back to my high school days. During marching band season, when I had the least amount of time to accomplish school work or other items, I did the most, including maintaining higher grades.  For whatever reason, I do better when I have a set time frame to do a task.  Problem is, I am a procrastinator and a rationalizer.  If there are not firm deadlines, I tend to push the task to a later time.

Thus leading me to my first step to do what I set out to do this year.  I made a calendar that sets my time for each night, including putting a fixed time for my TV viewing.  Even though writing something down doesn't change anything, it sets something up in my brain that tells me to complete what I am working on, then move on.

Hopefully I will find this to be a successful solution and will get some new habits established.  We'll see,

There you have it, my riveting first weekly blog post.  I'll accept my Pulitzer at the end of the year.


Josh

New year, another shot

New Year resolutions, are fairly cliche' and seemingly unnecessary since we really don't need a new year to make changes in our lives, but there is something nice and neat about starting something at the start of a new year.

I generally don't make resolutions, but I am making it a point to make 2015 a year of personal growth for me.  Spiritually, physically and me,  are my focus for 2015.

For me, writing is enjoyable, as is reading.  In 2014 I did not make time to do either.  I started this blog with the intention of writing frequently, and as I logged in and looked, 1 year ago was the last post.  I did have a draft that never made it to post from April, but January 2014 was the last time I posted.

I was disappointed that I did not keep this blog up and did not follow through with my plan.  Granted, I did take note of what I said, but just not in a journal form.  All of that to say my goal for 2015 is to write at least once a week.  I plan to find time to make at least 1 entry, it will not be necessarily in my original theme, but something.  Here's to the new year and a new start,


Josh