Fin

Ok. Finally. I've told myself I was going to write the end of this mini-series deal every night for the past few weeks. So here it is. I guess the whole goal of this was to give you, as readers, a better idea of who I am and where I came from. Also, to remind myself of the things that I've experienced and learned. As you can see, my life did not have much tragedy. There hasn't been a lot of drama. My religious journey is not that much different than a lot of others'. When it all comes down to it, I have a very average and normal life on paper. I've always thought I needed tragedy, sadness, or something extraordinary to write something worthwhile. But I also realize that not very many people write about the things that happen everyday to everybody. And these are the people that read my stuff. So to start off, I will compose a list of some of the things that I have learned from my growing up experience.

1. There are a lot of imperfect people out there. Actually, there are over 6 billion imperfect people out there.
2. I am one of those.
3. It is possible to survive off of bread and ramen noodles for a week.
4. It feels like crap when people have bad things to say about you behind your back.
5. It is second nature to judge everyone you see in some way.
6. There is always someone that has it worse than you. Way worse.
7. Beer tastes good.
8. Power has a very corruptive nature.
9. You have to forgive people. Even if they don't ask.
10. I've taken my parents for granted.
11. The difference between real and not real friends is loyalty
12. You can't change your past, but you can shape your future.
13. Love is so overrated, yet drastically underrated at the same time.
14. School is stupid.
15. I will never change who I am for someone else.

This whole thing was kind of about my spiritual journey. So here's that part. I have two answers that I have found. Two answers that, barring extremism, are true to most every religion. Jesus gave the two most important commandments. They are:

1. Love your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind.
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments hang all the law.

When you think about it, that is the foundation of all religion. I believe that these are the two most important things any person can do. I set out to find out what religion is "right" and as it turns out...all of them that follow those two things. It all depends how you live. And I've come to find out that even by merely attempting to do these two things, my life is much better. Number 9 on my list coincides with this. You have to forgive people. Even the dumbest and seemingly petty things. When a guy cuts you off in traffic, how long do you dwell on that? If you are like me, you automatically thing that guy has something against you. Something as stupid as that will anger me for a good minute. Sometimes it can ruin my day. But if I make it a point to forgive the guy who, for one, might not have even realized he cut me off, it's over and done with. I can move on. I can stop obsessing over stupid and miniature things. I honestly believe that this world could heal if everyone had more grace. That's why I'm so stuck on it. If everyone was forgiving, there would be no judging, there would be no drama, and there would be no war. However, I fear that reality shows might not be on TV much longer. And that, as we all know, would be a tragedy.

I learned a lot from reading. I really got into reading other people's stories. That might be what inspired me to write all of this. I love learning from others' experiences. One book in particular was A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. A short rundown of the book: Both of his parents died and he was left to take care of his 8 year old brother when he was in his early 20's. But as tragic as that sounds, I found myself actually becoming JEALOUS of his life! I couldn't figure it out. Here are two people that have lived through something that no one should ever have to live through, and I am jealous. The whole book I was searching myself to see what I didn't have that they did. It was a number of things. But I think the most important one is that they always lived life one day at a time and they made the best of every second. Dave never once wished for a different life. He took what was given to him and he made it his. And that was amazing to me. That someone could be so happy amongst such tragedy. That's how I want to live my life.

In regards to my Catholic Church post. Yes, I do believe that the Catholic Church is very very corrupt. I also believe that a lot of churches and religions are corrupt. Everything that has power is corrupt somehow, somewhere. Do I believe all of the people following the religion are corrupt? No, I don't. Because when it all comes down to it, they follow the same two commandments. That whole post was more about me coming to the realization that power can corrupt you than condemning people. It holds true in all other religions, politics, big business, and more.

Besides all of that, one huge thing that I have learned is that I can be a blessing to other people. I've always thought that I couldn't because I'm not perfect. But I've realized, through other people that have blessed me and given me wisdom, that I can do the same thing. My sophomore year of college was huge. I learned to slow down. I learned to stop trying to get from A to B. Then B to C. Then C to D. With no stops in between. And that's what I have to share with other people. I see so many people trying to force life to happen. It's like they are trying to get to the end as fast as they can. I've seen people go through school as fast as they can. Get a big boy job as fast as they can. Get married as fast as they can. And when they look back, I fear they might realized they missed a lot of things that were right in front of them. I would always say, "Well when I get to this point things will be better. When I get done with this my life will be easier." But I never took the time to make the current moment better. And here's a spoiler alert. Rarely, I repeat...rarely will ANYONE get to the point where their life is just great and perfect. This comes from reading Ecclesiastes. Here you have the richest and wisest king maybe to ever life. He had everything. He knew everything. But he was still miserable. Because he realized that in the end, none of that stuff matters. Choose what you want to matter, and make the most out of it. You don't need what you think you need. You don't need what you can't have. If things don't work out the way you want it to, move on. Don't let it weigh you down. There are so many opportunities to live. So many things you can do.

So that's about it. I could write more. Way more. But I already have, really. In the form of over 100 blog posts in the past which somewhat document this journey. Apologies if you didn't get the epic ending you were hoping for. When it all comes down to it, I still haven't found all of the answers to life. And I probably never will. But isn't that the beauty of it? If we were given everything we wanted to know, where would the mystery be? Would we even care to live anymore? What if we knew what was going to happen when we die? If we could see everything, documented and cited in MLA format, would faith even exist anymore? Would there even be any hope? I think faith is what drives us. I think hope is what drives us. I think believing that there is a divine power out there, not only helps us get by, but allows us to live in a way that we otherwise couldn't. So here is my message to you, devoted blog reader. Don't stop believing in whatever it is you believe in (especially now that you have Journey stuck in your head). When it all comes down to it, nothing is wrong or right. We are driven by what we believe in. It makes us move. It gets us out of bed in the morning. Never lose faith in what you believe in, and never lose faith in yourself. Don't ever let someone tell you what to believe in. Don't ever let someone tell you that you can't do something. Most importantly...write your own story. Don't just take the life you have been given and make it through. You have endless possibilities. You can be anybody. You can do anything. Don't ever settle. We were not put on this earth to die. We were put here to live. We were put here to thrive. We. Are. Infinite.

The next post is yours...

I realize I just posted, but felt the need for a new one to introduce this: I want to make a post for you guys. I know there's at least 3 people that read this. I want to talk about what you guys want me to talk about. Whether it be a ramble, something insightful, something religious, sports, anything. Just don't touch politics. So if you want to hear me talk about something, shoot me a comment. What do you enjoy reading?

The Social Media Generation

In case you were wondering how I decide what to post here, my train of thoughts goes as follows: A thought crosses my mind, then goes away. Then it comes back and I ponder it for a while. Then I decide to tweet about it. Then I realize i can't cover it in a tweet or 3. So I come here. And then after I get my main point across, I say something else that I though about that is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. The small audience I have here probably appreciates it more anyway. So here's on of those thoughts. I don't really know the technical length of a "generation." I've never really researched it. But I tend to think of a new generation being about every 5-10 years. Sounds short. But let me explain. Older people will always group someone my age (23) with someone that's 16 and call it "the younger generation." And maybe back in the olden days, these two people would be fairly similar with the exception of maturity. But the newest springs of technology, I believe, have shortened that span of people than can all be grouped together.

This all leads up to what I like to call the social media generation. Although I constantly divulge myself in social media platforms (some say it's easier to reach me via twitter than text or phone) I don't consider myself to be included in the one that I am referring too. The social networking generation includes those that grew up with social networking. As in, when they knew what internet was, they knew what Facebook was. Although I'm not what you would call an old fart, I remember the 56k dial-up modems when they first became commercial. beeeeeee...bu bu bee bu bu bu bee.....weeeeeuuhhhhwweeeuhhhhhwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeerrrrwiiier. That was my best impression of a dialup modem. If you remember them, you got me. Back to the blog. I went through the internet being created. I remember when cable modems came out. The day we got ours, I got on Napster and downloaded every Blink 182 song and thought it was the most incredible thing in the world. So since I've seen this all evolve, I think I have a different perspective than someone who is born into this. For one, before internet and social media, we actually had to make up things to do. People wonder why childhood obesity is a problem. It's the internet. It's the social media sites that let you create an alter ego. I didn't have that. I played baseball. I played cops and robbers. I pretended a box was a fort. I beat up Toph. I rode my bike. I didn't have 250 friends. I had about 5. Nobody knew what I was doing unless they called the house phone to check in. And just think. If you update twitter or facebook, hundreds of people immediately know what you are doing. At any time, they can check your interests, look at pictures, and find other information. The whole point of the last few sentences...this is relatively new. 15 years ago, I had a dialup modem and was happy to play checkers against a stranger.

And I'm not saying that this new internet surge is a problem. I actually think it's incredible. What I am saying, is that it is going to be really interesting when this generation hits the real world. I don't really know what to expect. Except for newer, even greater technology. The technology we have now came from people that were lucky to have a black and white TV. With Google, Wikipedia, and other information sources in the palm of one's hand from the age they understand how to work it...the possibilities are crazy to think about. What will happen the next few years? When the social media generation starts making decisions. When they start coming up with new ideas. I hope they hurry up and invent a time machine. I said some things once that were pretty dumb.

Ending question that has nothing to do with this post except the last sentence. If you could go back in time and take out one thing and replace it, what would it be? This thing wouldn't affect the present life, there would only be a different memory in it's place. I would go back to when my ex-girlfriend said she didn't love me anymore. And I would laugh instead of cry. And then I would make a fart sound with my mouth and walk away. Not the kind you make with your tongue, but with your lips. The one that goes....pphhhhhrrrrrr. And now that I have that visual, that is actually what happened from now on. Maybe I don't need a time machine. Since we're on the subject, think about this. If you had your whole life in front of you and you could remake your decisions without seeing the final outcome, do you think your life would really be better? It's like one of those choose your own ending Goosebumps books. What if you didn't date that one person? What if you did date that one person? What if you chose to go to another college? What if you didn't go to college? What if you played football? Where would you be? I would probably be fat in one of my other lives.

Oops. I am nowhere near the topic I started with.