Effort

I've been avoiding posting for some time now. It's not that I've been busy. In fact, I haven't done much of anything for almost two weeks now. I've finally got the hang of this relaxing thing. And it's made me do some thinking.

Like I said, for the past week or two, I've been extremely lazy. This means getting up at noon, not showering, watching TV for hours, not looking for a job, and not looking at used cars for sale. I only do what I want to do. At first it was nice - I enjoyed loafing around without any responsibilities. But now I'm beginning to feel a bit...I don't know...dead. I'm starting to wonder if a little discipline in my life wouldn't be all that bad. Maybe taking care of myself means actually putting effort into my life instead of just doing whatever feels best at the moment. I learned this the hard way my last year of school when I put on a lot of weight. I was so stressed and unhappy that I just allowed myself to eat for comfort. What gratified me in the short term left me feeling miserable in the long term. I needed some self-control.

Now, I know, this seems like a stupid lesson. Of course you can't just do what you want all the time. Life requires sacrifices! But realize that I've been living most of my life in hyper-discipline mode. If I didn't get all A's, I was lazy. If I didn't spend time with God daily, I was a bad person. If I didn't invest in my friends, I was selfish. On and on. It was just exhausting. And so I chose the opposite side of the spectrum as a remedy to this burnout.

As cliche as it sounds, I need to learn the principle of moderation. I want to feel happy and fulfilled, and that doesn't come either from hyper-diligence or from complete self-centered living. Some sort of exercise of will is needed to give my life meaning. Life actually takes effort to truly be lived.

Making Lists

I don't think I have ever wanted something so bad that I would do anything to get it. This was my problem when people were trying to get me to accept Jesus for the "first" time. I just didn't want it enough.

Even with this problem, I still have motivation to get things done... but only when I perceive consequences for not doing them. What "they" will think is always what drives me. If "they" are not in the equation, there is no drive. I never seem to be able to motivate myself simply by desire. Sure, I would like to have a car, but I'm driven to save for one more by the thought that the family needs another car than my desire to have one. My sister, on the other hand, sees a car on the way home from work and decides it is "essential to her being" (those are her words).

I really just want to be so filled with passion about something that I can't eat, can't sleep. I want to pine for something, to want something so much that I will work for it. I'm tired of my laziness overcoming all my puny desires. I want something so powerful that it drives me to action. I'm tired of making lists of pros and cons to help me make my decisions. Can't I just follow my heart for once?! I know what I'm asking for has its own problems, but it just seems so much more human to feel with that intensity. Am I really just wired to be bland?

Stuck

Today was a lazy day. I just couldn't bring myself to do much besides sleep. I didn't even take a shower this morning. It's kind of sad.

Near the end of junior high, two of my teachers had us write a letter to our future selves to be opened upon graduating from college. Although some of my friends from back then opened their letters a mere few years after writing them, I just now dug mine out and read it. And to be honest, it made me kind of sad. When I talked about what I wanted to be remembered for, everything just dripped with my perfectionism. It's not that I wanted anything bad in itself, just that I could feel the over-active desire to be liked behind all those goals.

Besides that, all of the goals I had then have now fallen from view. For example, I talked about wanting to keep playing soccer for the rest of my life. The very next school year after writing that, I quit soccer altogether. Another goal was to write professionally. I basically haven't written any fiction since high school, nor do I really have much of a desire to. It just seems like so much work now.

A lot of my current "goals" are like that. I want things, but I don't want to put in the work to get there. I want to lose weight, but the very thought of the gym makes me tired. I want to figure out my relationship with God, but the thought processes I have to go through to get there are so draining. When will I care enough about something again to really just go for it? Sometimes I wish I were more like my sister, who just jumps into things full force, no looking back. She's so fearless. My life, on the other hand, is ruled by fear. I'm so tired of it...but, once again, I just don't have the oomph to make any changes. I guess I'm just stuck.

Pets

I'm starting to not post everyday... I find I just don't have much to say. Maybe a blog was a silly idea after all. Besides, I'm basically just talking to myself on here...

Anyway, I couldn't bring myself to do much of anything today. I woke up, ate breakfast, and then promptly went back to bed until after noon. But the especially good part was, I had a kitty with me. I don't know if everyone feels this way, but I always want animals to like me. When my grandma had a horse for a brief period, I would always approach the fence and call out to her, expecting to be a horse whisperer or something. It's the same with my cats. When I got home from college and my dad's cat immediately wanted me to pet her, I felt so loved. Like a cat wanting to be around me makes me a good person or something. Never mind that she only likes me for what she can get out of me. So, when one of my mom's cats stayed on my bed after I forcibly put her on there, I was elated.

This sounds cliche, but animals just feel so much safer than people. Sure, they love you because you take care of them, but it's so easy to feel special when they cuddle up next to you and want to be petted. They're kind of like kids in their shameless desire to be waited upon. Only I like pets way more than I like children. It's just so much easier to be yourself around your pets than it is around other people. They won't judge you or think you're weird. They don't care as long as you pet them and feed them!

Maybe the reason that human relationships frustrate me so much is that they require so much effort. Call me mean, but sometimes I just don't really care about other people's lives. I just want to feel loved! I'm sure the easy answer to this dilemma is to turn to God. He's supposed to be the one to love us even when we don't love him. But I just don't see this in my life. Sure, I've had a few answered prayers, but I've never felt an overwhelming sense of love from the Almighty. So either I'm not listening or he's not talking... and I'm tired of it being my fault. It's not pretty, but that's the truth.

Perfect or Lazy

I really wouldn't make a good manual laborer. Not that I'm really weak or anything, but that I'm too much of a perfectionist. I was helping my grandmother clean out her car today, and every time I scrubbed something, I wanted to do it perfectly. I worried that I wasn't trying "hard enough," even in a simple car-washing.

This same problem occurs in my school work. I feel like I have to do my best all the time, or else I'm being lazy. There is no in-between. A lot of this comes, I think, from misinterpreting Colossians 3:23-24, which reads, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." I figured that if I was working for God, then I better give it all I had or else dishonor him. When I was younger, I finally had to write a note to myself beside this verse - "You can't get out the toothbrush for everything" - when I was literally using a toothbrush to clean the floor of one of the bathrooms in my dad's house, trying to "work at it with all my heart."

This mindset is still a major problem for me, as evidenced from my car-cleaning adventure. My last semester of college, my dad was trying to teach me how to do things "half-assed." (To quote Homer Simpson, "But, I'm using my whole ass!") I tried to listen to him and get a B, even a C, on an assignment or a test, but my brain kept telling me that to do so meant to be a bad person. Anything less than my best effort is sinful, apparently. And this doesn't just apply to school. I handed in resumes and applications at a hair salon and a car dealership today and I couldn't help thinking, "If I work there, I have to work as hard as possible, or else they won't like me and I'll be lazy." I just can't escape the mindset.

This is part of the reason why I'm so upset with religion. I feel like it made me this way. Now, before you start getting on my case for bashing Christianity, just indulge me a minute. I know that I had the choice to not interpret that verse in the way I did, but think about how my interpretation was reinforced. Aside from all the praise I received at school for working my butt off, haven't you heard pastors preach about being "stewards" of our time and talents? I think that the mainstream culture of Christianity reinforces my interpretation of Colossians 3. And look where that got me.