Author: toseealife

Having it both ways.

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In my previous article I talked about different views on life and how to live it. Also on whether we’re stuck with living out something other people have chosen for us. The thing I didn’t address was if it seems like our moral obligation to do what they want. I want to talk about when it is and when it isn’t.

There are times to do what our families or friends want us to do. Sometimes they see what’s best for us when we don’t. But when someone else asks us to do something  we need to ask ourselves a few questions.

Firstly, is what they’re asking morally right?

Secondly, is it truly beneficial to them?

Thirdly, will it hurt us to do it, and is it worthwhile? Case in point, suppose you mom or dad wants you to take over the family business, or take up the same profession as them; maybe that’d be a good idea; maybe you’d like it; maybe you have the talents for it; maybe it’s a great opportunity… or maybe not. There are other examples. Listening to the people close to us is a good practice, but this occupational area of family and friends’ influence is very limited at best. The more important and more subtle influence is over our morality and world view.

Even as a preschooler you know that when you go to your friend’s house there are different rules and you have to follow them, and likewise your house has different rules that they have to follow. Some are clearly just a matter of preference. One house lets you eat in front of the TV, the other does not, etc. But when it comes to the intangibles the contrast becomes much more apparent. In my family we don’t lie, that’s a rule. But in other families lying is an accepted fact of life. The trouble is, we think lying is wrong for everyone. If you are only going by what your family thinks is best, than sooner or later you’ll hit a situation like this. I trust my families judgment but if they tell me to do something that I think is wrong, I won’t justify it because everyone thinks it’s right.

But here’s the catch. When I’m deciding whether something is right or not, shouldn’t I go by what seems to work out the best for everyone. Lying to get myself out of trouble is wrong, but what if I’m lying to protect a bunch of my friends or my family? Is it still wrong? What if it’ll damage them more if I tell the truth? Now, two people could argue back and forth over this for hours and not find a resolution, my point is that you need a third-party; but not a human third-party, because as mere humans our reasonings are all equal just as our brains are equally capable (usually.) Hence the popular belief of humanism that morality is just our opinions. Well, I’m not going into that, but suffice it to say that nothing is resolved that way.

As finite, limited, human beings, we can’t see the future and the ultimate result of our choices. We don’t have the knowledge to make wise choices in our own reasoning. There is  a verse about this “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” (Proverbs 14:12.) That being said, I think the need for God is clear.

God can work out the toughest situations to the benefit of both parties, but it doesn’t always look like it to us. He has ways we don’t understand. Which He tells us bluntly. (Isiah 55:9) The paradox I’m trying to show with this article and my previous one is that we do, in a sense, choose our destiny. You see God has set before us life and death, He will not force us to choose either; so we do indeed have our choice. We should be thankful; imagine a world where you had no choice, either live the way you are told to or cease to exist. But God makes it clear that there is only one right choice, therefore He knows the right way, and if you choose Him, He will work out the rest. (Romans 8:28.)

In a moral dilemma sometimes you have to choose God over the person in question, but it is better to choose God who knows what will happen than the person who only can guess what will happen. At least that makes sense to me. It’s summed up in this last verse “in his heart a man plans his course (his path of life) but the LORD determines his steps (the things that happen to him for him to react to as he chooses.)” Proverbs 16:9, personal paraphrase.

So that’s my take on choice. My conclusion is that if I trust God with my life, than the pressure is off me, but I am still responsible for whether I choose to do what He says or not. I hope you enjoyed this article and it didn’t come across as too preachy because it’s really just what I’ve been learning  in my own life. Until next time–Natasha

The choice is yours.

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I talk a lot about choice and I write about it too. And lately I’ve been watching a show called “Ever After High.” I don’t usually watch shows about teenagers going to some special high school. But I ended up really liking the plot. The main point is this: Can you choose your destiny or are you born into a lifestyle that you can’t control? And I feel like that’s a question that is so relevant right now. What I mean is, we don’t think about it, but the authority figures in our countries tell us a lot of things about our future. Scientists have told us that hang-ups and mental conditions are handed down to us from our parents, which is partly true. But does that mean we can just blame our parents… or worse, what if we want to be different, but we can’t be.

That’s the idea that has scared me. I have an alcoholic grandfather on one side, an uncle in prison, and my dad was once on drugs and into a ton of bad stuff. He’s not anymore, since becoming a dedicated Christian, but if I listen to science, my chances of being a drug abuser went up. Anger issues run in my family, bitterness, insecurities, and I could just accept that all that falls to me…but should I? Is it true that I have no choice? Perhaps I may never pick up a bottle of alcohol but if I ever do, do I have to be addicted? Do I have to try drugs when I feel empty inside? Do I have to be angry? Do I have to end up in jail? I bet everyone is thinking “No! How ridiculous.” At least I hope you’re thinking that. What about the smaller and more subtle ideas? Like do I have to think I’m ugly or unlovable. Do I have to complain? Or eat too much? Do I have to live in fear? Big things or little things, the thinking creeps in. And we make excuses.

It can be difficult to take responsibility because it means work. You may have to actually think and not let the media ad Hollywood think for you. Are we just cruising through life or are we here for a reason? I’ll give a few examples from the show, see if you can find yourself in them:

Briar Beauty: This girl is the daughter of sleeping beauty. She is resigned to the fact that she’ll have to sleep away 100 years of her life, which is almost the same as dying because she’ll miss out on all the people she lives around now. Briar wants to party it up (in her own words) because she wants to enjoy what little time she has, but as the time to seal her fate approaches she doesn’t feel like she’s really been fulfilling her time. Parties are fun, but her friends are what she’s really going to miss.

Ashlyn Ella: She’s the one who finds herself in a Romeo and Juliet situation. I don’t have much to say about it, except that she does have to consider the price of following her heart, which is often downplayed in movies as not really being much of a price, but for her it is. Is the good everyone else agrees on always the one you should go with?

Dexter Charming: Ever feel like you were born the odd one out in a family? That’s Dexter. He isn’t common hero material. And he is so blinded by the expectations of the world that he can’t see that being a hero is really the matter of your heart and there he has what it takes.

Duchess Swan: What if your only reason to exist was to carry on someone else’s story? And not only that, but you knew for sure that story didn’t have a happy ending. If someone told you that you had to work this job to keep your family alive, but you would end up poor and homeless on the streets, you might not be too happy. It might be noble to do it, but isn’t that a waste of your life? does it matter? Aren’t our families the most important thing in the world, who better to sacrifice for.

Apple White: There are those who like society’s role for them. The lucky few who have the body to be on a magazine and the personality to make everyone feel important, and maybe that’s not bad. But is true heroism all in running things smoothly and making people feel important? Or is it in actually believing other people are more important than yourself? Apple will be on your side as long as it fits with her plan of what is the best good for everyone, but dare to suggest that another option might be better and you will find her as close minded and stubborn as a mule.

Raven Queen: This is my personal favorite character. Raven Queen does not have all the answers, and she may end up having to live a life which she hates the idea of. But is that gong to stop her from being the best friend she can be now? No. Raven’s attitude is that if she only has a little time to live the way she wants, then she’ll spend that time being the best person she can be. Pursuing her creative interests and helping her friends and fellow students. Raven is also not going to blindly accept that a life of repetition is all she can have.

Which is the most noble way to go? Everyone wants to have a good life. Not everyone is willing to have it. Most people will choose Briar’s path of having the best time they can have because they have so little they can’t waste it in doing boring things, a serve me type of thinking. Or they will fall into Dexter’s rut of thinking they don’t have the skills to make it so why try? Then there’s the smaller group of people who will decide to break the rules, but only as far as it suits them and makes them comfortable. There’s also a group of people who will sacrifice their lives to help those closest to them, but they themselves end up unhappy and alone, and the people they sacrificed for don’t really respect them. In the much smaller privileged world of celebrities; those talented individuals whom people like, they make their mark, but rarely do they pay any price to do good things and somehow all their goodness reflects back on them, which is no different than if a person went around telling people “I’m awesome” 60 times a day. (Enough said.) Then there are the very few people in this world who are committed to doing what’s right no matter the cost. They are the ones who face the tough questions and find answers and aren’t afraid to get help. They don’t need to be in the spotlight all the time, but neither do they reject it if they can use it to do more good. These people don’t do just what they feel like doing, they do what they think they should do.

Newsflash: Each of these ways of life is a choice. No one forces you to accept them because no one can. They only way anyone can make you be anything is if you let them. I’m not a drug addict, or a person who is always angry over something, I don’t gorge myself on food, and I don’t live in fear. It’s not because I’ve never been given the message that I should; believe me, I have; but it’s because I finally realized that the message was a lie. I am a bit sorry that this article ended up being so long, but I hope it was worth the read. I meant every word. But there’s one more component to this that I haven’t covered and I will in my next post. Keep reading!

Natasha

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall.

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My mirror is literally on the wall. I guess this is a problem every girl in America and all over the globe has: Our appearance.

You know, it’s not even about thinking we’re ugly at this point. Deep down, I think we just don’t like our body because we don’t like ourselves. You can be a beauty queen and feel ugly. Because you want to have true beauty on the inside. One of my grandmothers was a model in her day, another one was a stewardess; now, even in their seventies, they still hang on to the memories of that, they still want to be beautiful.

And the reason the mirror is our enemy is because we’ve put a curse on it. Whenever we look into it we are looking for the flaws in our outfit or our make-up. It’s gotten so bad I think even the guys have caught it now.

It’s really captured pretty well in this song “Mirror, mirror, on the wall; have I got it? ‘Cause mirror you’ve always told me…who I am. I’m finding it’s not easy to be perfect. So sorry, you won’t define me.”

How is it that we can hear we are beautiful, pretty, smart, nice, and talented; again and again, and we still don’t believe it?

I’ll tell you one reason, we’re afraid. The song “Let it go!” was an instant hit. I have listened to it probably hundreds of times. And it’s not the music, which is nice, but not really my style. (Though I love the piano portion in the beginning.) It’s not even the cool animation or catchy tune. What grabbed me about the song was the mingling of beauty and being fearless. In the book of 1 Peter in the new testament, verses 3-6, Peter gives women some beauty advice, not to rely on gold, hairstyles, and fancy clothes; but on the inner person of the heart, on having a gentle and quiet spirit; which is precious to God. Later he says not to give way to fear. To give way means to let fear run its course in you life and not resist it, to give in. You can like jewelry (I do) and nice clothes, but the trap is liking them for the wrong reason. (Like because they’re popular.) Not that popularity makes something bad, but is it popular with people you respect? Looking like a fashion model is fine if you respect fashion models, but do you? It’s not wrong to imitate how someone else looks, a little bit, but it is wrong to try to become that person. The mirror tells you anything unique to you has to be ugly or boring because it’s you. The mirror always tells you to change what it’s hardest to help. (Like the shape of your face, what else is contouring for?) The mirror tells you you’re not thin enough. (Define thin enough, different weights are appropriate for different people.) But it’s never enough change to make you feel pretty, or hot, or stylish.

Often true beauty is something people talk about but don’t believe in enough to risk trying it. And it is risky. I fell like no one tells us the price. The price is that no one may notice, no one may commend you for trying to be more natural and to be yourself. The price is that you have to choose to lay aside the standards of the world, all of them. The price is that people may think you’re weird for being confident. The price also is that if you don’t meet the regular standards of beauty not everyone will think you’re pretty. But it is so worth it to know that you are beautiful.

I think we need to get a little attitude with the mirror and tell it off when we’re feeling ugly. But I truly believe only God can fix the thing in our hearts that makes us doubt. I’ve never been able to cure myself of it, only God ever breaks through. Though self talk is important. So, beauty is inward, and it is a belief and an attitude. Not a look or a number on the scale.

Danger!

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What does dangerous mean?

Who even asks that question. I do I guess. Maybe it’s because the world is a dangerous place to live and being passive and nice is not working out. There is republican candidate Donald Trump, now don’t anyone get excited. This is not a political post; I’m merely using Trump as an example of someone who seems aggressive and not so nice. Frankly I think that’s the reason he’s doing so well. Would I vote for him? Maybe not. But I admire his complete un-intimidated approach.  I don’t know what the dictionary would say, but my personal definition of dangerous would be anything that threatens to foil your plans. It hit me the other day that beauty is dangerous to someone who wishes to spread ugliness. Gentleness is dangerous to someone who wants to spread cruelty and harshness. Actually it is not strength that makes you dangerous, it’s power.

What is power? Just that. It’s the ability to do something. I may have the strength to write, but if my fingers hurt too much or my keyboard isn’t working I do not have the power. You can have the strength to lift the weight of a pencil but if you have a paralyzed hand you don’t have the power. A machine may be strong enough to operate tasks that a man could not, but if it’s not plugged into the power it is useless.

When it comes to power men and women have it different. Men often possess the more obvious power. Physical strength, survival skills, technical know-how. Women have the unsung powers because they have the subtle ones. Mothering skills, craftiness, the ability to beautify life. There are shared traits between genders, but there are traits and there are strengths; and there are powers.

Back to the subject of danger. There is a bad kind of danger. But we need to stop being afraid of danger. To fear danger is eventually to fear yourself, because you can’t help being dangerous. The only thing you can choose is who you’ll be dangerous to. That’s my thoughts for now, watch out for my coming posts–Natasha

There’s nothing the matter with your back!

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Psychosomatic–1. Of pertaining to a physical disorder that is caused or notably influenced by emotional factors. 2. Pertaining to or involving both the mind and the body.

Hypochondria— An excessive preoccupation with one’s health usually focusing on some particular symptom; excessive worry about one’s health.

Neurosis— A functional disorder (isn’t that an oxymoron?) disorder in which feelings of anxiety, obsessional thoughts, compulsive acts, and physical complaining without objective evidence of disease…dominate the personality.

Why am I giving you these definitions? because I have an example of someone who was all three of those things.

I present for your consideration Colin, from “The Secret Garden.” In that book the main character Mary Lennox goes to live with her uncle, who has one son he never looks at. Mary finds the son, Colin, and in a strange manner befriends him. He is a selfish, worrisome boy who is deathly afraid of having a hunchback when he grows up, like his fther. Finally one night he throws a tantrum and Mary storms in and tells him to stop. The surprised Colin chokes out:

Colin: I felt the lump–I felt it. I knew I should. I shall have a hunch on my back and then I shall die.

Mary: (fiercely) You didn’t feel a lump! If you did it was only a hysterical lump. Hysterics makes lumps. There’s nothing the matter with your horrid back–nothing but hysterics.

Really? And all this time I thought–but what happens next? Mary looks at his back to see if there are any lumps and says.

Mary: There’s not a single lump there! There’s not a lump as big as a pin–except backbone lumps, and you can only feel them because you’re thin…there’s not a lump as big as a pin! If you ever say there is again. I shall laugh!

“No one but Colin knew what effect those crossly spoken childish words had on him. If he had ever dared to let himself ask questions–if he had childish companions and had not lain on his back in the huge closed house, breathing an atmosphere heavy with the fears of people who were most of them ignorant and tired of him, he would have found out that most of his fright and illness was created by himself.”

Do, you mean there was really nothing wrong with him after all? Nope. And ten to one there’s noting wrong with you either. Or if there is it’s nothing you can’t fix with a few changes in diet, exercise, and fresh air. Take it from someone who suffered from spiritual and emotional psychosomatic tendencies and hypochondria and neurosis; it’ll steal every ounce of joy from you life. Don’t let it. Your mental and physical health is completely up to you. Colin grew nicer, and learned to walk. He got strong. He just needed to be snapped out of his funk. To be woken up–they all needed to be woken up–from the insanity of doing the same thing over and over.

So, go for it folks! I assure you your problems usually seem worse than they really are. At any rate, quit tantrum-ing and make the best of it.

It’s settled…right?

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One of the saddest things about America is the benefits of technology. Okay, it’s not always sad. The medical field has certainly made great strides; but I have to confess to having a strong dislike of technology. (Ironic I know.) It’s not like I hate it in of itself; but it’s what it does to people. I listened to an episode on my favorite audio drama series in which one character talked about exploration. When we cease to reach higher, according to this guy, we cease to have the qualities that made America, America. When we become content with the way things are. I’m afraid that has happened to many people. In other words, we’ve settled.

We’ve settled for a life of hiding and escaping from our troubles through TV and other electronics. I see commercials frequently that show couch potatoes and phone addicts, (who look like zombies.) Work is hard, relationships are harder, life can be no fun; but we have our shows. We have the news to get our minds off our own problems. Yet…life has no mute or pause button, things tend to get worse the longer you leave them alone. Is this escaping helping us?

We’ve settled for passing instead of excellence. Most of us don’t think we can excel anyway, and it’s just too hard to try. But do the just-get-by-ers change things? Do they have the endurance to stand up to others. Do they have the respect of other people, better yet do they deserve the respect. (Ouch, I know.)

We’ve settled for acceptance of disabilities instead of helping each other to overcome them. Weakness can become strength if enough effort goes into overcoming it. But how can it be overcome if everyone just says it’s normal. Who wants to be normal anyway? (Sorry, Violet Incredible, but I think you figured it out at the end of the movie.)

I’m sure you can think of more things we’ve settled for. Or that you personally have settled for. I am not against contentment; but my definition of it is not just accepting that life sucks and trying to steal a little happiness. What are we accepting anyway? Pause for a moment and consider the world we live in…should we be satisfied? I for one am not. Happiness is a joke if this world is the best we get. Of course, I believe in Heaven. So, no matter how bad the world gets, I have hope. However, I also take this line from The Lord’s Prayer (found in Matthew six) seriously “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Verse 10) this is just one verse that tells me I need to be trying to make this world a better place. I will never fix all–or most of–the problems; but that is not the point. Sometimes it’s easier to look at the widespread “issues” than at the things we dub “microcosms.” The school in our neighborhood, the political correctness everywhere. (Does anyone even know what PC is? Isn’t it basically anything that doesn’t offend political people? Which is nothing.) People are not microcosms. They aren’t statistics. We each come into contact with countless individuals. And to be honest they scare a lot of us. We only see faces. But then someone smiles at us and we smile back. “Nice person” we think. Maybe someone will do a small kindness for us. Hand us something we just dropped, give up their place in line, tell us to have a nice day; and we feel better. these are real people, but they took the time to show a little kindness. That’s all you have to do most of the time. There will be times when the situation calls for more, but just a little kindness covers a lot. If you believe in prayer, than pray more instead of turning to entertainment. Don’t settle for a life of false ease. Fake happiness is just that: fake.

And that’s my thoughts for this article. I hope you enjoyed.