Decompression: The End of the Curse?

Ok, so the curse, what is it? The curse is the heightened and increased occurance of me finding a girl that I get infatuated with. Why I call it the curse? It’s always happens right before I’m about to leave home (Oahu, Hawaii) for an extended period. Why it happens, I don’t know, but it’s probably to distract myself from the fact that I’m leaving. So what happens is this last sunday, I feel a sense of peace, which is unusual, because I’m usually battered up inside from thinking too much. Something happened, like I recieved a brand new weapon for the battle I’m going to fight; the battle against my greatest demon. So now I fast forward to monday night, as I’m getting ready to sleep, I’m reflecting on a conversation I had with my sister. As I’m viewing the memory from our conversation in my head, I start uploading all of the worship music and sermons that Shaun Castro gave me a while back. I meant to reorganize it but I never got the chance to but decided to plug it into my ipod anyways. I pass out, listening to what I’ve just added and end up waking up at 3a.m. and I’m thinking about the girl that my sister and I was talking about and my goal to defeat my greatest demon. I started to think about how I needed to get better first, and how I would rather have another one get away and be happy instead of getting away and being hurt by me. As I’m making that declaration in my head I’m scrolling through the artist section in my ipod and the wheel stops on Joshua Harris and start listening to his sermon entitled Courtship is a Community Project. I’m still processing that but will write on it as soon as I can.

my greatest demon

I finally know now that everything I’ve done up to this point in time was just an escape, but I’m not going to do that anymore. I want to be able to give love the way that it’s supposed to be given, not just in small instances and from afar. I want to defeat my fear and anxiety so that I may become calm and collected so that I’ll know with certainty that I am capable of giving love to others and that I myself am truly loved.

choices that determine growth

Romans 8:18-21, 24-27, 29-30

The choices that determine growth are the ones that require sacrifice. Many times we are lost in thought thinking about what purpose will we serve, many more times we find ourslves in conflict because there is so much we want to do while realizing that there is little that we can do. What I’m talking about is all of those times where you have to choose between two seperate paths leading in different directions. Though either choice is a good one, just because it’s good, it doesn’t make it right. True sacrifice means to knowing your limits and when and where to rely on others. True sacrifice means taking a leap of faith and to give of yourself where there is no security and to brave into the unknown. Ultimately one must confront themselves and seek guidance and make sure that the path that they decide to take is the one that will lead them to where they need to be in life…. Will you choose to take the path of growth?

true strength

There I stood in disbelief when the person I work directly under told us about how he was bleeding in a way he wasn’t supposed to be. I couldn’t do anything but stand there in bewilderment as I listened to the same man joke about it like it was nothing. Deep inside though I felt the pain that he had inside. I stood there thinking to myself, how could something like that happen to a good person like him? I guess what I’m trying to say is that we only appreciate all of the times in our lives where we dodge bullets of catastrophe only when we see one of those bullets hit someone else. We begin to think about how thankless we are and how we should be rejoicing for what we have because we all know, things could be worse. We all know that there are many others out there probably going through the same degree of trials as we are if not higher. I then start to look at myself and see nothing but a spoiled child, here stood a man who had faced a lot worse than I have in life and here he was facing another great trial. For a while, I thought to myself in anger, how much is enough? But then I realize that bad things happen happen to good people to make those around them to appreciate life for all it’s worth because it’s the greatest gift we are given. My boss showed me today what it really means to have real strength, I hope and pray it’s one lesson I will never forget.

symbolism

this surf board is named "top gun"

The funny thing about life is how we as people define everyone and everything in life. We do this mainly on the status of a person, what they do and the immediate effect they have on us. Being that I’m in the Military and that I love surfing people define me as either or. Truthfully though people are more than what we perceive them to be, what intrigues me is the mechanics behind a person. Things like why are people the way they are and I’ve come to realize that we can never escape our prescribed labels. For instance there were many times where people would be defensive around me and watch every action because of past experience dealing with military people, and likewise at work because I’m a local boy from Hawaii. For a long time I wanted to escape but the more I longed to be seen for who I really am, the more I realized that it’s up to the individual person to give me that chance. So in order to cope, I came up with this design. It was originally supposed to be gray color but the paint that was used was water color and it changed to a grayish green due to a chemical reaction to paint thinner and fiber glass. Taken the change in color in mind, I’m still happy with the board. It serves it’s purpose on the waves and what it means to me, which can be described by the symbol. The symbol is an edited ensign used on all military aircraft. There is supposed to be a star where the volcom emblem is but it’s a reminder that no matter what people may think of me, I know who I am, and that’s all that matters. So to those out there reading this, I have but one piece of advice that I’ve learned and kept in my heart, “when you know who you are, you will know what to do…”