Spiritually Claustrophobic

"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.

For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it." Matthew 7:13-14

There are times in life when we have a choice: take the easy way or the tough way.

The easy way is usually the most appealing and will ultimately end badly, but this post is about the tough way and its toughness.

When we do decide to make the right choice, and enter that narrow gate, we enter an area of "spiritual claustrophobia."

Now what does that mean?

You tell me. ....

allright, i know what it means, i was just testing you.

Spiritual claustrophobia is when we enter that narrow gate and find ourselves suddenly surrounded by opposition on all sides and there seems to be no end in sight, except going back.

Example: I set down to write this blog and suddenly my attention is needed EVERY which way but here; hang up this, make the tea, time for dinner, etc etc.

But I am going to finish this, even if I don't quite feel like it.

Now I could give up. I could stop, back out, and go take the easy route and watch some netflix, and forget to shower.

But just because you feel like going one way does not mean you should.

Too much of people's lives are lived by feeling and ease. We all do it at some time. The only way we can overcome it is with an incentive; In terms of claustrophobia example, "a way out" or "a light at the end of the tunnel".

The incentive of a workout is to get in shape.

The incentive to work on homework is to get a good grade.

The incentive of living for God is eternal life and being with Jesus.

So before you make that choice to enter that narrow gate, start out with an incentive in mind. Once you have that, pack up your heart with God's word on whatever it is, so when those adversities start coming at you and you begin to wonder "why should i have to endure this?" you will have the ire and mindset to keep you going.

What does it mean to be human?

We humans are interesting creatures. We awake at preset times to start our day then hit the snooze five times. We resolve to better ourselves at the turn of a new year and a few weeks later revert to our old habits. We make mistakes, bounce back, and make them again; we choose to make them again. We are choosers, we are thinkers, and we are makers.

Humans have something that other creatures on this planet don't have: the power of choice. Animals may act and react instinctively to the stimuli around them, but humans have the power to say "yes" and/or "no". For example, a dog hears treats being poured; he reacts and runs into the kitchen, knocking over everything in his wake. Animals live by the feelings and hormones that their bodies' release. Humans act humane or at least they should. Kids will scream because they just feel like it. Road ragers will make obscene gestures to their fellow man. People will gorge themselves to obesity. This is the behavior of animals and partaking in it makes us less human. Humans keep their cool, make changes, overcome odds, resist temptation, and they live life to the fullest, not through feelings or hormones but through the grand gift of choice.

The air is thick with ideas in this world. Tv's are blaring advertisements, people are cackling in the streets, and all these ideas are flying at our heads for us to choose. Animals don't receive these ideas at all; their bodies just react the way they were built. Once a human has chosen some ideas, a message of hope or a pile of gossip, they begin to think on the subject; they nurture the thought, water it, fertilize it, and help it grow. Some ideas are like weeds: they demand attention, drain the life out of the ground, and they are tough to get rid of. Others ideas are good, fruitful, and will ultimately better one's mind. We can take ideas and grow them into huge elms that give birth to other ideas. It up to the humans what thoughts they let grow.

After fertilizing these ideas we free them from our heads and act on them. We say hello to that one person, we open the bag of chips, we scream, and laugh and cry. This is where ideas get their greatest workout: in our daily lives. We humans take action, we create with ideas, we make art, etc. We don't have to simply react to the world around us and snap at drivers or eat a burger, we can choose what to do. We can choose to look at something and not take it as it is but take it as it could be. Humans can make a change in the world and in themselves. Animals just exist on earth; they eat, sleep, puke, eat, run around, then sleep some more. We humans can actually live our lives.

Being a human can be tough sometimes with the choosing, thinking, and the living, but it is great. The fact that we can have the free will to go about and live anyway fashionable in our mind is wonderful. We can choose to listen to the garbage or listen to the positive. We can conspire against our coworkers or learn to live with them. We can create masterpieces or doodle on a napkin; we can live our lives to fullest or the least: it is up to us.

Fake-Hand and a Mother

I bought a fake hand around Halloween last year, trying to think of a last minute costume idea, but it never panned out. So that lay around comfortably in my mess of a room, along with my fake leg from the year before, and it stayed at the house as we made the move to grandma's.

As time passed and winter grew colder, I found the need for gloves, which were quickly found. Later, upon returning from church, I found I had lost my left glove. It being a cold cold day, I was a little disheartened. So, for the sake of at least one warm hand I kept the right glove in my jacket, even if that meant the risk of looking like Michael Jackson sometime.

Me and my mom returned to old house the other night, in search of gloves, receipts, and other knickknacks. As she fumbled through her receipts I returned to my old room, checking out the place, grabbing up loose change.

Then I saw my fake arm. A seemingly useless purchase. Almost as useless as having one glove.

Then I realized it was a right arm.

I checked my jacket pocket.

Mischievous thoughts began to brew.

I put the glove on the fake arm, fitting neatly. I held the arm in my right hand, and retreated my real arm up into the sleeve of my jacket till the fake arm was in place.

Now since I had to hold onto the fake arm, my jacket sleeve looked pretty horrid, and any normal person would have noticed. That is, any normal person that wasn't busy looking through receipts.

I approached my mom. She was reading through them, saying something, and I reached my fake hand down and said, "What's that?"

She pulled out a Sonic receipt, "That?" she said.

"Yeah"

Then I let go of the arm, letting it plummet down into her receipt pile.

She tensed for a full second...

then screamed.

I laughed.

and laughed.

and laughed.

Then I took a breath.

Then I laughed again.

This is just a funny happenstance. There's no particular lesson to this story.

Except maybe the fact that little nuances, little things that don't fit into your plan, a useless arm, a lost glove, can sometimes fall together to make something awesome.

p.s. my mom laughed later on as well

How many people are you?

We all have multiple personalities.

There's the version of us who goes grocery shopping, calmly checking and double-checking the list, pausing at the forbidden zone of treats that are covertly placed near the milk section.

There's the version of us with school friends, conversing of homework and random happenstances that occur in our life.

There's the version of us with Facebook friends, laughing loudly as our real selves smirk slightly.

There's on-camera us, off-camera us.

Why do we split ourselves up like this?

Why can't we just be one person?

As we take on this thing called life we should strive toward a one-person mindset.Be the same person whether people are looking or not. Now if you have a wild-personality you may want to tone it down a touch when introducing yourself to people and slowly let them into the madness that is you.

The one you.

:)

Why I'm Here

Youtube is a wonderful place.

I remember the first time I heard mention youtube. My father came home one day, wanting to find this video of George Bush making an obscene gesture that he heard about from a friend. My father misheard where the video was supposed to be and had me go to band site of U2. We spent a good while looking through their music videos, trying to find a George Bush thumbnail in the mix. No such luck.

As time progressed I eventually became acquainted with the interwebs and graduated from StupidVideos into the land of Youtube.

I created my own channel so I could favorite my favorites and eventually I found channels from which I'd like to see more videos and subscribed. I started with vlogbrothers after seeing their video talking about world issues while the dog did cute stuff. Started following Ctfxc after seeing their video of a diving dog that swam underwater, and through them I found Shaytards, followed by Peter Rallis and MeekaKitty and others.
So, slowly but surely, television began losing its luster, and I began to dive into the depths of the interwebs, aided by the already heavy lead block of Facebook.

So why have I randomly spewed this subject out? well...

1: I'm a noob at this, and
2: I want to be one of these youtube stars one day. I think. I dunno.

I once tried filming a video with only a vague sense of what I wanted to accomplish with my videos, which turned out terrible. Even if I edited out the awkward pauses and "um"s and "aw"s it still was poop. I wasn't ready yet. I'm not ready now. I had no ambition for what I was doing. I had no energy like many of my favorite youtubers.

So the reason I'm here is to see what I like to talk about; write about. Things that are too big for facebook. Here I hope to get practice in putting my ideas out onto the interwebs and see what kind of following I get.

So... here we go!

P.s. here's my youtube channel, 1 and 2, in case i get famous quick or something