The Currency of Love and Happiness

This Christmas season it looked as though I was only going to have a short break from work for which I was going to be able to go home for Christmas.  While I wasn't thrilled by the idea of not having much time to spend at home with the family, there was a part of me that was looking forward to having the apartment to myself, to have the calm, quiet Sunday afternoon that I been longing for.  In short, I was looking forward to some quality time alone.

As it turned out, I got the entire last two weeks of the year on paid leave so I was suddenly going to be able to go home for almost two weeks.  I was excited! I was still going to have to stay in Provo for a few extra days to take care of a few things on Monday, but then I was free to go whenever I so desired (weather permitting).  I  like taking small road trips alone where I can turn up the music, sing alone at the top of my lungs and just cruise.  And since I was going to have to stay, I was still going to get the time alone that I wanted and the time at home with my family that I also wanted.  It was going to be the best of both worlds.  I was even thinking of delaying my departure by a day to get a little more time to myself.

So as finals began to wind down, my friends began to leave town to be home for the holidays.  All of my roommates live fairly close by (within an hour or so) so they could come and go as they pleased.  They were all planning on taking advantage of the time off from classes to work a little more since we are after all college students. Sunday, right after church, the two remaining roommates headed north to be with their family for some family activities, although they were going to return late that so that they could work on Monday.

My much awaited quality time with myself was here.  I had thought of so many things that morning that I was going to do with my quiet Sunday afternoon to myself.  It wasn't until they had left that I realized what it is that I love the most about the Sabbath.  Standing at the window, trying to decide which item from my list I was going to do first, listening to Josh Groban sing I'll Be Home For Christmas it dawned on me. The part of Sundays that I love the most is the time with those that I love.  While I would prefer a quieter Sunday than what my roommates provide, I love spending time with them.  I had a list of things that I wanted to do every Sunday, including writing in my Journal, calling Home, writing my mission president, and planning out my week.  They are all admirable things to be done on a Sunday, all wholesome Sabbath activities; but there is a problem with that list - they don't include spending time with others.  Calling home of course is probably more important than being with friends, but part of the Sabbath is to draw closer to the Lord by drawing closer to those that we love.

It made me stop and think.  In the world today, the pinnacle of success and happiness (as the world would have us believe) is to be wealthy and famous, no matter the cost.  Unfortunately, to reach that it usually requires a lot of focusing on one's self and neglecting that which is truly important.  The truth is that money does not make a man wealthy, love does.  All the money in the world can't buy lasting happiness.  Lasting happiness is bought with something far more valuable than money or gold or diamonds; it is bought with a commodity which we all have an equal amount; it is bought with time and giving of ourselves.  Money can hire a babysitter or a nanny, but a child needs far more than what money can buy.  A child needs to love of a parent that cannot be given with money, it is given in time.

For that is the currency of love: one's self.  One's self has different means by which it can be used: quality time, thoughtfulness, at times sacrifice.  Yet the world teaches us just the opposite: the world teaches that happiness comes from being selfish, by withholding one's self.  And so we are all busy searching for happiness by withholding the only commodity that will buy us happiness: ourselves.

Love and Happiness aren't bought with money, they are bought by giving of ourselves.

Family

Family.  A word that encompasses those people with whom we theoretically have a close genetic makeup.  I say theoretically because, well, it just doesn’t always happen that way.  My sister and I are living proof of this concept.

Our inner-family relationships are some of the most unique relationships that we have.  While in the teen years, we pretend to hate our families, sometimes even to the point that we actually believe that we do hate them; but we don’t.  We have an inherent love for them that surpasses all else.

Proof of this concept: in high school sports, the teenage guys make fun of each other regularly in a form that has come to be known as trash talk.  When it comes to trash talk, nothing is sacred.  But there is a line of sorts; a line that, if crossed, will inevitably lead to a confrontation or a serious sort.  That line is the family, specifically the mother.  You try making a “your mom” comment, and you have asked to be beat up, even if the other guy is smaller.

We will do crazy things for our families.  There are many people that we love: friends, roommates, teachers – but nothing that runs deeper than family.  Which is interesting because normally we don’t necessarily treat them that way.  If you would like some evidence, just look at two teenage siblings, particularly a brother and sister.  They are, in my mother’s words, “constantly at each others’ throats.”  But how does the older brother feel about his younger sister?  Try asking the younger sister on a date and you will see.

For our families, we will go to endless lengths.  Take, for example, the recent Thanksgiving break.  A storm that had been described as a winter hurricane and the storm of the decade (some went as far as to say the century, though the professionals in the field would disagree) was predicted to basically shut down the state of Utah.  Some, who could get out early, tried to beat the storm out.  But for those of us that couldn’t?  I don’t think that even if it had been the storm of the century that it would have stopped the majority of us.  Come hell or high water (or in this case several feet of snow), we were getting home for Thanksgiving.  We were being cautious, but we were getting home.

That’s the thing about family.  We will do virtually anything for them.  Yet interestingly enough, many times we won't be as ready to help them unless the circumstances are dire.  In an emergency we don't even hesitate to respond, but under normal circumstances, sometimes we take them for granted and refuse to go out of our way because, for some strange reason we subconsciously view their needs as lesser.  We seem very quick to judge them and sometimes we are very slow to forgive.  Sometimes family members are the slowest to accept changes (even when they are for the better).

And even as I say this, I realize that I'm not immune for this odd plague.  There is nothing that I wouldn't do for my family if they really needed it; but I too have been guilty at times of deeming a family member's need as insignificant, or even burdensome.  But it's so sad, that we would do that to those that we love the most.  Or maybe its not so much that we love them the most, as we love them to deepest.  They should be the ones that we love the most (and many times they are: husband and wife, parent to child, etc), but they aren't always (siblings, child to parent, etc.).

Comments on Epiphanies

So this is from a long time ago, but seeing as my blog is not from a long time ago, its going up now :)

I have often been asked then question, "Where do you have you greatest thoughts?", my epiphanies persei.  So one day while I was board, right after getting off work (which is fittingly one of the two places I usually have epiphanies), I thought to myself, "What is an epiphany?"  So I decided to look up the word.  The 3rd definition of the word epiphany is as follows:

A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something OR A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization.

So then I got to thinking, Do we really use the word right?  We use it so often can we really have sudden intuitive realizations about reality or life that often?  Then if we are having these epiphanies so often, why don't we understand the universe?  Should we know the answers to these questions such as: What is the meaning of life?  Why are we here?  What comes next?  Are we alone in the universe?  Is there a God?  Where do we come from and where are we going?

Honestly, if people are having epiphanies every day, why don't we know the answers to these questions?  Why are they still being asked? 

And just then, as luck would have it, it hit me; I had an epiphany about epiphanies.  Most epiphanies are personal – they aren't about these larger life questions, they're about our relationships, our life, our understandings.  Sure you could have a great epiphany and all of the sudden know the answers to these great questions about life and the almighty (after all, the second definition of epiphany is a revelatory message of a divine being) but they aren't the ones you're likely to have or usually need.  The important epiphanies are about our true selves and about our friends and relationships.  The important ones are the ones that might be dismissed as unimportant because they aren't about the grand scheme of things; the simple ones about ourselves and our friends and our relationships with them are the important ones that we should act on and treasure.  They're the ones that we really need the most.  And when we are blessed to get this little gift of knowledge, we should apply it and use it for betting ourselves and for improving our friendships.

Thoughts on love

Love.  It’s something that deep down, we all want.  It is one of the basic human needs, the need to be loved.  But, more than that, we are looking to be in love, not just loved.  You see, there’s a difference.  And for those of us that understand that there is more to life than just the here and now – that this life is rather short – the desire to fall in love becomes one of the deepest desires and yearnings of our soul.  We all express it differently, for we are all different people, but deep down, that is what we really want – to be in love.

How many songs have been written about falling in love?  How many songs have been inspired by love?  And yet, it is something that often times seems so elusive.  Just that first step on the road to love can be so difficult.  As the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with just one step – but if that step is too hard to make, what then?  It seems like just finding someone that you are interested in who returns that interest is difficult enough.  There are so many people that we associate with every day; and yet, so few with whom there is that spark, that desire to learn more about them, to share with them life’s joys.  And when we do finally find someone where we feel that internal leap, so hard to capture with words yet so recognizable, how often do they feel it too?  How often do they see in us what we see in them?  How many times are we disappointed as they seem to see right through us?  How often do they seem to not even to notice?  Life goes on just as normal for them, yet we are left deflated and disappointed.  And after time, we are led to ask, “Can I really fall in love?” or “Am I capable of falling in love?”  We start to feel like our hope is hopeless, that we will never even have a chance to fall in love.

Then one day, it dos actually work out.  Just when we are to the point when we feel that we just can’t take it anymore, when we are ready to just give up, it happens – we meet someone else who catches our eye, and we seem to have catch theirs.  In the end, it doesn’t usually amount to anything – we pursue it and have fun while it lasts, but in the end, nothing comes of it.  Maybe we date for a while, but in time we decide that it isn’t going to come to anything so one or the other, or both, of us breaks it off.  And then we are back at the start, looking for someone who sparks an interest.  But it’s different.  Our hope that it is possible has been renewed.  It may take a little while, depending on how far we progressed the previous time and how it ended, but eventually we start looking again with the renewed hope that it is possible: that someday we will find someone with whom we can fall in love and share our life together, from now for the rest of eternity.  So we keep on looking, keeping on hoping, and keeping on loving in hopes that one day we will fall in love and have our “Happily Ever After.