When You Fill Your Life With Why..

So, as many of you know, last week was Spring Break. This week has been crazy, so I didn't really blog about it, but nothing too exciting happened.

The Highlights:

 Driving down and back with Nick: My buddy Nick goes up to UVU, and he's one of the few friends I have that isn't currently on a mission. He and I had a full 12 hours in the car together (between down and back), and it was seriously great! It made the car ride go by so fast talking about movies, rapping along with Snoop Dogg, reminiscing about seminary/high school, and talking about the future. We had SO much fun! 

Jury Duty: That's right, over Spring Break I had to go in and fulfill my civic duty. I ended up getting dismissed after two full days at the court house .While the extra $30 was appreciated, the timing could not have been worse. The LAST way I wanted to spend my spring break was inside a court house in slacks and a collared shirt. 

The Beach: After getting dismissed from Jury Duty, Nick and I went to Zuma/ Point Dume beach. It was SO much fun. The water was far too cold to get in, but we laid out in the sun. And by we, I mean me, because Nick brings umbrellas to the beach. Umbrellas. I mean, I get he's a ginger, but that's like cheating yourself out of the beach. But hey to each their own, right? We hung out, read books, played ukulele, and just relaxed for a few hours. We had a really cool fog roll in out of nowhere, and that's when we decided to head back.  

The fog when it was rolling in

Then within 10 minutes it was EVERYWHERE, and really thick. It was kinda cool. 

The voyage to Loma Linda: Once again, I had to make the 2 hour drive down to Loma Linda, where I got my surgery. I got good news though, I'm all clear to go on my mission again! Once I get home in May, I'm just gonna hit submit! I'm so excited to FINALLY go out! Nothing's stopping me now! :)

Hanging out with Robert: My friend's family is moving into a fix-up house. They were needing some help, so I spent my Friday helping them out. It was pretty fun, and after that he and I hung out at my house and it even turned into a "Oh crap, it's like 1:30. Is it cool if I sleep here?" situation, like our hang outs tend to. 

So that was my spring break. Nowhere near as exciting for fun as last year, but I think I needed a more relaxing spring break this time. It wasn't the Spring Break I wanted, but it was the Spring Break I needed. </nerd> 

So I walk to school because my bike is currently out of commission, and I've been too lazy to fix it. My walk usually takes about 15 minutes to get to my classes in the morning, and about the same to get home. That means that I have 30 minutes  to myself where I can just think. This time has become seriously invaluable with me (that's probably why I have procrastinated fixing my bike). I can think of jokes, focus on relearning the day's lessons, think about life, etc. Since Spring Break I've done a lot of the last one. See while we were driving back, Nick mentioned that he loved Washington State, and that he was considering moving there when he was done with school. We figured out that he would be done with school when I got off my mission, and that made me really sad. I threw out the idea of possibly moving there with him after my mission, and the more we talked about the idea, the more fun it sounded like. I mean, the timing would work out great. I'll have my associate's degree when I leave for my mission, and I could go literally anywhere I wanted to. As he and I considered our "5 year plans" with Washington State included in them, he and I got very excited and it seemed like a good idea. I thought of the possibilities all of spring break. 

But, during my walks, logical me began to over-analyze the possibilities. I wouldn't have a scholarship of any kind, I'd have to worry about out of state tuition, I'd be much further from my family, and what's out there for me, anyway? Basically, I began to look for reasons not to do it, and the biggest question that fit into this category was why. Why would I completely uproot my life with no prospect of a job, leave behind friends and familiarity I have here in Utah, lose my scholarship, etc. The Why has bugged me and nagged at me every walk I've had. Then, finally, on Thursday I came to a bit of a realization. I was asking the wrong question. I was asking Why, when I should be asking why not? I remembered all those cheesy phrases: adventure begins where your comfort zone ends, etc. Then I made one up myself: If you fill your life with "why's", you're filling it with "what if's". I mean, if I were to graduate SUU, get a crappy job I hate, and go through a real rough patch, I think that I would probably keep wondering "what if I'd gone to Washington with Nick." I'd blame myself and be mad because I'd think the grass would be greener on the other side. And maybe it would be, but I'd never know because I'd never seized the opportunity. 

I don't know how that whole situation is gonna play out. A million variables go into it. I have to have my associate's degree before I leave, meaning I pass my math and science classes this semester, Nick has to be single, and move to Washington, I have to be in a financial situation to transfer, I have to figure out the transfer process, price it out, etc. I mean, it is really up in the air. But whether it ends up happening or not, I learned a very valuable lesson that I wanted you all to hear, because maybe it's something that you needed to hear. Maybe it'll make you do something you want to do, or take some offer you'd be inclined to turn down. But stop focusing on the why's, and focus on the why not's. Because I think that it'll make life much more exciting, if nothing else, if we take opportunities that life gives us. 

If You Like It Then Slow Down Before Putting a Ring On It

This one's been a long time coming.

 I'm not trying to offend anybody or put them off from marriage or anything. I don't want anybody to think this is a bitter post at all. In fact, quite the opposite is true.  I think marriage is awesome and beautiful and wonderful and everybody should be doin' it eventually. But  the key word there is eventually.

I can't tell you how many of my friends I've seen get married/ engaged in the last year and a half since we left high school. I'll ballpark a dozen. And they're not all marrying each other or anything. I just have all these friends who are 18/19/20 getting married. I think it's awesome that they have found somebody who they love and with whom they wish to spend their whole lives. I think it's fantastic to see them so happy together, and even to see them be all gross and gushy (Sometimes. Seriously, calm that crap when I'm around. You're making me gag). But I just don't see the point in getting married so young. See, many of us didn't begin dating until we were 16, and probably didn't date seriously until we were at least 18. So that means you probably married the first or second person you ever really fell for. And so often they were only with their significant other for a little bit, usually 6-9 months before getting married. I can't even figure out all the cool things my phone can do in 9 months! I've had my phone a year and I'll still occasionally be like "Woah, my phone can do that? Dude that's AWESOME!" Or sometimes, I'll be like "Why can't my phone do this other thing I want it to do? What the heck? Jump on it developers." Any my phone has a freakin' instruction manual. You have no such luxury for your significant other. Chances are pretty good that even after a year, two years, or 5 years you will still be surprised by things that they do. Now obviously this can swing either way. You can find that they can do cool things like organize your contacts alphabetically or by importance make you breakfast in bed, have some interesting trait or story you didn't know, etc. But sometimes these attributes can rock marriages and could have been avoided had you dated them longer.

I'm not saying that this works for everything, or that dating for longer will alleviate all problems and your marriage will be perfect because you dated for a year or longer before you got married. I don't live in a fantasy world. Well, I do, but my passport into the real world is well stamped. All I'm saying is that rushing into marriage super young seems rather silly to me. It's like showing up to a party that starts at 10:00 promptly at 10:15. Then going in, looking around, and leaving the party at 11:00 before most people have even showed up.

You'll hear me rant and rave about dating. About how it's complex and girls are stupid and how I'm just gonna learn to reproduce asexually--yes like a flower-- but in some part of myself I actually like it. I like meeting girls and talking to them and learning what makes them different from other girls, from me, and from other people in general. I think it's an awesome prospect to be able to date a  variety of people and learn things about them-- good or bad-- and see if my things line up with them. So far, no luck with the whole things-lining-up part (not a euphemism or double entendre. Even though it's a fantastic one), but the best part is I'm still young. I'm someone who probably won't even show up to the party until 11:45. Because my invitation said 11:00 instead of 10:00 and there was something really cool on TV until 11:30. So then between the drive and getting ready, I'm a little late. But fashionably so.

So to all you married people, you're awesome. You really are. You're fantastic examples to me of what love is in its purist sense. You guys make me happy and excited to be married, but not just yet. I want to travel. I want to see the world, and make life decisions for myself and get happy with me before I drag somebody else into this tornado of crazy I call my psyche. Although I am currently accepting tornado tour applications. Ladies. 

A Case for the Average

Well, it's 1:30 and I kept tossing and turning which means that I was thinking. So instead of just lying in bed I thought I'd blog my thoughts and feelings, then edit them to make sense in the morning.

Anyway, this is kind of a continuation of a paper I wrote in high school about mediocrity, and why it's not so bad. Lately I've been feeling--you guessed it-- mediocre. Average. Lackluster. Nothing awful, but nothing special. Unabashedly and unapologetically right in the middle. But is that such a bad thing?

I put it to you that it's not. I mean, look at the world around us. For you math people, you study averages like crazy. Ever since third grade we've been finding mean, median, and mode. The unspectacular, average numbers of a series of numbers given to us. As we grow older we are taught to find outliers; these extraordinary numbers that we are supposed to look out for. I couldn't tell you what outliers are because, to be frank, math and I are not on speaking terms. I don't talk about it unless the circumstances dictate, and it does the same courtesy to me. Thus far, the air of professionalism has been appreciated by both sides. But I know that more often than not, we look for averages. We're looking for bunches, groups of things, and the spectacular become suddenly ordinary.

But those are just numbers, right? What about people? I'm the first to admit that I don't like grouping people and numbers together. As I said, I'm not a big math person. I'm a touchy-feely right-side-brained person. I think that assigning numbers to people alienates them and hurts their feelings and makes them worse and blah  blah blah. But I think that in this situation, a case can be made that the same rules apply, and here's why.

We live in a society of averages. We look to actors and astronauts and politicians and sports stars and crazy people to feed our curiosity. We live our boring, mediocre lives. We trudge through the mundane, dreading the boring, and seeking excitement in the unfamiliar. So we look to these human outliers-- exceptional people to spice up the boring day-to-day. But for the most part, 99% of us move through our lives never impacting another 99% of the population. We go unnoticed, and just sit in the middle.

Kinda depressing, right? Well, sure, I guess it certainly could be if you're a glass-half-empty kinda person. Me? I'm not too interested in how much is in the cup-- full empty or otherwise. I figure "hey, I've got this cup with stuff in it. Is it delicious? Is it nasty? If I throw it on somebody, could that be funny? If I freeze it and lick it, would it taste better? Is there a way to market that to any audience and make money?" And that's why I don't sleep at night and instead end up blogging.

Anyway, I think that if you want to be depressed because you're not special, go for it. But here's why you shouldn't be. Ordinary people are those number averages. People focus on them the most, because they comprise most of our human population. I mean, when's the last time you met a famous person? Were they awesome? Did they blow your mind with their self-actualization and wealth of life experience? Or did their breath smell because they didn't brush their teeth and had a bit too much coffee?

But average people, we meet them every day. We pass them on the way to work. We sell them clothes, flip their burgers, celebrate their birthdays, mourn their deaths, babysit their kids, enjoy moments, and makes memories with these Average Joes. All without the notice of 99% of the human population. I've never met a truly famous person, so props to whoever has, but when/if I do, I'm sure I'll tell my kids all about it. I'll show them pictures of me making a funny face next to their exceptionally handsome/beautiful faces, or tell them about how funny this one thing they said was. But you know what else I'll tell my kids? I'll tell them all about my grandparents, my parents, my friends. I'll show them pictures from my high school years, my college years. I'll tell them the story of how I met their mother, the stupid things I did with friends, the sad times, the fun times and the just plain weird times. And you know what? In two or three generations, I'll bet their grand kids won't care less what famous person I ever talked to. They probably won't care much about my high school years, or about my parents or grandparents. But the values that were instilled in me by these average people? They transfer generation to generation. They are branded into our DNA, in our upbringing and how we think.

That's the thing about being average. We as the average are just as essential, if not more so,  those spectacular people. Think of it as a clock: with hundreds of cogs and screws and wood parts and a winder. Most of us have the calling in life of being a cog, just a little piece of the machine. But some of us, a very few. have the lucky life calling of being the guy that gets to wind the clock. They're extraordinary. They make the clock work, right? Because without one of us cogs, the machine would probably be fine. We are replaceable. But without all of us, the winder has nothing to wind. Without many of us interacting together, helping each other, lifting each other up, bein' all average and junk, the winder is sitting there looking like an idiot putting a piece of metal in a non-functional clock. Suddenly, that spectacular dude is looking pretty dumb, right?

So you. Go follow your dreams. Be all awesome and change lives and fix the world and end hunger and stuff. But if you don't... if suddenly you find your world becoming unbearably average, just remember how special being average is. Remember that without us normal cogs, we've got a bunch of stupid clock winders.

All those special people can have their special lives. They can go out there and be voices, and have people look up to them. They can be idolized by millions, and have people hang on their every word. They shoot for the moon, because even if they miss they land among the stars. They jump from the stratosphere and fall to Earth at ungodly speeds. They fly airplanes and dream of great, lofty things. They invent jet packs and hover boards (still holding out for these, actually) and fly with the birds.

Me? I write a blog that 9 people read. I fear the unexamined life, and instead live the thoroughly-examined life. Both my feet stay on the ground, right where they belong. I smile and wave at people I don't know, and have good days and bad days. I tell stories that people laugh at, and laugh when people tell me stories. And you know what? I'm just fine being a cog. Because I'll sit here and work and go unnoticed than to wind a broken clock any day of the week.