Rant: Venture into the Human Condition

I feel like as Christians we are pressured to be happy constantly. I feel badly when returning home and realizing I was not the happiest person in class or at work. (I attend a community college and work part-time as an all around vet tech) I am at times simply overwhelmed with reality of the harshness of the general human condition which can put me in a sour mood. Then I begin to worry. What kind of legacy will I leave behind? If I died tomorrow, would I be remembered as the silly college student who did not keep her word, could not do what was asked of her, never worked hard enough to achieve her fickle dreams, and was rarely prompt for an event? It simply scares me. I have peace knowing God is in control but the happiness is sometimes lost in the frustration from the feeling I am not doing what I was meant to do. I am a sophmore at Weatherford Jr. College finishing up my basics with an Associates in Arts hopefully. But where do I go afterwards? I am constantly asked this question and consistently aggitated by it. I do not know yet exactly what I want to do and wonder if this stems from a fear of failure. "Never try, never fail." Most of the people I am around at school or work, know/knew exactly what profession they wanted/want and are gaining the education needed or have already the Doctorate they need. Yes, working with Veterinarians so annoys me. :D They work hard, love what they do, and know so much about vastly differented yet related subjects, it blows me away! And one of them gets up at 4 in the morning to excercise! :O I just wonder why I cannot be like them. Why can I not find the one thing I would be happy to spend the rest of my life doing no matter the wages or the difficulty of the task? I have five things constantly slightly nagging at me instead of one desire tugging me. On the brink of my conscience at all times stay writing, dog training, acting, piano, and physical training. I love all these things and wish God would make me desire to have a career in one. I can work hard and know I could accomplish nearly anything to which I have set my mind. Lol, which is probably why the idea of being an engineer or biochemist never crossed my mind. I am not naturally talented in the science or math department. It would be a difficult career but a almost guarunteed success unlike the life of a struggling English teacher writing in her spare time. My sister walked in a moment ago stating my best friend's brother Ben is currently suffering respiratory arrest in the midst of a surgery. After saying a prayer for him, I begin to wonder, "What the heck was I worried about?" And I also wonder if I lived in the 1700's and could see my 2012 self, if I would rebuke myself harshly, for my poorly clad pilgrim spirit must worry about from where her next meal is coming. Is all of this idleness a production of the 21 century? Did people ever think about such things during "The Starving Time"? Or if fed well and idle are these the things a human mind should ponder and should people be happy when filled with such thoughts? Or should they become sad, yearning for the joy of making a difference in a sad word? How will we make that difference? I apologize is this makes no sense. I am a very open person and simply began to rant; I feel mad at times. Not angry mad. Mad mad! ;) I used to be a bit more skilled at typing my random thoughts into flowing paragraphs. Yet this confused writer has been deprived of dipping her quill in the ink too long.(Well, it sounded better than stating I was deprived of the time and will to write on a keyboard during the summer months I which worked full-time)

Life Lessons

"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream." You may recognize the opening words to John Steinbeck's famous novel Cannery Row. You may not. Cannery row is raw human nature exposed perhaps. I am reading the book for a college English class and am trying to form some original opinions about it.-- This was two months ago. I have finished the book and the paper and the presentation. The presentation along with the presentations of my fellow students will be published in a book my professor is composing. My final position paper's theme was the inherent evil of mankind--a dark paper but a fun one. After reading my VERY ruff draft my teacher commented, with a laugh, he needed to go home and watch a happy movie. He loved my comparison of Cannery Row to the classics. Now school is over. I am working this summer at a local vet office--walking dogs, etc. My goals this summer are to resume dog training, get back into shape, pratice piano, write and decide upon a major :P. I work nearly forty hours a week some weeks so it is difficult the balance the things I need to do and want to do. I have not sat down and written only to write in a long while. College papers had satisfied my thirst for writing. I have come to realize I have many thirsts, many desires to excel in unrelated areas of life. Which one should I choose to fulfill as a career? As a young teenager I trained Border Collie for frisbee freestyle and distance competitions. I gave up though when she became aggressive towards other dogs and lost focus. I have been around many border collies and Fly is one of the most intense and one the the fastest I have seen. I am planning on taking her to a trainer for a one on one season to see what advice she gives. For right now I am slightly bed-ridden. I had my gallbladder removed two days ago. I am working on a short story with some help from my best friend. We share a blog titled "The Chronicles of Insanity" and must say some of our stories are nearly embarrassing. XD It is so much fun being at this stage in life- done with my first year of college, off for the summer, home with the best family ever. Yet it is unsettling to not have a goal in life. I was always told it is all right to go into college with an undecided major. I realize it would have been better to pick something, anything, and have changed my major later I think.

Steppin' on Toes: Friendly Debate

      I've been thinking... which would seem odd to those that know me well. I returned from a speech and debate tournament last night and tournaments always get me thinking. I watched the the final Lincoln-Douglas debate. LD debate pits one idea against another using logic, quotes, and examples to support a case. The LD resolution for this year is "I stand resolved that popular sovereignty more determines the legitimacy of a government than individual rights." Sometimes LD debates contain arguments about morals. How can morals be debated without a "mearsuring stick" by which things are decided moral, immoral, or niether?
        
            I talked to a girl once who said, "We do not need to force our Christian morals on others. They need to decide their morals for themselves." I asked, "What about 'Thou shalt not kill'? Isn't that enforcing morality?"
"No, life is a right; not a moral." "What about 'Thou shalt not steal'?" "That is a violation of right to property." Moral: "the distinction between right and wrong" according to dictionary.com. Our discussion turned into a debate of rights and morals. Rights, people say, are inherent. I know man should always choose the right thing and follow his concientious but we live in a fallen world and we cannot always make the right decisions. That is why we need laws. If we decided our own morals, there would not be a right and wrong and therefore no need for a Savior. Then I thought, "Doesn't one need to have morals to respect rights? Could the people who wrote the Bill of Rights and the Constitution have decided what rights exsisted without some absolute moral standard?"
      Laws are in place to keep up safe: even many which are not in the Bible. I do believe though, there are many laws which violate rights and hence, morals. Abortion, for example, is a violation to the right to life. If we Christians believe something is harmful to society, we need to say so and explain why. The girl and I went onto to argue about gay rights. "They have a right to decide who they love and whom to marry." Sex is not love. Caring for others and puting them above yourself is real love. Besides if "love" between a man and women is merely tradition, then why my gays follow the "tradition" of marriage? There are just some things our society blasts us with which don't make sense to me. Chuck Colson's article did make sense though in my funny little brain.

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.christianitytoday.com%2Fct%2F2004%2Fjune%2F8.72.html&h=a8c07 

I may have opened a can of worms but I found this interesting and thought someone else might also.

    I suppose my point is if you disagree with someone, do not be afriad to say so; and understand you may have to agree to disagree.