"Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." This Bible verse resonated with me a lot today. Earlier, I had a conversation with a lady about my nursing classes. I was saying that Anatomy and Physiology was really easy to me, especially compared with the difficult workload I was taking now. She stated back, "Well that's just because you have a young mind. Things come easier for you." I just nodded my head in agreement, as she is not the first person to have said that, and just went on with the conversation. But, I could not get the conversation out of my mind. She was basically saying, "The only reason you did well in school is because you are young."
I thought of this, and then I thought of the fact that so many times people use youth as general reason for people's actions, successes, and failures. For example, there are many young people I know that have drifted from the faith they once had. I have heard it said many times, "Oh, they're just young. Sowing their wild oats. They all do it." Youth is usually seen as a weakness. It's a time in life where you are supposed to have the best memory functioning, but the decision making part of your brain might not be at its finest moment. Stereotypically, youths are supposed to think they know it all, and make plenty of mistakes in the meantime. And if you are a young person who has miraculously done right things, or gone to school and succeed in it, well that's just because you have a young mind. Even George Bernard Shaw said, "Youth is wasted on the young." And he must be right....right?
Before I sound off on my thoughts on the issue, I am taken back to that Bible verse, in I Timothy 4:12. Why did Paul write this to Timothy? Because Timothy was a young person trying to do right. I'll repeat the verse again, "Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in spirit, in faith, in purity." The verse is saying that you do not have to fall into youth stereotypes.
This leads me to my main point of all this, and that is one key word: Choices. If you are young or old, you alone have a choice. I do not think youth should just be stereotyped as some sort of rite of passage we all go through with inept capabilities. I believe we all make our own choices, starting in our youth. That is why Paul wrote this to Timothy. He was letting Timothy know that he did not have to fall into this trap of believing that he was "just a youth". He could very well make good decisions and actually become a leader right where he was. And I believe he did. Just the fact that Timothy was spending time with as good of an influence as Paul was a good choice in itself. It goes back to the idea that whoever you spend most of your time with is who you will become. Timothy definitely had the right idea with who he was using as an influence.
So, back to my example, and the sowing the wild oats example. Why is it that I have gotten this far in school? First of all, I have had the Lord's help, and He has guided me through all of it, without Him, I couldn't have done it. But secondly, I chose to study. You cannot just wake up one day and be able to explain how blood is pumped through the body. And yes, my young mind may help me retain facts, but determination keeps me studying. There are plenty of equally intellectually gifted people who do not chose to go to school. It is the same thing with the sowing the wild oats example. No one forces young people to experiment with destructive behaviors. If a teenager starts doing drugs, yes, they may have peer pressure, but ultimately it is their choice to take part in that. It is the same with anything like that. You choose, by your daily actions, what path you are going to take. You do not just fall into a path based on your age.
Choices. That word seems so simple, but when I think about it, that's how most people have gotten to where they are in their lives. Each day, we are faced with choices that may ultimately change the outcome of our future. And choices can really spiral into a lot more than you ever expected. I think youth is only wasted on the young, if the young choose to waste their youth. And what determines that, is simply the choices they make on a day to day basis.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Friday, October 18, 2013
The Lie of the Easy
"Nothing is fast, quick, or easy unless you are going downhill." Sitting in Freedom Hall, in the midst of thousands of people, I felt like John Maxwell was speaking directly to me. It was as if he had just said, "Ashley, NOTHING is fast, quick, or easy, unless you are going downhill." This simple phrase spoke volumes of what I had been so deeply contemplating lately. You see, things in my life have been crazy lately. I have been working, going to nursing school (which is enough to drive someone insane by itself), and doing a million other things trying to build my future, and sometimes I wonder if i'm doing the right thing.
I question myself because, due to my generation and culture, I have the tendency to think that anything that happens to you should be easy, quick, painless even. That's the problem with this generation, most of us think that we should spend our college years taking things easy, be handed a diploma, walk into the job of our choice, and easily reside in the suburbs, with our high-school sweet hearts and two children we strategically planned to have exactly 5 years after marriage and 2 years apart. Oh, and to top it all off, we should be debt-free and comfortable with a minivan and leisure car of our choice.
And so, our generation buys into the "lie of the easy", and we second-guess ourselves when we have to even remotely put in work into anything. Even prior to the conference, I had a conversation with a friend who spoke about how she knew things were right in her life because everything was easy. This made me wonder, should everything be this hard? Should I be this busy? Is working this hard going to be worth it?
Then, John Maxwell said that phrase, and everything made sense. Think about what happens when you go downhill. You aren't meeting any resistance, and in fact your speed accelerates. The opposite is true when you are going uphill. It is a lot tougher trying to get to the top of a mountain than it is coming down from it. And do we think about where downhill leads? It usually leads to a valley, or a pit. Metaphorically speaking, is that where we want to be in our lives? Yes, we may think that the easy way will lead us to our goals, but does it really? Every time we refuse to work for something, where does that lead us? I think it leads us one step away from where we really want to be. Think back to the example I talked about earlier, with the suburbs and minivan. There is nothing wrong with wanting that, but how would we really feel with all that just handed to us? Would we be happy, or would we be like so many other Americans, and be empty, sad, burdened with debt, and not living the life we wanted. Think about this on the other hand, what if you spent your college years working hard, worked for your dreams, and worked your way into the job, position, or role that you wanted? What if you saved your money to buy a house, and maybe you did not have everything when everybody else did, but you put your money back to have a better life later on. What if you took your time to find the right spouse? Maybe you were not always in a relationship, but you took time and found the right person to spend your life with? What if you worked to make that relationship the best that it could be? Think of how much better all of this would make our future! With a little hard work now, and not sacrificing the permanent on the altar of the temporal, we could have a life that is actually meaningful and rewarding.
If we took a step back and really considered what even a little bit of work could do, maybe we would stop believing in this "easy lie". Taking a step back made me realize that, yes, things are really diffficult right now, but each moment I spend staying up late studying, when everyone else my age I know is out at the movies, is a moment that i'm using to build my future. This taking a step back just made me realize that in order to get where I want to be, I'm going to have to intentionally take steps to build my future. Nothing great in life that we want is going to just be handed to us. It is like that Hunter Hayes song that says, "I don't want good and I don't want good enough...I don't want easy, I want crazy." In order to get great, and not just good enough, things won't be easy. In fact, it just might be a little crazy.
I question myself because, due to my generation and culture, I have the tendency to think that anything that happens to you should be easy, quick, painless even. That's the problem with this generation, most of us think that we should spend our college years taking things easy, be handed a diploma, walk into the job of our choice, and easily reside in the suburbs, with our high-school sweet hearts and two children we strategically planned to have exactly 5 years after marriage and 2 years apart. Oh, and to top it all off, we should be debt-free and comfortable with a minivan and leisure car of our choice.
And so, our generation buys into the "lie of the easy", and we second-guess ourselves when we have to even remotely put in work into anything. Even prior to the conference, I had a conversation with a friend who spoke about how she knew things were right in her life because everything was easy. This made me wonder, should everything be this hard? Should I be this busy? Is working this hard going to be worth it?
Then, John Maxwell said that phrase, and everything made sense. Think about what happens when you go downhill. You aren't meeting any resistance, and in fact your speed accelerates. The opposite is true when you are going uphill. It is a lot tougher trying to get to the top of a mountain than it is coming down from it. And do we think about where downhill leads? It usually leads to a valley, or a pit. Metaphorically speaking, is that where we want to be in our lives? Yes, we may think that the easy way will lead us to our goals, but does it really? Every time we refuse to work for something, where does that lead us? I think it leads us one step away from where we really want to be. Think back to the example I talked about earlier, with the suburbs and minivan. There is nothing wrong with wanting that, but how would we really feel with all that just handed to us? Would we be happy, or would we be like so many other Americans, and be empty, sad, burdened with debt, and not living the life we wanted. Think about this on the other hand, what if you spent your college years working hard, worked for your dreams, and worked your way into the job, position, or role that you wanted? What if you saved your money to buy a house, and maybe you did not have everything when everybody else did, but you put your money back to have a better life later on. What if you took your time to find the right spouse? Maybe you were not always in a relationship, but you took time and found the right person to spend your life with? What if you worked to make that relationship the best that it could be? Think of how much better all of this would make our future! With a little hard work now, and not sacrificing the permanent on the altar of the temporal, we could have a life that is actually meaningful and rewarding.
If we took a step back and really considered what even a little bit of work could do, maybe we would stop believing in this "easy lie". Taking a step back made me realize that, yes, things are really diffficult right now, but each moment I spend staying up late studying, when everyone else my age I know is out at the movies, is a moment that i'm using to build my future. This taking a step back just made me realize that in order to get where I want to be, I'm going to have to intentionally take steps to build my future. Nothing great in life that we want is going to just be handed to us. It is like that Hunter Hayes song that says, "I don't want good and I don't want good enough...I don't want easy, I want crazy." In order to get great, and not just good enough, things won't be easy. In fact, it just might be a little crazy.
Friday, October 11, 2013
What Will You Do With Your Line?
Earlier today, I decided to watch Glee's tribute to Cory Monteith. Glee used to be one of the shows I watched all the time, and Cory's character, Finn Hudson, was my absolute favorite. His character had a calm, yet leading spirit, that I really liked, and even wanted to emulate in my own life. I saw that calm assurance, peace with strength spirit as one that I wanted myself.
Anyways, although I really liked the character and felt bad about this untimely death, that is not what struck me most about the episode. Yes, I was emotional; yes, I thought it was terrible that he died, but one simple conversation from the show halted me in my tracks. In the episode, the character Puckerman looked at a plaque that had Finn's birth year to death written out as such: 1994-2013. After that, the character said,"You know what's tripping me out? This line between the two years. That's his whole life. Everything that happened was in that line." The woman he was talking to just replied back, "What are you gonna do with your line now Puckerman?"
What are you gonna do with your line? Wow, what a line! All I could think about was the fact that we really only get that short little line. Regardless of how long we get, 20 years, 50 years, 70 years, the time between that line really is not that long. Everything that happens in our life will be in that short little line period. This especially struck me because it made me think, if my life ended tomorrow, I would have only had 21 years in that line. All I would have to show is what I've done in that time. No second chances, no redo's, no chance to get to do something I had not attempted yet. Each day, each moment, is a time we will never get back. I wondered, would I be satisfied with what I've done so far? Yes, I've accomplished some of my goals, but there are still things I want to do. There are still a lot of things that I want to accomplish in my lifetime. It made me think too, am I doing enough to accomplish those goals? Am I living my life in a way that I could say I used the line I was given effectively? Especially since no one knows how much of a line they will get.
So why do so many of us live each moment in mediocrity? Why do so many of us go through life just being normal, and not trying to reach our dreams? Why do so many of us "wait til tomorrow" to make things right with people we may be at odds with? Why do we live like we have all the time in the world? The answer has to do with the fact that many of us ignore the line. We ignore the fact that life is not something we are guaranteed. Every day is a gift. I'm not using this blog to bash anybody, by the way, all of the things I have said could be pointed right back at me. There have been moments and days that I have wasted. Yes, I have tried to be futuristic, and focus on what is important, but I have had moments when I failed to realize how important it was to live wisely with the "line" we are given.
The Bible even says in James 4:14,"Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." None of us know what is coming next. For those of you who have lost someone you care about, how many times do you think, "If only I could have....", and you fill in the blanks with something that you will never get to do? I know I've done that. There are many times I think, if only I could drive my Pawpaw to church one more time. Yet, his time is over. He may have lived a long life by our standards, but if you think about it, even if you die in your 70's, your life is just a vapor.
So, what are you going to do with the line you get? It's a gift, but it's up to you to do something with it. Everything that is going to happen will happen in that line...no matter how long or short that line happens to be.
Anyways, although I really liked the character and felt bad about this untimely death, that is not what struck me most about the episode. Yes, I was emotional; yes, I thought it was terrible that he died, but one simple conversation from the show halted me in my tracks. In the episode, the character Puckerman looked at a plaque that had Finn's birth year to death written out as such: 1994-2013. After that, the character said,"You know what's tripping me out? This line between the two years. That's his whole life. Everything that happened was in that line." The woman he was talking to just replied back, "What are you gonna do with your line now Puckerman?"
What are you gonna do with your line? Wow, what a line! All I could think about was the fact that we really only get that short little line. Regardless of how long we get, 20 years, 50 years, 70 years, the time between that line really is not that long. Everything that happens in our life will be in that short little line period. This especially struck me because it made me think, if my life ended tomorrow, I would have only had 21 years in that line. All I would have to show is what I've done in that time. No second chances, no redo's, no chance to get to do something I had not attempted yet. Each day, each moment, is a time we will never get back. I wondered, would I be satisfied with what I've done so far? Yes, I've accomplished some of my goals, but there are still things I want to do. There are still a lot of things that I want to accomplish in my lifetime. It made me think too, am I doing enough to accomplish those goals? Am I living my life in a way that I could say I used the line I was given effectively? Especially since no one knows how much of a line they will get.
So why do so many of us live each moment in mediocrity? Why do so many of us go through life just being normal, and not trying to reach our dreams? Why do so many of us "wait til tomorrow" to make things right with people we may be at odds with? Why do we live like we have all the time in the world? The answer has to do with the fact that many of us ignore the line. We ignore the fact that life is not something we are guaranteed. Every day is a gift. I'm not using this blog to bash anybody, by the way, all of the things I have said could be pointed right back at me. There have been moments and days that I have wasted. Yes, I have tried to be futuristic, and focus on what is important, but I have had moments when I failed to realize how important it was to live wisely with the "line" we are given.
The Bible even says in James 4:14,"Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." None of us know what is coming next. For those of you who have lost someone you care about, how many times do you think, "If only I could have....", and you fill in the blanks with something that you will never get to do? I know I've done that. There are many times I think, if only I could drive my Pawpaw to church one more time. Yet, his time is over. He may have lived a long life by our standards, but if you think about it, even if you die in your 70's, your life is just a vapor.
So, what are you going to do with the line you get? It's a gift, but it's up to you to do something with it. Everything that is going to happen will happen in that line...no matter how long or short that line happens to be.
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