Lack of Bloggage, among other topics

I realized recently that my blog is pretty lame. I am a blogger who never blogs who has a blog that is never blogged on. Does that sound as pathetic to you as it does to me?

Well there are various reasons for my lack of bloggage, but it really comes down to the fact that I have way too many commitments to fulfill in the amount of time I have been given. In the past month (maybe longer...) I have let down my friends and my blog followers with a gross lack of communication on my part. The unanswered calls, messages, and the lack of bloggage for 6 weeks straight tell all. I am truly sorry. I don't know how people do it. I honestly don't.

I now find myself having to choose every day between whether to get a decent amount of sleep or to actually see my friends and engage myself, once again, in society. A couple years ago I would have been all for society. I could go on little to no sleep and not embarrass myself as a walking zombie among living, normal, non-sleep deprived humans. As a student you are supposed to hold strange hours. I remember it being normal to go to bed at four in the morning and wake up at 11. It was exciting then, living in the dead hours, while everyone else slept and dreamed and missed the night.

But once reality hit (meaning graduation), I entered the world of full-time, American wage earners. This world is defined by many things, among which include, but are not limited to:
1. Dreary, long days, hours, minutes, seconds....I'm not counting I swear!
2. The lack of sleep- see zombie comment above. Less sleep for workers does not equal more time for play, but more time for work. FUN.
3. The lack of definitive self outside of the worker self- when you spend the majority of your time at your job, as most workers do, your job starts defining you (instead of the other way around). Most of us will spend twice as much time with our coworkers as we spend with our spouses, children's, family, and friends.
4. The lack of time- when you work all day and sleep all night, the hours that are left in between the two can be anywhere from zero (yes that is right!) to 6 hours. (6 hours seems like a lot, but after making dinner, running various errands, etc we'll both see how much is left, and then compare notes. :-))
5. The loss of personal relationships-I could rant about this one forever. What happened to all that time I used to have devoted to maintaining my relationships with those around me? Now I have to pencil you in, and schedule a time for us to do that. It's sad really. I have to micro-manage my recreational time.

The list could go on. I don't want to bore you. So I won't.

I'll just end with a thought.

I want to share something with you: The three little sentences that will get you through life. Number 1: Cover for me. Number 2: Oh, good idea, Boss! Number 3: It was like that when I got here.- Homer Simpson

Big action

Action. It isn't hard to do....right? I mean we act ALL the time. Right now I am actively typing this blog post. Maybe you are actively reading it. These are undoubtedly actions. But are they definitive actions?

This is where I must stop for a brief moment and define two terms. Action, as in, the state of doing, is related to, but fundamentally separate from what I will call big action. Big action involves anything a person does that fundamentally changes their life path. These are the decisions that move us from one life (literally) to a new life. Let me make one distinction. A big action is ALWAYS in our control. Thus, big actions do not include acts that disrupt and move our old life into a new one against our will. A person who chooses to cross a street and then gets hit by a car is not acting the big act. Their life was disrupted and replaced by a new one, yes. But their act to cross the street is still just an act. Unless they chose to get hit by the car when they crossed the street, their act could never be a big act.

So big acts have two, necessary elements:
1. They are chosen by the actor.
2. They create new life.

I think big action is one of the hardest things any of us can do. Why is that? As I have thought this over, I came up with the three most debilitating elements to big action:

1. getting too comfortable
2. laziness
3. fear

These three things cause in-big-action. The consequences that come from it are numerous. In-big-action keep us all from reaching our full potentials. It forces us to be coasters instead of actors/doers/choosers in our own lives. It causes unhappiness, discontent, and anxiety. And why wouldn't it? It's not like all of us don't think about actually doing the big act. We do. A LOT! Which feeds the fire of inactivity even more. I think most of us are able to dream up grand things for ourselves. When we were children we thought we could be prima ballerinas and pro-football players and astronauts. We pretty much thought we could rule the world. What happened? I believe most of us adults still think we can achieve those elusive dreams, though we may be more practical about. Maybe I can't be a prima ballerina, but maybe I will be able to own my own dance studio. Things like that. We adapt our dreams because we recognize our ability levels. And that's okay.

What is NOT okay is constantly fearing the big-actions. It is getting too comfortable in that house you've lived in all your life, surrounded by people you've know forever. It is settling for less because we're afraid we could never get more. It is always thinking and thinking, until it makes us forget the value of acting. It is never taking chances.

How does one break free from inaction? How do we get rid of fear, laziness, of the comfortable? I have yet to answer this question in my own life. But I do have the words of those who have big-acted before me, and I take comfort in the simplicity of their words.

To begin, begin. Peter Nivio Zarlenga

If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don't do it, and it won't happen. Joe Dimaggio

You must act as you breathe. Georges Clemenceau

I agree the most with Goethe...
Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

And to conclude with the famous slogan of those shoe-making geniuses....
Just Do It. Nike

Change, Oh how you disarm me...

I've been thinking a lot recently about change, its meaning, its purpose, its aftereffects. My own personal battle with and against change is complicated. Growing up, anyone could probably tell you how much I despised change in all its forms. Most of all, I hated life-altering change. The kind that rips your life into little shreds and expects you to form a new picture out of the unrecognizable pieces. In my life, this change came in the form of the constant and dreaded moves my family would take every couple of years. We were a family of gypsies, and believe me when I tell you, it was not romantic, mysterious, or even remotely something to be wished for. Without a homeland, without that geographical center with which is identify with, I often felt lost and alone.
Growing up I hoped so much for consistency that I actually believed it was what could and would make me happy with my life. The funny thing about life, though, is that those things that made you who you are today, even the things you fought against, will always be a part of you, no matter how hard you try to push them out of existence. It took me a long time to realize that change was my biggest consistency, and that it, more than a lot of the things I wanted and dreamed for, had come to define who I was as an individual.
Which brings me to where I am now. After living in Singapore for five months, I, for perhaps the first time in my adult life, made the consciouses choice to facilitate the specific change that I have been fighting my whole life against. And now I am sitting here, once again in Utah of all places, knowing full well that I chose to be here, I chose to pick up and leave. And I didn't dread it. I didn't resent it. I wanted it. And I wanted it bad.
Who knows? Maybe my lack of landedness has create a monster I will never be able to rid myself of. Maybe change will really haunt me all my life. But then again, maybe change will be the shade that makes life worth living.