Fool's Gold + late night thoughts

https://youtu.be/8hh1iuL5ZrI

Isn't it so crazy how many people are in this world? I found this YouTube video of a guy named Ryan who is just having some late night thoughts about being compelled to do things that matter. I'm including this video in my blog for documentation so I don't forget this moment I just had. Soon I will be a missionary teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it's weird to put into perspective how many people out of a thousand have had thoughts like this and are looking for the truth, let alone one million...or 7 billion. Some of them will care and some of them won't.

I feel like religion is the California Gold Rush that much of our world is ignoring or finds irrelevant. Except, instead of trekking off to the Golden State of Promise with their knapsacks and gold-sifters, they're digging around in Antarctica obsessing over fame and fortune--substance no less than fool's gold. And they flaunt it. They wear it on their sleeves as phony armour. They shackle it around their ankles and call it jewelry.  They have their fool's gold plated books and shacks and philosophies. 

And I've been one of them. I've hauled their hollow knapsacks and shivered for false treasure. And  I struggle. A lot. Whenever I feel a puff of pride in my chest I have to bring myself back to my search for the Real treasure--the gospel of Jesus Christ. But every time I ignore a family member, shroud myself in social anxiety, or fill myself with arrogance so I don't have to talk to people I, too, am wearing fool's gold on my sleeve, when I should be holding Real Gold in my heart. And thus is the struggle of humanity.

As I watch the music videos of female artists intended to be role models for young girls, I wonder what they are selling our younger generation; it's usually Fool's Gold. 

These female influences who consider themselves feminists disempower the female gender with each stroke of Fool's Gold-each instance they sell themselves short yet again. Each time they objectify themselves. Women are not pretty trinkets, and they are not overshadowers. Women are considerate and strong. They are not meant to be objectified or seen as a weakness.

And men. Men are not weakness if they have hearts. Men are intelligent. They are patriarchs. And why is every punchline of a joke foolishly painting men as shallow and one-dimensional? men are wonderful. They are necessary. They are strong. 

Do people seriously think that physical image and title is all there is to aspire to? If I didn't grow up knowing what I know, would I live that lie as well? I hope not. I hope I would feel what the guy in the YouTube video felt and know that there is more to humanity than penetrable skin barriers, which house the organs that hold our mortality. I hope I would feel the Spirit inside me compelling me towards more than Fool's Gold. Do not wear Fool's Gold on your sleeve when you could be wearing Real Gold on your heart.

On Narcissism + the Cycle of Happiness

(I just found this post that I wrote in High School, and it's quite interesting. I didn't publish it by accident.):

"The main quality that defines me as a teenager is narcissism. My psyche is a vacuole of distressing over-analyzation. Here's how I think of it: souls are like atoms. At the core, our nucleus, you have the positive protons and neutral neutrons. The protons are the qualities one aspires to have, and the neutrons are the qualities already integrated into their being. The negative electrons are the annoying, yet necessary opposition, which one ideally repels with their protons, or positivity."

Me currently: I stand by the cool metaphor, but I do not agree with how I claimed that narcissism is the main quality that defines me. I do believe that that is how our society had defined Millennials for a while. After all, "selfie" has been a full-on term in the dictionary for some time all because of Millennials' seeming self-obsession.
However, this "self-obsession" has seemed to be morphing into "self-love" lately. Self-empowering terms such as "feeling myself," "slay," and "queen" have become common terminology as a means of expressing confidence in oneself. I keep contemplating if we are using this as a rationalization of our unhealthy narcissism, and owning and pride in our narcissism, or a redefinition of what it means to take a selfie and promote one's confidence. I think it is the latter.

I think that people still think of themselves too much instead of sharing intimate human interaction and truly valuing themselves in the fact that they open themselves up to helping others. I think this is largely due to human communication--specifically concerning technology. Once the internet sprouted up, people quickly gravitated towards it as a virtual forefront. However, in all things there is opposition, so we soon became aware of the excessive bullying that also came from it and still continues to this day. From opposition, there also came beauty though. Today, there are numerous anti-bullying and self-love campaigns with public figures behind them. Some examples of self-love advocators include Demi Lovato, Meghan Trainor, and numerous other public figures who continuously speak out to young people who are struggling with depression, eating disorders, and sexual confusion.

I think this is great. It's good that people are using the power of speech to encourage others to love themselves. I think this step is vital in helping to heal our society. However, I also think it is important to define what it means to actually love oneself--truly. I wanna define TRUE LOVE, people. (AKA me reading this) Anyway, what our society promotes as self-love right now is basically that we are in charge of our lives, and we can do no wrong as long as it makes us happy. A comfortable, easy-to-swallow platform that makes you feel like life is simple, and happiness is the only standard. Obviously, this is not completely so. Happiness isn't the only standard or else why would we feel sickened by the thought of criminals who find happiness in robbing our house? (btw I'm alone in my gma's house rn...kinda creeping myself out)
"Well, yeah," one might say, "but those are the crazies. They don't count." Except that yes they do. They're human beings, and don't they deserve happiness as much as anyone?

This is where the essentiality of morals step in, like the vegetables you didn't realize were delicious until you became diabetic. The limits of happiness are when they begin to take away from somebody else's or your own well being.

As we promote self-love, we must teach young people that while you can love yourself and pursue happiness, everything comes with a price, and some things make you happier than others. When you rob a house, you are decreasing somebody else's happiness. When you smoke, you are decreasing your life span. When you drink alcohol, whether you like it or not, you increase the chances of injuring, or even killing, somebody else. Food makes a lot of people happy too (including myself, 600%), but when you go past your limit, you start to feel the hurt. There are natural limits to our world--limits that are becoming more and more blurry.
Something advocates of self-love would do well to keep in mind(including myself) is to live true happiness.

While Narcissism is not something we truly focus on now because of our heavy emphasis on self-love, I would submit that narcissism is a real problem and a true enemy to self-love. If we keep defining self-love as showing off our bodies and taking a lot of selfies, we will dilute love and even subtract our own happiness. The simplest solution I know to this is by everyone looking outward, contributing to others' happiness, and as a result, we will become happier ourselves. It's the standard cycle of happiness.

Grrr Rant

I am a disgrace to the name of this blog. I use this blog journal to vent far too much. New goal: have more positive thoughts...after this rant haha. I need to love people more. I just get angry at people who are more socially inclined and more publicly talented than I. I am thinking of someone at my school who is a great athlete and is popular and good-looking and grrr. I mean, there are just some people who sneeze, and everyone pats 'em on the back, you know? Like people have this preconceived idea that they're the greatest thing since sliced bread, and thus, everything they say is funny. Everything they say is accepted.

In case you're confused, this is me, an average juvenile, struggling to grasp the concept of popularity. I'm starting to realize that popularity is not only being liked; it is an infatuation because once someone proves themselves to be worthy of likeability, people begin assuming things about the person and filling in the gaps with their own ideals of perfection. I'm probably all wrong with this, but, I just need to get my thoughts out.

This is so bad. Why do I have to be jealous? This is simply me listening to the adversary once again and reiterating my own inadequacy instead of focusing on the talents and gifts that God has generously given to me that I should be thankful for.

The Mean Reds

I'm having a Holly Golightly ("Breakfast at Tiffany's" [I'm obsessed]) moment right now. Ugh. It's the Mean Reds. The Mean Reds are different that the Blues because when you have the Blues, you are just plain sad, but when you have the Mean Reds, you are afraid, and you don't know what you're afraid of. For me, I can pick apart almost all of my individual fears like monkey bread, but there are so many of them they all sort of morph into a vast glob of trepidation which I can't chew through. However, I also know that this is the adversary trying to make me feel inferior and like I don't have the power to choose how I feel about myself. The most difficult part of being human is having parts of you that you know can be better but require patience, and you will never be perfect. That's where I know I must push away my pride and let Christ in and let him make up the rest after I've done my all.

Blog Breakup and Sneezing

Update: I'm still eating healthy and trying to be productive with my time. Yes, I count blogging as productive because it is the liaison between me and productiveness in general. So, Marin broke up with me over blog. It's cool. She can live her life, but it's just that we didn't even have a dramatic blog breakup or anything so I'm feeling a lack of mourning for the brief but meaningful life of the blog.

Catharsis of the day: The feeling of sneezing is probably the closest that living humans will ever feel as an equivalent to the liberation felt by the Americans from the British. Or the children of Israel from Moses. Or any group of people which felt a huge relief from something that other people cannot feel. Sneezing ties mankind together in this way. It is a social thread which ties us together in the tapestry of life.

Carter the Cactus

Hey heyyy :) so, this whole clean eating deal isn't too bad so far. (I'll probably be crawling for a doughnut in 3 days) so I'm enjoying the moment for now. It's so true that eating healthy makes you feel better. I instantly feel more energized by eating fruits and vegetables rather than something high in sugar or fat. I'd like to think I'm sort of like a plant. When I was a little girl I always wished you could just water a seed and a bubbly daisy would spring up from the dirt like magic, but I had to learn (and am still learning) that all good things come with patience and moderation.

Apparently I still have a long relationship of learning with this particular principle because I continue to be a plant murderer.
Which reminds me of my cactus. At the beginning of the school year I had a beautiful pet cactus named Carter. I loved him dearly indeed. He made me so happy. Sometimes I'd come home from school and just stare at him in the windowsill, infatuated with his dangerous beauty. I gave him everything. YET somehow Carter was not satisfied with my generous services, and he died. I'm pretty sure it was suicide because I did everything in my power to keep that photosynthetic nuisance alive. I even color coordinated the rocks in his soil!

So anyway I did pretty good today diet wise. Except I had some Chinese food. But does that even count, honestly?? When it comes to Chinese food I have this rationalization complex which is triggered in my brain because of the pleasant qualities it possesses.

Clean Eating Adventuring

I really want to show Heavenly Father my appreciation for my existence by taking care of my body and being moderate with my food consumption. I realize this is a common goal we often take upon ourselves as humans, but I think people have different motivations or different intentions for doing certain things, and I hope that my intentions for this goal can stay consistent and pure and that I am doing this for said reason above. Therefore, I am going to look at this goal through a different perspective. Clean eating is going to be my fearless adventure, not unlike that of Indiana Jones or Luke Skywalker (I haven't even watched the entirety of either of those movies). I know that the road will be rough and it will be difficult to resist such indulgences, but in the end, it will be for the greater good. It will help me focus on others more, social interaction, and my educational goals as well. Each day I will log in my status of clean eating to hopefully develop a lifelong habit.