Realizations

When can you really know someone?  When I say,“know,” I don’t mean understand his/her personality.  Not they’re beliefs, sense of humor, likes or dislikes.  More than seeing an attractive female from across the room; noticing how pleasantly her left eye is an oh-so-slightly different color than her right eye.  Small talk and superficial conversation may trick one into feeling a real connection between the two of you, just because you enjoy the same music or agree on political views.  This connection may turn into a friendship.  The friendship can lead to familiarity.  Familiarity may sometimes be a very dangerous feeling.  When I see a familiar face I instantly have an emotion associated with that person.  This face can cause me to smile.  It can make me roll my eyes, laugh, become angry, recall memories from years passed.  The danger comes into play when I think of a time in the past.  This familiarity can cause me to believe that I know a person, and this belief comes from a period from the past.  Some of the best and most memorable days of my life may have been shared with a  person, so of course I associate this person with happiness.  I forget about all the other circumstances that had an impact on why these days were so great.  Maybe these days were so great because I began a new hobby.  Or I was learning something new that I didn’t know about.  It may have been a stress free point in my life. For whatever reason this familiar person could have simply been a side-show to what was really making me happy.  Then again, it could really be that person that made me happy.

What about ourselves, do we know our own selves?  Sometimes I don’t think I do.  Pride is sometimes an invisible veil.  And this veil can be suffocating if it gets too heavy.  We cannot allow others to give us our identity, or for US to become engulfed with THEIR feelings.  This is pride.  Trying to be someone that I’m not so that others will have a false portrait of me; to get your happiness from their impressions.  If this is your way of happiness, then it may be fake happiness.  Does it withstand the test of time?  Can you smile and laugh when you’re alone?  This is how I test my happiness occasionally, and I think it’s a pretty good barometer.  Another barometer that I like even better (personally):  if you find a hat that you like, wear it.  Don’t care if you don’t think others like it, it’s just a silly hat!  Wear it.  Find a way to be happy with yourself.  I know that’s a cliché but it rings true.  Once you’re happy with you, then you can share and receive happiness with others.  I think this is summed up in a phrase that I learned at a college church service around 5 years ago: “Be to do, don’t do to be.”

BUT this is not the same as being selfish as in “do whatever makes you happy.”  This is something deeper than momentary pleasure.  This can bring you joy, which is different that happiness.  Happiness is physiological, just chemicals in our brains.  But JOY has a divine nature.  Joy is a realization and a commitment.  It’s comparable to the difference in lust and love.  Love is more than an emotion.  It’s tragic that we grow up thinking that love is only a feeling, by watching fairy tails and romantic movies and having everything sugar-coated.  Of course emotions are involved, but love is also a COMMITMENT.  Relationships must have investments and sacrifices: whether the relationship is romantic, a friendship, or spiritual.  

I think God is about love, short term sacrifice of our selfish desires, joy, relationship, and realization that He is in control.