A Year to Look Forward To

I have a lot to look forward to this year.  January - a trip to Oakland.  February - a trip to New Orleans, Louisiana.  July - a trip to Europe.  This year is the year I need to do things that I have said I wanted to do.  I've always wanted to go to New Orleans so I'm going.  I've never been to Europe so I'm going.  This is going to be a great year.

Uneasy

The mind runs uneasily when it doesn't understand.  It racks its brain over and over, reading and re-reading, analyzing and over-analyzing, running through scenarios and memories over and over.  I want to know why but I don't ask in respect, so it becomes an internal struggle without closure.

Things change so much in 1 year.  Last year, I was "the most important thing" in his life.

My best friend

I've loved you for half my life, that is if I even know what "love" is.  I've said it to 3 different people thus far, and I meant it every time when I said it, but looking back, I think it was real only once.  It was you, and I knew it was different because with you, the feeling lasted.  When I don't hear from you for a long time, your number flashing on my phone still makes my heart race.  At the risk of sounding cheesy, it's true.

I've loved you for half my life.  With you, it's always been a roller coaster of ups and downs.  In physics, some charges attract and some repel, and that was the story of our relationship together from the day I met you.  We got close and separated, got close and separated, got close and separated...always a work in progress, but the chemistry seemed magnetic because somehow we always found our way back to each other.

You call me your best friend.  I'm scared to call you mine, but when I'm excited about life, I want to call you.  When I did something new, I want to tell you.  When I'm frustrated and worried, I want to share with you.  When I'm sad and lonely, I want to see you.  I miss you at the beginning of every morning and at the end of every night.
I don't want to believe I'm your best friend because you don't call me when you're happy or you're sad. You call me only when you want to satisfy yourself.  Sometimes it feels like that's all I am to you...just a booty call.  I want to be more to you.  I want to hear from you from your triumphant moments to your fears and failures.  I want to hear your everydays.  I want to hear about all the new life lessons you've learned, the new friends you've made, the new experiences you've enjoyed.  I miss that about us, but it's not fair to ask because what I'm really asking for is the relationship that we don't have anymore.
I don't want to believe I'm your best friend because when you meet someone new, she'll be your best friend, and I'll just be a friend you used to have.  And if one day, you're in a position where you have to choose, I'll expect you to choose her because it's the right thing to do.  I won't hold you to what you said, so I don't want to believe I'm your best friend because someday, maybe even today, it won't be true.

No two people are perfect or even perfect for each other.  They just love each other enough through mountains of patience, tolerance, compromise, understanding, sacrifice, and appreciation.  I heard an older couple say that love is just a measure of tolerance.  I secretly hope that one day we have that level of patience, tolerance, and love to keep actively fighting through our misunderstandings to understand one another's needs and maintain a close relationship.

God, I know it's a lot to ask for, but you make miracles happen right?

What pain are you willing to sustain? What are you willing to struggle for?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-manson/the-most-important-question_b_4269161.html

The Most Important Question You Can Ask Yourself Today

By Mark Manson

Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a care-free, happy and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when you walk into the room.

Everybody wants that -- it's easy to want that.

If I ask you, "What do you want out of life?" and you say something like, "I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like," it's so ubiquitous that it doesn't even mean anything.

Everyone wants that. So what's the point?

What's more interesting to me is what pain do you want? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives end up.

Everybody wants to have an amazing job and financial independence -- but not everyone is willing to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork, to navigate arbitrary corporate hierarchies and the blasé confines of an infinite cubicle hell. People want to be rich without the risk, with the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.

Everybody wants to have great sex and an awesome relationship -- but not everyone is willing to go through the tough communication, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and the emotional psychodrama to get there. And so they settle. They settle and wonder "What if?" for years and years and until the question morphs from "What if?" into "What for?" And when the lawyers go home and the alimony check is in the mail they say, "What was it all for?" If not for their lowered standards and expectations for themselves 20 years prior, then what for?

Because happiness requires struggle. You can only avoid pain for so long before it comes roaring back to life.

At the core of all human behavior, the good feelings we all want are more or less the same. Therefore what we get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire but by what bad feelings we're willing to sustain.

"Nothing good in life comes easy," we've been told that a hundred times before. The good things in life we accomplish are defined by where we enjoy the suffering, where we enjoy the struggle.

People want an amazing physique. But you don't end up with one unless you legitimately love the pain and physical stress that comes with living inside a gym for hour upon hour, unless you love calculating and calibrating the food you eat, planning your life out in tiny plate-sized portions.

People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don't end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to love the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and working insane hours on something you have no idea whether will be successful or not. Some people are wired for that sort of pain, and those are the ones who succeed.

People want a boyfriend or girlfriend. But you don't end up attracting amazing peoplewithout loving the emotional turbulence that comes with weathering rejections, building the sexual tension that never gets released, and staring blankly at a phone that never rings. It's part of the game of love. You can't win if you don't play.

What determines your success is "What pain do you want to sustain?"

I wrote in an article last week that I've always loved the idea of being a surfer, yet I've never made consistent effort to surf regularly. Truth is: I don't enjoy the pain that comes with paddling until my arms go numb and having water shot up my nose repeatedly. It's not for me. The cost outweighs the benefit. And that's fine.

On the other hand, I am willing to live out of a suitcase for months on end, to stammer around in a foreign language for hours with people who speak no English to try and buy a cell phone, to get lost in new cities over and over and over again. Because that's the sort of pain and stress I enjoy sustaining. That's where my passion lies, not just in the pleasures, but in the stress and pain.

There's a lot of self development advice out there that says, "You've just got to want it enough!"

That's only partly true. Everybody wants something. And everybody wants something badly enough. They just aren't being honest with themselves about what they actually want that bad.

If you want the benefits of something in life, you have to also want the costs. If you want the six pack, you have to want the sweat, the soreness, the early mornings, and the hunger pangs. If you want the yacht, you have to also want the late nights, the risky business moves, and the possibility of pissing off a person or ten.

If you find yourself wanting something month after month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you never come any closer to it, then maybe what you actually want is a fantasy, an idealization, an image and a false promise. Maybe you don't actually want it at all.

So I ask you, "How are you willing to suffer?"

Because you have to choose something. You can't have a pain-free life. It can't all be roses and unicorns.

Choose how you are willing to suffer.

Because that's the hard question that matters. Pleasure is an easy question. And pretty much all of us have the same answer.

The more interesting question is the pain. What is the pain that you want to sustain?

Because that answer will actually get you somewhere. It's the question that can change your life. It's what makes me me and you you. It's what defines us and separates us and ultimately brings us together.

So what's it going to be?

A sign please

God, give me a sign...like a more obvious sign please.  I've been told I can be pretty oblivious so just something in-my-face would be preferred.  I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to do or where I'm supposed to go, but I'm trying to keep an open mind and an open heart.  You say just ask, so this is me knocking, seeking, asking.  I'm lost.

"'Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their Personal Legend...

It's a force that appears to be negative, but actually shows you how to realize your Personal Legend. It prepares your spirit and your will, because there is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth...To realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation...And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.'"

-The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Let Go and Let God

I'm going to "Let go, and let God."  I'm just trying to keep in mind that everything happens for a reason.  I'm not sure why we keep coming together and separating again, and I don't know what God has in store for us next, but I trust that He has a plan.  I trust that this relationship and break-up was a lesson to set us up for something greater, and we just have to wait and see what that is.  It might not be what we expect, but I have faith that it'll be exactly what we need. 

---

I always thought it was you, or at least most of my life.  I don't know why, but I just felt for you and fell for you differently.  Last week, I prayed for peace, and He answered my prayers.  This week has been such a productive week with workouts, friends, meeting and hanging out with new friends, appreciating co-workers and employees, and even getting to talk to you was relieving.  I think most of all the working out has made me feel much better about myself and challenges my thoughts of what I am really capable of.  I'm stronger than I thought.  Everything is mental.

I was always attached to an idea that we would end up together, but now I'm just trusting in God that everything happens for a reason.  Whether or not we end up together, I know it will be for the best, and I'm getting more comfortable with that idea.