Quotes for times like this

On desiring joy that comes by the pity of his wife after tiring hard work:

"I like sex! but I also want a mother (out of my wife) who would pat me on the head and say: "Oh poor pastor..." I need to repent of that!"

- John Piper

Ah, these are the times I need to find God and discover Him as my joy. I'm feeling tired and exhausted and secretly I am just praising myself for the "good work" I have done. This is something I need to repent of ! and I need to stop lusting for self-pity! I really got to arrange time for solitude with God before much work distract me from the very reason I actually started doing this work.

The Round Ball

My friend who guided me much in my life a season in my life - Josh always this:

"Life is like a round ball"

It was one of those corny lines like - Life is like a box of chocolates sort of thing. I don't ever remember him explaining what he meant by "Life is like a round ball"... but one thing I know, life goes on and on - like a round ball. You can be happy, you can be sad, life goes on... You may be half alive, you might be on top of the world... life goes on. Even if you die one day, the world just goes on.

Assignments come and go, different seasons in our life poses us different challenges... the challenges we faced and the decisions we made about them seems so childish now. But it did not look that childish back then. Should I live a few more years down the road, perhaps I would laugh at the reasons why I get depressed today.

Life going on and on - I learn that I could be the kind of person that never grows up. Very much like Love songs. The boyband sings about losing the one he loves 10 years ago, and they will continue singing about the same thing 10 years later. Perhaps I'm that kind of person, I'm afraid that in a few years time, I will become depressed over the things that depress me now. Since 7 years ago, I feel insecure and inferior over... more childish things... 7 years later, I feel insecure and inferior over childish things of a higher class. A more sophisticated kind of childishness.

It makes me think quite a bit how I live now. Behave your age? What do you mean by behave your age? I just cannot lose touch with my generation. As much as I want to keep in touch, the years of lonely thoughts have seperated me very much from... good and simple things in life. I don't think I know how to enjoy the company of another person. I always paint a picture of a perfect 10 in my mind, and tend to only praise people who are able to do the best - not so much their best.

Why? Who told me that "this is a real and practical world"? "If your perfect 10 is not the practical perfect 10 of the world, then it is no perfect 10"... I know the effort people put into their work. And many times... your perfect 10 is something harder to achieve than the world's perfect 10 - but why Joel? You know that it is hard to "give your all"... but why do you measure things the way the world measures?

This whole world is about relationships. Your mindset will kill you if you don't change. Like a round ball, you will continue living - but you will be more dead than alive. There are things that are worth giving up...

My mindset has defined me. My mindset is not only unhelpful (though helpful in certain things), but it is destructive to this world. You are a chaos, you are an outlaw, you are unloving... There are things I am willing to give up. I want to give up my thoughts. I want a new beginning. I want an assurance of a chance to turn a new leaf. I want to die to myself... so I can live. I am rotten beyond change, I need a new beginning - yet I the ugliness in me is pushing me to look like a perfect 10...

It is like...

Joel, if you repent, you have to get it right the first time you do it. How can you ever be wrong? SHIT Joel. You can be wrong and you are damn wrong at this point. You have conversations with yourself more than you have with God plus other people. Now, don't even try to turn your reluctance into a philosophy - and join in the league of the geniuses of self-denial. You hate it, and the reason is simple.

Fear. Fear is such an amazing things. It doesn't kill you, but it drains off your life. A life of paralysis. Thats what you are fighting Joel. You are fighting your fear to fight. What if they laugh and what if they sneer?

Do it anyway. But let me assure you my dear boy, they won't be laughing at you and sneering at your. The people around you care for you more than you ever cared for yourself. They see the simple things you will never see. And as pessimistic as this world is, I have got to give them the credit and put some faith in them to change me. Why be an individual?

I want to be an individual. But I realize that the prize of being an individual...well, I don't know what is the prize of being an "individual"... but I know whatever the prize is, I will take it alone. There is no one to celebrate with if there was ever such a prise - "The best individual in the world". There are people in my life that I love enough, to be willing to lose myself.

I can't always sit around and hope for some big-time-life-changing-event to come. Today is the life changing event. If today you cannot make a wise decision with a cool head, what makes me think I can make a better one when my head is hot? This is the problem with you Joel. You actually quarrel with yourself. You know it isn't an angel-devil-voice-in-the-head, you know it is just you who tries to want everything.

Hey Joel, sometimes having everything - even if it is possile... isn't the best thing. If everybody has too much, how can anybody share anything? If nobody lacks, how can we show love? Why on earth do you have the dumb idea that "much is good"? Well, you know you are not fully convinced that the whole idea of "much is good" is dumb... there is some measure of truth in there.

Sigh...

I know what I want. I want to live a normal life. This year I am 20. I am at my prime. I can't afford losing time. In my mind, I am a little glad that I am learning through this all. If you never said no... I would be living in dreamland. But now that you said no, I thank you. It has been long since I realized that life ain't a bed of roses. There are things that cannot be rushed... growth takes time, but I know that there is such a thing as "refusing to grow up".

I want to grow up well.
I want to grow up well.
I want to grow up well.

I am a boy.but I cannot stay a boy forever. I may know a little more things, but if I stay a boy... the good things I know will one day be my stumbling block. I don't want to grow old without growing up. I know many old people who has never grown up. Yet because of the very same reason, I know that I do not love them enough to give them my life to love them enough to teach them.

Grow up Joel. Learn to do something good without hoping for a reward. Learn to consider growth a reward. Learn to consider giving as a blessing. I know people who consider giving as a blessing because it gives them some self worth... No, I don't want my worth to be defined by my giving.

I want to cry. I want to cry. I want to cry. I want to cry because I know nobody can change my mind. I am in dire need of some love and support. I will degrade from boy to baby. But perhaps that is one thing I need to learn, to be humble enough to accept help. After all, whether I grow up or not... life goes on.

Problems with the lines - Issue 2

It is also mentioned:
(Direct translation)
If you are happy, you let a day go by. If you are sad or angry, you let a day pass by too. Why not then let a day pass happily?

That is to say:
Whether you are happy or you are sad - you let a day pass by. Considering that happiness is so much more enjoyable compared to sadness and anger, wouldn't it be an obvious choice that you should pass the day happily?

Problem:
Is happiness or sadness and anger merely a choice? There are two main conflicting ideas (which are not really very conflicting really) in the society. I will illustrate as below:

First on says that feelings (i.e. happiness, sadness, and anger) are emotion that HAPPENS to you and that you don't control your feelings. That is to say, if somebody makes you happy or a happy event occured, then you become happy and vice versa for sadness and anger.

Second argument states that feeling is pretty much predetermined by the choices you make. If you have a predetermined idea that something is a happy event - you will be "happily" influenced by the occurance of the event (which is really from statement one). Or, you can determine that something unpleasant that has happened as really a learning experience - you made a mistake and therefore you learn from it - therefore you reap some form of happiness from knowing that all is not lost and perhaps the experience has gained you more things than otherwise if you did not make the mistake. Or the other way is to give excuse for someone that has wronged you. For example: Somebody has cut your road on the highway - you think better of him and say that perhaps he was late for work, and you are happy that you gave way to him and made his day a better day.

Now the problem with this two arguments is that we are firstly assuming that happiness is either the ultimate end goal of everything in life (and we choose to view things in a way that would maximize happiness). Secondly, we are also assuming that happiness will be more productive/useful than anger or sadness.

I will start with the second problem first as it is easier to understand, and perhaps it will lay some foundations for the first statement.

Many times in life, we learn more things as we go through periods of sadness. We realize when we cry - the crazy thoughts that go through our mind, how reality flashes before our eyes - the massize amount of memories and truths that race through our heads. Sadness can sometimes blind our reasoning, yet at times sadness forces us to look at life honestly and not always walk on cloud nine. Some thing goes for anger, MOST of the time, we become irrational when we become angry, but if we can still be happy and peaceful about all the murders, rape cases, wars, and all manner of unrest in the world - I suppose we have reached a state where we are selfish and other people's welfare no longer concerns us.

Essentially one, we will flow on to the next argument. If happiness is the end goal in life and that a win-win situation cannot always be achieved, then whose happiness matters more when there is a win-lose scenario? (i.e. for me to be happy, you have to experience sadness - to which we see again, sadness isn't always better than happiness)

Then again, is happiness the end goal of life? A little philosophical - I will make a statement that goes like this. Satisfaction and happiness are two different things. Although satisfaction and happiness are closely related, and that one affects the other in some way, yet they are essentially two different things. Suppose that we think that happiness is the end goal of life and we run after happiness all our life (which is basically what almost everybody in the world does in some way or the other), will we be truly satisfied in the end of it all? If there is a scenario where you cannot get both (an area where reality always hits us hard), what is more important?

Problems with the lines - Issue 1

It is at times mentioned:
Do not major in the minors, and minor in the majors.

That is to say:
Do not take too importantly what is trivial, and to consider trival things that are truly important. Know priorities in life. Don't overreact over small matters. Don't put aside important matters. View things rightly and spend time for things which matter.

Problem:
What then do you consider important? Or more clearly, what is important and how do we know whether one thing is important or not? If the answer to the question is relative - then the quote is meaningless. Just another fancy quote. But assuming that the author believed that priorities in life can be measured, and that one thing can be more important than the other - then this quote is wisdom.