Human Potential

I think of man as a Swiss Army Knife. The tool has many purposes, not just one. So too is man. For those believers in God, God is known as Omnipotent, Omniscient. He is Master of Economics; Master of Science; A Man of Mathematics; Man of Arts; Master of All-things. So to, if we are His literal children, destined to be like Him - should we so incline and desire. So man is able to be many things.

They say there is a 10,000 hour rule if one is to perfect something. However, there apparently is research where one can speed it dramatically - 6 months. The process used is called "modeling." Here one learns from another who already has spent the time and effort necessary to be a master of that realm. The difference is, the person who has mastered it knows exactly what to do, the positives, and what not to do, the negatives. Knowing that, the learner only focuses their time on the positives, and does not look at the negatives. The mind is consistently being bombarded with positive, therefore allowing one to increase dramatically their skill.

Realization (to myself)

It's been a long time since I've posted a blog. Originally, the purpose of me beginning a blog was due to a requirement for a Writing class at Brigham Young University. Honestly, I was looking forward to having a blog because I love the expression of the human mind. However, I only posted twice and never made it a priority to post my thoughts. Yet I feel no need to contain myself and my expressions! I want to bear my soul to whoever reads this! This, like many other ventures I pursue that express my whole soul, is my monument to the world! Hate if you are going to hate! Love if you are going to love! Who I am will not be a result of your opinion and attitude towards me. Conceptualize me however you desire; compartmentalize my mind. If I change for people, it is those people who are very dear to me---so near to my heart, whom I love and cherish, for the good and bad that we have gone through. Don't take me for a cold person, for I wish to love everyone as purely as I love those whom I love and there will be a point in my life where I have succeeded in unrestrained pure love that will one day be seen and lived. I just said what I said because if I were to allow my image and my nature be weighed upon by the opinions of others, then I display not one identity but a plethora of people, all inhibiting my shell which I call my body. Who would I be if I was living not just a double-identity, triple-identity but a manifold identity? I don't want to be driven like the chaff in the wind. Security, surety, this is what I want. My changes should always be one for the best, for good, one that shows progression, that seizes potential.

Recently a very, very dear friend of mine, Sondra, has the opportunity to go to South Korea as an Au Pair for a family there. She is very dear to me. She would be gone for nearly half of 2012 and then she plans on leaving for a mission which is 18 months for her. When she told me that she was planning on going to South Korea, I was speechless. Honestly, I had no idea how to react. I was happy, yet not happy (not angry nor frustrated but a void in one's life). Yet I knew she knew what she was doing and when I woke up today in the morning, a soft impression entered my mind and thinking which made me happy to know that she herself is receiving her guidance and is being well directed, something that I find so crucial and important. I mention her because she is going on an amazing adventure and here I lay not being able to explore other lands and see the world that I want to see and understand. Jealousy rushed through me.

-------------

Sunday, January 8, 2012
(In continuation to above)

Jealousy seized me, similar to leaving a warm home and stepping outside into Winter's bone-chilling winds that begins from the spine and embraces your chest. I questioned myself, "why? Why am I so envious and jealous?" The answer was because she was leaving this land and pursuing that which she felt while I was stuck here, wanting to go somewhere else but I couldn't leave. I felt inadequate at that moment. I wanted to gain experience, and she was getting it. Brasil was an option, but it felt so wrong that I did not pursue it further.

However, after not too long of the passing of time, this wasn't about me. It was about her. My place at the current moment was not to go somewhere else to find myself. No, my place was here, in preparation for those things which are to come to pass. Sounds prophetic, doesn't it? I take a bold stance that as humans, we are capable of grand enlightenment. Wordsworth speaks poetically as such:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

And he continues:

Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized....

Lovely poem. "But trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home." Though man has left that glorious home, everything is not destroyed. No, that glory remains firmly embedded within us. I use this quote because my belief, faith and religion has quoted this poem in the past and it is because of my hearing of it that the thought popped into my head to describe this, for the which I am incredibly grateful, especially to know the Truth in its complete form.

And I was extremely happy because she was following that same enlightenment, enlightenment that will show her who she is and what she is. I had jealousy no longer. A desert, dried of water and nourishment, explodes with life as rain kisses its parched face; so was my joy for her. Happiness dove in me and grew in abundance to a point where my frame could no longer hold it. Hallelujah was my cry!

Now me. Who am I? What am I? Why am I? When am I? Midst all these I couldn't continue to move with the flow, I can't. A realization sparked my mind and I was wanting to fight the current, to escape the rigidity of life. Yet should I fight against the current, I would lose because of the amount of pressure and force that is working against me! I am not working against it, it is working against me! But there has to be a way out of it. That's what I'm looking for, there is a way. There has to be a way to everything, right? I refuse to stop until every idea, every method, every ability has been exhausted. I slowly have pulled myself out of the water onto land, slowly have broken free from the grasp of the slippery hand. If I left school for a moment, am I crazy? If I want to experience life as a gypsy, am I crazy? If I see life differently, am I crazy?

I'm tired...sleep needs my company

*William Wordsworth, "Trailing Clouds of Glory", http://www.bartleby.com/101/536.html

Elder Eyring's "A Child of God" Response

Whenever I watch Elder Eyring speak, his words resonate with a strong sense of humility. His experiences in life - and those which he does share - reflect that he has learned a great deal by the critiques of others. The end result of one who did not allow his pride to be in control of him is the man who is an apostle of the Lord before I very lives. This humility which he emulates, resonates, is what he strongly discusses to his audience.

He spoke of the key factor in all learning, whether it be in school or outside in any institutionalized program: humility. Humility is key for one to receive much understanding, he stresses, for in being humble one is able to set aside what goes against your own wisdom in pursuit of a higher, more better way of wisdom. He relates that one who reflects humility is capable of receiving criticism, and he discloses why criticizing in what we do is crucial to becoming more wise and knowledgeable, therefore being able to fulfill the commandment which God has given to us, that of pursuing educational excellence. What came as a surprise to me while teaching this concept - of how receiving criticism is favorable for not only us but for others around us - comes when he discusses of a renowned mathematician, who soon after he passed away, "...it was found that he had never shared some of his best work with anyone. My response is that there would have been more if he had shared it." If that is the truth concerning humility and pride, I would be a different person if I would have but taken my stubbornness and placed it under my feet so that I may welcome criticism from others.

Yet, what I lack now, or rather what is impeding my rightful position and possibility, is more than possible to be achieved. "The great learner expects resistance and overcomes it." I myself am able to attest that I get discouraged about the work load that I am given, that I usually put upon myself (perhaps due to my stubbornness). I have had my battles with discouragement, failure, abandonment. I have lost some battles, but I have learned over time that I should expect to face opposition to that which I seek. I have learned to look those opponents in the eyes and take in all that comes in and say to myself, "I will find a way to overcome this." I refuse to be trodden down by resistance. That's why I am here, right? To not succumb to the easiness of the way?