What is best? We’ll debate,
What course of action is most wise?
We best leave it to fate:
Just enjoy life and close our eyes.
Author: Justin
Trying to Write
Missing Out
End of a Big Year
Most people mark Labor Day as the close of the summer. I typically hold that summer lasts until September 15 passes.
This summer was an especially relevant summer for me. Many of you who know me know that it was the summer of change. Overall, life taught many important lessons. There were some “learning experiences” which may not have been as fun, but I just learn from them, move on, and do the best I can.
The lesson was both personal and professional. More or less, I learned to not continually focus on the future, but to enjoy whatever life gives – to enjoy and live in the journey and not to focus as much on the destination.
I kind of already knew that, so the lesson contained some underlying messages. For one, I should let little things go. I should learn from them and not repeat them, but I don’t need to analyze them or discuss them with people.
Secondly, I need to not get over-excited, not matter how good or bad things seem to be. If they are bad, they are usually not as bad as I believe. If they are good, but getting over-excited, I almost guarantee that by doing so, I will somehow interrupt the good.
From that second lesson, I’ve been working on detecting when I get excited. If it’s something bad, I just need to breathe. If it’s something good, I just need to internalize and smile.
Overall, the destination is irrelevant unless relationships with the people on the journey are maintained.
Words that Define Us
Word precision is essential to clarity of understanding.
There are certain words which I have defined very consistently for years to describe things we experience as humans. The words of love are too loosely defined and used.
It is important to know precisely what we mean when using these words, because these things are far too sensitive to ere.
As such, there are three words or feelings that are confusingly similar. The words to be defined are infatuation, in love, and love.
Infatuation is easily understood. It’s when a person feels a passion about another. Often they think they love another person. Also, when someone is infatuated with another, they tend to think about that person whenever their mind is idle.
Being in love is essentially two-way infatuation. It’s when two people are infatuated with one another. People are very happy in this state, and it is something that may lead to love, but it may also make people think they love someone, they might get married, and it may end in divorce if their thoughts were not as full as they thought. Bring in love is the easiest way to find love, but it is very risky because it is easy to become lost in one’s emotions.
Passion is often a very important part of this.
It is not okay to be in love with multiple people. Someone will get hurt, so one should make sure to be open if this feeling is changing regarding another person.
Love is very different. Love is pure. Love is long term. Love is selfless.
Love is more than just a feeling. It’s something a person knows.
It’s also incredibly hard to define.
Lesson of the Times
Everyday is full of sunshine – don’t let little things cloud your view.
One should recall that the sun is always shining, albeit sometimes behind the clouds. When life gives you a cumulonimbus cloud, one should remember that there is still sunshine behind it, and while it might take take a little time for it to pass, through positivity, one will persevere through the storm to enjoy the sunshine.
While I’m at It
My kitchen faucet stopped working at some point in the middle of tax season. I was doing dishes by using only the sprayer, since my dishwasher hooks up to the faucet, and while I typically do them by hand, it’s tricky when you have no constant running water.
I was too busy to do dishes anyways. The short term solution was to use paper dishes and silverware (something I’ve never done, even if I have guests on my patio, everything is washable).
So I changed my faucet.
Then I figured, “hey, while everything is cleaned out of the under-stink cupboard, I should clean the cupboard floor because it looks awful.”
When I scrubbed and scrubbed, I got no response. Technique one is try to clean a mess. Technique two? Cover it up!
So I tape off the edges, when I noticed there was a big gap on the left side.
So I bought latex caulk to fill in the gap and white enable paint to paint the rest. While I usually use my local hardware store (I bought what I could there, of course), when they didn’t have a small sized white enamel paint, I went to Menard’s (it’s ok because I saved BIG MONEY).
I ended up doing two rounds of caulking and three coats of paint. It doesn’t look perfect, but 1) it’s a big improvement, and 2) it’s just the cupboard under the sink – no one will ever see it because it will be full of boxes of assorted garbage bags, a fire extinguisher, a bag full of nice-ish reusable bags (like Target, not cheap-felling ones like Cub), and wonderful chemicals.
That’s my adventure of manual work for the moment.
