MONDAY, JANUARY 8, 2018
I sat here for 5 minutes trying to think of an intriguing and proper title for this blog. This piece will be a few pieces of inconclusive issues that have been churning in me for all of 2017 and still. They did not disappear with the new year, just as nothing else does except fiscal budgets.
I was driving home yesterday listening to 88.7 KNKL - K-LOVE - when one of the hosts said something that set my gut on fire. He finished an op-ed piece and proclaimed, with a wave of the proverbial magic wand, “This comes from dwelling on the word of God, where happiness comes from.” We will come back to this later. See if you can’t figure out where I’m going with this.
I will be the first to admit that I am more than a little cynical and jaded. I automatically associate optimism with naivete, and it makes me nauseous. I am a realist, albeit a jaded realist; but I am not a pessimist; I don’t like them, either. However, I was not always this way.
It is amazing what a resumé mostly comprised of hospitality and retail does to a person. There is an image floating around the internet that says, “Unless you’ve ever worked retail you will never understand the amount of stupid in the world.” And let me just tell you - that is true. The same goes for rudeness, especially if you are in food service in any manner. People are animals when it comes to their food, and they usually project all of their frustration at whoever is standing in front of them - me, and you - when it is not our fault.
I was very happy to start out in retail. I have known manual labor since I was 6 years old. All through high school, my job was yard work and odd jobs. My first “normal” job was at your state of the art hometown theater, Carmike Cinema in 2012, as a Concessionist, later promoted to Shift Leader (middle management; everyone’s scapegoat). I call myself a modified introvert, because being forced to deal with people in this line of work heavily sharpened my wit and ability to interact with people, and actually thrive on a career being on my feet and interacting with people. Though I still inherently get my energy and find my happy place in solitude.
However, 6+ years in hospitality and customer service comes at a cost. Don’t get me wrong; it is certainly not all bad. Being on the front end gave me many opportunities to meet great people who (nearly) made it all worth it, and see my friends and family I would otherwise rarely see. From October 2015-September 2016, I was the Café Manager at Target, and I loved stopping my friends to say hi and give a hug and give out smoothies and Icees, because I had power and liked using it benevolently. However. These moments are but temporary alleviation from the years of rude people, physical wear-down and demand, and thankless and corrupt management.
However, it is not merely the things that happen at work. What happens when it is not just your job, but your church, then your own friends, who trample you and cast you out like dirty laundry? What happens when you kick a dog over and over and over again? How long do you think a dog can stand getting kicked? What effect do you think that has on the dog? Does he stay chipper and eager and happy? No. It all stops. The tail stops wagging.
I promise my point is coming soon. But as Ron White said, “I told you that story to tell you this story.”
Two years ago, I was not this way. In the summer of 2015, I wrestled with kidney stone. That was fun. I finally prevailed. At the same time, I started the only job in my entire Life which I discovered I simply could not handle and resigned after only two days. That day, I had a small nervous breakdown. This was when I finally began to regularly read the Bible of my own volition. I didn’t know where I ‘should’ start, so I took a reasonable swing and just started doing a chapter a day in Psalms. This was July, 2015. I continued on this path until I quit somewhere in Daniel in March or April 2016, which coincided with another awful era that changed me. During this Era of Spiritual Prosperity (ESP) from July 2016-January 2016, I also read The Purpose Driven Life for the first time. My Life was crazy and nomadic. I lived out of a suitcase with my brother for two months, then my best friend for two months, and in the middle of all of this October, I began my first big boy, managerial job at Target. My job and my Life were very stressful, but even in the midst of all of this, for the first time in my entire YA/adult Life, I had joy. I had “the peace that surpasses all understanding.”
One Bad Day. Then Another. And Another.
I think I’m repeating myself a little in my 3 most recent blogs including this one, but I haven’t exactly told all of every story so far, believe it or not. In the animated movie base on the comic of the same name, The Killing Joke, the infamous Joker says, "I've demonstrated there's no difference between me and everyone else! All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day."
My Life is full of bad days. Allow me to (very) briefly list them for you. We are almost at my point, I promise. I could (and have, several times) tell this story and tell you about my legendary Father in more detail to do Him justice, but when I was 18 years old, the first semester of my senior year in high school, I lost my Father to a heart attack. “Severe atherosclerosis”, according to the biopsy. He was 49 years old. I am more than halfway there.
Right after my ESP, I had begun dating my ex; the girl I thought I was going to marry. I can plainly see now how crazy I was and how fast I moved us, and ultimately, the fatal flaw in us was my fault because of this. She is a wonderful human and I wish her well. But at the time she dumped me, it truly destroyed me. That was my ultimate bad day as of late.
Greatly spurred by this, I haphazardly thought I was starting a new leaf and new career and ran off to Colorado less than 4 months later for an internship which was supposed to last a year. Because I was still and hurting and have a pattern of habitual self-destruction, I made bad decisions and came home 8 months early from this internship 13 months ago exactly, actually. Right now it is January 8th, and it was December 8th the morning after I drove 13 hours straight home from Colorado. I left $14.16/hour and a $200/month rent apartment to go to Colorado, failed, and came home with zero prospects.
I lived with my best friend and did contracting for 4 months, became a substitute teacher in February, and then moved in with my little brother from another mother and his family in April when my best friends had an experience like mine and sold everything and moved to Cleveland for 3 months before returning. Another bad day.
Guess what? I also stopped being a substitute teacher in April, because one day, as I explain in more depth in my blog “I Am Caesar”, I was subbing at a school where the daughter of one of my friends of 14 years goes to school, and they ruined me. Her daughter, let’s call her “Angel”, knows me. She’s my lil buddy. I saw her in the hallway between classes and gave her a hug. The next day, I am informed that a member of the staff reported an “incident” with me, and the school district wanted to have a meeting with me. I simply resigned. The meeting would not matter. The damage was already done. Another bad day.
“Had enough yet? We're not finished yet...You still okay? Want me to go on? Can you take one more?"
Try 2 or 3 more. Shortly before I left for Colorado, and for two months upon my return, I was assisting the 5th and 6th grade Sunday School class at my home church of loosely 21 years, where I have gone since I was 5 years old. I do a web-series called 42-Second Sermons - for which I have not made a video in almost two years thanks to a chaotic life and zero motivation from borderline depression - but I have never been the one to talk up front om Sunday morning, even with 4 years previously in youth leadership. One Sunday last February, the teacher and other assistants were gone; it was just me. I led the lesson over Sampson, for which I had a curriculum. For 2 minutes at the end of class, I very briefly and vaguely drew comparisons between my Life and Sampson’s life to illustrate purpose through hardship. In fact, one of the girls in the class who, until that day, enjoyed giving me a hard time, actually came up to me, hit me on the chest, and told me, “Thanks for teaching today.” It was a very bittersweet moment, though I didn’t know yet why it would be bitter. A week later, I have lunch with the youth pastor, and I am informed that the church is collectively asking me to step down from involvement, because my lesson was “too heavy for the kids”.
BAD DAY REWIND
Fall 2014. I have been a youth leader in the church for 4 years. My friend and mentor stepped down as the youth pastor and an interim who was a member took over. After the Disciple Now that September, I was asked to stop being a youth leader. The official explanation was that they wanted to me and my two college-age colleagues and friends to focus on the new budding college group. However, my two friends continued being involved in the youth, and they just didn’t want to honestly tell me I was being singled out for whatever reason.
Over the months after this, other friends of mine with whom I thought we had a good friendship just suddenly cut off contact and regarded me like I no longer exist. I’ve come to learn just how cheap words really are, just how fair-weather people really are, and how short of a shelf life things like “I’m here for you, man” really have.
After this, I finally decided I needed to find something steady “in the meantime, while I find a new career”. On May 2nd, I began a job at a crummy resort with the single worst management I have ever witnessed in my entire Life, and I’ve done everything. I thought I would be there for 5-6 weeks while I found a new career and “got back on my feet again.” That was 8 months ago.
I finally have a new job with a company that actually cares about its employees, and a bump in pay, but I am still not yet on my own feet. I am still living with my brother. Hopefully I will be in my feet soon, but who knows? God knows my Life never goes according to my plan. I thought I would be making $30,000/year living in Dallas 6 months ago.
BACK TO THE RADIO
So. “This comes from dwelling on the word of God, where happiness comes from.” It’s amazing what Life does to people. Two years ago, in the midst of much stress and change, I truly had joy. I wasn’t just happy, I was truly joyful. For the past year and a half on the daily, I have been seeing old status updates with Facebook’s “On This Day” of me posting Bible verses and being happy and optimistic, and I can’t believe that was me. Let me clarify, believe it or not, I am a Christian, yet, when I see these memories, I cringe. I don’t even remember how to feel that way, but that was me. That was me. And I meant every word.
First of all, K-LOVE; no, that is not where “happiness” comes from. The Bible does not once promise us happiness. In fact, it actually promises the opposite of happiness. Christ promises us that Life, especially the Life of a Christian, will be full of hardship, challenges, pain, and loss.
Second of all, what the Bible does promise us is joy. Joy exists outside of circumstances. It is. It just is.
Third, I don’t know. Part of me cringes at the whole crowd that I generalize as optimistic, naive, baby Christian K-LOVE listeners, but even though I am cynical and jaded and blare post-grunge most of the time, I have slowly begun listening to more and more 88.7 and 89.5 KVNE in the car once again. I am (very) slowly and steadily trying to repair - more like rebuild - my spiritual Life. A kicked dog trying to wag his tail once again; find a reason to wag his tail again.
Depression is a very real thing. Saying “cheer up” and “get over it” mean absolutely nothing and do absolutely nothing. If you want to get technical - which is probably beyond your grasp to be the person saying those things - depression is an actual chemical imbalance, a real medical problem. More than that, it is emotionally and spiritually crippling. There are more depressed people and depressed Christians than people want to think. It is not punishment. It is not a sign of disobedience. It is not simply a bad mood, and it is not sadness. I am sad when I step on my Sable’s tail. I am sad and shed man-tears at the end of Fast & Furious 7 and Joe Pesci’s Froggy story at the end of Lethal Weapon 4. I used to pride myself on not crying, at all, ever, but Life has worn me down. Anyway. Sadness passes. Depression does not just pass. I bought myself another copy of the Purpose Driven Life to read through again, and I have no motivation to read it, or Scripture. Imagine taking 7 hours to write a letter because you have no motivation to do anything; no energy to even make an executive decision; not being able to film a 42-second motivational video because you have no inspiration and no motivation and feel like you are drowning in failure and going backwards in Life and everyone has ostracized you SO why should you be giving anyone advice about anything?
Over 6 years ago, the fall of 2011, I was working on Tribute V: The End, the fifth tribute video to my Dad. These videos were my grieving process. Doing what I did to make that video put me in a very dark place. I have never wrestled with any suicidal tendencies in my Life, but there were several nights that October that I thought about ending it all and being able to see my Dad again. One night I put His revolver to my head and really felt that barrel. Didn’t pull the trigger, though. I mean, obviously.
“An ordinary man wouldn’t even be standing by now”
Heading is a quote from Metal Gear Solid 4, and one day not long ago, a mentor of mine actually told me “With everything you’ve been though, I can’t believe you’re still standing.”
To be totally honest, I could not tell you what is keeping me going. I don’t know what exactly stops me from pulling the trigger. One thing is the absolutely unbearable thought of doing that to my family and someone finding me that way. Another thing is my Judeo-Christian uncertainty of my final destination if I did off myself. Another thing is my love for my little brother and another friend of mine in particular. I know loss. I have been watching people and relatives drop all of my Life since I was 7 years old. I attended half a dozen funerals by the time I was 16. I know loss. I don’t want to volunteer myself to be someone else’s loss.
As I said, it is a work in progress; a rebuild; a remodel under construction. I wish I had a happy ending to this blog, but I don’t exactly. I would be lying if I forced a happy ending and empty inspirational quotes here. All I know is, as I said, my Life has never gone according to my own plan, but things eventually work out well in a different way. I don’t have my own place and $14.16/hour like I did 1.5 years ago, but things are just now finally looking up financially, and I do have good friends and mentors. I just hope one day I smile again as big and bright as the picture of me from Boom Boom Pow Summer 2009 in the cover image.
“And we know that all things work together for good for those who are the called, according to His purpose.” - #Romans 8:28
"Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is
finished: if you're alive, it isn't."
- Richard Bach
I sat here for 5 minutes trying to think of an intriguing and proper title for this blog. This piece will be a few pieces of inconclusive issues that have been churning in me for all of 2017 and still. They did not disappear with the new year, just as nothing else does except fiscal budgets.
I was driving home yesterday listening to 88.7 KNKL - K-LOVE - when one of the hosts said something that set my gut on fire. He finished an op-ed piece and proclaimed, with a wave of the proverbial magic wand, “This comes from dwelling on the word of God, where happiness comes from.” We will come back to this later. See if you can’t figure out where I’m going with this.
I will be the first to admit that I am more than a little cynical and jaded. I automatically associate optimism with naivete, and it makes me nauseous. I am a realist, albeit a jaded realist; but I am not a pessimist; I don’t like them, either. However, I was not always this way.
It is amazing what a resumé mostly comprised of hospitality and retail does to a person. There is an image floating around the internet that says, “Unless you’ve ever worked retail you will never understand the amount of stupid in the world.” And let me just tell you - that is true. The same goes for rudeness, especially if you are in food service in any manner. People are animals when it comes to their food, and they usually project all of their frustration at whoever is standing in front of them - me, and you - when it is not our fault.
I was very happy to start out in retail. I have known manual labor since I was 6 years old. All through high school, my job was yard work and odd jobs. My first “normal” job was at your state of the art hometown theater, Carmike Cinema in 2012, as a Concessionist, later promoted to Shift Leader (middle management; everyone’s scapegoat). I call myself a modified introvert, because being forced to deal with people in this line of work heavily sharpened my wit and ability to interact with people, and actually thrive on a career being on my feet and interacting with people. Though I still inherently get my energy and find my happy place in solitude.
However, 6+ years in hospitality and customer service comes at a cost. Don’t get me wrong; it is certainly not all bad. Being on the front end gave me many opportunities to meet great people who (nearly) made it all worth it, and see my friends and family I would otherwise rarely see. From October 2015-September 2016, I was the Café Manager at Target, and I loved stopping my friends to say hi and give a hug and give out smoothies and Icees, because I had power and liked using it benevolently. However. These moments are but temporary alleviation from the years of rude people, physical wear-down and demand, and thankless and corrupt management.
However, it is not merely the things that happen at work. What happens when it is not just your job, but your church, then your own friends, who trample you and cast you out like dirty laundry? What happens when you kick a dog over and over and over again? How long do you think a dog can stand getting kicked? What effect do you think that has on the dog? Does he stay chipper and eager and happy? No. It all stops. The tail stops wagging.
I promise my point is coming soon. But as Ron White said, “I told you that story to tell you this story.”
Two years ago, I was not this way. In the summer of 2015, I wrestled with kidney stone. That was fun. I finally prevailed. At the same time, I started the only job in my entire Life which I discovered I simply could not handle and resigned after only two days. That day, I had a small nervous breakdown. This was when I finally began to regularly read the Bible of my own volition. I didn’t know where I ‘should’ start, so I took a reasonable swing and just started doing a chapter a day in Psalms. This was July, 2015. I continued on this path until I quit somewhere in Daniel in March or April 2016, which coincided with another awful era that changed me. During this Era of Spiritual Prosperity (ESP) from July 2016-January 2016, I also read The Purpose Driven Life for the first time. My Life was crazy and nomadic. I lived out of a suitcase with my brother for two months, then my best friend for two months, and in the middle of all of this October, I began my first big boy, managerial job at Target. My job and my Life were very stressful, but even in the midst of all of this, for the first time in my entire YA/adult Life, I had joy. I had “the peace that surpasses all understanding.”
One Bad Day. Then Another. And Another.
I think I’m repeating myself a little in my 3 most recent blogs including this one, but I haven’t exactly told all of every story so far, believe it or not. In the animated movie base on the comic of the same name, The Killing Joke, the infamous Joker says, "I've demonstrated there's no difference between me and everyone else! All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day."
My Life is full of bad days. Allow me to (very) briefly list them for you. We are almost at my point, I promise. I could (and have, several times) tell this story and tell you about my legendary Father in more detail to do Him justice, but when I was 18 years old, the first semester of my senior year in high school, I lost my Father to a heart attack. “Severe atherosclerosis”, according to the biopsy. He was 49 years old. I am more than halfway there.
Right after my ESP, I had begun dating my ex; the girl I thought I was going to marry. I can plainly see now how crazy I was and how fast I moved us, and ultimately, the fatal flaw in us was my fault because of this. She is a wonderful human and I wish her well. But at the time she dumped me, it truly destroyed me. That was my ultimate bad day as of late.
Greatly spurred by this, I haphazardly thought I was starting a new leaf and new career and ran off to Colorado less than 4 months later for an internship which was supposed to last a year. Because I was still and hurting and have a pattern of habitual self-destruction, I made bad decisions and came home 8 months early from this internship 13 months ago exactly, actually. Right now it is January 8th, and it was December 8th the morning after I drove 13 hours straight home from Colorado. I left $14.16/hour and a $200/month rent apartment to go to Colorado, failed, and came home with zero prospects.
I lived with my best friend and did contracting for 4 months, became a substitute teacher in February, and then moved in with my little brother from another mother and his family in April when my best friends had an experience like mine and sold everything and moved to Cleveland for 3 months before returning. Another bad day.
Guess what? I also stopped being a substitute teacher in April, because one day, as I explain in more depth in my blog “I Am Caesar”, I was subbing at a school where the daughter of one of my friends of 14 years goes to school, and they ruined me. Her daughter, let’s call her “Angel”, knows me. She’s my lil buddy. I saw her in the hallway between classes and gave her a hug. The next day, I am informed that a member of the staff reported an “incident” with me, and the school district wanted to have a meeting with me. I simply resigned. The meeting would not matter. The damage was already done. Another bad day.
“Had enough yet? We're not finished yet...You still okay? Want me to go on? Can you take one more?"
Try 2 or 3 more. Shortly before I left for Colorado, and for two months upon my return, I was assisting the 5th and 6th grade Sunday School class at my home church of loosely 21 years, where I have gone since I was 5 years old. I do a web-series called 42-Second Sermons - for which I have not made a video in almost two years thanks to a chaotic life and zero motivation from borderline depression - but I have never been the one to talk up front om Sunday morning, even with 4 years previously in youth leadership. One Sunday last February, the teacher and other assistants were gone; it was just me. I led the lesson over Sampson, for which I had a curriculum. For 2 minutes at the end of class, I very briefly and vaguely drew comparisons between my Life and Sampson’s life to illustrate purpose through hardship. In fact, one of the girls in the class who, until that day, enjoyed giving me a hard time, actually came up to me, hit me on the chest, and told me, “Thanks for teaching today.” It was a very bittersweet moment, though I didn’t know yet why it would be bitter. A week later, I have lunch with the youth pastor, and I am informed that the church is collectively asking me to step down from involvement, because my lesson was “too heavy for the kids”.
BAD DAY REWIND
Fall 2014. I have been a youth leader in the church for 4 years. My friend and mentor stepped down as the youth pastor and an interim who was a member took over. After the Disciple Now that September, I was asked to stop being a youth leader. The official explanation was that they wanted to me and my two college-age colleagues and friends to focus on the new budding college group. However, my two friends continued being involved in the youth, and they just didn’t want to honestly tell me I was being singled out for whatever reason.
Over the months after this, other friends of mine with whom I thought we had a good friendship just suddenly cut off contact and regarded me like I no longer exist. I’ve come to learn just how cheap words really are, just how fair-weather people really are, and how short of a shelf life things like “I’m here for you, man” really have.
After this, I finally decided I needed to find something steady “in the meantime, while I find a new career”. On May 2nd, I began a job at a crummy resort with the single worst management I have ever witnessed in my entire Life, and I’ve done everything. I thought I would be there for 5-6 weeks while I found a new career and “got back on my feet again.” That was 8 months ago.
I finally have a new job with a company that actually cares about its employees, and a bump in pay, but I am still not yet on my own feet. I am still living with my brother. Hopefully I will be in my feet soon, but who knows? God knows my Life never goes according to my plan. I thought I would be making $30,000/year living in Dallas 6 months ago.
BACK TO THE RADIO
So. “This comes from dwelling on the word of God, where happiness comes from.” It’s amazing what Life does to people. Two years ago, in the midst of much stress and change, I truly had joy. I wasn’t just happy, I was truly joyful. For the past year and a half on the daily, I have been seeing old status updates with Facebook’s “On This Day” of me posting Bible verses and being happy and optimistic, and I can’t believe that was me. Let me clarify, believe it or not, I am a Christian, yet, when I see these memories, I cringe. I don’t even remember how to feel that way, but that was me. That was me. And I meant every word.
First of all, K-LOVE; no, that is not where “happiness” comes from. The Bible does not once promise us happiness. In fact, it actually promises the opposite of happiness. Christ promises us that Life, especially the Life of a Christian, will be full of hardship, challenges, pain, and loss.
Second of all, what the Bible does promise us is joy. Joy exists outside of circumstances. It is. It just is.
Third, I don’t know. Part of me cringes at the whole crowd that I generalize as optimistic, naive, baby Christian K-LOVE listeners, but even though I am cynical and jaded and blare post-grunge most of the time, I have slowly begun listening to more and more 88.7 and 89.5 KVNE in the car once again. I am (very) slowly and steadily trying to repair - more like rebuild - my spiritual Life. A kicked dog trying to wag his tail once again; find a reason to wag his tail again.
Depression is a very real thing. Saying “cheer up” and “get over it” mean absolutely nothing and do absolutely nothing. If you want to get technical - which is probably beyond your grasp to be the person saying those things - depression is an actual chemical imbalance, a real medical problem. More than that, it is emotionally and spiritually crippling. There are more depressed people and depressed Christians than people want to think. It is not punishment. It is not a sign of disobedience. It is not simply a bad mood, and it is not sadness. I am sad when I step on my Sable’s tail. I am sad and shed man-tears at the end of Fast & Furious 7 and Joe Pesci’s Froggy story at the end of Lethal Weapon 4. I used to pride myself on not crying, at all, ever, but Life has worn me down. Anyway. Sadness passes. Depression does not just pass. I bought myself another copy of the Purpose Driven Life to read through again, and I have no motivation to read it, or Scripture. Imagine taking 7 hours to write a letter because you have no motivation to do anything; no energy to even make an executive decision; not being able to film a 42-second motivational video because you have no inspiration and no motivation and feel like you are drowning in failure and going backwards in Life and everyone has ostracized you SO why should you be giving anyone advice about anything?
Over 6 years ago, the fall of 2011, I was working on Tribute V: The End, the fifth tribute video to my Dad. These videos were my grieving process. Doing what I did to make that video put me in a very dark place. I have never wrestled with any suicidal tendencies in my Life, but there were several nights that October that I thought about ending it all and being able to see my Dad again. One night I put His revolver to my head and really felt that barrel. Didn’t pull the trigger, though. I mean, obviously.
“An ordinary man wouldn’t even be standing by now”
Heading is a quote from Metal Gear Solid 4, and one day not long ago, a mentor of mine actually told me “With everything you’ve been though, I can’t believe you’re still standing.”
To be totally honest, I could not tell you what is keeping me going. I don’t know what exactly stops me from pulling the trigger. One thing is the absolutely unbearable thought of doing that to my family and someone finding me that way. Another thing is my Judeo-Christian uncertainty of my final destination if I did off myself. Another thing is my love for my little brother and another friend of mine in particular. I know loss. I have been watching people and relatives drop all of my Life since I was 7 years old. I attended half a dozen funerals by the time I was 16. I know loss. I don’t want to volunteer myself to be someone else’s loss.
As I said, it is a work in progress; a rebuild; a remodel under construction. I wish I had a happy ending to this blog, but I don’t exactly. I would be lying if I forced a happy ending and empty inspirational quotes here. All I know is, as I said, my Life has never gone according to my own plan, but things eventually work out well in a different way. I don’t have my own place and $14.16/hour like I did 1.5 years ago, but things are just now finally looking up financially, and I do have good friends and mentors. I just hope one day I smile again as big and bright as the picture of me from Boom Boom Pow Summer 2009 in the cover image.
“And we know that all things work together for good for those who are the called, according to His purpose.” - #Romans 8:28
"Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is
finished: if you're alive, it isn't."
- Richard Bach
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