Involvement in New Horizons

Someday, everyone has to leave what they know and move on.  When you move on, you have to find new things to cling to, new things to become normal for you.  There are things to become involved in no matter where you go, you just have to put mediocre effort into finding out what they are and deciding upon something in particular.  I have moved beyond where I was, but haven’t actually physically moved.  It’s a strange place to be, but I think I can use the time to become involved in a community.  I’ve chosen a community to practice becoming involved in, a new church.  I’ve been going there all summer, and I think I can handle becoming at least a bit involved there.  I have volunteered to help with something there as a first step.  Now I am about to begin attending small groups during the week.  I can pick a night and travel to a house where a small collection of people from the church will gather weekly.  We will learn each other’s names, and hopefully a little about each other’s stories.  And things will move along from there.

Small groups are a great way to become involved in a new place.  I’m trying to become involved in a place outside of my norm, far enough away to be something different.  It’s still a similar environment to what I’ve been from before, but it’s far enough that I can be myself I think.  I can be honest, and trust that people will either accept me or not, as I am.  What I am is someone who struggles a lot with the belief I am forcing upon myself.  Small groups allow people to share these things about themselves through the church, without having to stand up in front of the entire church and shout it out.  They allow friendships to build, perhaps ones that are important and meaningful.  Perhaps they will allow a learning of the Bible, of people’s thoughts about it.  A free discussion between several viewpoints.

At church this Sunday, our pastor hung on the idea of being involved.  I think he rather got a little off topic from the scripture he was presenting on, but I suppose he just took it in a different direction.  As someone who is extroverted but somewhat shy, slow to feel comfortable, I have a hard time involving myself in things.  I am perfectly happy and vocal after I get to know people, after I feel comfortable in an environment, but until then I feel like I’m the outsider and don’t fit and can’t build friendships.  But because I’m trying, I’m going to attend small group tomorrow night at a couple’s house I’ve never been to before, with a lot of people I don’t know.

It’s okay to be worried, to be fearful, but in the big wide world, sometimes you have to move past all of that to get comfortable faster.

Living Simply, or Simply Living?

In life, sometimes you just have to start somewhere and keep on going.  Learn as you go, figure out what is right and wrong as you move forward.  Sometimes you need to slow down and make a choice, stop existing and learn how to really live.  But in this world, we all live at a stage of excess.  We may not entirely realize it, maybe not see the problems in our own thoughts.  But I think I need things.  I need ice cream, I need chips, I need chocolate.  But I don’t need any of it.  Sometimes all you really need to figure out where you are going.  Sometimes, you only need to know where you are.  Right now, I just need to figure out where I am.  And how to make that be the place I want it to be.

Last weekend, I went to a conference about living a life more simply.  About living in a world of excess and wastefulness, but living around those problems.  You can learn to be less wasteful, to be simple in how you live.  I have a major problem with doing that.  I struggle with living in a world that exists only around me.  It’s a concept that is sometimes beyond me.  But when you live in the world, using the tools that exist around you, you can live in such a big world.  You end up ignoring the world that’s nearby.  The world that’s right in front of your face, calling your name, wishing you would wake up and notice it.  I’ve been ignoring the real world.  I think I’m not, because Facebook connects me to the people who are around me.  But I’m not connected.

It’s like reading a book.  I think I’ve been through a grand adventure, just because I follow the characters as they interacted with their environment.  But I did nothing.  I just sat in a chair someplace, or laid in my bed or on a couch.  I did nothing, but I feel like I interacted with the world, even if it was only some fictional world that doesn’t exist.  But that isn’t the world.  It’s not real, and I need to remember that.  I need to remember the real world, and remember who is around me, and remember what I’m trying to do.

I want to live simply.  I’m far from that goal, but I want it.  It’s something to aim for, something to attempt.  I’ll need a lot of work to get there.  But I can do it.  I can push myself to get further, to work on myself and who I am and what I do.  I need to focus on that goal.  I want to improve who I am.  If I’m going to be myself, I want to like who that person is.  I like who I am right now, but I think I can do a lot better.  A lot better than what I’m doing now.

Simply living; involves things like conservation of resources, and learning to be a part of a community of people working together to live the best way that you can together.  To push each other to do your best and care for each other.  I want to know the people who live around me, and care about who they are and how they are doing. Be among the people who are around you, rather than those you can reach out to through the internet.  The tools we have today that stretch our reach beyond what any human can truly handle normally.

Living simply; to turn over all those extra things that exist in life and remember what is important.  What do you really need in life?  Things can’t make us happy forever.  But I’ve always thought they could… I always thought I could make myself happy by just wandering around in places that weren’t real.  But what isn’t real, what isn’t right in front of you, it’s not the same as living. Sometimes you just need to pick up and walk out and remember how to live without all the baggage you carry around.

To live simply, I need to remove excess things in my life.  This is as simple for me as to wander through my apartment and pick out extra clothes, papers I no longer need, books I haven’t read in years, trinkets that are just sentimental pieces of my past.  Take those things out of my life, out of my apartment.  Donate them to a worthy place if that is suitable, recycle them, give them away.  Lessen all the things I have in my life.  I used to watch the TLC show Clean Sweep.  I thought it’d help me figure out how to lessen the stuff I have.  But I have an apartment that has too much stuff in it, and I have more stuff still just sitting in my parents’ house.  Someday I have to deal with all of it, might as well start here and now.

To simply live, I need to remove the distractions I have in my life.  The things that make me think I am connected when I am not.  The main thing that should go away is Facebook.  I’m too attached to it.  I think it keeps me connected to people because I know what’s going on in their lives, but it doesn’t connect me.  It just keeps me away.  I should go to those people, ask them how they are doing.  Spend time together, invite them to my apartment.

And back to working on this I should now go.  This blog is still important, but it also doesn’t aid my connecting with the people around me.  But that’s okay, because this blog is still me being honest.  Honest with myself, and with anyone who might want to listen to me.  I don’t know if my thoughts are usually all that helpful to others, but I hope that sometimes they are.   And none of this is to say I dislike connecting with people online, I just feel I need to remember to connect to the people nearby in person, and not just follow their posts on Facebook when I could walk up to them and ask how they are doing.