Dashboard Confessionals

(v1)

Summer days
spent on rural dusty roads
and my time
was indispensable

and windy air
was company with sunny glare
through my
vehicle windows

but

(chorus)

will you be around
when the walls fall down
cause I don’t think that I can do this
all on my own
will you be around
when the word gets around
cause all I know is I can’t do this
all on my own

All the things I wanted in life
always came to me with intent
in a beautiful collage with a much bolder artist’s imprint

and a pen stroke will never compare
to the picture that I see here
when I’m watching him paint with the clouds stretched over me

(cause) California does what California wants
and all I’m hoping for is an honest response
from you
to just tell me the truth

will I ever see you

All the drives under starry night skies
from a state line to state line to state line to
any state of mine, any state of mind
that would keep me company tonight

With the sky painted purple and gold
royal story lines left untold
cause the king and queen are separated now

California does what California wants
and all I’m hoping for is an honest response
from you
to just tell me the truth

cause if I ever come back to the middle west
will you still be around in your Sunday best
for me
or will you change too

will you change for me

(Bridge)

Because I Just want you here with me tonight (x 2)

California does what California wants
and all I’m hoping for is an honest response
from you
to just tell me the truth

cause if I ever come back to the middle west
will you still be around in your Sunday best
for me
or will you change too

will you change for me 

This one is for me:

Up until recently I realized there was this game I absolutely loved to play.  The game was called “I Can’t Do That,” and what it was was a game where I would come up with an idea, a way to get something, or a way I would like to live my life and I would say, “Oh yeah!  I can’t do that!”

This is a dangerous mantra to live your life by.  Why?  Because nostalgia will never exist.  Nostalgia will be the same 20 years ago as it is right in this very moment, and then again if you make it another 20 years.  

I used to be upset about my body’s appearance, not that a whole lot has changed, but I never got the results I wanted because I tried to work out and get my body in shape before but nothing happened.  But then one day, after losing all my streams of income, I decided that the best way to get where I wanted was to take the path I never had.  I realized, ‘hey, I’ll bet people will hire me because of how I look if I look good’ so I started researching the best way to lose weight.  And I found it, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, I implemented it.

I overtook a hurdle I never thought possible, because I was telling myself it wasn’t.

Granted, you see tons of people with six-pack abs, healthy lives, and massive amounts of energy.  Why COULDN’T you be one of those people?

Same with income.  I see so many people in southern california driving BMW’s and Benz’s and yet people still think, “Oh, my job doesn’t get me enough money to afford that.  I’m just not rich”  The thing is not all of those people started with a massive bank roll in their pockets - they figured it out.  They were the ones with ambition.

Now, ambition alone is not enough to succeed.  Luck, it is said, is when preparation meets opportunity.  If that’s true, you should be lucky every day, because there’s no excuse to not be prepared, and if you even venture outside your box of living, there are opportunities.

But we get complacent.  We get comfortable.  Sometimes we get fat and content.  THIS IS DANGEROUS.

We miss out on life, because we equate life to a sandwich, a couple of drinks, or a couple hours on Netflix.  But those things, they don’t really comprise life.  They might look like it, but that’s not fulfilling.

Life is growth.  It is experiences.  It is DEFINITELY stories you tell.  And I think if we want to be selfless, we need to start doing more for other people, and that includes the way that you go about doing your daily life.  I want to be able to have stories for people, advice, and be wise for them.  To be able to help them.  Not to be able to tell them about my breakfast 5 years ago, or how awesome it was wasting my youth watching hulu.

I’m done, guys.  This shit has GOT to go.

I had a lot of good self-reflection time this morning.

I believe it is important to shift the focus from your outside world to the world that exists inside of you - your body, your soul, and your spirit.  We, as humans, tend to do things out of habit.  Some times these are good habits, such as exercise, a healthy diet, or patterns of behavior the enrich ourselves and our world.  Sometimes they are bad habits, like smoking, drinking, self-deprecation, and self-harm.  Often times we do these things ritualistically, and we don’t think a whole lot about why we do what we do.  We are guided by emotion and repetition, the comfortable and familiar.

We might listen to the same songs, see the same people, drive the same streets, and eat the same food, because our tastes are acclimated to our environment.  

However, I learned something very important this morning that I suppose has been in the recesses of my head for a while, but it is this:  You cannot love someone more than you love yourself.

It isn’t a selfish thing, its a matter of exertion and knowledge.  See, everything you do is an outpouring of what is within.  If you have hate in your heart, your actions will be hateful.  If you are anxious, all your actions will be anxious.  If you have love, it will be love.  But often times, we say we love ourselves but we don’t. 

And really, I learned that I don’t really love myself as much as I thought I did.  As an exercise I started writing down the things I love about myself.  The whole time I was thinking about the things I hated about myself, and I only managed to get 4 things down that I loved about myself.  The problem is that the reality of my inner world creates the reality of my outer world.  I have a small capacity to love myself, therefore, I have a small capacity to love others.  But when we can genuinely love ourselves, our quirks, and our mistakes, we can do the same in others.

So my challenge to you is to write down the things you love about yourself, and see if you can come up with more than 4.  If you can, keep writing, and then keep writing more, and when you have this gigantic list, meditate on it and reinforce the great things that is you. 

So, my weekend ruled.

I decided to visit my cousin and her family this weekend in Santa Maria.  If you’re not familiar with California, that’s in the middle coast, and its about 4 hours away from LA in traffic, like 2 and a half without traffic (I think).  Earlier in the week I thought, “Hey, I don’t have to work this weekend, it’d be good to see Misty, I’m going to go on friday!” so I did.  I left work on Friday, hopped in my car, and drove to Santa Maria in the worst. traffic. ever.

Eventually I get to her house and her kids are all there, and we all partied ALL weekend long!  We had a bunch of awesome food, we got in the hot tub, and we watched movies. I got a free Costco card, Misty hooked me up with a bunch of stuff for my apartment, and I got to wash my clothes.  Plus I ended up with some groceries, some great memories, awesome time with family, and a drive back down the Pacific Coast Highway that words could not do justice to describe its immense beauty.

I know, it might sound boring, but it was a much needed weekend.  And it wasn’t even amazing for all of those reasons alone.  It was amazing, because I got to see life from a bit of a different perspective.

You see, I’m always fascinated by parents of little kids.  Of any kids, really.  I just don’t really get how people do that.  In all honesty, at this point in my life I want to do a lot of things that having kids would hinder, and I love the idea of picking up a bag and traveling the world at a moment’s notice, which I have done (read any of my previous blogs).  But to see someone committed to a town, a region, a group of people, to pour their life into the lives of others in this one small fragment of this gigantic globe is kind of eye-opening.  Firstly, I don’t see how someone can stay in one place like that, but also, how someone can be so selfless.

It really changed my perspective of God, too - in a good way.  Obviously, the Lord created this pattern of reproduction and its support system for a purpose, and with reason.  And that said, I got to see a bit of His perspective.  Its interesting watching a 3 year old interact with their parents.  They don’t really have very good reasoning skills.  Its very hedonistic and in-the-moment with a 3 year old.  The only thing they have to go on with what their parents tell them is trust.  If their guardian tells them to do something, they don’t have the cognizance to understand exactly why.  If what this 3 year old wants goes against what his mom is telling him, then his reaction is usually rebellion.  He doesn’t understand that eating that muffin now will make him feel gross later, or make him obese if he has enough of them, or that his mom wants him to be healthy so she chooses to have him eat better food - all in the selfless care to see him be the best he possibly can.

And that’s something that I still don’t completely understand about God, but I’m getting there.  See, I’m the kind of person that always wants to know why.   Our company is changing policy and wants me to follow suit?  Why?  The new policy doesn’t make sense - explain it to me.  You think I should change my lifestyle to match yours more appropriately?  Why?  If we are friends what’s damaging our friendship - explain it to me.  

But see the thing is, this world and our purpose is so much greater than childhood.  We are in a perpetual state of childhood.  We are always going to be sons and daughters to our Father, and we are not always going to understand His commands.  But obedience eventually turns into friendship as we start to mature.  When we have faith we start to put trust into what He says, and when we see that enough we start to understand why He wants us to make the decisions He suggests.  We then see what He is like, and we start to understand a lot more about Him.  And then, those bad things, the sin, the disobedience - that becomes a non-issue, because it is now non-existent.

So with all of that swimming in my head, I enjoyed the drive on the PCH down through malibu, watching the ocean waves crash to my right, listening to John Mayer and revisiting old memories with a new perspective.  And as the sunlight tried its best to melt my face, I just smiled with the wind in my hair.