What do you see?

    "You do not see things as they are, you see them as you are."

    In life it is interesting how many differing opinions there are, and how every person to walk this earth is unique in their perspective. We all live on the same earth, yet we all view a different earth. Because of our unique backgrounds, we have unique points of view.
    I have noted how interesting it is that some of us could go through experiences exactly the same as each other, and yet what we gain from them and how we view them will be completely different.
    I have started realizing that you see things differently because we are different. What we feel and observe about life around us, makes us into who we are, and who we are, and who we are becoming in turn changes the way we view things.
    When I seek out light and truth in life, I feel and observe more light and truth in the world around. We seek out what makes us happy, and what we decide make us happy in turn influences us in a very large way in who we ultimately become.
   "When you look you see reflections of your being. When you listen, you hear echos of yourself. If you don't like what you see and hear, no point in smashing the mirror, change who you are becoming."
    When we do not like the view that we see in life no one can change that but us, taking it out on others, lashing out in anger; in a sense smashing the mirror of our life will do us no good. We must change the way we view things to change what we see. Ultimately to change our view on life we must change who we are, and who we are becoming.


   

Whispers in the Dark

     Who knows what it is that enables you to over come your trials giving you the confidence to soar above any tribulation one day and the next your crippled begging for light to live your life. What makes one moment of struggle easy almost to master, while the next you feel powerless.  All I know is that we all have these moments, we all struggle, we have moments of strength and power and other moments of crippling fear and doubt.
     I've realized that we have no way of knowing whats coming next, and no way of knowing every storm that's coming our way. We can be faced with light and truth that has enabling power, and two seconds later we can be faced with fear and doubt that brings you to your knees.
     Last week was one of those weeks for me, one minute I felt confident that I could accomplish all that was expected of me, and the next I would be filled with doubts of self worth and importance. Walking around campus sometimes I just felt like a nobody in a crowd of somebodies. Through this experience I came to know that in this life you will have a number of visitors and it is your choice on who you open the door to and let it. It is also your choice who you keep in. Just because you've let someone in once doesn't mean you need to keep them there, or let them in again.
    There are two visitor that have been knocking every door since the dawn of time. Each has the power to completely turn your life around if you let them in. But you cannot choose both of them for the minute one enters the other leaves, based your decision. In moments of loneliness or insecurity those are the times Satan will come knocking with his deceitful whispers beckoning you to open the door.            The Savoir ever loving and patient is always knocking but he wont demand your attention, or yell at you to answer. Often Satan will, he will do anything to get your attention, and drag you down. Even when he's not yelling he is waiting around the corner for the next moment of loneliness, knowing that those are the moments you are most likely to let him in for a talk is when your lonely and afraid.
      It is easy to be happy when everything is going as you dreamed, and you know exactly what to do to make things right in your life. When the lights turn on when you need them to, and things make sense when they should. When you wake up smiling and good things seem to gravitate toward you.
      But there are other times that we come to know in this mortal life, times when the light bulbs burn out and the lights don't turn on, spiritually and literally. The times when you feel weighted and don't want to get up in the morning. These are the times that it truly matters who we open our door to, when the whispers come to you in the dark and your not sure who you are in the light of day. It is in these moments we decide who we want to keep company with, what doors we open, and which we keep tightly locked.
    There will always be whispers in your ear of whats right and whats wrong, but some will cripple you while others will make you strong. Embrace that which heals you and lifts you, and enlightens you, and keep the doors of darkness tightly locked. For them to be opened you have the power, and you hold the key.

Happiness

There are a great many things in this live that can and will make you smile, or even make you happy. But there will come a time when we must ask ourselves, at what price to who we are this happiness is given. There a some forms of happiness that are appealing, strangely addicting, and very appeasing to our need for pleasant feedback in life. However someday some of these things things will crumble beneath us, falling away bringing us down with them, leaving us wondering what to hold on to.
There are other forms of happiness that are fleeting, breathtakingly beautiful while present, and some times fewer and farther between than we may wish, but they build us and teach us as they come, giving us a greater perspective, and strength for our future. When these moments are over and gone they take nothing from us, but give us a firmer ground to stand on to face tomorrow.
Somethings will build us, and other things will break us, and only we can choose what we turn to, to strengthen us in these times. Depending on our choice it will either given fleeting comfort, or lasting completeness. We choose where we turn for our happiness, but we someday will realize only select things in our lives have the true power to give us joy.

Truth

Truth is truth you cannot change it, anymore than you can change the weather. You can accept that, live according to it, protect yourself with knowledge of it, and dress for it. Or you can deny it, ignore it and complain when you freeze in the storm of life that surrounds you. It is up to you how you respond to truth, but popular belief, trends and common opinion have no sway over truth.
“The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.” 
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” 
― Winston S. Churchill
“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” 
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” 
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” 
― Aldous Huxley
You can choose to accept and ignore whatever you may please in this life. Some things we even have a powerful ability to change things. But there are some things that you simply cannot change. Truth is one of them, we should seek to live by truth, not the other way around. Truth does not live, change and evolve as we do, it exists, and we can live by it or ignore it. We have many choices in life, but truth is not one of them, we do not get to choose the laws of this universe. But we do get to choose to live by truth
D&D 130:20-21

 20 There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—

 21 And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.

Dreaming for you

“Dare to dream! If you did not have the capability to make your wildest wishes come true, your mind would not have the capacity to conjure such ideas in the first place. There is no limitation on what you can potentially achieve, except for the limitation you choose to impose on your own imagination. What you believe to be possible will always come to pass - to the extent that you deem it possible. It really is as simple as that.” 
― Anthon St. Maarten
The greatest gift you can give yourself is the freedom to dream. What do you have in this life if you do not allow yourself to dream? To live without a dream is not really living at all. To live without a dream is to try and appreciate art in a one dimensional world without being able see the depth to details that truly exist in all the other dimensions of life.
Dreaming allows you to see things for your future that may not be available to your present. Our present may not have everything that we desire, but our dreams propel us forward, giving us hope and purpose.
It's amazing the power that our minds have to conjure up something that we have never seen before, and have the hope of creating it. But our human abilities are just as amazing, we have the ability to create the things we dream. Our dreams make life beautiful, and our will and abilities make life happen. We give our lives power to happen by what we deem to be possible. So this is what I am suggesting, I think it is time for us to believe in what we never thought was possible, I think we should start believing that beautiful things can happen to us. And I think we should start believing that our dreams can come true, our mind and heart had the power to dream them up, I think we need to believe that our person has the power to create them and to strength and patience to see it through.
We need to empower our lives by believing in our power to live fully.
Stop being the one thing that is holding you back. Dream and Live!

Beautiful People

I have always been self conscious of my weight, strangely when I was younger I was pretty sure I was fat maybe borderline obese. I never got over 156 pounds which isn't horrible. I also never had an eating disorder, per say. I was a stress/emotional eater but to some degree I believe that is normal in humans, especially in teens, but somehow I really thought I was fat and that when people saw me they saw rolls of chub sticking out everywhere. I was self conscious of my hair which seemed to always have a mind of it's own, still does but I guess me and my hair have learned to communicate.
Anyways the point of this is I have always, always thought there is something about me that needed to change before I could be truly loved. When I was younger it was my smile, because it's crooked, my hair that has a lot of volume sometimes etc. . . . The list goes on, the way it does with I imagine everyone to have ever lived. We all have a list of skeletons we put in a box and bury in our closet scared that when someone gets to know us to much they will find that box. The boxes contents change through the fazes of life but it's always there, there is always a box, sometimes it's full of shallow reflections of what bugs us when we see ourselves reflected back at us in the mirror, and sometimes it's deep insecurities that are hidden deep inside our souls. The fear is, that if someone finds that box and gets to know the contents, they turn to leave and you will not be worth loving in their eyes.
It's the biggest lie in the universe, yet the most spread lie. Probably the most believed one too. However within the last little while I have been studying people anything and everything about them. I watch them while they talk while they interact and while they are all alone doing what appears to be nothing. Creepy right? yup but not really, not if what I am learning from it is going to change everything about how I perceive people, not if I am finding little things that will forever change the way I treat myself and others.
Elder Holland says "So be kind regarding human frailty—your own as well as that of those who serve with you"  I am not kind, usually not to myself, and a lot less so than I should be with others. I am sometimes kind of prickly because I am flawed all over the place, and so are others. If I keep them at a distance they can't see my flaws and I can't see theirs. I made a goal recently to be a more compassionate person. It's a trait I struggle with but the world could use more compassion right now, and if I don't work on providing some than who will? So I looked up compassion to see what it is I am even trying to develop within myself. Ever wondered what compassion means? Well, here you go " a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering."    
 I sometimes feel pity for others, and sometimes I feel bad for people, and usually when I see extreme circumstances in third world countries I feel sympathy and a desire to change the circumstance, or ease the pain. But rarely do I feel that just looking at people around me and think that I want to alleviate whatever it is that is making their life so crazy. Well I have come to a conclusion, when I have gone on service trips I have set aside time specifically to feel compassion for people, and most the time I am not close to those people, so there's not a fear of attachment, disappointment, and a host of other things you may feel when trying to help those around you that have an immediate affect on your life.
Well people are beautiful and everyone deserves compassion regardless of the price and the chances you have to take.
As much as growing I was taught to never gamble I have come to know that this life is a gamble, it's all about taking chances and learning to put power in the hands of a being greater than us, that we cannot see. We have to take chances for everything worthwhile, and there are moments when we have absolutely no guarantee, but we still have to put something on the line. There are some moments that ask us to put everything on the line, there are sometimes we have to give everything, and anything that we once were for the slight chance of change or growth.
The reward for the gamble is not money, or people loving you back, its not the guarantee that you will never be hurt. It's not the blessings you gain in your life from help others, although that is a priceless gift. The gift is the depth of you soul that you gain from searching for beauty in life that does meet the eye, the gift we receive is a love for others we did not have before. The greatest gift is us learning to love in a dimension that we did not know existed in life previously.
People are beautiful, their souls are breathtaking, if you will even give them a second glance. People are worth our compassion, every bit that we can give them. That doesn't mean being stupid and trusting blinding, it just means that we need to see people for what they are, imperfect being trying to find their way in this complicated existence. People are worth taking chances for.

Dear Generation

We live in a time where some of the tends, beliefs and styles of living sometimes go contrary to what will truly make us happy. We live in a day when people become scared of saying anything that may offend someone or that may be taken to personally. But I also know that if we cannot learn to stand up for what means the most to us the morality of the world we live in will far apart to shambles. Now is the time that we need brave people, now is the time we need people to stand up not shrink in their fear.

The first thing I want to address is our demand for now. I feel like patience is becoming a virtue of the past because we need it so little to get what we want, or think we want. With technological growth being as it is we always have something newer better, shiner and more attractive always on the way, most of the time before we are even ready for it. So of course we don't have to wait for something better, at least never for very long. Also with credit cards available to almost every class of people we no longer have a grasp on the concept that we will have more satisfaction in something that we have worked hard for, than something that we could just swipe a card for. Growth used to come not from getting what we wanted, but from traveling the road of patience and hard work that it took to get it. Now that road is almost nonexistent, no wonder we find so much disappointment in the things we sometimes think we want, we no longer have to work our butt off to get it.

Another thing is honesty. I feel like we live in a day of flattery and flirtation. The idea that at the end of the day it doesn't matter who we've lied to, just as long as they were flattered and happy by the time we ended the conversation. I very strongly feel that the way we treat others is a reflection of the way we look at our selves, and when we are lying to ourselves we have a hard time treating others honestly. There was a time that I looked in the mirror and told myself I was happy where I was at, I wanted to feel satisfied with myself rather than work hard to get to where I really would be happy. I don't believe that is an uncommon practice, in fact I think it's very frequent within our world today. I realized that I needed to be completely honest with myself, even if it hurt before I could handle my dealings with other people with complete honesty. There comes a time in life where either you choose to be honest with yourself and others or you will find yourself living a life of false securities, and vain delusions. When you realize that the only reason you focus so much on your body and material things is because you cannot look any deeper into yourself without disliking what you see.

There is so much I could say about things I've learned and observed in myself and the world around me. But the thing that started me writing today was actually Blame. The blame that people place on everything around them has been digging into me for a while, and I am seizing this moment to get it off my chest. I don't know how much we as a generation can better this world if we place the blame of problems going on in our society always on the heads of someone else. I'm not saying I never do this, or never have this problem, or even that there aren't people to blame. But I am saying that I have stepped back enough to know that it's a problem. There should come a day in everyone's  lives where you look in the mirror and realize that everything that you are and have been is because of you. Not your neighbor, not your bishop or anyone else. Yes there are times that what you have, or don't have is out of your hands. Sometimes tragedy strikes and you loose loved ones, homes, your physical health and many other plagues that prey on every person to have ever walked this earth. But who you become through those times is your choice, based on your actions, you steer your ship in the direction you choose, not matter the size of the waves that attack you in the storms of life. You can change the direction your life, and no one else can make that choice for you. Fact! You determine the end result of who you become, that lot has been given to you and never will be taken away. It's a gift to us from a father that loved us enough to entrust us with it. Yes you need others in your life to enlighten you and help you as you choose, and we all need the cleansing of the atonement that makes our lives possible. But we are responsible for our actions and no one else's. You can not manipulate control or demean people into changing, just as they can not control you. The faster we realize that the more effective, happy, and motivated we will feel. But you can not live the rest of your lives feeling like some of the ruts you get in are all someone else's fault, the more you place blame, the more stuck you get. You are the empowering person in your life. If you want to be happy, look at yourself and make that choice, because really it's in you hands, no one else can make you be happy.
We have wonderful lives of promise a head of us, but in today's world we desperately need people who are willing to stand up and stand out. We can't afford to fit in with the everyday average person, we don't average, we need extraordinary. Dear Generation I think we have the potential to be that. But we can not put on the worldly camouflage to just blend it. We NEED to be different.