Ok. So, I guess I need to clarify what I was trying to say in last weeks post just a little bit. I was little all over the place in the way I was laying things out so it's no wonder some of what I said was less than understandable.
When I hear the word entitlement, I instantly think of a spoiled rotten child who thinks he deserves the world on a silver platter. In my mind, not even and king deserves that. My point in last weeks post is that if you want something, work for it. My generation is one of the least likely to work for something. We'd much rather sit back and wait for it to come to us.
The point was made when I posted this on Facebook that in the LDS church, we're taught that children are entitled to a married mother and father who honor those promises they made at marriage. I will tread delicately here as I think this is a bit of a difficult subject to discuss. No one who has not been in a situation that might require raising a child on their own can say that they know exactly how they would handle the situation were they not able to remain with their spouse/significant other. That's not saying that a child isn't entitled to a mom and a dad. I have my own opinions on that, but they will have to wait for another post. The point in this is that we are not the judges. Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances that cannot be helped and a mother or a father who finds themselves in those situations need only answer to his/her own conscience and make peace with whatever God they believe in.
Now, in my original posting, I was pointing out two principles really: Work and gratitude, both of which seem to be slowly disappearing in todays youth. As one of todays youth, I can call on my own experiences here as I'm just as guilty as many of my fellow young adults and teenagers.
I think that if we were to live in any other time than now, we would not survive. All through history, we have examples of how empires were built, wars were fought, and freedoms were won. None of them has been a result of a get-rich-quick scheme. All life was based around work. The fields were sewn and cared for, cities were built, roads were paved, and lives were created by applying a little elbow grease. Once, most of this world was unexplored and new. There was a lot of work to be done. Maybe part of the reason we don't work as hard is because there aren't many new frontiers. There is no Dances with Wolves esque lifestyle for us to experience where we meet strange people we've never really seen before. We have reached a limit...unless we launch into a Star Trek lifestyle which I don't see happening anytime soon. I will admit that that may well be part of why we don't work as hard in the manual labor fields, but at the same time there is always work to do.
When I think of why the principle of work has changed, a story comes to mind. The story of John Henry. I know most of us are familiar with it, but I'll give a very short, probably not very accurate recap. John Henry was a man who worked on the railroad when it was being laid to cross the nation. He was a giant of a man. He worked harder and longer than any other man alive. He would go around singing and swinging his hammer, driving the spikes in faster and farther than any other man. Eventually, a man with a new invention came around looking for John Henry. He claimed he's steam driven machine could beat any man alive at driving a railroad spike into the ground, thus eliminating the need for the manual labor that John Henry loved doing. John Henry accepted the challenge. For the good of the men he worked with and for himself, John Henry worked hard to beat the steam powered hammer...and he did. The mountain of a man who drove steel harder and faster than any other man alive beat the machine that had been created to best him...only to die in his victory.
I tell that story because growing up, John Henry was a symbol to me of what it meant to work. I was fascinated by his story though no one ever really knew. He worked hard and long because he loved what he did and it had to be done. That fact has not changed and will never change...the work itself has just shifted.
I am a child of the late 80's/early 90's. I remember all the weird fashion and the sometimes waaaay over the top singers and cheesy movies. I remember when technology started changing. I remember our first computer way back in the day...boy was that thing basic. I remember the cell phones then. I don't know that I ever could have imagined them being what they are now. I don't have an appreciation for what life was like 20 years earlier just as children now don't have any idea what I'm talking about. They instead are taught that 4 year olds with cell phones is normal, or an xbox 360 is something every kid is supposed to have. That may not be something a parent comes out and says, but actions will always speak louder than words.
In my last post, I said that parents are responsible for teaching a child how to be a person. What I meant was that children watch us. They mimic everyone. My nephew, for instance, has taken to repeating the word Goonies every time we say it. I'm sure my brother will teach him the whole phrase the Goonies say. See the point though? If he mimics what we say now, at a year and a half, how much else is he watching us say and do? It is my brother and sister-in-laws responsibility to teach him not only through their words, but through their example. If he sees them working hard, he'll learn to work hard too. That is the case with every child. Every child is experiencing the world with a new perspective and they will do what those closest to them do. That is why, statistically, when a parent has trouble in their lives, a child is likely to repeat it. Therefore, a parent who is interested in the well being of their child is responsible for teaching their children to work for everything they have.
As I said in my last posting, my family works when we have big projects to do. We've done things like repainting our house, putting up a new fence, taking down backyard playground equipment, moving homes, weeding gardens, and doing general yard work. I should say that we were better at doing that before we grew up and our parents couldn't take away much of anything to threaten us anymore. When we were younger, anytime there was big project to do, we all helped. Now, the only time you really see us working together is when the cars need to be washed...and my dad did his truck almost completely by himself the other day. My mother mowed the lawn this morning because my brother and I didn't want to get up and take the mower away from her and do it for her.
My parents taught us how to work. They would work with us and show us how to do things. I don't remember them ever telling us we had work to do and then them not coming out and working with us. That's not the norm anymore. Now, we tell ourselves that we won't be as mean and cruel as our parents were and we won't force our own children to suffer the way we did. How, in the name of everything that is good on this earth, is working suffering?? When did it become so wrong to teach a child that working is the best way to get what you need? When did it become such a horrible thing to do manual labor? How have we forgotten the benefits and the rewards that come from accomplishing a seemingly giant job? Why is it so much better to give a child what he wants simply because he's screaming for it, rather than teach him how he can earn it?
I don't know where the disconnect happened. I don't know how we've gone from a people who worked hard for everything they had, to a people who are headed to a fate like the people in Wall-E. I don't know how that happened. I do know how to fix it. Work. Work will cure a great many things. It lifts the heart that has been damaged and helps others with what they need. The end reward, the knowledge that you did everything you could to accomplish what you needed to and the strength to push through one more day, is more than enough for me. Everything else is just icing on the cake.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Entitlement
So, I started a whole different post the other day. Through the course of a conversation with a friend of mine, I decided to go with a different topic. I'm gonna post this with a disclaimer. It may very well offend a few people. Please know that's not my intent. I just feel like this is something that needs to be discussed.
Entitlement is something I've heard a lot about growing up. I think each generation thinks their children and grandchildren act like they are much more entitled than they were. I can see that and agree with it honestly. With each generation we get advances in almost everything. I'm still shocked to see my nephew, who is a year and a half, navigate his way through an itouch without any help. I have nephews in utah with iPads and they are all 12 and under. I also see kids with their own iPhones. Kids here meaning first graders and kindergartners. Yeah. Lots of advances.
Let me first put a definition of entitlement before you. Webster's dictionary defines entitlement as a: the state or condition of being entitled, and b: a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract. In some instances, being entitled to something is the truth. I thing military veterans are entitled to our respect simply because of what they do for us. That entitlement I'm ok with. It's the other crap I have a problem with.
My generation is probably the laziest, and most selfish group of people ever. I include myself in that. We feel like, for reasons I can't figure out, that we deserve to be spoon fed everything. We have lost the principle of work.
Work has been a part of humanity since we were created. Adam was cursed with it. It has been our responsibility to create a life and a home and an existence. We, of the current young adult/teenage generation, seem to think that we are exempt from this rule. We believe that even though every generation prior to ours has had to work for what they have, we somehow shouldn't have too.
Now, I'm not saying that every member of my generation is an entitled brat. However, there are far fewer individuals willing to work for the end reward. I have caught myself even wishing that I didn't have to work for anything. The other day I told my mom that I needed a get rich quick program so I wouldn't have to go to work anymore.
So, where does this sense of entitlement come from? Well, I have a few theories on that:
First, children learn from adults. I'm not blaming just parents. There are plenty of adults responsible for shaping a child into a responsible adult. Teachers, church leaders, friends parents...there are quite a few. From what I can see, adults try to not do things the way their parents did them, not realizing that some of those things would probably be the wiser choice to make. I bet, even as you're reading this, that you can think of a few things your parents did that you are planning to do differently when/if you have children. That is just the beginning of how adults influence children into believing they "deserve" things.
The other way I see children learning that sense of entitlement is from media and other influences. My generation idolizes pop culture more in this generation than any other except for maybe the 60's. We have actors getting into politics for crying out loud and that's just about one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. I have to derail that train of thought right now or I'll get on my soap box and not make the point I feel needs to be made. However, between movie stars, singers, and athletes, children are so indoctrinated into believing that they deserve everything and they shouldn't have to work for it.
It is a parents responsibility to teach a child to work. As much as it truly pains me to say that, because I know my parents will take it personally if they ever read this, but it is true. A parent has the most influence over a child and the most responsibility. They are in charge of a child's well-being in a unique way. A teacher is responsible for teaching knowledge you can learn in books as well as life-skills...but a parent is responsible for teaching a child how to be a person. It is a parents responsibility to teach their children how to work, how to treat other people, discipline, and other life lessons that could be taught elsewhere but will have the most impact coming from a mother or father.
Growing up, work was something my dad in particular stressed. Whenever there was a big job to do, no matter how much we groaned and complained about it, all six of us kids were out helping. It's gotten to the point where it's fun for me. I love working with my family because it brings us closer. I remember several projects my family completed together that I had no interest in doing at the time. One in particular was just this huge beast of an ordeal. In our house in Colorado, we had a hill with big juniper bushes on it. My parents decided it would be best if they weren't there anymore...guess who got to pull them up. Yep. All of us. My brother and I, being older and stronger than any of the siblings, took point so to speak and did a lot of the heavier lifting. The younger boys and my sister clipped the stupid things way back so we could get a hold of the roots. The image that comes to mind of this whole escapade is one of me and Stephane pushing and pulling on a bush right in the middle of the backyard that refused to give up its grasp in the earth. I don't know how long we worked at that thing, but it was a while and it was DIFFICULT. That has become one of my favorite memories. We didn't have many projects like that growing up and we generally still don't now, but when we had work to do, we all worked hard.
That is not me saying we need to go out and pull up a ton of juniper bushes to qualify as hard working. According to my parents, we still don't know what hard work means. That's an example of the kind of work that our parents did frequently...as did their parents...and their parents parents. Granted, some of the reason we don't work hard anymore is because we have machines and computers to do that for us. Why expend the energy working at something that a computer could do better and faster? Answer: A computer can't teach you the sweetness of the reward at the end of a long day of hard work.
What do I mean by that? After my family accomplished the goal of pulling out those stupid junipers, we got rootbeer floats and rented a movie. Most of us were also asleep before we got halfway in. The best reward for me, though, is the sweet memories I have of working side by side with my brothers, my sister, and my parents. That may not be enough for some people, but it taught me to value the end result because it's not something you can get anywhere else.
I want to put another example before you and I hope the person this is about will forgive me. I'm not passing judgement on him or on anyone else...this just happens to be the perfect example of an entitled child.
I knew of a boy growing up who was taught by his teachers that the only way he would know if his parents loved him was by how much money they were willing to put towards his extra curricular activities. I don't think he really understood that that's what they were teaching him, but I saw it the minute I heard about it. He was involved in a great many things outside of a regular school experience and he expected his parents to pay for all of it. I believe that part of the reason they did was because they felt guilty about some of their other children not being able to participate in those things. Regardless, if they didn't pay for something he felt he needed or was told he needed, his parents definitely knew it. I'm not trying to say that children should not be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities. I think they are wonderful programs and I wish I'd been able to do some of them. My point is, this boy felt like he deserved it...and he didn't. Right now, I'm not sure that boy really even enjoys the memories of those activities. How different do you think that would be had he worked for what he had instead of it being given to him?
I don't want anyone to think I'm discouraging people from wanting things. I have big dreams for myself and I wish that I didn't have to work for it. I am by far not exempt from that feeling of entitlement. I just wish that our generation knew what it means to work for and appreciate the things we can get by the sweat of our brow. Nothing is more important to us than the thing we WORKED so hard to achieve. The question then becomes: What will you teach your children?
Entitlement is something I've heard a lot about growing up. I think each generation thinks their children and grandchildren act like they are much more entitled than they were. I can see that and agree with it honestly. With each generation we get advances in almost everything. I'm still shocked to see my nephew, who is a year and a half, navigate his way through an itouch without any help. I have nephews in utah with iPads and they are all 12 and under. I also see kids with their own iPhones. Kids here meaning first graders and kindergartners. Yeah. Lots of advances.
Let me first put a definition of entitlement before you. Webster's dictionary defines entitlement as a: the state or condition of being entitled, and b: a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract. In some instances, being entitled to something is the truth. I thing military veterans are entitled to our respect simply because of what they do for us. That entitlement I'm ok with. It's the other crap I have a problem with.
My generation is probably the laziest, and most selfish group of people ever. I include myself in that. We feel like, for reasons I can't figure out, that we deserve to be spoon fed everything. We have lost the principle of work.
Work has been a part of humanity since we were created. Adam was cursed with it. It has been our responsibility to create a life and a home and an existence. We, of the current young adult/teenage generation, seem to think that we are exempt from this rule. We believe that even though every generation prior to ours has had to work for what they have, we somehow shouldn't have too.
Now, I'm not saying that every member of my generation is an entitled brat. However, there are far fewer individuals willing to work for the end reward. I have caught myself even wishing that I didn't have to work for anything. The other day I told my mom that I needed a get rich quick program so I wouldn't have to go to work anymore.
So, where does this sense of entitlement come from? Well, I have a few theories on that:
First, children learn from adults. I'm not blaming just parents. There are plenty of adults responsible for shaping a child into a responsible adult. Teachers, church leaders, friends parents...there are quite a few. From what I can see, adults try to not do things the way their parents did them, not realizing that some of those things would probably be the wiser choice to make. I bet, even as you're reading this, that you can think of a few things your parents did that you are planning to do differently when/if you have children. That is just the beginning of how adults influence children into believing they "deserve" things.
The other way I see children learning that sense of entitlement is from media and other influences. My generation idolizes pop culture more in this generation than any other except for maybe the 60's. We have actors getting into politics for crying out loud and that's just about one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. I have to derail that train of thought right now or I'll get on my soap box and not make the point I feel needs to be made. However, between movie stars, singers, and athletes, children are so indoctrinated into believing that they deserve everything and they shouldn't have to work for it.
It is a parents responsibility to teach a child to work. As much as it truly pains me to say that, because I know my parents will take it personally if they ever read this, but it is true. A parent has the most influence over a child and the most responsibility. They are in charge of a child's well-being in a unique way. A teacher is responsible for teaching knowledge you can learn in books as well as life-skills...but a parent is responsible for teaching a child how to be a person. It is a parents responsibility to teach their children how to work, how to treat other people, discipline, and other life lessons that could be taught elsewhere but will have the most impact coming from a mother or father.
Growing up, work was something my dad in particular stressed. Whenever there was a big job to do, no matter how much we groaned and complained about it, all six of us kids were out helping. It's gotten to the point where it's fun for me. I love working with my family because it brings us closer. I remember several projects my family completed together that I had no interest in doing at the time. One in particular was just this huge beast of an ordeal. In our house in Colorado, we had a hill with big juniper bushes on it. My parents decided it would be best if they weren't there anymore...guess who got to pull them up. Yep. All of us. My brother and I, being older and stronger than any of the siblings, took point so to speak and did a lot of the heavier lifting. The younger boys and my sister clipped the stupid things way back so we could get a hold of the roots. The image that comes to mind of this whole escapade is one of me and Stephane pushing and pulling on a bush right in the middle of the backyard that refused to give up its grasp in the earth. I don't know how long we worked at that thing, but it was a while and it was DIFFICULT. That has become one of my favorite memories. We didn't have many projects like that growing up and we generally still don't now, but when we had work to do, we all worked hard.
That is not me saying we need to go out and pull up a ton of juniper bushes to qualify as hard working. According to my parents, we still don't know what hard work means. That's an example of the kind of work that our parents did frequently...as did their parents...and their parents parents. Granted, some of the reason we don't work hard anymore is because we have machines and computers to do that for us. Why expend the energy working at something that a computer could do better and faster? Answer: A computer can't teach you the sweetness of the reward at the end of a long day of hard work.
What do I mean by that? After my family accomplished the goal of pulling out those stupid junipers, we got rootbeer floats and rented a movie. Most of us were also asleep before we got halfway in. The best reward for me, though, is the sweet memories I have of working side by side with my brothers, my sister, and my parents. That may not be enough for some people, but it taught me to value the end result because it's not something you can get anywhere else.
I want to put another example before you and I hope the person this is about will forgive me. I'm not passing judgement on him or on anyone else...this just happens to be the perfect example of an entitled child.
I knew of a boy growing up who was taught by his teachers that the only way he would know if his parents loved him was by how much money they were willing to put towards his extra curricular activities. I don't think he really understood that that's what they were teaching him, but I saw it the minute I heard about it. He was involved in a great many things outside of a regular school experience and he expected his parents to pay for all of it. I believe that part of the reason they did was because they felt guilty about some of their other children not being able to participate in those things. Regardless, if they didn't pay for something he felt he needed or was told he needed, his parents definitely knew it. I'm not trying to say that children should not be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities. I think they are wonderful programs and I wish I'd been able to do some of them. My point is, this boy felt like he deserved it...and he didn't. Right now, I'm not sure that boy really even enjoys the memories of those activities. How different do you think that would be had he worked for what he had instead of it being given to him?
I don't want anyone to think I'm discouraging people from wanting things. I have big dreams for myself and I wish that I didn't have to work for it. I am by far not exempt from that feeling of entitlement. I just wish that our generation knew what it means to work for and appreciate the things we can get by the sweat of our brow. Nothing is more important to us than the thing we WORKED so hard to achieve. The question then becomes: What will you teach your children?
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Addiction
So this week I again had trouble organizing my thoughts into a coherent stream that I could write about something. I missed last week so I feel like this week is doubly important. There's been so much on my mind in the last two weeks I don't really know where to begin.
I started this post thinking I was going to talk about priorities. At the beginning of last week, I had a conversation with a coworker that kind of set a few things into perspective for me about something that's been kind of a bother. I was going to do a post about priorities because no matter what age we're at, our priorities are constantly changing. In my family alone, priorities are so varied. For example: My personal priorities right now are to get my house in order. I'm 25 and I live with my parents. I don't want to so I'm getting my life together to facilitate moving past this stage of my life; My sister has never had much of a social life. At 23, she's just now beginning to have the kind of attention and social life that I had at 19. She's learning things about life I've known for many years; Remi, one of my brothers...actually, I don't really know what his priorities are. I know that he just got a job that pays really well and he's been talking about moving out. At 21, his priorities seem to be close to mine...but then he does things sometimes that contradict that. So we'll say his priorities are unknown for now; Rayo's priorities seem to be to save money and go on a two year mission for our church. I say seem to be, because sometimes he does what Remi does and contradicts that assumption of mine; Nick, the youngest, really doesn't have a choice in his priorities yet. He's a junior in high school and is focused on graduating. His choices of late are no different than most of ours were when we were his age. His priority, following school, is his friends. His family has taken a back seat...but like I said, we've all been there at one point or another. My parents...they're just trying to keep us all together and headed down the right path.
The point with priorities is that every person has their own. This doesn't make anyone more or less right for focusing on what's important to them. You can disagree with someone's priorities if you wish, but you can't condemn them. Just because it's not your current priority or you think it's something that someone should have learned already, it doesn't mean that it wasn't your priority at one time. We are all learning. None of us has an answer that will work for everyone. There is no such answer. I take it back...if I were to give you an answer to help you understand different peoples priorities it would be two words: Patience, and tolerance. If you want to get through this life in tact, become very good friends with those words and implement them in your life.
Ok, that's the first thing I was going to talk about. I could probably elaborate on that subject quite a bit, but I don't really feel like it's necessary right now.
Another subject I'd planned on blogging about was the situation with BYU basketball player Brandon Davies. I won't spend too long on this as most of the country was consumed by it for what I thought was an unneccessary amount of time.
I was impressed with not only Davies for coming forward and telling the truth, but also with much of the media who agreed with BYU for their disciplinary actions. I don't have official numbers or anything, but in one article I read online, the author said that most colleges have similar honor codes in place...but look the other direction when it's a star athlete. Most people do not agree with the BYU honor code. It's very strict and not at all what most people think 20 somethings should be doing with their lives. Much of the world does the opposite. College is for drinking and sleeping around and exploring the world in your own way. Whether you agree with the LDS standards in place at BYU or not, you can't fault a school for standing by it's principles and holding those who break that code accountable for their actions. We are still children learning from parents in college. Just because we are on our own and providing for ourselves does not mean we don't need guidance occasionally. By enforcing it's honor code, BYU is showing the world that there is no one, star athlete or not, who should not be held accountable for what they've done. Case and point, Ben Roethlisberger. In fact, most of the NFL...and NBA....and MLB....not so sure about the NHL, but you get the point. How is it that men who are known criminals and low lives get paid to do something they love knowing full well they can get away with almost anything? Call me crazy, but that is just madness. And that's all I'm gonna say about that. Good on ya, BYU.
Now, what I want to spend most of my time on is something that has claimed much of my life, my heart, and my soul. Addiction.
I'm not necessarily talking about addiction to drugs or alcohol. I am most definitely not addicted to either one, but I have an addictive personality. Were I to venture into that world and allow myself to partake in any of that, I know that I would have a serious problem.
Addiction affects everyone, I think. There are so many things we can be addicted to and most we don't even realize. For instance, I am addicted to Mountain Dew. That's kind of an easy one. Caffeine is addicting. Drink it enough and you get addicted. Mountain Dew=addicted Kati.
I'm also addicted to movies. You should see my movie collection. I love escaping into the world created by movies. It's how I unwind...but I have a hard time going a day without one. Movies=addicted Kati.
I'm also addicted to a few people who are not good for me. A lot of people have that one person in their life that does nothing for them. He/she does nothing to contribute to our lives in a good way. He/she is the leach on everything that is important to us. They draw on our emotional, physical, mental, and sometimes financial reserves. Certain people=addicted Kati.
Now, those are only some of the ways we can be addicted to things. In any form, addiction can be devastating. There's always the obvious damage caused by drugs and alcohol. Drugs have played a major role in my life and shaping me into who I am today. Many people are not as lucky as I was to come out relatively healthy and whole. Drugs and alcohol are the most destructive forms of addiction in my opinion. They damage our souls.
I've seen people and heard stories of substance abuse and what it's done to other families and friends. Movies are for me what drugs and alcohol are to drug addicts and alcoholics...a way to escape. The pull of the chemically altered brain is so intense that eventually, a person goes from being normal and healthy and happy to someone who can't bear living their life without those chemicals. They can sometimes see what that habit is doing to their lives, but more often than not, their own psychological need and desire trumps the needs of anyone or anything else. When you're higher than a kite, or so completely wasted that you can't stand, your cares and worries no longer exist...at least until you sober up.
I'm going to let you in on a secret. There is a key to all of this. Wanna know what it is?
Emotion.
Most of the stories I've heard involve people who are responding to things that have happened to them or in their lives. It's very rare for me to hear about someone becoming an addict just because they could. Even in my semi minor addictions, the key is emotion. I react to outside influences that provoke an emotional reaction. I feel the need to unwind in front of the tv for two hours. For major things like drug and alcohol abuse, the story usually has something to do with a big event in the persons life.
Our emotions are tricky little buggers. Our hearts and our souls are what make us unique. Different people react differently to different outside influences. For some people, the road to alcohol abuse may be triggered by something that seems relatively minor to other people. Then there are triggers like job loss, divorce, bankruptcy, and physical and sexual abuse. With all of these events, some form of emotion is experienced. The difference between regular people and addicts is how we chose to deal with those types of tragedies.
I have a few examples. I'm not going to name names, but if the people these stories are about read this, they'll know I'm referring to them and hopefully will understand my purpose. I have four stories.
First, the story of a male friend of mine. He was a Air Force MP and served in Iraq. He's told me stories of his deployment, but when he told them, he was so beyond wasted, that I don't really know if I should believe most of it. In all stories, there is a small margin of truth. Anyway. He served in the AF until the summer of 2008 when he was discharged. He had a mark on his record for an investigation into an incident where he was accused of "playing around" with his loaded weapon. The charges were eventually dropped, but the mark stayed. In 2008, the AF cut back on its personnel. My friend was a cut. He was devastated by it. He'd planned on serving his whole life in the military and didn't know what he was going to do. Well, he became a drunk who's best friends were the good Captain Morgan and Jack Daniels. I took care of him. He'd call me at 11 at night, knowing I had to be at work at 8 and I'd race up to his house to take care of him. I'd usually find him already drunk and he was not a good drunk. He ended up sending a drunk text to a few people, one of whom took it to mean that he wanted to committ suicide and he was in the hospital on suicide watch for two or three days. His hospital stay did nothing for him. I eventually moved home. I got a call from him about a month later. He was panicking and needed my advice. He told me that the night before, he'd blacked out but somehow managed to go to the place he worked, steal the alcohol, and dump it over the side of a cliff. I know, not very smart. He turned himself in, but even that wasn't enough to get him to change things. He finally changed when he ended up in prison for a parole violation. He was on parole because he ran into a parked car because he was driving while drunk. Yeah. It gets better and better, huh?
On to the next story:
I know of a girl who didn't get addicted to drugs or alcohol, but for a long time was addicted to the validation that came with being degraded. I'm not meaning the good kind of validation. She dated men who treated her horribly because it's how she felt about herself. This girl, woman now, is LDS and served a two year mission in Argentina I believe. After she came home, the unthinkable happened and she was raped. Not once, but twice. That's a pretty harrowing experience for anyone to go through. At first, she didn't deal with it real well. She spiralled downward for a long time. Anytime I saw her, I was amazed that no one else could see just how much she was struggling. It's like, this woman that I love was drowning and no one understood enough about what she was going through to lay flat on their stomachs on the side of the pool and stretch out their hands to help her up. Many tried, but when you have no knowledge of what those experiences are like, your hand has no solidity. I did what I could when I could, but it wasn't enough. She didn't think she was worth very much and dated slime who validated that feeling. Honestly, I don't think she consciously did that. I believe that much of what she chose to let in her life at the time was a result of subconscious decisions. She felt worthless and wasn't ready to deal with the idea that maybe she wasn't.
Next story:
This is about another man. When he was very young, his mother and father both worked a great deal of the time. One day, his mom left him with the babysitter. The babysitter did the unthinkable and traumatized this man at a very young age. I'm sorry, that's the best way for me to water that down. This man started using drugs at the tender age of eleven. When I met him, he was 24 and a hard core crystal meth addict. He could not handle the abuse he sustained as a child. With his parents occupied with three younger siblings and jobs to go too, he turned to the only thing he thought was available to him. Weed. In the beginning, that's all it was. It helped him calm down and focus enough to live...but it soon escalated into the much harder drugs. I remember one occasion at his house. His sister was at a church meeting and he'd been awake for two weeks straight. He literally was walking around the house carrying anything he could swing because cars were creeping by his house. I knew his sister was coming home and I didn't want him scaring the people bringing her...so I leaned against the door and refused to move. He got into my face and yelled, threatening to hit me if I didn't let him out to check on things outside. His house, that he thought people were creeping by, was on a corner with a stop sign. They were slowing down because it was the law. Later that same night, he told me he was seeing shadow people and trash people. His addiction was so strong that he could not clean himself up to take care of the girl he got pregnant or the child when it was born. He's been to rehab eight times that I know of, and each time he goes right back to the same situation, unable to affect the kind of change in his life that would facilitate a recovery.
Last story and then I'll close:
This one is about a girl who was raised by good parents. They traveled a lot because her dad's job required it. This girl has always been emotional. She has a big heart and doesn't like to see other people get hurt. When she was 20 years old, she became pregnant by a man who did not act as though he loved her very much. He did not help her with the pregnancy and brought nothing of either monetary or emotional value to the relationship. She moved away and put her child up for adoption. Being the emotional person that she is, the loss of her daughter was devastating. She spent the next two years in a downward spiral much like the woman from earlier. She moved away from her parents and her support system at home and into an environment that permitted her to seek out the kind of people who made her feel like her life wasn't a waste. For short periods of time, she felt wanted and needed. At the end of about two hours, she always felt worse and plotted ways to get that feeling back. She finally hit rock bottom when she realized that she was going to get into some of the same trouble that she had before and nothing had changed. She'd have to give up another child and that thought process stopped her cold.
All but one of these stories has resolved itself. The girls healed much quicker than the boys and the drug addict is still a drug addict. The moral of these stories I guess is that emotions are powerful things. If we can somehow learn to control our emotional reactions and temper them with logic and reason, we will be able to save ourselves and those around us from immeasurable heartache. Our hearts and souls are what make us unique. Why, then, would we allow ourselves and others to lose that uniqueness to an addiction that can't make us happy? Also, not every addiction is inconquerable. Sometimes, all it takes is that one person who's brave enough to lay flat on their stomach and stretch out their hand to pull us back. Are you brave enough?
I started this post thinking I was going to talk about priorities. At the beginning of last week, I had a conversation with a coworker that kind of set a few things into perspective for me about something that's been kind of a bother. I was going to do a post about priorities because no matter what age we're at, our priorities are constantly changing. In my family alone, priorities are so varied. For example: My personal priorities right now are to get my house in order. I'm 25 and I live with my parents. I don't want to so I'm getting my life together to facilitate moving past this stage of my life; My sister has never had much of a social life. At 23, she's just now beginning to have the kind of attention and social life that I had at 19. She's learning things about life I've known for many years; Remi, one of my brothers...actually, I don't really know what his priorities are. I know that he just got a job that pays really well and he's been talking about moving out. At 21, his priorities seem to be close to mine...but then he does things sometimes that contradict that. So we'll say his priorities are unknown for now; Rayo's priorities seem to be to save money and go on a two year mission for our church. I say seem to be, because sometimes he does what Remi does and contradicts that assumption of mine; Nick, the youngest, really doesn't have a choice in his priorities yet. He's a junior in high school and is focused on graduating. His choices of late are no different than most of ours were when we were his age. His priority, following school, is his friends. His family has taken a back seat...but like I said, we've all been there at one point or another. My parents...they're just trying to keep us all together and headed down the right path.
The point with priorities is that every person has their own. This doesn't make anyone more or less right for focusing on what's important to them. You can disagree with someone's priorities if you wish, but you can't condemn them. Just because it's not your current priority or you think it's something that someone should have learned already, it doesn't mean that it wasn't your priority at one time. We are all learning. None of us has an answer that will work for everyone. There is no such answer. I take it back...if I were to give you an answer to help you understand different peoples priorities it would be two words: Patience, and tolerance. If you want to get through this life in tact, become very good friends with those words and implement them in your life.
Ok, that's the first thing I was going to talk about. I could probably elaborate on that subject quite a bit, but I don't really feel like it's necessary right now.
Another subject I'd planned on blogging about was the situation with BYU basketball player Brandon Davies. I won't spend too long on this as most of the country was consumed by it for what I thought was an unneccessary amount of time.
I was impressed with not only Davies for coming forward and telling the truth, but also with much of the media who agreed with BYU for their disciplinary actions. I don't have official numbers or anything, but in one article I read online, the author said that most colleges have similar honor codes in place...but look the other direction when it's a star athlete. Most people do not agree with the BYU honor code. It's very strict and not at all what most people think 20 somethings should be doing with their lives. Much of the world does the opposite. College is for drinking and sleeping around and exploring the world in your own way. Whether you agree with the LDS standards in place at BYU or not, you can't fault a school for standing by it's principles and holding those who break that code accountable for their actions. We are still children learning from parents in college. Just because we are on our own and providing for ourselves does not mean we don't need guidance occasionally. By enforcing it's honor code, BYU is showing the world that there is no one, star athlete or not, who should not be held accountable for what they've done. Case and point, Ben Roethlisberger. In fact, most of the NFL...and NBA....and MLB....not so sure about the NHL, but you get the point. How is it that men who are known criminals and low lives get paid to do something they love knowing full well they can get away with almost anything? Call me crazy, but that is just madness. And that's all I'm gonna say about that. Good on ya, BYU.
Now, what I want to spend most of my time on is something that has claimed much of my life, my heart, and my soul. Addiction.
I'm not necessarily talking about addiction to drugs or alcohol. I am most definitely not addicted to either one, but I have an addictive personality. Were I to venture into that world and allow myself to partake in any of that, I know that I would have a serious problem.
Addiction affects everyone, I think. There are so many things we can be addicted to and most we don't even realize. For instance, I am addicted to Mountain Dew. That's kind of an easy one. Caffeine is addicting. Drink it enough and you get addicted. Mountain Dew=addicted Kati.
I'm also addicted to movies. You should see my movie collection. I love escaping into the world created by movies. It's how I unwind...but I have a hard time going a day without one. Movies=addicted Kati.
I'm also addicted to a few people who are not good for me. A lot of people have that one person in their life that does nothing for them. He/she does nothing to contribute to our lives in a good way. He/she is the leach on everything that is important to us. They draw on our emotional, physical, mental, and sometimes financial reserves. Certain people=addicted Kati.
Now, those are only some of the ways we can be addicted to things. In any form, addiction can be devastating. There's always the obvious damage caused by drugs and alcohol. Drugs have played a major role in my life and shaping me into who I am today. Many people are not as lucky as I was to come out relatively healthy and whole. Drugs and alcohol are the most destructive forms of addiction in my opinion. They damage our souls.
I've seen people and heard stories of substance abuse and what it's done to other families and friends. Movies are for me what drugs and alcohol are to drug addicts and alcoholics...a way to escape. The pull of the chemically altered brain is so intense that eventually, a person goes from being normal and healthy and happy to someone who can't bear living their life without those chemicals. They can sometimes see what that habit is doing to their lives, but more often than not, their own psychological need and desire trumps the needs of anyone or anything else. When you're higher than a kite, or so completely wasted that you can't stand, your cares and worries no longer exist...at least until you sober up.
I'm going to let you in on a secret. There is a key to all of this. Wanna know what it is?
Emotion.
Most of the stories I've heard involve people who are responding to things that have happened to them or in their lives. It's very rare for me to hear about someone becoming an addict just because they could. Even in my semi minor addictions, the key is emotion. I react to outside influences that provoke an emotional reaction. I feel the need to unwind in front of the tv for two hours. For major things like drug and alcohol abuse, the story usually has something to do with a big event in the persons life.
Our emotions are tricky little buggers. Our hearts and our souls are what make us unique. Different people react differently to different outside influences. For some people, the road to alcohol abuse may be triggered by something that seems relatively minor to other people. Then there are triggers like job loss, divorce, bankruptcy, and physical and sexual abuse. With all of these events, some form of emotion is experienced. The difference between regular people and addicts is how we chose to deal with those types of tragedies.
I have a few examples. I'm not going to name names, but if the people these stories are about read this, they'll know I'm referring to them and hopefully will understand my purpose. I have four stories.
First, the story of a male friend of mine. He was a Air Force MP and served in Iraq. He's told me stories of his deployment, but when he told them, he was so beyond wasted, that I don't really know if I should believe most of it. In all stories, there is a small margin of truth. Anyway. He served in the AF until the summer of 2008 when he was discharged. He had a mark on his record for an investigation into an incident where he was accused of "playing around" with his loaded weapon. The charges were eventually dropped, but the mark stayed. In 2008, the AF cut back on its personnel. My friend was a cut. He was devastated by it. He'd planned on serving his whole life in the military and didn't know what he was going to do. Well, he became a drunk who's best friends were the good Captain Morgan and Jack Daniels. I took care of him. He'd call me at 11 at night, knowing I had to be at work at 8 and I'd race up to his house to take care of him. I'd usually find him already drunk and he was not a good drunk. He ended up sending a drunk text to a few people, one of whom took it to mean that he wanted to committ suicide and he was in the hospital on suicide watch for two or three days. His hospital stay did nothing for him. I eventually moved home. I got a call from him about a month later. He was panicking and needed my advice. He told me that the night before, he'd blacked out but somehow managed to go to the place he worked, steal the alcohol, and dump it over the side of a cliff. I know, not very smart. He turned himself in, but even that wasn't enough to get him to change things. He finally changed when he ended up in prison for a parole violation. He was on parole because he ran into a parked car because he was driving while drunk. Yeah. It gets better and better, huh?
On to the next story:
I know of a girl who didn't get addicted to drugs or alcohol, but for a long time was addicted to the validation that came with being degraded. I'm not meaning the good kind of validation. She dated men who treated her horribly because it's how she felt about herself. This girl, woman now, is LDS and served a two year mission in Argentina I believe. After she came home, the unthinkable happened and she was raped. Not once, but twice. That's a pretty harrowing experience for anyone to go through. At first, she didn't deal with it real well. She spiralled downward for a long time. Anytime I saw her, I was amazed that no one else could see just how much she was struggling. It's like, this woman that I love was drowning and no one understood enough about what she was going through to lay flat on their stomachs on the side of the pool and stretch out their hands to help her up. Many tried, but when you have no knowledge of what those experiences are like, your hand has no solidity. I did what I could when I could, but it wasn't enough. She didn't think she was worth very much and dated slime who validated that feeling. Honestly, I don't think she consciously did that. I believe that much of what she chose to let in her life at the time was a result of subconscious decisions. She felt worthless and wasn't ready to deal with the idea that maybe she wasn't.
Next story:
This is about another man. When he was very young, his mother and father both worked a great deal of the time. One day, his mom left him with the babysitter. The babysitter did the unthinkable and traumatized this man at a very young age. I'm sorry, that's the best way for me to water that down. This man started using drugs at the tender age of eleven. When I met him, he was 24 and a hard core crystal meth addict. He could not handle the abuse he sustained as a child. With his parents occupied with three younger siblings and jobs to go too, he turned to the only thing he thought was available to him. Weed. In the beginning, that's all it was. It helped him calm down and focus enough to live...but it soon escalated into the much harder drugs. I remember one occasion at his house. His sister was at a church meeting and he'd been awake for two weeks straight. He literally was walking around the house carrying anything he could swing because cars were creeping by his house. I knew his sister was coming home and I didn't want him scaring the people bringing her...so I leaned against the door and refused to move. He got into my face and yelled, threatening to hit me if I didn't let him out to check on things outside. His house, that he thought people were creeping by, was on a corner with a stop sign. They were slowing down because it was the law. Later that same night, he told me he was seeing shadow people and trash people. His addiction was so strong that he could not clean himself up to take care of the girl he got pregnant or the child when it was born. He's been to rehab eight times that I know of, and each time he goes right back to the same situation, unable to affect the kind of change in his life that would facilitate a recovery.
Last story and then I'll close:
This one is about a girl who was raised by good parents. They traveled a lot because her dad's job required it. This girl has always been emotional. She has a big heart and doesn't like to see other people get hurt. When she was 20 years old, she became pregnant by a man who did not act as though he loved her very much. He did not help her with the pregnancy and brought nothing of either monetary or emotional value to the relationship. She moved away and put her child up for adoption. Being the emotional person that she is, the loss of her daughter was devastating. She spent the next two years in a downward spiral much like the woman from earlier. She moved away from her parents and her support system at home and into an environment that permitted her to seek out the kind of people who made her feel like her life wasn't a waste. For short periods of time, she felt wanted and needed. At the end of about two hours, she always felt worse and plotted ways to get that feeling back. She finally hit rock bottom when she realized that she was going to get into some of the same trouble that she had before and nothing had changed. She'd have to give up another child and that thought process stopped her cold.
All but one of these stories has resolved itself. The girls healed much quicker than the boys and the drug addict is still a drug addict. The moral of these stories I guess is that emotions are powerful things. If we can somehow learn to control our emotional reactions and temper them with logic and reason, we will be able to save ourselves and those around us from immeasurable heartache. Our hearts and souls are what make us unique. Why, then, would we allow ourselves and others to lose that uniqueness to an addiction that can't make us happy? Also, not every addiction is inconquerable. Sometimes, all it takes is that one person who's brave enough to lay flat on their stomach and stretch out their hand to pull us back. Are you brave enough?
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