Recently I met someone online that immediately seemed to be out for sex.
Though I don’t understand why I was chosen, other than I have a nice profile picture, I feel compelled to reflect on the premise of validation. What am I validated by? Answer that, and it tells a much broader picture of who I am inside. Perhaps not who I am in essence, but what my focus is on presently.
I keep coming back to feeling powerful when women are attracted to me. I feel powerful when I have some semblance of control
[and pause for 2 months…]
It’s now March 9th, and I figure that I might not be planning to finish this post anytime soon. I’ll just post it and call it good. Maybe someday I’ll write another, but then again maybe not. Time will tell. 🙂
[fast forward to July 15th, and I find that it didn’t publish back then… publishing now, and giving it a date of Jan 9.]
Last night, Bill mentioned (mostly in passing) that most people, if they were to plan their homes to match how they plan their lives, would live in nothing more than a cardboard box.
That, of course, leads to many questions about my dream pursuit:
-cb
It’s amazing how time can just slip by. It has been a week since my last entry. Right now I’m headed to Ketchikan for their Staff Development Day. I brought my Bible along and opened to Mark 8:34, “…whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” This leads me to questions:
From listening to Brad Duncan repeatedly, I am reminded that I can only choose one of two ways:
I can’t help but think that Mark 8:34 is a prescription for Happiness. Why is it we are naturally disposed towards pleasure?
I want to be a man of strength – one who is an example for his family, friends, & association.
-cb
Overarching Purpose.
Sometimes you can’t even tell who you’ll have in your life build this business for them (Grandkids, Kids, Friends, etc.)
When the dream is in the box, it’s nice, but it’s not the same.
There will be things that come out of nowhere. They may arrive from emotional experiences.
Impress = from afar… Impact = in person.
If you don’t think you need this, then you need it desperately.
Be embarrased to tell your dream to anyone beyond God and Spouse because it’s so big. Tell your problems how big your God is.
Write down a plan!
Your subconscious knows. Subconscious doesn’t understand then word “don’t”.
Deadline & date determines the pace.
Reasons for building business: friendship & family.
1) Enlarge your vision. Dream bigger!
2) Develop Healthy Self-Image. Who are you? Who is Cody Bennett?
3) Discover power in thoughts and words
4) Let go of the past. 2004 is over.
5) Find strength through adversity.
6) Living to give. Think of the need – Tsunami victims
7) Choose to be Happy.
==
B Wolgamott
Poor Me, or Pour Me?
Open you up to the possibilities of your life.
What does your “tired” look like?
I can take a beating, but I’ll never be beaten
When you become paralyzed from pain, who wins?
What’s the thing that gets you going?
If you know WHY you do what you do, you’ll be a lot happier and passionate about it.
When something hurts, write it down.
Who’s right? Them, the laughers, or Me? It will take everything you have. Are you afraid of _____ or of not living to my potential.
What is the action of your life teaching to others watching you.
Family scholarships.
Write things down where it will remind you.
You’ll never recover by quitting.
One way or another, you have to go through life, you might as well rock it.
Today was a good day. Slept in a bit, then got up, did a little reading, listened to my tape, went to tutor Eileen, saw my brother, and then came out to my house for a nap. When I woke up, I remembered that Jim & Cathy were coming back tomorrow, so I thought it be worthwhile to head out to their cabin to check on things and make sure all was in order.
Earlier, while listening to Ron Puryear’s Crown Tips, I made the important realization that it would be much more valuable to get a different interaction with my tape listening. At this point, I’m not sure if it would be better to try to transcribe everything, or how I might be able to take more heed to the content of the CD, but it’s certainly something to put some thought towards.
In The Richest Man in Babylon, the chapter gave some basic suggestions for how to decrease debt. It’s broken down like this:
• 10% to savings
• 70% to living/rent/pleasantries of life
• 20% to debt
There were some things that I noticed from this:
• At no point was it suggested that you ever have 90% towards lifestyle – I’m not sure what’s to happen if you get that taken care of like I have. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to invest 30% towards savings. Sometime, I’ll do the math to find out what the implications of that would be on my current budget.
• The scale was percentage driven – it wasn’t about how much you made. AKA: if you have $100 or $1,000,000, you should be doing the same.
Traveling Light had a chapter about loneliness. It suggested that perhaps loneliness is not such a bad thing after all – in fact, it could be good that God is preparing you for something more. For example, you might never listen to classical if you always had your rock to distract and turn to. Perhaps the lonly time is intended to bring you into communication with Him! One thing to think about: if you’re hungry and go to the store, that’s an unwise decision – you’ll buy and take more (even those unhealthy things) than you’ll need. If you’re spiritually hungry, you may choose things that aren’t wholesome, just because you think it might fill the void. Here’s a passage from the book on the subject:
“When you know God loves you, you won’t be desperate for the love of others. You’ll no longer be a hungry shopper at the market. Have you ever gone to the grocery store on an empty stomach? You’re a sitting duck. You buy everything you don’t need. Doesn’t matter if it is good for you – you just want to fill your tummy. When you’re lonely, you do the same in life, pulling stuff off the shelf, not because you need it, but because you are hungry for love.”
What Makes God Smile was the chapter title in The Purpose Driven Life. The chapter uses the example of Noah, and his obedience to illustrate many points. It’s with good reason too; think of the implications of what God was asking:
• Noah is asked to build a HUGE ship – in the middle of a land locked area.
• It had NEVER rained upon the earth – he didn’t even know what rain was!
• Building the ship took 120 YEARS – how much patience do you have?
And he did all that was requested of him, exactly, and completely. Wow.
There are 5 acts of worship that makes God smile:
God smiles when we love him supremely. Noah loved God, even when it was unpopular – so much that no one else did. God longs for us to love him back, much like parents might of their rebellious child.
God smiles when we trust him completely. “By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land.” He acted immediately, and as a result, Noah became intimate with God. There were three problems (Never seen the rain, Lived hundreds of miles from the ocean, and difficulty of rounding up the animals) that Noah could have clinged to, but he didn’t; he obeyed.
God smiles when we obey him wholeheartedly. “Delayed obedience is really disobedience.” “God doesn’t owe you an explanation or reason for everything he asks you to do. Understanding can wait, but obedience can’t. Instant obedience will teach you more about God than a lifetime of Bible discussions. In fact, you will never understand some commands until you obey them first. Obedience unlocks understanding.”
God smiles when we praise and thank him continually. We are to praise god for who He is, and we thank God for what he has done.
God smiles when we use our abilities. We were endowed with certain gifts; things that are only for us, and that only we can maximize. You only bring God enjoyment by being you. Every act of enjoyment can become an act of worship when you thank God for it.
I recognize that I am a long way from being a ‘Spiritual Giant’ or one of God’s Warriors, but some day I’ll get there. And for now, I can just remember that He loves and enjoys me at every stage of my spiritual development. What God looks at is the attitude of my heart.: Is pleasing Him my deepest Desire?
When you live in light of eternity, your focus changes from ” how much pleasure am I getting out of life?” to “How much pleasure is God getting out of my life?” Will you make pleasing God the goal of your life? There is nothing that God won’t do for the person totally absorbed with this goal.
In Genesis 21-22, Isaac (Abraham & Sarah’s son) was born, and as he was matured, and had a place in the family, God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son on the altar. And Abraham carried out God’s wishes. Fortunately, he was stopped before Isaac was killed. I can’t imagine what this would be like; to be directed to kill one of your family members. To have that burden on your heart for hours before hand. He knew the night before, and all during the hike up the mountain to make the sacrafice. But the thing that stands out most (to me) is that Abraham was willing to do it. I feel that I would fight it, question it, and delay it – anything to keep it from happening. Abraham didn’t.
In Matthew 9, Jesus continues with sharing His message, by healing and teaching. It seems that his message is that he wants the person’s heart and will to be in the right place, and from there, he will bless them. It’s not enough to follow the Law. At this point, I haven’t seen an answer to the question of what the results of desiring to follow his will, yet not acting it or following the Law. My guess is that if you really desired to follow God, you would find a way to get over the vices.
July 15, 2004
Yep, it’s been another long delay since my last entry.
I’m sitting at the waffle shop right now, after just spending a nice evening of taking some photos out the road near tee harbor, as well as at the shrine.
Something sits heavy on my heart right now, though I can’t precisely identify what it is. While at the shrine I went to “The Gap” there I had a moment of prayer that was essentially me asking for help with cleaning up my life and fixing my heart. More and more I recognize that I am able to make fiends and be close, and then using that ability, get closer to someone than I really need to be. Just since Helen and I have broken up, Heidi, Heather, Helen… yeah, I need to figure things out.
I feel somewhat negligent towards my business right now, and that lends it’s own source of guilt, my relationships with women lend to feeling guilty, there is so much that I feel guilty about. I would love to release that, to feel free from any burden, to feel that people aren’t judging of my actions. Perhaps it’s my heart and desires that have to change, perhaps its my actions. How do I get out of my present situation?
So, how do you know what true love is? Is it okay to base a relationship off of something that isn’t true love? So many people do that, so many people seem oblivious to those truths.
I want to have a fantastic relationship, so I roll with the punches, and take the good with the bad. It seems that even though I’m interested in making the best of any situation, that sometimes, that simply isn’t good enough for the other person.
Here I am sitting at home, nearly one in the morning, and Helen just left, upset. We had a talk about future type things where she hinted that she wanted a relationship where I was something different than I am – talk about the future, about buying houses, and so on. She compares me with Scott (Mindy’s Scott) and I don’t know how to accept that – on one hand, I recognize that I’m not him, on the other hand, I’d like to meet some of Helen’s needs/wants.
We had a bit of a discovery today that perhaps we don’t love each other. I don’t really know what to think about that – on one hand, it might just be something that I’ve been thinking all along, but not wanting to call anyone on it – I recognize that we’ve been sleeping together, being selfish, hoping to have our “needs” met without thinking of how to meet the other person’s needs.
I want to love others, yet I know that isn’t possible if you don’t love yourself. How do you love yourself? You see value and worth, and understand that there is so much more to that other person.
— she came back—
hmm… Now it’s closer to 2 am…
She came back and asked if it was alright if she break up with me.
What am I supposed to do with that? What is the right thing to do? How quickly can I resolve the issues surrounding our relationship? What things are holding me back from being better at loving her?
I suppose on one hand, that it’s not so bad that she’s breaking up with me. I now have the ability to pursue other relationships, to flirt and date and build relationships without remorse. Heather, Brook, Heidi, Patricia, Lacey, all of the above seem to come to mind of people that I’d have the freedom know get to know better.
I am nervous of breaking up because I don’t want to gain the impression that I’m losing a battle – I want to be stronger than that, I want to provide for whatever needs might come along.
How do you find the right person? What do you look for? The willingness to change, the humilty, the selflessness… How can I be more selfless – how can I look to her to be the knight in shining armor, to be the one love that she’s known where without a doubt at all, that I am the one to provide that to her.
Do I want to break up with her? I don’t know.
Alright, I’m going to bed now.
3/25/04
Hmm… The strangeness of being me…
So here it is theree days before Family Reunion. Helen, Jon, and Jason will be there. That’ll be neat.
Few interesting things that have been happening over the last few days that make for a lot of introspection.
I have screwed up so many times, and I really just want things to be alright. I look at the idea of sharing something great with a person that I love, and I am drawn to Helen. I don’t know that she is the one though. I don’t like the fact that our relationship is riddled with doubts, and that the forgiveness process seems to also be related to ghost stories (the dang things never die for reals.) She’d take my hand, but could I take hers? What would be required of me to be able to do that? I look at the things we’ve shared, but I don’t see quite as many of the happy times, just because the entire experience has been riddled with me being dumb, or there being some sort of lacking communication going on in the relationship.
It was very potent to point out that I’ve never really been sold out to my relationship. I wonder why that is. I haven’t really seen the sold out side in any of my pursuits that I’ve had. Perhaps it’s just the train of thought that I’m presently in, but I really don’t see the things that I’ve been able to follow through on and complete. Most of it seems to taper at some point, and in lots of the situations, it fades completely.
And then I have married people soliciting their single girlfriends to me, and I don’t turn it away. Why is that? What am I looking for? What the heck do I think I will find.
The most important thing about a spouse is the abilty and desire to change. Do I hold that myself? If I say that I do, do my actions back it up? Does my girlfriend desire to change herself? Do I facilitate that situation? So then it comes back to me, and here I am again, lacking in some way or another.
I get the impression in my own mind (not as though it’s an answer) that it’s healthiest to break up with Helen. She deserves someone who is committed totally to the relationship, and not some guy who looks for opportunities to test the waters of the community. I’m not even in the aquatic field! I work with computers! Grr.
So I’ve punched away and come up with a couple pages of comments. It’s running up on 12 am now, and so I’m going to call it a night.
I pray, hope, desire, and thirst for a knowledge of how to best handle this situation, and the possible pain that it could bring to my life, and to the life of those that are close to me.
Good night,
-Cody Bennett