Christmas is Over, now what?

Christian Marriage by C.S. Lewis

The ‘Cardinal Virtues’ by C.S. Lewis

The Shocking Alternative by C.S. Lewis

Your Life

Your life is a highlight reel: a gradual search for a handful of memories. We like to think that every moment has potential, that there’s something transcendent, hidden all around, that if you would only stop to seize the day, you could hold onto it and carry it with you. But the truth is, most of life is forgotten instantly, almost as it’s happening. Chances are that even a day like today will slip through your fingers and dissolve into oblivion, washed clean by the tides.

This is the rhythm of ordinary time: the featureless stretches between one memory and the next, the thousand acts of maintenance you do every day. You keep your body going, hauling it back and forth from one place to the next. You breathe in and out. Things fall apart, you clean up the mess. And it all washes away in the night, to be built up again in the morning. You throw the week against the wall to see what sticks, hoping you will remember something that happened today, anything.

Most of our lives are spent in the wilderness, those areas we fly over to get to the good parts. And you wonder how you could spend so much time just pushing back against the current, trying to keep your small boat afloat, watching for a glimmer on the horizon, waiting for those moments when you can finally say, “I’ve found it!”

But it’s all happening. It’s all real whether you’ll remember it or not. So you might as well say "I've lost it!" As if to mark the passage of yet another opportunity, flushed down the hourglass. A final toast to the endless forgotten days, whose humble labor has given you everything you have, at least for the moment.

As the song says: long live the high tide and long live the low, but above all, long live the difference.

TJ

Austin Carlile - White Chair Film - I Am Second®

Why are you holding on to the Past?

1. You can’t, or won’t, talk about it. 

2. You’re constantly being hit by “those same old feelings”. 

3. You can’t relax and be yourself with certain people from your past. 

4. You’re attracted to people who treat you negatively. 

5. You over-react, and find it hard to calm down. 

6. You have poor boundaries, and always feel you’re being used. 

7. You’re always making poor decisions, and repeating old mistakes. 

TJ

You Feel Depressed. What Now?

1. Acknowledge how you feel, and accept that this is going to be a more challenging day.

2. Commit to doing the absolute essentials but don’t push yourself to do everything. 

3. Prioritize what’s important. Do what needs to be done. If it is something that can wait, set it aside for now. 

4. Work through your to-do list in small chunks of time – making sure you take plenty of breaks.

5. Tell someone who will understand. We need to get support when we’re feeling low, but not everyone will be there for you. Figure out who will be there, and who won’t be there, for you. 

6. Be wise in your use of social media. It may be good to go offline for a while, to switch off your phone and to protect yourself from stuff that just exacerbates the way you feel. 

7. Make sure you leave the house and get a change of scenery.

8. Deliberately invest in some form of self-care … and make sure it’s something that you know will help your mood. Also, remember that tomorrow is another day. 

TJ

How Can You Change Your Life?

Questions to Help You 

For Best Results Write Out Your Answers!
 

1. If you had all the money in the world, how would you choose to spend your life?

2. What makes, and when do, you lose yourself…and later realize that you lost all track of time?

3. What lifts your spirits on a dark day?

4. When you are old, and you look back on your life, what things will matter to you the most?

5. What are 3 things that you really hope to achieve in life?

6. What kind of person do you want to be?

7. Who would you say is a role model for a life well-lived?

 

 

TJ

Living Life...

While you're in it, life seems epic. Fiery, tenuous, and unpredictable. But once you have some distance from it, everything seems to shrink, until it's almost out of focus. 

When you look back over your life, or try to put it down on paper, You can see more of it now than ever before. And yet it seems somehow diminished. Humble. Almost old-fashioned. So you begin scanning your life, looking for something interesting or beautiful. You see an ordinary house, with an ordinary yard, on an ordinary street. It looks smaller than you remember. You once had wild dreams and obstacles and risks looming all around you, but now they look smaller too.

You remember giants and goddesses and villains, but all you see is ordinary people assembled in their tiny classrooms and work-spaces, each of us moving around in little steps, like tokens on a game board. No matter how many times you rolled the dice, it was always these little moves, here and there. Do a little work. Take a little rest. Make a little friend. Throw a little party. Feel a little boredom. Have a little rebellion. There are so many of these token moments that were supposed to represent some other thing. You keep adding them all up, as if there was something you forgot to count, some stash of glory that fell off the back of a truck. 

You may love the life you have for everything it is, and even though you know it isn't groundbreaking; you wouldn't change a thing. Maybe when you first started building the life you wanted, you left plenty of room for what might happen, and somehow lost track of what was happening. 

Or maybe you were never 'in it' to begin with. Maybe you knew even then that this wasn't the world you expected. A world so low and common you tried to keep your distance, floating somewhere above it, where nobody else could look down on this life you built. 

Nobody else but you.

TJ

 

Ever Want to Pause Life?

Strange how strong the instinct is, to see something incredible, and reach for a camera or a phone with a camera. As if to lend it some credibility, to prove that it's real, that 'I WAS HERE.'

We live our lives in moments. Those rare experiences we stop to notice, and carry with us, in the hopes of stringing them together, trying to tell a story. But even in the moment, you can feel it start to fade.

So you try to capture it, and convert it into something that will last longer than just a flash. And over time a photo feels more real than its subject. It lets you build a version of the world that you can take with you.

A world flattened, and simple. A world that doesn't change. That fits in the frame. A little brighter and more colorful. With everything under control.

You can travel the globe looking for memories, and still find yourself standing behind a camera waiting for the world to hold still.

With every click of the shutter, you're trying to press Pause on your life. If only so you can feel a little more comfortable moving on living in a world stuck on Play.

A part of you knows you can't take it with you but that doesn't stop you from trying. "What if I could stay just a little longer?" "What if we didn't have to go?"

We try to capture moments as if we're afraid they'll escape, but they'll get away eventually.

Take one last look. One more shot. So years from now you can flip back through, and try to relive it all over again.

But maybe even then, you'll be thinking to yourself, "Ah well. I guess you had to be there."

TJ

Leaving the Past In The Past...

I think sometimes we let nostalgia trick us into forgetting that the people in our past are there for a reason.

We must remind ourselves it is either because we purposely left them there or they ended up there for reasons beyond our control.

It’s okay to think about the past and reminisce the good times occasionally – but don’t obsess over it to the point where you’re sacrificing opportunities in the here and now because you’re too attached to the echoes of things long gone… 

The present is the greatest gift you’ll ever have and the future holds wonders beyond your imagining… Don’t throw it all away by constantly looking for the things you lost along the way…

TJ

Do You Really Know You???

Individuals may be better understood when viewed through time. The best way might be to build (writing / putting together) a life-history, our own or of someone else, that can act as the glue that connects seemingly separate events in a coherent story. It is a thread of time that connects and creates a sense of one-ness, explaining the present and future in relation to the past.

When we think of life-histories, we almost always think in terms of a biography. The problem with biographies is that a description from one viewpoint of a life-history can never completely describe all events. It can, however, act to communicate a coherent perception even though there may be plenty of misunderstanding and illusion remaining.

Autobiographies are also flawed in that while they may or may not be honest, it is a singular viewpoint from 'inside the machine' that can never be objective. They do, however, give meaning to the individual as they stitch together events and find personal meaning.

Bourdieu (1987) notes that constructing a life-history has less to do with being a reflection of life itself, but more to do with being a technique for reconstructing experience, a device for producing the experience of self as being in harmony. He also believes that while the 'unified-self' is not a complete illusion, it neither is natural nor fundamentally human. Society includes many individualizing methods.

As an example, he describes a person's name like this:

"The proper name is the visible affirmation of the identity of the bearer across time and space, the basis of the unity of one's successive manifestations, and of the socially accepted possibilities of integrating these manifestations in official records, curriculum vitae, cursus honorum, police record, obituary, or biography which constitute life as a finite sum through the verdict given in a temporary or final reckoning." (Bourdieu, 1987)

The life-history 'illusion' is that a proper name refers to a group of features or traits that define the permanent core of a 'self' that exists before the history. 

Bourdieu claims that no such basis exists, and that legal, governmental and beautiful personalities are not related, therefore making it difficult to identify a single 'person'. In the legal sense, many attributes of the person are conferred rather than are intrinsic.

What would your life-history look like?

Have you ever thought about it?

Would you like to better understand who you really are???

TJ

Works Cited:

Bourdieu, P. (1987). The biographical illusion. Working Papers and Proceedings of the Centre for Psychosocial Studies (Univ. of Chicago) 14, 1-7

Why Do You Want to Be Liked?

 

Social desirability is a basic motivation that drives us based on what others think about us. It has a huge effect on how people behave and is the basis for our need for approval and to be liked.

Our society is founded on the very force we call desirability.

We all have a significant need for a sense of identity and many people create this through interactions and relationships with other people.

It is often said that we socially construct ourselves, creating our own image of ourselves through the eyes of other people, as in the 'Looking-glass self'. Even those who seem to have less concern for others are often markedly affected by this.

Maybe it is natural for us to want to have a positive self-image, considering ourselves clever, popular and so on. That being the case, we tend to construct ourselves in as positive a way as we can. On any desirable social scale, most people consider themselves above average (which is statistically impossible).

If others act as if they do not like us or disapprove of us in some way, then we are forced to consider that we are bad or wrong in some way. This creates a powerful and uncomfortable cognitive dissonance that drives us harder to find ways to appear (at least to ourselves) more socially desirable.

We also create ourselves through our associations, our families, friends, job, religion, nationality and so on. We join groups and internalize their cultures, including beliefs and values, we accept their rules and connect our identities to theirs.

Once these links are created, we become afraid of losing them, because we assume that being cast out of a group is to lose a part of who you are (or at least who you think you are).

Important identity-related needs include the need to endure the socially constructed self and to protect our associations. 

This forms our basic need for:

    Belonging: Identity created by association with a group.

    Esteem: Being respected by others.

    Fairness: Having the same as others.

    Approval: Being approved of by superiors.

    Liking: Being thought of as a friend.

We also have a strong need to avoid the opposite, and avoid disapproval by others, particularly those we identify and respect. To act in contrary ways can be quite terrifying. So, we are often very careful to follow values and social norms.

Sometimes people do not look for, or want, social approval or to be liked, and in fact seem to revel in being disliked (or at least do not care what others think). These people are in the minority.

People with personality disorders such as the Antisocial Personality or the Psychopathic Personality are characterized by a lack of empathy and care very little for social desirability (only in the way that it can be manipulated to meet their goals). Narcissists may appear to be opposite, caring greatly about social desirability, yet they will also manipulate and be unpleasant to others in their empty search for praise.

Many people also fall into the comforting pattern of repeating unhelpful games/behaviors that may lead to them being persecuted or vilified. Even if they know this, they often seem unable to break out of the habit and may seek the support of others in their attempt to become more socially desirable.

Bottom line- When we interact with others, try to remember how important it is for them to be liked, approved of, or looked up to just as much as we want to be liked, approved of, or looked up to ourselves.

TJ