50 Trillion Cells

50 Trillion Cells

            For those who know me, will most likely tell you that I live almost more in the future than I do the present and I generally try not to look much behind the present. Since I came to college however I feel as if I’m no longer straddling that perception of time as its safe to say I’ve been spending more time exploring potential dreams than ever before. It’s incredibly easy for a person like me, who generally spends a great deal thinking 5-10 years down the road already. With mCAT coming up, dreams of practice in Africa while trying to figure out when I will be able to find time to settle down and start a family before I am too old to participate in the growing ages of my own children I have found it not only troubling but interestingly infatuating. I dream almost every night, and I love it, I’ve been told it’s a sign of higher hormonal levels and I think that’s awesome I look forward to what my mind is going to play for me every time I lay my head on my pillow. The thing about dreams however, is that they can be both incredibly farfetched or they can be as detailed and vivid as everyday life, they will have you waking up thinking you are 100$ richer, or on better relations with a certain person. Anything outside of the present is a very dangerous place to hang around in. The present is what determined our past and is what will determine our tomorrow so it is easy to see how much importance one should put on it.

            I gain focus, my buddy is laughing at me as millions of neurons fire rampantly in my frontal lobes of my cerebrum desperately trying to re-orient my body not only with the location but the time lapse, how long was I out, 10 seconds, more than a minute? As I listen once again to my friend proclaim the same thing I’ve heard thousands of times about how I went from listening to having a completely blank stare a split second later, blah, blah, blah I don’t really listen because I already know. I zoned out, everybody zones out and everyone loves catching somebody when they are zoned out. But this time it was a very familiar daydream, one that leaves me with a slight feeling of depression. It’s common to wake up from dreams feeling down, because after-all fantasies are fantasies for a reason, they are wants that have either not been fulfilled or may never be fulfilled. But this one is different, it’s very real but yet very distant, it’s the moment in my life when I’m a father. Since these dreams I’ve now realized why I live, why I am where I am and why I do the things that I do.

            The most joy I’ve ever gotten from dreams whether they are result of REM or simply a daydream have been when I was hanging out with my future family. I’ve seen what I believe are the eyes of my future wife as well as felt the weight of my future offspring in my arms as they lay there asleep swinging from side to side. My entire body fills with joy, my chest hurts and I feel a sense of nirvana that no intoxicant or woman has ever brought me to before. Biology tells me that I have been evolved to want to reproduce as the soul reason to my existence. I agree with part of this, it makes sense to want to pass on your own genes, it’s the most physical legacy a person can leave behind – a human that is 50% them. I know it is insane to think about but I can’t stop. I want to be a teacher of my children, show them everything there is to see, open up ever door of opportunity that may be out of reach. I want them to be seekers of the truth, to ask the bigger questions because they’ve already been explained the basics. I can’t wait to watch them succeed at their own personal interests whether its music, academics, art or athletics. I wake from these dreams beaming of pride that I do not rightfully own yet.

            With this in mind I never make the statement that these are the days of our lives, these are the golden days. I’m young still and I’ve seen enough of the future to know that I have an unlimited amount of happiness yet to be released. I love life and do my best to enjoy it as thoroughly as possible without taking any day for granted but it’s reassuring to know that this is not the end. College will end and careers will begin and where most people stumble with hesitant thoughts of fear I will walk tall because it is where their uncertainty is born is where mine is diminished. I know that He has great plans for me, as he does with everyone, and in that thought is where I seek shelter for its dreams like these that keep me feeling as if my plan has only begun to be fulfilled.

The power of ONE

The Power of ONE

            "One person can make a difference." We've heard it soo many times. Can one really make that much noise? Yes but those "one" persons are far and few between. But that is, I believe, a result of what we as a society put upon ourselves. What can we do?        

       Well first off, ask yourself what does the world expect of you? As a teenager, they expect you to be a nice, maturing adolescent. Perhaps you have a job, or maybe your involved in an extra-curricular activity and/or a hard studious student trying to find the answer to the big question of "what's next in life." I'm sorry but that is nothing. Just a mold that will only insure the world that it will be run at the same level, hopefully a little more progressed, for one more generation.

            Now is when I say, "Time to step out of the box." If the world isn't going to say, "Help people and make the world a better place." than I will be the first. Think about it, if no one tells you to "jump, do it, go all in!" are you gonna? No, because no one expects you to. This is the best opportunity to excel. No one expects you to do anything. So if you fail? Don't fret, you'll be put on higher thought just for attempting this valiant act.

            Remember, one person does not change a city, a city changes a person. Who then goes on to change his family/friends that change their friends leading to a massive butterfly effect. And you can't change the world until you first change yourself for the better of your cause. Am I saying you will change the world? No, odds are against you, no offense! But CAN you? Absolutely, but please do not attempt to "go big or go home." You may easily end in heart break and humiliation.

            So perhaps we could start small. Change your family/friends and maybe even eventually lead to a change in your community, then only God knows who your idea will effect! Proverbs 3: 5-6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not depend upon your own understanding, but seek His will in all you do and He will direct your path." Famous movements (the ones that actually worked) were never started by people that were seeking fame or publicity. Instead they saw a need that HAD to be met. Today there are millions of needs, so for a start, look around and watch people. See their need and assist them, but ask nothing back in return except the assurance that they will go forth and do the same as you. I saw this attempt done by Hollywood in the movie "Pay It Forward" where a young boy decides to help 3 people in a dramatic way, and in return they have to help 3 people and so forth until the chain gets HUMONGUS!  I only saw a few short clips but I got the gist of it.

            The idea is simple, makes sense and can work. Maybe not state/nationwide like it did in the movie, but for starts I think it'd do just fine for someone who is looking to make the world better but doesn't have the time, or money to launch such a world-wide campaign.

            I don't think this expectation would be back breaking to add upon the other already existing expectations on our lives.  After all, there is no progress report, or someone to say if you've been doing a well enough job. Just the satisfaction of knowing what you have done. Who knows, this little request may just lighten your heart, resulting in decreasing your level of stress. I am, and will never, ask you to do something, its just merely a suggestion backed with a little bit of faith that some of you will be as touched by this thought as I was.

            So instead of being a generation that will continue in the footsteps of simply keeping the world spinning, perhaps we could be a generation that seeks to make a difference from person to person...

Stars

No matter where you go, there are always going to be that one guy/gal that thinks they are better than everyone else they all have a different mindset "I'm stronger" "girl power, I don’t need a man" "what is your major again?" "What college were you accepted into?" and if you are one of those people, and you should know who I am talkin’ about than I have only one piece of advise for you...

Go look at the stars...

I don’t mean from your window, I don’t mean go run outside and look at them for 10 seconds... stand, lay do whatever you want to do, but just look SILENTLY into the night sky...

Now, what I want you to do is think while you are looking up there silently... think about the huge vastness of what you are looking at, imagine that the light from some of those stars have traveled for millions of years in order for you to see them, some of those stars burned out a few hundred years ago, but the light still is traveling towards us... feel that?

That shrinking feeling? The kind of feeling you get when you drop suddenly into a freefall, the feeling you get when you are publicly cut down. Or the feeling you get when you are just denied by the one person you have feelings for? Crazy huh?

So mason, what are you saying? What you are feeling or what you are hopefully feeling is a humbling sensation... Every time I go and stop and look up I realize my place and it is just a reminder, a humble reminder that God has left for us. Need an answer? Feeling lost? Let me help ya out...

In my opinion God created the universe for many reasons, one of which I think is to humble ourselves. Those times when we cut down a person because he/she is larger than us, or perhaps too scrawny, or maybe in your eyes wasn't blessed with the good looks? Yea you know what I’m talkin about, this is why He created it, so we can realize what we really are, and how small we really are. Still feel big? Powerful? Able to conquer the world?

I'm sorry to say but let me put it in a scale for you, if Earth was the entire universe than mother Earth (our entire planet) would be about the size of a taste bud on an ANT!!! Still think you are tall and mighty?

Now, I don’t want to lose you so brace yourself... God created that... that never-ending mixture of blackness with a tiny speck of light every so often... yea he created it, so don’t you think you could take a couple minutes out of your, I know, "oh so busy" lifestyle to thank him, perhaps humble yourself to him... although you may be realizing how small and insignificant you are right now, I just want you to know, that you are small but you are NOT insignificant... why?

Because God created you, he created you just like he created the universe... pretty sweet huh? Is it much for Him to ask a little bit of us? Common now, stop boasting about your petty achievements because guess what you still haven't created something out of NOTHING... sorry to burst your bubble but somebody needs to rain on your parade so here I am... and before you call me a hypocrite, I want u to backtrack up a little bit I am giving you this advise because it has worked for myself. Yea so we get lost a couple times, its ok, as long as we find the trail again, its when we get too lost that it becomes an issue, but just remember no matter how far off into the woods away from the trail you get, you can always find yourself back immediately, all you have to do is look up at night...

Love

Love...

(just my opinion)

So, Lately I've been trying something new, it's called "love everybody equally". I know, your thinking, that's cool, but everybody? Yes, the gays the straights, the whites and the spades, everybody all loved equally. It's a challenge; will you attempt it with me? If you think you are not quite there, sweet that's cool, but I do want you to try this sometime in your life, because it will be life changing.

 Put serial killers in the same category as your mother, your enemy on the same platform as your girl/boyfriend. Is this going to be hard? Oh yeah. Is it necessary? Depends, do you have a heartbeat? Then you are alive, and yes, it is necessary.

We are all filled with love and we cannot be biased and penny-pinching with our love. There is not going to be an end in time where love is going to be used as a currency. So why are you still holding onto it like it's your mother's wedding ring? Or your father's signed baseball?

"Do not be afraid" that line is used many times in the bible by angels, God and Jesus, so I think this is a very appropriate place to say this to you. Many people are afraid of loving people because they have a perverted understanding for love. A definition that has been shoved into our minds by society and media galore.

So… WHAT is love?!?! Love is not holding hands with someone. Love is not a word, and love is NOT sex. Love is not the thing society has perverted so to the point where it is a physical thing; Love is a feeling, and like anger, happiness and sadness, we can never describe it, no amount of words will ever be able to sum it all up. Love is a condition of the heart, a satisfaction our bodies yearn for constantly. Love is programmed into our hearts by none other than God, it was there on your first day alive and it will be with you forever into eternity, You just need to harvest it.

How? We do a little spring cleaning. Clean out the garbage and junk in our hearts that has hidden our love, the stereotypes, prejudices, and all the unforgivin tales in our pasts. And when we can do that, we can then truly love others, love through words and actions. For the mouth speaks what the heart feels, and the body acts on the movements of the heart, so when our hearts are clean, hold on to something because the change is going to be amazing. So maybe we can all do a little cleaning? I'm not going to say this will be easy, but, I am going to tell you that the rewards will be endless.

Impressions

Everywhere you go, no matter what, you leave impressions upon the people you come into contact with. You can't help it because we all judge everybody else, and that is how we ourselves recieve these impressions given from others around us.

So, what kind of impressions are you giving away? Are they always positive ones, are people always happy, or feel better after you're gone, or maybe you made their day just a little bit better by nothing more than a simple smile or wink as you walk by.

Or are they negative? are you constantly cutting people down, or acting like a jerk because it attracts both attention towards you and because your friends think your funnier when you act that way? Or maybe you blow someone off, or you yourself are in a bad mood and it effects the ones around you, causing them to be in a state of temporary depression, etc.

Most likely a combination of both, we cannot help it, but we can try to improve our impressions, try to improve somebody's day by leaving a positive impression upon them, afterall, it isnt that hard to do, so why do we find it so?

So which impressions are you giving away? remember, impressions are memories, and memories last more than just one moment in time, sometimes they can last throughout a lifetime...

Happiness

Happiness… everybody wants it, everybody finds it, everybody has it… some pursue it for many years, others it is handed to them and they don't even recognize the blessing… Other's search and search and convince themselves that there is none in the world for them to share… We all have it, but where do we find it? If you have $50 lost inside your house, do you have $50?

Depends on how you look at it, you could say that its there, and its just waiting for you to find it, or you can say its not, because no matter where you look, u find nothing and if anything, pennies…

I'm so caught up looking for the $50 bill straight up, that I don't stop to collect the coins… the pennies and nickels… so instead of collecting a bunch of little things that create happiness in my life I ignore them and search for something bigger. I want the 7/11 Big Gulp drink of happiness, not the $.25 lemonade stand shots… you know what I mean… go big or go home right?

Well maybe not, maybe that is the way into a perpetual loop of ignorance, that leads to nothing, and if anything, most likely pain… Hollywood endings are far and few between, if your banking on the girl of your dreams hating you and falling deeply in love with you when you do nothing, yea right… or maybe it's a financial hope of inheriting or winning a lump sum of money that will pay your way through college and more… once again, I'm going to have to chose reality on this one…

Collect the pennies, nickels and dimes… they may be small, but they add up to quite a bit… they could be nothing more than a certain someone's smile, being recognized, or laughing with a certain group of people, doesn't have to be something huge, but its happiness, and guess what, it adds up, soon you get to discover that more and more little things will get you to smile, they take your mind off of the present worry/stress and when you collect enough of those, you will find that having a thousand things that make you happy is better than one major one.

So think about what makes you happy, don't start a list, you will find out that you're only leaving more and more out, so just think about it and surround yourself with it, the world never needs sadness, there is plenty of it already for us to add unnecessary amounts of it.

We've all heard it "smile because you never know who's fallen in love with it" yea, that's a little to original and gay, I'm not sending that message but I will say this, when you are sitting down in a public place, notice how you just start watching people, just random people, figuring out their possible lifestyle just by watching them for 5 seconds and then you move on, we don't even realize it half the time but we do it, and if we do it, than that means we as well are being analyzed.

So either way people are going to be predicting your life, so instead of making them guess what is causing you to be gloomy, throw them for a loop, leave them guessing what is making you so happy…

Failure/Fear

You see, it's weird, it's annoying, but hey it's my life… always a step to late, or a little to much. Always that one little action that causes months of damage, and not enough time to repair, that causes my heart to tear and its no one's blame but mine. The goal that is always just out of reach, that the closer I get the farther away it seems to get, and I find myself in a perpetual cycle of chasing, all I want is to have it there for once, and not have to go so far. When others around me try not at all and get what I long for, all I can do is sit and think, what did I do, where did I trip and how far have I fallen? Who is this angel from my nightmare and what does she want? A nightmare where I can not win the fight, where I tire after every swing and my opponent doesn't fatigue no matter where or how many times I hit him.

            How do you stop liking somebody, there is no substitutions, you can't just throw someone else from the crowd to replace that person, it just doesn't work that way. You can satisfy your sexual desires but you will never quench that yearn. You can listen to whoever you want for however long you want, they aren't going to change your mind on this issue, no matter how many times they encourage you, you will fight it. Not in the sake of rebellion but because you literally cannot.

            We all fail, there is always going to be one person you cannot teach, one person you can not befriend and one person who will always create friction. The moment could be perfect and your performance could be perfect but you fail, you fail because you put your success in the hands of other people, we have to, there are no short-cuts or exceptions. You make the move, and nobody is there to catch you because they couldn't match your performance, they couldn't or didn't want to do what you were willing to. Failure goes with life like presents go with Christmas, if you have one; you're going to have the other… so how do we deal with it? You accept your failures and you learn from them… Make a list of all your achievements and accomplishments in your life, pretty easy… "got A's… made the honor role… made a sports team… made a spectacular play…became the champion of something…fell in love… you earned the trust/respect of your parents or friends… you learned something that will stay with you for the rest of your life…" the list goes on and on… it's pretty easy to name all the mini goods and mega accomplishments, but is it as easy to list our failures? We have to, it is the only way to keep from failing again, perhaps the only way to move on, we must accept that they were failures, but remember failure is NOT bad, failure, like a sunset, is always followed by something good, example the sunrise. We will always open up another door of opportunity with each of our failures, a door that leads to success and happiness.

            My Failures… failure to reach the expectations of winning the spelling bee comp 3 years out of my 5 year elementary career. Failed to catch the football about 23 times in football; made numerous errors in baseball/softball. Failed to achieve both my goal and the goals of my family/coaches in high jump. Failed to letter 3 times in my first 2 years of high school. Failed to stand up for my mother in the 7th grade. Broke my personal vow to never drink alcohol in an excessive amount. Failed in my attempts of trying to have a real relationship with a girl. Failed in the timing of letting my emotions out. Failed to return to see my friends in Florida. Failed in running away. My senior year of football, failure- was not fun at all. And my most favorite, failed in ending the most precious gift ever given to me.

            More than half of my failures resulted from fear. We let fear control our lives so much that we in fact never get around to doing things we wanted. We are so worried about not achieving our dreams that we actually cause ourselves not to achieve our goals and dreams out of fear. Accept everything that happens to you, accept the fact that people die, accept the fact that YOU will die, accept the fact that people succeed and people fail, because it is inevitable, you will fail, succeed and die, no matter what. So once we accept those facts than we will no longer fear them, and when we no longer have fear is when we can start living, and when we will find true happiness.