Is it wrong to want something nice for yourself?

It feels so odd…and it almost kind of feels wrong…

I never thought of myself as materialistic…until now.

Greedy perhaps?

No one likes to show weakness.  No one likes to appear weak where they are supposed to be strong.  At least I don’t like to.  It almost goes to a point where I am willing to sacrifice and possibly do more harm to myself just to “save face” or keep my pride.  Perhaps its a lesson on learning to be humble.

I’m writing about this not to brag about my gift to another but rather to share something that kind of lit up something in my mind.

Today is the birthday of this one girl at my work.  I don’t work with her and honestly I don’t know her that well.  But we have started to sort of become friends.  Anyway, about once a week or so, we go to lunch together.  A couple weeks ago, she had asked me if I wanted to go to her birthday party which would be tonight.  Honestly, I did not really want to go.  I didn’t want to go for a few reasons.  One being that it was something along the lines of “not my scene” so I know I wouldn’t have been comfortable and I probably would have not been happy.  On rare occasion, I go to these “not my scene” type things for really good friends but to go for people I’m really not that close to, I will pass.  Secondly, I like to keep some type of boundary between hanging out with people at work outside of the office.  Sometimes its just weird.  So because of that, I also did not want to go.  Anyway, I told her I wasn’t going to be able to make it.  But I had planned on just going to lunch with her on Friday and buying her lunch.  Birthday lunch.

Because of her short lunch period, we often have to call in our orders and then pick it up and scarf it down right there.  Normally we just pay separately so today I said, hey I got it, let me treat you for your birthday.  She was SOOO happy!!!  She was so surprised and just so happy like…”why would anyone ever buy me lunch or do something like this?”  So grateful.

Whenever things like this happen, it just kinds of surprises me.  It surprises me that people haven’t experienced something like that.  I don’t know.  It was kind of like what happened with our Faith in Action project about a year and half ago.  These types of happenings kind of just make my mind/heart or whatever it is feel all…touched/triggered (lol I’m bad with words).  It really makes me think that these people really just haven’t had people do something for them before.  Which makes me think that perhaps we, who are able, should do more to kind of show these people some love.  As I mentioned in my Faith in Action post, it’s about sharing God’s love.  To just give this little bit to others so that they can feel that there are different people out there, there are people that are nice, and that care.

What do you think about when you have a lot of time to yourself?  I guess the perfect example would be a long drive – 2 hours, 6 hours, more?  It’s pretty much you, your car, your music, and your thoughts.  Let’s say the music element is gone, then what? Really now, what do you think about? What kind of thoughts occupy your mind?

I’ll tell you what kinds of things I thought about on my drive back to SD today.

• It was a good weekend with the fam.
• It’s amazing what people do out of desperation, vulnerability, and emotion.  People make decisions and do things that make no sense, are irrational, and unexpected.  We often determine who to give our time to.  What deserves my time?  Who deserves it?  I can’t believe that I did all this stuff in the past.
• What if my car breaks down when I’m driving back to SD at night and my cell phone doesn’t work because it’s all hilly here.  Perhaps I should pay attention to the road signs so that I can at least know where I am.
• Why is it so easy to seek God with such desperation and passion when you want something to be fixed, to be changed, or just want something?  Why is it SO difficult to seek Him when things are going well?  I try to seek Him and just lose focus, my mind wanders, because sometimes when I don’t have something specific where I need Him, I can’t think of anything.  Yet, as soon as I want something to happen, I’m right there seeking Him.  Argh, it’s bad.  How do you seek God with the good things?  Not just seek Him, but to seek Him with as much desperation and passion as when things aren’t going well?
• I like singing loud when I’m alone.  I like going all out because no one else can hear me but myself.
• What people consider success is interesting.  Everyone must have a different perspective.  Are you successful?  Am I successful in your eyes?
• I should blog but every time I get down to it, I forget all the good stuff.
• I know the guy I’m looking for exists.  I just haven’t found him yet.  Maybe it will be soon?

And there is probably much more, but that’s all I can think about now.

I tell people I don’t drink because I don’t.  But, I think if someone were to look at my pictures from college and a few years post college, they would think I’m a liar.  In fact, they’d probably immediately call me out as a liar.  Earlier tonight I started putting some old pictures finally into a photo album.  The first section I went through was birthdays.  And nearly every single birthday had some drinking involved.  Wow.  It feels so long ago.  Well, I don’t drink because it constricts my lungs.  But that didn’t stop me from having a drink back in the day.  Craziness.  Craziness.

Another thing is last weekend we were playing this board game called Quelf.  It totally reminded me of this drinking game called King’s Cup.  However, to my amazement no one even knew what that was!

I almost feel like I was a totally different person back then.  It’s almost weird to look at those pictures.  It feels so different from my life now.  Not that it was bad, just different.

Last week as I arrived back to the office after lunch, I saw a well-dressed woman waiting in the lobby.  My immediate thought was that she was here for an interview.  It got me thinking about the numerous interviews that I’ve had where that short period of time spent waiting in the lobby for them to call you in was very nerve-wrecking.  You just sit there with such anticipation, rehearsing lines in your head, trying to remember to have a firm hand shake, to smile, be confident, think before you speak, and what not.  A million thoughts rushing through the head, which then reminded me of a psychology experiment I was involved in during college.  I think they were trying to test or prove that people become less nervous or more calm when they are interacting with someone or something familiar.  The experiment went something like this.  You go into a room with the tester/psychologist person and you sit down at a table and they strap on something to measure your pulse.  Then the tester person tells you to give a 3 minute speech on an undetermined topic.  This is where you’re supposed to freak out about giving a speech and your heart rate is supposed to spike.  Then the tester person leaves and your friend comes in and talks to you.  This should calm you down.  Then the tester person comes back and finishes.  I think it works, being able to interact with someone/something familiar definitely calms the nerves.  So I thought about people going for interviews and how great it would be if while they were waiting in the lobby, they bumped into someone they knew that currently worked at the company.  I totally think this would help me relax.

What do you think?