Fall Hard, Get Back Up Harder, Give it Your Hardest. Not Alone, but With God

This chaotic academic quarter finally came to an end a week ago. It seriously was a living nightmare for me. The ending for that quarter? Didn't eff up, but I'm definitely disappointed. Do I blame the fact that there were other things that could have hindered my performance? No, the only person I blame is me only.

Also, these days I really feel like I have my image ruined for some reason. People don't view me the same as the past year. They seem to look at me differently, treat me differently, and definitely think of me differently. Its been tough to deal with on the spotlight and the public stage. I feel like a lot of people questioned about how much I fell over the past few months. Really though, its been excruciatingly tough. It even got to the point where my dad questioned why I wasn't going to church the other day and a day later he found cigarettes in my car. I don't even want to explain what happened after that moment. Despite all the catastrophe that's happened at home, church, and school, what I've learned from all this is to stay even. Not to get too frustrated and angry to the point where I start hating those people who judged me and backstabbed me. Not to get too depressed and start looking for a new life somewhere else. Just stay mentally tough, keep getting hit and endure, knowing that God's by my side always and carrying me through these tough times. One story that Paul told at his graduation was that when people look back at life they question to God "why is there only one trail of footsteps during the toughest times? I thought you were walking along beside me?" Then God answers "its not that I was not with you, I was carrying you through those crucial times." Right now, I feel like I am being carried. Heck if I wasn't being carried, where and what the heck would I be and be doing right now.

Even though all this had to happen, I found a career path I want to follow and hope that one day I will be successful and do my very best for my wife and kids in the near future as well as serving God by supporting churches and missionaries in financial struggles to help them break that financial curse in order to bring glory to God's kingdom. I lived a good life thanks to my hardworking dad and loving mother. Despite the obnoxious roars and yelling I got from my dad that other day, I knew that it was because he truly cared about me and did it purely out of love. I feel like its the same with my heavenly father. To be honest, I don't view everything that's happened the past months as a punishment, but rather for me to learn something far greater that outweighs the chaos thats been happening. I haven't found the exact reason all this had to happen, but I definitely seeing a lot of signs and clues why all this had to happen.

I REALLY HATE to admit this from the bottom of my heart, but I'm going to say it anyway. I was the biggest drama king this year. If you didn't know, there's one thing I avoid at all cost, and that is drama. I never like to get involved with other's people crap. I never like to even be in one myself. I always try to end it by telling both sides to shut up or something. However, I guess all those times I called other people drama kings and queens finally came to me to experience. It sure wasn't a pretty one at all. I always thought I could end it quickly, but it only dragged on due to unfortunate happenings. Yet at the same time, you learn so much more from failures while you learn nothing from success because nobody is perfect, and it takes failures to learn how to succeed.

Starting this summer, I realized I need to make changes as well. How I treat certain people, my attitude, my smoking addiction, study habits, spiritual life, academics, that stupid "respect me" heart motive (yeah, everyone should know..), my stupid inhering hatred of girls (ok i don't hate every single girl i know, but I'll say like i hate like 70% which is pretty bad), that mentality when I think I can take on anyone because I'm physically capable (however, I do want to bench press 300 pounds by end of summer...), break that "he looks scary" thing (I don't get why though...), and definitely have a more solid and consistent walk with God. I feel like this last one I listed should be the first, then I'm sure God will guide me with the rest of the list. Rest assured, I'll say this as my final words for this post, can't wait to finally go to a Sunday service after 3 months of missing out.

A Dream

Found out what I wanted to do in life. One day I hope to live a dream that I didn't think was possible. Yet, even looking at all this, it only twists my perception of what I really should be doing in life. Sure, who doesn't want to be successful and want all this. But does that really define happiness in life? I don't know about what you may think, but to me, none of this doesn't matter. I'd give all this up even if I had the money to help those really in need. Family, close friends, and most importantly for God's kingdom. People may think I'm a fluke because I grew up in a financially well off family my whole life. However, seeing my friends and their family struggle financially is excruciatingly painful. Seeing overseas missionaries not being able to spread the gospel because of financial issues is more painful.

So finals week is next week. When I was looking at these pictures, I actually got a motivation to study for once. However, after realizing that all this wouldn't have mattered, the real motivation I saw was from what I posted above. Its scary how I'm really close to graduating now and entering the real world. People always stress about how hard it is to get jobs and stuffs. Yes, its true that the unemployment rate in the US today is at 12%. Is that a big deal? Heck yeah, that's frkn high. But how I look at it is this. In opposition, the employment rate is 88%. How does that sound? Very prestigious. Yet, can't get too complacent about it neither. I've got my parents I want to support later on, so that my dad can finally retire after working nonstop with an illness I don't want to go into detail about. I've got a future wife and kids I want to strive everything I got for, because it's not fair for me to grow up well off and have my kids live the complete opposite of how I grew up. I want to teach them the same thing how my parents taught me when it comes to money, "learn to give later on, since we gave you what you needed." Also, there's a financial curse out there I want to break in the mission field. There's just too many people out there who aren't saved. Having those people die and go to hell without even given a chance is just unbearable for me to handle. Even though I wanted to have that missions role this summer, I guess bad things just had to happen for a reason. What hurts is that I might never have another opportunity to go on my first overseas mission. It hurts when you desperately want to go and spread the gospel to those that never heard about it and you get that all taken away from you. I might not have another chance because I could possibly enter the workforce right away. Hopefully that won't be the case, and from what I'm anticipating at, I don't think I will enter the workforce right after anyway.

So it was a rough first half of 2010 for me. Its already June and finishing off my 3rd to last quarter at UCI. By the way, I know I missed church for like the last 3 months now. Despite people hating me for what I did, close friends rejecting me, twists to what happened, and all that bull, I don't care what people say when I show myself real soon. People don't probably understand how much pain and chaos I went through after getting kicked out of STEM and its that misunderstanding that probably causes people despising me. I also think its a good lesson for me too. A lot of times, I tend to take sides between a fight within two people because I only listen to one side of the story. Next time I should look into both sides and see how a resolution can be done instead of taking one side even though I may be backing up a close brother or sister.

Yet even though I wrote all this, I know that I can't do all this with my own willpower. You can probably guess what I mean by this. It's God that makes all things possible, not you or me.