Acceptance

When I think of acceptance, there is a word for it that is bigger than tolerance. Acceptance goes further and includes fully being empathetic with others and showing great service and appreciation and love and not being off-putting to others. It means asking if something doesn't feel right and for me letting others know what my needs are. It means being informed and open to sharing opinions when others need them. Acceptance is thrown around a lot but it shows exceptional opportunity when you accept somebody without reservations. When you feel like you can be yourself around them and be your true compassionate person around them. It means showing that you care even when you have a bad day. It means these things and more. I tolerate you is in my opinion saying that people put up with you. Acceptance means that they will do anything for you when you are having a bad day and can share your life and touch them well. I choose acceptance and I choose to bring everyone love.

When I Live For Compassion, I Make Room For Others

Being well-trained and continually compassionate, I have seen a huge stretch in my giving back to others and have seen myself continue to be tested and tempted to do things that take up plenty of time. I make plenty of room for others and due to when I hang out it ends up being highly quality time, people strengthen and continue to make their own struggles wilt miraculously when I hang out with them and I acknowledge that I have quality friends. Sometimes I think I have too many, but the quality of strong friendships I have continue to strive continually in how I listen for the still small voice and how I should have compassion and why I do that. Miracles of this is because I used to be exceptionally vocally demonstratively angry and this further questioned how I could ever have compassion, but I have had compassion for years. Serious compassion that can lift the soul of each other and I live for keeping my friends continually pieced together and close and I am beyond lucky to have great friends that see me living for compassion every single day. And this gives me comfort and makes me a strong leader.

My Favorite Person In The World

My favorite person in the world is incredibly musically talented. She exercises several times a week, is usually willing to help me out, and has been at many of my events and is willing to spend time at more of them. She loves seeing me at church and giving compassionate advice. She is willing to have her house as a place to stay and is willing to give me a key to it. She has shown love to many even when she has been hurt. She is willing to be so giving of her time that she shows her loyalty to many whom she trusts. She has been the champion of the decisions to have me in the group home when I was 12, residential habitation when I was 23, and self-direction when I was 29. She has shown me love when I was unlovable and has given me numerous amounts of support. She has supported me in making decisions that I otherwise wouldn't be able to make on my own and has been a champion in driving my faith more. She has instilled hard work, a love for academia, a love for music and plays, a sense of budgeting, a love for movies, a great sense of humor, and a sense that loyalty is something I should strive for. She is the reason that I'm here and one of the reasons why I'm doing as well as I am. She has gone on numerous trips with me, including numerous states, the nations capital, and Brazil. She is one of the ones that can show unconditional love towards me and wants me to achieve my dreams better. She has gone to numerous meals out with me to celebrate report cards and has covered cans to have snack mix for many friends for years. She has given me rides to so many things when the buses don't run and has helped me to make it easier even when they do. She loves me so much that she will do anything for me and has celebrated 30 birthdays and soon to be 30 Christmases and 30 Thanksgivings with me. She has helped me out monetarily and has been disciplined in helping me be as good of a person as I can be and along the way has shown me tough love on more than one occasion. She is my Mom.

Coming Into My Own

As I was hearing the successes of my sister and she was hearing of mine, I felt two things: that I was coming into my own and that my sister was in the same boat as me except for the relationship part we are involved in similar types of things. I hadn't always felt this way. I felt like up until my first few years of college that I was successful except when I was next to my sisters. I felt like this was not due to myself being not in a good place, because I was getting closer to being accepted and doing things that were world-changing at that point, rather it was because my sisters were so far ahead of me. Granted they are older but I felt like I had a slight chip on my shoulder and something to prove. And then my leadership-related items happened and I felt a purpose like I was coming into my own and strengthening all this time. I particularly felt great when I scored a perfect GPA the semester after my head laceration from getting hit by the car and I felt like it was a good sense that I can do anything. When I lived in a tough living situation and was in a tough relationship and still got great grades despite all the items I did and the classes being hard, I felt even more accomplished. Coming into my own was not easy, it took a long time, but I felt like this journey of wayward self-discovery was necessary and I am sufficiently my own person and have been widely influenced to be this way for a while. I am in my own and I'm proud to be in my own!

Sarcasm- It Is What It Is

When I think of how much I say to others that is serious, it is almost to the point now where I am not at all taken seriously because I am not in the effective way of being serious. I am very sarcastic. I say and do crazy things and I have yet to know many people who take me very seriously. But outside of my friends who are close, I try not to be sarcastic and there is a time and a place for it. I am called crazy sometimes and can be inappropriate, but sarcasm is a factor in that. I am also very goofy and feel very privileged to be around people who are quite funny and no matter what the humor is, they don't always get others. The feelings of how my friends and I operate make it quickly effective as to whether or not the inconsequential items get stronger or weaker and how they strengthen with each of the day. Sarcasm is what it is, it is what is made of it, and I'm not crazy all the time, or mean or a ruffian, though people may see it that way, I am very sarcastic and I am that to the core and I won't make apologies for it though sometimes I hurt people's feelings, I don't intend to. It may come off as serious to some, but the humor is very shaken up and down, it is sarcasm that makes the world go around.

Privilege

I see myself as privileged. Not in the way that society sees people as privileged, no. I mean, I only am privileged in that way because of the fact that I'm a white male (and a tan white male at that), but I have some economic privilege from my family, and more importantly, I have a loving family and support that is beyond comprehensible to most people. I feel loved more often than the majority of how others do and I feel important because of the way that I am able to continue to draw upon my life as someone who is fully devoted to making the world a better place. The privilege comes in a form of full and uninhibited love that I get from others that descends even more so than I would ever dream. This excitement comes from having so many opportunities to do well and fully have compassion for others that I feel lucky to know. You see, privilege in the context of what society thinks, I don't have much of that: I am an out person with a few differing abilities who is an unconventional kind of religion who grew up in a broken family who gets help from the government and doesn't fit in the mold of conventional education. As far as complete and loving privilege from many people? I am totally and completely privileged and lucky to have all the friends I do and all the support that I have is incredible. It makes me feel blessed.

Realizations

There are realizations that I've felt and felt often in adult life. To avoid too much reading and time wasted, I am going to write down five of them:

1) Life isn't fair: no matter what I do and what I try to do to get people to appreciate me, not everyone is going to do that for me. While I've done this kind of realization on my own, I also realize that life isn't fair for a lot of people, not just me. Anyone who says life is fair hasn't lived a life that is hard at all. And I would find that hard to find.

2) I'm not immortal: With extended time off from high-impact sports, I feel extensively better. And I probably will always feel that way when I don't do them. Which means I'm mortal. I can do crazy things like the dance marathon and be fine for a while, but I can also do crazy things like basketball in the heat for a few hours and injure myself greatly. It's all a point of being smart.

3) When you make a mistake twice, it's a choice: This is the truest statement ever. I have made plenty of mistakes over my lifetime and it's true that some of them have become choices. Dance all night and drink four energy drinks in a weekend just to stay afloat? Mistake. Camp in a tent with two close female friends? Mistake. Scare people on Halloween and be out until 3 AM? mistake. Almost get arrested on the 4th of July? choice. and on it goes.....................

4) My family is more than blood: All the people that have stuck by me over the years, near and far, and have appreciated, loved, and found me to be compassionate in all my doing, they are besties and they are family. The people who contently love me fully are family. The people who will always be there for me are family. In my opinion, my family is a lot more than blood- it's the company I keep.

5) School is hard: Enough said in those three words right there.

Great lessons! IJB

The Difference For Me Between Someone I Love And Someone I Appreciate

There are people I love and appreciate. People I love are the people I'm closest to. They are family, very close friends, church family, my group home family from way back, my roommate, my best friends I can tell anything to, and a select few coworkers. The difference I see between this and people I appreciate is that there are very few people I can say "I love you" to or even fewer that I can say "I freaking love you" to and feel like I haven't made them feel uncomfortable. The path of love is one that my most respected, best-liked, heroic, closest feel. The rest that are acquaintances or close friends, I feel like appreciate is a much better term. I appreciate people to the people that they become close friends or people that I can talk to often. Appreciate means that you like them and you want to spend time with them, but you don't love them. To me, love is a word that even as affectionate as I am, I use somewhat sparingly because love is an exceptionally high-esteem word. You can appreciate someone and love them at the same time, however, when I appreciate people and I don't love them, it doesn't mean any less. I love people when I know them so well that it hurts to where I can't keep in contact with them in some form. When I appreciate people, it feels like I can go time to time without seeing them or ignoring their Facebook conversations and the next time I see them, be cordial. Life is too short to make people feel uncomfortable but it is also too short to be hostile. I love very few people, only the closest, and I appreciate most everyone I come in contact with. And that's what makes me me.

What I Want To See

I am a visionary. I view people and it makes me cringe because sometimes people don't always make the best decisions or have the best leadership skills when they are thought of as leaders. But then I realize that no one is perfect by any stretch of the imagination and as many people are offended by the things I do as they are by the rash decisions I make and don't always follow through on changing if they are bad. So what I want to see for myself is to become a better quick decision-maker and less impulsive. It might take some time because of my autism, ADHD, and depression, but I've worked on it for quite some time to make it better and I need to structure my life even more around a great situation-based infrastructure. What I want to see for others is to try to have acceptance more. Many people I know are doing great. Unfortunately, there are some who need to work on their biases and at the very least accept people for who they are on basic terms. I love people and I want to work on making the world a better place. It is time that more people joined me in that venture in creating positive social change.