Tell me the meaning, the meaning of life

I feel like I should know the purpose of life. I understand that we are children of God, and that he has given us life on earth to learn and to progress to become like him. Yet, I guess I am struggling to understand how this applies to my life. The struggles I am called to face here on Earth are almost too much for me right now. Each day it is harder for me to even get out of bed in the morning. My life really does seem meaningless and trite. I wish I could get my life back in order, but right now I am really struggling to even want to.

I cannot describe this feeling of emptiness that has overcome me in the recent weeks. I find myself becoming a person that I do not like. And yet the harder I try to live the teachings of Jesus Christ, the less happy I seem to be at this time. I am not sure what I need in my life right now, but I really need something to wake me up.

Today at work, Anne and I took a break and went for a walk to get out and get some fresh air. Right when we got out of the office she started talking about how she does not like work and how she wants to just quit and go live in a third world country and live with the people there. I found myself agreeing with her a lot. I told her that I agreed that working for a public accounting firm and living in Orange County cannot be the most important thing on Earth. But if this is not what I am supposed to be doing, what is? I feel like I should be married soon and raising a family, yet I seriously doubt that I will ever marry and have a family. I wanted to tell Anne everything I believe about the plan of salvation, but for some reason, I was struggling to convince myself in that moment that I believed it.

Somehow, my life has gotten severely off track. Somehow, naively, I thought that life would be better when I graduated and started working. What a joke. I think I was initially way happier and progressing really well. But suddenly I find myself depressed, angry, and confused. Does deliverance never arrive? I have always known that if you cannot be happy in one place or doing one thing, you never will be happy. But somehow I convinced myself into believing that life would be better when I was working and out of Utah.

I'm going to stop typing now. I am not even sure what I am rambling on about. Something is wrong with me.

Count Your Blessings

When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed; when you are discouraged thinking all is lost;
Count your many blessings; name them one by one; And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

These are words that I need to remember in my life. As awful as I think my life might be, it really is not. I have been blessed with loving parents, a healthy body, a good education, an adequate job, and so many other things. I have the gospel of Jesus Christ as an anchor in my life. I life in undoubtedly the greatest country on Earth, and I have been blessed so much in my life. I wish I had someone to follow me around everyday and slap me every time I ever complain or think my life is hard.

I wish Thanksgiving came every day. It's sad, but sometimes it does take a holiday to get me to realize how much I have been blessed. I need to somehow remember that everyday. I've learned that life is not going to get any easier. This past week has undeniably been one of the most difficult for me in so many ways. Spiritually, I am struggling. I am not sure if I will ever recover from this spiritual lull that I find myself in. Temptations are coming stronger and stronger. I am not sure how I can continue to cope. And then amidst all of my personal misery and woe, God reminds me how blessed I really am.

My oldest sister, Jennifer, called me a couple of days ago to inform me that my younger brother, Trevor, was diagnosed with bone cancer. I did not even know what to say or how to feel. I think if anything, I am in the denial stage right now. I want to believe that everything will be alright and the the doctor's will be able to help him. But the truth is, I don't know what is going to happen. He starts radiation in a couple weeks and then in December they are going to operate on his right leg and try to remove the cancer form his ankle and knee. Bone cancer is rare and only about 2,000 cases are diagnosed every year, mostly in younger males. I guess what is hardest for me to accept right now is that this is happening to my brother. In all of my misery and self-pity, I would do anything to take this pain away from him. Trevor does not deserve this. He has enough on his plate.

So here I am, feeling lost and hopeless, when I am dealt this. I cannot even imagine how Trev feels. He has suffered so much and I hope he has the will to fight this and realize that there is a chance that the doctor's will be able to help him win this battle. I fear that despair and hopelessness may have crept into his life. I fear it may have taken over my life. I know that these feelings come from Satan and that he is fighting so hard to get me to give up. But I will not. I cannot. Not in this hour when my family needs me more than ever. But sometimes the pressure upon me to live up to the gospel is so heavy when none of my siblings are doing so. I feel like if I fall off the spiritual boat, Mom and Dad would die. I see the pain that they feel as my siblings continue to make poor decisions, and I try so hard to honor them. But the thing is, I'm not even doing it for them. I am doing it for myself. I have experienced the sweetest joy imaginable that comes from living the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I long for that peace once again. I wish so badly to have peace in my life, and at times it seems that the only way to obtain that would be to end my life now. The pain in unbearable sometimes.

I wish there was somebody in my life that I could rely on. I think I need to read the words of the hymn Count Your Blessings everyday before I leave the house. Maybe that will help me. I really cannot complain. I really am so blessed.

Thou Shalt Not Covet

So, the 10th commandment is a difficult one for me to understand. I honestly don't aspire to have wealth and power; yet I find myself coveting the apparent ease and happiness that others have. David is pretty much the coolest room mate I have ever had, and yet inside it bothers me how everything seems to go so smoothly in his life. It seems to me that he has never not received what he wants. He seems to have it all. He dates awesome girls, he seems to always be doing something fun, and yet he manages to find time for it all. I don't know why that bothers me, but it really does. I guess I feel like my life is so empty and that I am constantly trying to do what is right, and yet my life is going nowhere.

I know I need to reread Elder Wirthlin's General Conference talk from a few years ago. It was called One Step at a Time. I need to remember that life is not a race to be won, and that God will not be ranking his children and judging us against others, but he will judge us for who we are and what we have. So easy to say, so difficult to live by. I guess in my own misery, I wish others would suffer too. As if that brings me any sort of happiness. My life seems like one eternal struggle while David appears to be cruising through life doing whatever he wants whenever he wants to. I guess life is just not fair. And I guess I want to believe that he has his own struggles and trials, but I tell you what, it sure does not seem like it.

Here is another dilemma I have. I really find it easy to make friends and be social. I feel like I could be friends with anyone I wanted to. And in this ward, I guess I feel like that means I could be apart of the cool crowd, whatever that means. And yet I find myself wanting to shun that, because I know what it feels like to be the one who is left out. That is where I have found myself throughout most of my life when it comes to the church social groups: on the outside. So here I am wanting to have good friends and just be apart of that crowd that I know I could be apart of, and yet I desire more to make others feel welcome. It just sucks because that is always the more difficult choice and often means that I do not have as much fun.

Another thing, why the heck do I not have any desire to date? I long for companionship, but I think I am terrified of what that might entail. For some reason, the older I get, the less and less dating I want to do. I want to get married (I think) but I feel like it is not worth it if I have to continue playing this game. Some days, well most days, I feel like I am okay with the concept of it being my last. I am not sure what it wrong with me right now, but I know that I am not happy with where my life is, and I struggle to honestly grasp what it is I really want. The answer that I find myself saying constantly is that I want to be a worthy and active Latter-day Saint. I feel like that is what I want. But is it truly what I want most? And if it isn't well than what the heck is? If I break it down into individual components, it is what I want. I do not desire worldly lusts of drugs, alcohol, or immorality. I don't want worldly possessions and more than anything, I want to help and serve others. I believe very strongly in my faith, I know that God lives and that Jesus Christ is my Savior. I know that I am a member of the true church of Jesus Christ. I cannot deny the impressions of the Holy Ghost. Yet somehow, I doubt whether or not I really want this. How empty would my life be without it? I guess I just don't know what to think anymore. I feel so overwhelmed and hopeless.

Uncertainty

I am not sure that I will ever be "normal." I am not sure what that means, but I am pretty sure that I do not qualify, and I'm pretty sure that everyone feels that way. I guess what is bothering me right now though is that I feel so out of place. I feel so alone, and so discouraged, yet I continue to push away those who care and are trying to help. I am not quite sure who I want to help me, but for some reason those that are trying are not the right ones.

I feel like I am going through some sort of identity crisis. I feel like I am getting closer to accepting myself for who I am, yet at the same time, I want so badly to be something else. My personal beliefs and my faith tell me that I can become someone great and that my potential is limitless. I don't want to just accept myself, I want to strive each day to be a better person. I want to reach my fullest potential. I don't want to be complacent. Yet, I feel so exhausted, so unhappy, and so done. I feel about ready to give up sometimes.

And I guess what is hardest is that I don't have anyone to turn to. It's funny, I really can't remember the last time I talked to somebody in my family, except for a few superficial conversations here and there. I feel like they have no idea what is going on in my life and they have no idea who I am. What would happen if I died? Again, I feel like the only people who would know would be my co-workers, and even then, they would have no way of finding out. I hate being alone. I hate having nobody in whom I can confide. I just wish I would die sometimes.

I don't think I mean that. I hope I don't mean that. But seriously, what am I living for? Does my life have any sort of purpose? Tonight, I went to a Tri-Stake YSA FHE. A younger woman spoke about losing her husband a couple of years ago and the challenges that she has faced in coping with her loss and how her faith has been strengthened. Though my story is nothing like hers, she reminded me of myself. The emptiness that she has felt and the longing for peace. I felt a desire to improve my life and fill my life with service, but I find it so hard to continue. My life is a hoax. Nobody actually knows me. I am great at putting on a show when needed. How I wish I could just have one friend, one person in whom I could trust. Do I even know myself?

We all need somebody to lean on

Life is funny. I feel like I learn lessons from the strangest of places. Tonight I went and saw a movie called Lars and the Real Girl with a friend of mine. The movie is not very well known, but the basic premise is that a 27 year-old guy who has never had a relationship with anyone and is pretty much a loner, orders a silicone doll off the internet and is convinced that "Bianca" is a real person. The town doctor thinks it best that everybody play along in order to help Lars get over his delusions. Overall, I enjoyed the movie. It was different but I would not recommend this movie to most people. But for those that enjoy an obscure and obviously different type of movie that causes you to think, it might be worth the $9.

It was very interesting to see the entire town go out of their way to help Lars. They played along and many in the town even became "friends" with Bianca. Anyway, Lars lives in the garage behind his childhood home, where his brother Gus and sister-in-law Karin now live. There was one scene where Gus is confiding in Karin that he feels partly to blame for Lars' condition because he pretty much abandoned his little brother when he left the house at 18. Gus is sad and in need of some help, when Karin tells him to come across the room and sit by her on the couch. She puts his arm around him and he leans on her. This scene really touched me.

Surely this was not intended to be the most memorable scene of the movie, but this scene really hit me. I guess you could say that I have relationship issues. Or as others like to put it, "commitment issues." I have a hard time with relationships, not because I am afraid to commit (though sometimes I think I am) but mostly because I have never seen a good relationship in those that are closest to me. I feel like most of my family members, close and extended, simply "put up" with their spouses, but don't really want to be with them. I was also raised in a home where I was required to be fiercely independent. Sadly, this independence is part of the reason why I find it difficult to be in a relationship. While I do enjoy the company of others and I am physically attracted to girls, I find it hard to put my heart and soul into a relationship. Sadly, I cannot say I feel any better being around someone I like more than I like being alone. I am way too content being alone and doing my own thing. Seeing Karin put her arm around Gus when he needed her most, made me realize what I am missing out on. I have never had anyone in my family that I can rely on or trust. When I am struggling, I usually have to cope with it myself. I wish, so badly that I had someone to turn to in my life. Someone I could share my thoughts and feelings with. Someone I could share my happiest times with, and the sad times. But I fear I have not learned how to open up to those I care about. I feel like if I were to open up, I would be judged for this, and I guess I just don't trust anyone that much yet.

So how this relates to the bigger picture, I am not yet sure. But this much I do know: I need to learn to love. I need to put my heart out on the line. I feel like I am unwilling to put myself out there only to be disappointed or hurt. But I do suppose that the saying Tis better to love and to have lost, than to never have loved at all must have some truth to it. I have a lot of catching up to do. And soon to. I am not sure how much longer I can go it alone. Life is not very much fun alone.