The Oddity of Being Human…

We human beings are an interesting lot. We come from the factory with certain designs and plans built into us. We have these fantastic minds that house information and are capable of thinking thoughts. We are able to interact with the world through our five senses. We have free will to choose for ourselves and we find ourselves right smack dab in the middle of a beautiful and fantastic earth with built in perfect systems of support and harmony. Each day is a brand new day rife with opportunities for us if we are looking. Yet, for all of the magnificence we live amongst day by day, we still find things to be unhappy about. We are dissatisfied with ourselves. We don’t like the way we look or how much we weigh. We spend our days measuring ourselves among other human beings. We strive, we compete, we dog ourselves but can never seem to arrive. We have problems and issues and traumas from our childhood. We are scared of this and terrified of that. In short, we live a life less than God intended for us; the one behind the design. We have less, do less, expect less, and succeed less because we cannot get past ourselves. It’s an admittedly odd thing to be a human being, but wow what it actually could be.

I would say most of the trouble we endure in this life is because our focus is ever in the wrong place. We spend way too much time thinking of ourselves. We examine ourselves and inspect ourselves and justify ourselves and judge ourselves generally for being… ourselves. Someone convinced us that we needed to invest the most time in ourselves. Someone or something talked us into finding fault. We believed a lie, namely that there is always something wrong with us. So, we dwell on ourselves in a sincere, yet pointless pursuit of trying to remedy something that was never broken. “It ain’t broke but we still want to fix it!” And, ironically, endless focus on ourselves makes us increasingly more unhappy. Think of your own life. Were your truly happy times when your focus was on yourself? Or was your focus on something else? This focus on yourself movement can never get you to where you want to go. When you focus on your humanity, all you are going to see is your humanity complete with foibles, errors, whims and faults. What else did you think you would find? Maybe, just maybe God made you that way. Your humanity absent His spirit will always come up a little short. Your solution isn’t to expire your days trying to make your flesh into something good. Your solution is to get His spirit inside, His perfection, and then take your focus off yourself. Yes you read correctly. Get the focus off yourself. No amount of self focus has ever made one person holy. Self focus leads where it has always led, self-condemnation and judgement. You won’t get better, you’ll get worse. The answer is to finally let go of almighty self. Stop working yourself over. Stop believing something is wrong with you. Who you are inside, we are too. We likely have as an absurd amount of things going on inside as you do. We are unique but we are damn similar. We are in this thing together. Love yourself, accept yourself and for goodness sakes, be yourself. Turn your focus away from yourself and onto the good Lord who made you.

Besides incessant focus on ourselves, we also rob ourselves of the joy in this life that comes from giving to and helping others. When you finally free yourself from the delusion of self-focus, you are finally in position to help another human. Helping others just because we want to is one of the best things we can ever do. God has this thing worked out to perfection. When you are helping people and giving of your abundance, you are doing what pleases God and get this…you get the most blessed. Have you ever spent Christmas with your five year old? Oh, he or she is happy, but not as happy as you are! It’s so ironic that by giving you receive and letting go, you gain. But, that’s how this thing works. The creation itself speaks of cooperation and harmony between the systems. Nothing lives for itself and every part contributes to another part. As a human being, you will be the happiest as you cooperate and harmonize with the other parts. When you look to give and not always receive. When, despite your own issues, you become interested in other people’s issues. Hey maybe, just maybe you know something or have learned something that might help them. Maybe that is part of the design. I dare say you don’t have much time to find things wrong with yourself when you are busy helping others. Turn your focus away from yourself by helping other people. They need it.

When we get right down to it, we are all human beings navigating our grand experience on this earth. God made our bodies exactly how He wanted to make them (functioning in harmony also). He built in desires and enjoyments and pleasures. He gave us minds we can control and the free will to decide for ourselves. He did all of this in the hope that we would discover Him, the giver of all that is good. He sees the imperfection of our flesh and also chooses not to see it. Instead of fighting and revolting, He wants us accept what is and when modification is needed, to lay it out before Him. He wants to solve the problems, heal the hurts, invigorate the tired and weary. He is not hard to find. Appreciate the human being you are and embrace it. You’re crazy, I’m crazy, we are all crazy. There is a time coming when we won’t be so crazy, but until then, enjoy your life, enjoy your experiences. Appreciate the learning and even the major flubs because you learned something along the way, didn’t you? This life on earth is frightfully short and we ain’t getting any younger. Live your life now, oddities and all. You are the best and I love you.

Just some good thoughts…