“…And you like accept?”

(At a narcotics anonymous (NA) meeting)

Counselor: So the truth is, we can’t change the past, what’s done is done. We got to own our actions, but putting ourselves on trial, acting as our own judge, jury, and executioner is not the answer.  Because a lot of the time all that judging does is ensure we’re going to repeat the cycle. Right? “I’m such an asshole, it’s totally hopeless, what’s the point, I think I’ll have a hit.”

(3 minutes later Jesse talks about putting down a “problem dog” and other group members start criticizing him)

Counselor: Maybe it’s not the details that matter right? How’d you feel about what you did Jesse?

Jesse: I don’t know.

Colleen (group member): Who cares how you feel? What kind of person kills a dog for no reason? You put an ad in the paper, you drop him off at a shelter, you don’t just sit there talking about killing a helpless, innocent animal. 

Counselor: Colleen! We’re not here to sit in judgment.

Jesse: Why not? why not? Maybe she’s right. You know maybe I should of put it in the paper. Maybe I should of done something different. The thing is, if you just do stuff and nothing happens, what’s it all mean. What’s the point? O right, this whole thing is about self-acceptance.

Counselor: Kicking the hell out of yourself doesn’t give meaning to anything.

Jesse:  So I should stop judging…and accept.

Counselor: It’s a start!

Jesse:  So no matter what I do, hooray for me because I’m a great guy?! It’s all good?! No matter how many dogs I kill I just do an inventory and accept? I mean you back up your truck over your own kid and you like accept? What a load of crap!

In the show Breaking Bad, there’s a character named Jesse who had done some terrible deed in the past that all throughout the season, he was experiencing bouts of PTSD. He never had someone to talk to about it until finally he went back to his old NA meetings. In the scene Jesse talks vaguely about “killing a dog” as a metaphor for his crime, so group members started asking for the details and why, but it was only the counselor who realized that stuff is trivial. Jesse wasn’t necessarily upset at the deed he did, but that no bad consequences came from it. His hands were washed clean. As the TV critic Seth Amitin wrote, “ He wasn’t punished and there’s no moral to the story. The universe is chaos. And so he punished himself.”

Powerful powerful scene.

He Got Anger: emotions gone awry on the basketball court

Last night in the Celtics-Suns game, Channing Frye got into a heated argument with Kevin Garnett when Frye accused KG of deliberately sticking his feet in his landing space after a jump shot. In the end, somehow KG got two technicals and thus ejected from the game. Color commentator Jeff Van Gundy adamantly argued that at least one of the technicals be rescinded later in appeals since KG did nothing but get in a face to face argument with a guy who shoved his face into KG’s face first. This is basketball. As any guy who has ever played a pick-up game would know, tempers flare, emotions run high, and anger is simply one of the primary and natural emotions to come from a competitive sport. Anger is ok, how that expresses itself becomes a problem. In this entry, I would like to point out the varying ways anger expresses itself in the pick-up game.

The Waterboy – This is in reference to the adam sandler movie in which he would express anger through physical damage to items, screaming, or displaying rage. We’ve all witnessed this guy at every court known to man. After a play in which infuriates him (turnover, missed coverage of a man, lazy defense, etc.), this guy will yell very loudly and sometimes throw the ball violently at the floor, wall, or even the guy he’s angry towards. He’ll even use his body and throw it around recklessly to prove how mad he is. If this was the NBA, he would foul out quickly from all the charge calls.

The Sam Cassell – This in reference to Cassell’s notorious reputation in the league to never shut up. These type of players will express their anger by verbally exclaiming it to everyone without physically damaging or injuring anyone. Sometimes, this guy will not even look directly at the person their mad at but stake loud claims what they would do to the guy if he gets fouled again. The Sam is also known to be the type of player to argue every call on loose balls, touch fouls, and what constitutes a travel call. I personally like the Sam because the tension is being released out in the open with words to express their anger. I like to know what he’s thinking.

The Queen Bee – This is the player who expresses their anger or frustration in passive-aggressive ways. This guy will not initiate any type of direct confrontation nor will he likely be involved in a physical altercation. At first this seems like the type of player you would prefer to play with, however if this guy becomes angry at his team he will most likely take plays off or start jacking up shots to display how displeased his team is playing. He might even become a black hole, where if you pass him the ball, you will never see it again because his team is too incompetent to handle the rock. Like a fading star, this guy will eventually self-implode until there is nothing his team could do to possibly win.

The Secret Wife Beater – This is the guy who doesn’t express much and will keep a tally in his head of every foul committed against him. Up to this point, he has not been able to express his anger through any type of outlet.  At first, you’ll think he’s ok with it and just see him play harder, but inside he’s actually begun to boil where the next infraction against him will result in an explosive physical altercation where someone gets hurt.  This will lead everyone on the court and sideline watching asking “WTF just happened?”

Of course, there are others who get angry and simply forget about it once the game is over. But I just had to point these out.

 

Am I still dreaming?

“When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the Zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion…It was more like when a man, after a long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake.”

Reshma Saujani and Ron Artest, Smart Thuggin

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This is Reshma Saujani, an Indian-American running in the democratic primary for NY’s 14th congressional district. This is Ron Artest, a resident of 96, aka Queensbridge. I’m guessing the 14th district is close to QB. They support each other so I support them. She’s going against incumbent Carolyn Maloney who has been there since 1993. That’s one tough matriarch to dethrone. Reshma has also graduated from U Of I with a political science degree, a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard, and a JD from Yale.

First off, let me say that I don’t know anything about her politics, nor do I really care because it’s NY. One main reason i posted her is the elephant in the room, she is FRIGGIN PRETTY! How does anyone interview or speak to her about policy without just staring at her face? For me, there’s always been something attractive about ambitious, independent, slightly feministic women. Maybe it’s cause I’m the opposite: grassroots, unambitious, and anti-responsibility, so I need someone to cover my weaknesses. A prime example of this attraction comes from Leslie Knope from Parks and Rec.

I never once thought the person playing Leslie, Amy Poehler, was attractive until she played this character. Even though Leslie is very strong-willed, there’s a vulnerability and a self-deprecating humor that makes her a very like-able character. I wonder what kind of guys attract these powerful women? Maybe the Bill Clinton-esque type? Charming, tall, witty, and very good at womanizing type?

Oprah Winfrey once dated this man

“There’s a human tendency to resent anyone who disagrees with our pleasures. The less mature interpret that as a personal attack on themselves. They’re looking for support and vindication.”

Yes, the most powerful woman in the world once dated and sought advice from this stud. So, I was perusing through some of Roger Ebert’s blog entries and I was inspired to write about some trivial nonsense simply because I thought this man is a genius. Ebert is more or less one of our American mainstream intellectuals. I’m sorry Roger, maybe I’m arbitrarily giving your writing too much credence, but that quote alone was incredibly insightful. I also noticed his writing isn’t laced with big words and doesn’t require several readings for one to understand. He gets his message across without sounding pretentious.  After reading through hundreds of his movie reviews, I realized he has a very keen eye at recognizing and placing words on human expression. Like CS Lewis, he should not be simply labeled as a movie critic or religious scholar. To put that quote in context, he was simply addressing issues of the masses attacking critics who give negative reviews to “unquestionably great” films (e.g. Toy Story, Citizen Kane).

In another random tribute, there’s another quote by the man I mentioned above. In the family therapy program, a profession dominated by women, there seems to be a gender-biased favor towards the expression of feelings or emotion. As pop-psychology as it sounds, it’s somewhat true C.S. Lewis once wrote, “Feelings, and feelings, and feelings. Let me try thinking instead.” Thank you Lewis. Not only are you a smartie, but you’re a man’s man. I had to bust this weapon out in my Group Therapy class this summer to explain and defend my actions. Good looking out brother.

Takanori Gomi: The Fireball Kid

When my friend Ray first introduced me to MMA several years ago, it was mainly japanese MMA, and Gomi was the most popular japanese fighter during the PRIDE days. I caught Gomi a little past his prime, so I never saw exactly what was so great about him. Last night I saw the awesomeoness that is Gomi.

In his 2nd fight in the UFC, the fireball kid brought back the blonde highlights and his powerful punches as shown in this picture. He set up some body shots and then Ultra-Combo finished with a hadouken that put Griffin onto the canvas.

I applaud thee.

Inception: Half-Mad to Dream

This entry is only for those who have seen the film: Contains spoilers and information that people who have yet to see the film may not understand.*

In the latter part of the film, there was a poignant scene that triggered something I read about the way we remember our deceased loved ones. When Cobb and Ariadne entered the 4^th level dream to retrieve Fischer they find Cobb’s deceased wife Mal. Mal desperately asks Cobb to stay with her, but he said something incredibly shrewd toward his shadow of a wife. I can’t recall the exact words, but he said something along the lines that he can’t stay because she’s not Mal. Mal was unique, spontaneous, and had imperfections about her that he knew would never exist in the Mal he created. During that scene, I felt it came straight from the pages of C.S. Lewis’s book, A Grief Observed.

Following the death of his wife Joy Gresham, Lewis felt selfish and angry for focusing so much of his energy on the effects of his wife’s death on him. Rather he felt it should have been more focused on her suffering and how she would miss out on the joys of life from such an early death. Lewis remembers the joys and pleasures of his wife, but quickly realizes a flaw in such a resolve. He had created from his own memories of what Joy was like and molded her into his own being.

In a purely objective sense, it seems hopeless to trust our memories for factual events. In class, we recently discussed about memory retention and we learned that episodic memory (retention of information about the where and when of life’s happenings. E.g., what happened on your first date), combined with emotion increases the likelihood that an event will be remembered later. In a general sense, sometimes when a person is in a highly emotional state, logic becomes overrated and thrown out the window when trying to express what is happening to us. Is it safe for us to remember objectively or trust those memories we remember in our highly emotional state? Take dreaming, I know sometimes I can wake up highly emotional from a dream that felt incredibly real. What if the dream was built upon actual memories, and emotions were intertwined in both events. Or have you ever dreamt about a place, only to see it unfold later in reality? Is that Déjà vu? Who’s to say years down the road, we can recall accurately what reality is and what was merely in our heads?

I feel movies like inception have the potential to be a bit overwhelming because of such ideas. Like a resilient parasite, ideas can rewrite all the rules right?

Jamie Oliver: A food brother from another mother

Usually I don’t like to post more than once a week but after watching the series premier of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution while eating my Big Mac and fries, I couldn’t resist. For those of you who don’t know who Jamie is, here’s a really cool timeline the NY times created. For my roommates in 207, they will know him better by the recipe I cooked during one of our Sunday family meals. Remember the herb baked chicken with red mashed potatoes? I took that from watching one of Jamie’s shows.

So the plot of Jamie’s new show is to have him change the food culture in the fattest city in America (based on death and disease): Huntington, West Virginia. This not only includes changing the food itself but possibly American school and government policies. Honestly, this Brit sounds like he’s way over his head on this one. I think Jamie went in believing everyone in town would be very accepting of him. Delicious and nutritious food? Hell yea mate, come on in! Instead a local radio jock is questioning who is this guy? What’s he doing here? Who made him king? The local elementary school lunch ladies, whoops I mean cooks, think he’s condescending and like the system they already have in place. Processed food is absolutely a-ok by the lovely ladies of Huntington. What was most disheartening to him was some of the kids preferred their processed pizza over baked chicken and salad made with fresh ingredients. There is one bright spot though, the family he visited actually welcomed him with open arms.

Everything that has happened to Jamie is not the least bit surprising to me. How do you change or at least motivate people who don’t want change? (I wonder if my therapy classmates read my blog…) Even when statistically speaking, it is literally killing their town. This ties in a little with my article about saving the world. Don’t get it twisted, I love Jamie. He’s only 34 and he’s wanted to change things in Huntington and possibly the world for several years already. I love his heart. I love his ambition. I love his sacrifice. I love his diligence. (Altruistic? Maybe, whatever I don’t want to get into that discussion) But to those he’s trying to change, he’s a tourist. An outsider. Especially with that cockney accent, yea bro you ain’t from around these parts are ya? Now maybe the rest of the series will prove me wrong, but I believe he could have gone a different angle for people to be more accepting. He could have gotten a local chef who shares the same passions he has about a nutritious diet and partner up with him/her to change their town. Someone who has grown up in Huntington, knows the culture, knows the people, and is disgusted by the town’s eating habits. Maybe it’s a stretch to find that guy, but come on, an entire city with not ONE chef who sees it differently? Someone with the credentials to back up Jamie and say yes, this is my buddy, I vouch for this man. Of course you don’t have to go this route, but eventually I hope his part is in training others to instill that change in others and so on.

Now the thing I like about Jamie that makes me prefer him over the other altruistic tourists of society is that he’s a professional in his field. He wants to change a problem he can actually solve with his set of skills. If you look at his background, he did the same thing in the UK with his “Feed me Better” campaign. Through that he met with Tony Blair and their Secretary of State for Education and Skills, and secured 280 million pounds for proper equipment, training, and ingredients. That my friend, is when it works. What doesn’t work is if, say you’re an actor, a decent one at best, and you want to end a war. Wtf?

New Moon, teenage crack, and sexual napalm

After watching Twilight: New Moon, Sara Vilkomerson of the New York observer said, “I–and the 13-year-old girl that will forever live inside me—totally get it!” For millions of teenage girls, this series is like crack. I mean this movie is really romantic, filled with desperate longing and dramatic tension. For me, a failed romantic who once whole-heartedly believed in courtship and the virtues of chivalry, chastity, and all that good stuff—I more or less get it. No, this will not be a movie review of New Moon, but an article in trying to decipher the metaphor and phenomenon behind it.

I’m not necessarily talking about a girl’s obsession with Mr. Dreamy Distant Guy, but this prevalence of estranged or damaged relationships between guys and girls have been occurring for as long as I can remember. I see or hear about these occurrences every so often, but since it’s always so vague and comes through different circumstances, I’ve never been able to catch it. Like fragmented memories stowed away, until eventually through the years you recognize similar incidents, and it starts forming a clearer picture. I’m not a good enough writer to fully capture these occurrences but I will try my best.

(Some of this may sound like pop psychology, but I will address them anyways)

In New Moon, the brooding, McDreamy, cold, vampire Edward has just dumped Bella and now Bella goes into this depression of longing, moping, and literally screaming in bed. (The movie had an unintended comedic scene when the dad seemed to have a “Got damn it!!” moment when he was suddenly woken by the piercing shrieks. But I digress from my poking fun, because I “get it”.) I’ve always wondered why some girls are just so infatuated with certain jerks. As Dane Cook once hilariously reenacted between two girl friends:

“Jill, why don’t you just leave him?!”

“Karen, it’s not that easy! … My cds are in his car! It would take years for me to replace those cds!”

Funny, but true at the lameness of these procured excuses.

Ms. Vilkomerson writes, “Having the guy who dumps you explain it was because he really really loves you is not helpful for the female psyche.” What if the guy is actually sort of terrible and mean? What about that long held question of “Why do girls like jerks?” Ms. Vilkomerson continues, it’s also, “the irresistible masochism of Edward’s alternately cold and attentive behavior to Bella.” Ohh I get it, chivalry and a nurturing friendship can sometimes be mistaken for being a man poodle or in Jacob’s case, man wolf. So guys can be cold and mean, but attach it with hints of attention and apologies and they’ll come right back. Of course, this won’t work if the girl is not attracted.

In their initial meeting, Edward was the mysterious hot guy that gave all his attention to little ol’ out-of-towner Bella. Edward eventually tells Bella his deep dark secret which is that he stays away from humans because he wants to drink their blood. But little Bella is special because regardless of that, he still wants to be with her. Edward is friggin good here. So I’m this mysterious distant guy that no girl can penetrate, but you’re the only one I’ve let enter my life and revealed my secrets to. If I’m this girl, I’m thinking even if this guy becomes really mean, I know the truth about him, he cares about me, he let me in, I’m special, I CAN CHANGE HIM.

Then there’s the whole issue of abstinence and sexually laden dialogue. “Edward, I want you to be the one to do it,” Bella says. Wait a sec, are we talking about turning into awesome vampires or we talking about the horizontal polka?  My junior year in high school, in a group with guys and girls, someone made the comment “You say you want to wait until marriage to have sex, but you never know, you can’t really control when the time will come.” Coming from the conservative church, I thought to myself that’s completely absurd, but everybody else seemed to be nodding in agreement. The summer before I went to college, I remember quite vividly during a WHCC service, our youth director interviewed me me on what kind of things I would have done without Christ in my life. Without filtering my thoughts, I blurted the first thing that popped into my head, “probably drinking and having sex.” The congregation laughed, but I said that with absolute sincerity.

The basic human need for sex is overwhelming for young hot-blooded virgins, aka Bella and Edward, aka practically every teen in the world. A friend once pointed out to me that even though some girls play hard to get and may have majority say in the initial relationship, once you get them, I mean really get them deep into the relationship (this may or may not involve sex), they are so easily influenced. I’m dumbfounded by this unwavering control a guy has over a girl. Even though women are the supposed gatekeeper to sex, for couples who haven’t gone that far, I believe a guy can carry his girlfriend as far as he wants. It saddens me a little to see a girl so easily swayed. I’m not a feminist, but I value a girl’s independence. But then again, maybe she wants it also. Quoting Ms. Vilkomerson again, “They can’t have sex, though they both (really) want to. Wrap your head around the implications of that!”

Roger Ebert wisely points out, “The Twilight Saga is an extended metaphor for teen chastity, in which the punishment for being deflowered I will leave to your imagination.” Thank you Roger for that launching point. I think we all know the emotional connectedness that women have towards sex that men may not understand as much. So what happens when that couple crosses that emotional line? Punishment? Maybe it’s the punishment of not being fully aware or ready for sex for the first time? Tying in with the whole control and sexual relationship, some of the emotions when the relationship turns sour are similar to that of beaten wife syndrome: insecurity, loyalty, fear, wanting to help, denial, guilt, shame and humiliation, demolished self-esteem. That chaotic cocoon of emotion blocks out all reason and rationale from concerned friends and family.  My basic psychotherapy professor once instructed me that when a person is deeply involved in their problems, reasoning becomes overrated.

I’ve hit a writer’s wall so I’ll just end this. I admit, this article was a bit a disorienting and the structure reminded me of a 16 year-old teenage girl’s blog. But maybe trying to wrap your head around teen romance does that to people.

Half-baked ideas on saving the world

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So recently there’s been another swell or spike in humanitarian efforts and publicity. This is obviously warranted since millions were affected by the earthquake in Haiti, including hundreds of thousands of deaths. The typical non-profit orgs such as World Vision, Red Cross, Oxfam, and local churches got mobilized. George Clooney hosted his “Hope for Haiti” concert where celebrities worked the phones and held mini-concerts to raise funds. Even former los presidentes Bush and Clinton formed their own charity called the “Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund.”  Music producer Quincy Jones’ gathered people like Justin Bieber and even Vince Vaughn to sing this cheesy 2^nd rendition of “We are the World,” which was almost a parody in itself.

Over a month later…

Chile gets hit with an 8.8 earthquake just as vicious if not more as Haiti. Hmm, where did all the celebrities and publicity go? Instead of the royal altruistic treatment, I’ve been reading articles why it’s not as devastating. Only several hundred has died as opposed to hundreds of thousands. Some of the buildings were better equipped to withstand earthquakes. I guess if the prevalence of death and destruction in a certain incident isn’t great enough, it’s not as important. Maybe it’s the Chilean president’s declaration of not wanting foreign aid that impeded George Clooney’s decision to host another telethon.

How do people choose where to relieve their burgeoning need to be unselfish? And how long do they stay with it until it’s satisfied? Do we like to involve ourselves when the problem is chic? Remember Darfur? Uganda? New Orleans? The tsunami of 2004 or brothels in India (did people really find out most of India was poverty stricken from Slumdog Millionaire)? Are they done receiving our help? Maybe it’s not as cool anymore. I haven’t been involved with this stuff for awhile, so maybe others know what‘s a “hot” world topic. I admit, in college I was caught up in this wave of naïve idealism on saving the world. One time, I even joined in on the invisible children walk. I thought joining the masses and sitting/sleeping in front of the Texas state capitol will force our decision makers to do something. In other instances, we had candle vigils, signed letters to our senators and state reps, and fully educated ourselves in the issues.  Unfortunately, I believe this the extent of what a common volunteer can do. I’ve been told the ubiquitous phrase “knowing is half the battle,” but what’s the other half? And is it even feasible?

In a very telling yet inconspicuously smug speech, George Clooney, at the Summit Peace Award said, “Don and I . . . stand here before you as failures. The simple truth is that when it comes to the atrocities in Darfur, those people are not better off now than they were years ago. The murders continue, the rapes continue and some 2 1/2 million refugees are yet to go home.” Yes, I’m sure being involved for about 2 years by spreading the news on Oprah and holding rallies is the solution to ending a war driven by decades of racial hatred. Who are you to say you could even remotely affect this problem? Yes Mr. Hollywood, the war in Darfur continues due to your failure in the situation.

So what are you trying to say Johnny? Just don’t get involved with anything? I learned a very important lesson once. Don’t condemn unless you have a better solution or strategy to a situation. It is very easy to criticize someone else’s actions. Hooray for this pessimistic/realist/pragmatist or whatever the F we want to call ourselves! What’s amusing is that most of the time, they don’t have the answers either, they just like to criticize. Before my readers throw me into that cynical lump, I propose another way to looking at humanitarian efforts.

I’ve heard the argument that behind all the layers of a humanitarian is an inherently selfish ego behind it; meaning our motives are never truly altruistic. If this is true, the word altruistic is in itself meaningless since human beings cannot be genuinely unselfish. I believe most of us “educated” types like to secretly question and even snicker at anybody who places large amounts of time in helping someone. I included. However, from a biological evolutionary perspective, the argument of selfishness is overemphasized. We are wired to feel good when we take care of others. We see it in mothers when they unconditionally take care of their children. It’s an adaptation of humans to feel a rewarding sensation even when they’re just ACTING unselfish. Also, just because their ulterior motive was selfish, this doesn’t necessarily discredit their act. Other people benefitted regardless of the fact. Honestly, I believe wholeheartedly in humanitarian efforts, my contention with it is the focus. Bottom line:  I have no contention with good-intentioned people investing tons of time and money to go somewhere else short term. Just as long we readily admit: all that investment is on the person going, NOT the place they’re going.

(Note: I am going to get hanged for this)

I think for most good hearted people, their efforts are misguided to the other side of the world. We focus on issues of human trafficking (I know it happens in Houston), sponsor a child in the Philippines, build water wells, buy relief, etc. These are foreign concepts in the sense these acts don’t coincide with our daily life. We may do this for one day or even several years, but eventually we will leave it. We are tourists. Inspired by Dr. K.P. Yohannan, president of Gospel for Asia, changing the person or community will only last if the people involved are locals. Meaning there is a vested interest in change happening since they reside there. His most astute example (which I posted in my old blog), was the settling of British missionaries in China for hundreds of years, then in one fell swoop, the local political party came in with their little red books and banished every Christian missionary away. I bring this story up to evoke a point. Even though there are still millions of the poor in India, I don’t think Mother Theresa ever considered her actions a failure. You know why? Cause she’s not a F’n tourist. She lived with the sick, poor, orphaned, and dying practically her entire life. Foreign humanitarians consider their work a failure, an adventure, a learning experience, or blah blah blah, because they’re F’n TOURISTS! Our focus should be exactly where we are. Where we live, work, jog every day. Open your eyes and see the opportunities in our own city.

You say American poverty is nowhere near the poverty line the 3^rd world experiences. So what? Does this mean we as westerners go in to their lives and raise their standard of living to ours? Not just ~5 hours away from Houston in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, I learned from an orphanage we have to be careful of revealing our laptops or cell phones, because we don’t want to create an unsolicited materialistic desire in the children. Are we as tourists going to pass out laptops? Even so, are laptops absolutely necessary to another culture’s survival? I saw this problem unfold at the non-profit I worked at. When I first got there, I was befuddled at the grand sense of entitlement the children had even though their families come from lower SES levels. They wanted better food, the best sports equipment, and even complained about the cars that transport them. Well, when you consider we raised them in a nice duplex in a rich area of Houston, provide a professional chef, and sent them to private schools where kids are driving BMWs and even a Porsche, it’s not that mystifying.

I believe our efforts have to be met on their conditions. I believe the most benign humanitarian acts are done on the personal level. Meaning, it’s most likely helping someone can’t always be a group effort. What can we do as a church? What can we do as a small group? What can our club do? These questions are asked way too frequently as opposed to “What can I do?” If someone needs technical help, that type of productivity is amazing. But at the same time, I find people who only do this work as unfulfilling. Sure you served at a soup kitchen or sorted clothes at Salvation Army, but leave those to the people who need community service hours.  I mean unless you really built a community there, or love making mass amounts of eggs that’s fine. Wanting to live that “radical” life and needing fulfillment from it requires relationships with individual time and sacrifice. I am in no way saying I have lived that life, in fact I actually exposed my selfishness even more during my time doing non-profit. During the latter months of my 2 year tenure, my supervisor called me out on how I was doing minimal work. I looked at her with tired eyes, smiled, and readily confessed to it because I felt like a ghost. Drained and wandering about until I could get out of there. Now I can’t tell you what to do to help, a person’s natural inclination toward ambivalent suggestion is usually to go on the defensive. But if a person is honest with themselves about the limits of their generosity, that person should already know what they can and can’t do.

*Thanks to Simeon and Nancy for their thoughts and getting into an argument for it = )