My mom and I were cleaning the church building on Friday night. Ha, yeah, that was my Friday night. It was some good time spent with my momma and my own thoughts. I was thinking about roles of people and how they impact our lives when I started thinking about villains. I don't know why, but that was the gist of my thought process. Anyways, I think I figured out why we love to hate villains. It's simple! We're jealous! They have the excuse and the ROLE to do things to stupid people that we secretly would like to do, but can't due to moral, social, and cultural obligations. Mostly due to the obligations of our conscious, but yeah. I hope you read into the humor of that. I know it's hard to convey through text, but yeah, that was supposed to be funny. :P
I was talking with a friend about life and motivations we have to do things. I mentioned how I'm a very risk-averse and how I've been trying to work on learning to take better risks that I don't have to be so calculating on. That it's healthy to take risks and lose on them occasionally. I guess one of the roles I've taken on to protect myself is to always take a very calculated risk in my decision making process. From what you may ask? That's a very good question. From criticism? From being prideful? Arrogance? The plain idea of always being right? The perception others might have of me? From myself? I dunno. That's just me thinking in written word. (HA! Since I can't think out loud on a blog... haha.) This role of critical thinking and analysis in risk taking has helped me develop heavily a logical approach to life.
Another role I've often created for myself is to be the "laughing stock" of a group. Where I've accepted and made it socially acceptable for other's to jokingly (or otherwise) make fun of me. Most of the time it's imagined or fake qualities or things I haven't done, occasionally it's not. I guess that's kinda the way I thought I would fit into a group without being on the side of overbearing or controlling. I never realized what it actually meant to me that I was often being made fun of. Maybe it helped me learn humility or let go of parts of my ego and pride. I dunno. I just realized how much I don't miss being in that position of a friend group.
Being a Resident Assistant created a very unique role in my life. I could access my emotional side but it allowed me to keep it very much in check. I was able to gain a position of confidence with those I worked with, both residents and coworkers. I appreciated the trust and honestly others would place in me as they talked to me about their life and things going on. I don't want it to seem like I was being manipulative, cunning, or calculating in my approach here. Quite the opposite actually. The life of a RA is quite the opposite if you ask many who choose to work in those positions. There is absolutely no way you can plan and take calculated risks with emergencies and life decisions that others faced around you. You have to fly around by the seat of your pants most of the time, putting out figurative fires as they appear. With 60+ residents and on top of that, co-workers, friends, church members, there is no rest for the weary. Yet being a RA allowed me to be emotional and connect with people. I could open myself in a way that I couldn't do in a logical or an analytic manner. It was safe for me to do that in this role. It was expected of me and something that others required of me so that I could help them. It gave me an excuse above all to do that. (On the flip side, it also gave me the excuse to follow rules and persuade others to follow rules. :P ) Being a RA let me develop my emotional self on a small level that my other roles would not allow or help with.
Now these aren't all the roles I've had in my life. I could talk about being a missionary (another opportunity I had to learn to be emotional), an athlete, scholar, teenager, college student, accounting major, LDS (Mormon), among many others. Don't get me wrong, I think the roles we play in our own lives and in the lives of others are very significant and can be good, positive, and necessary. In my case, I've created so many roles in my life it's gotten to the point where I just switch between them depending on the current situation. Well, I have taken steps to be more myself and the man behind the roles, but it's a process of breaking down habits and walls that I've built up over years and years. Being home in California has given me that opportunity to do that. It's a new sphere that I've been introduced into. New coworkers, new church congregation, new friends. Not gonna lie, it's as scary as hell not to slip into the roles I've created for myself.
Something else my friend and I mentioned about risk taking. Sometimes we would (and I guess still do to a point) plan out conversations before they happened, especially if it was on the phone. She even mentioned writing out a script in case it went to voice mail (GUILTY!! I've done that!!) and it couldn't be truer. Although I am proud to admit that I'm doing a much better job about not planning conversations and letting them happen as they normally would. Sometimes I kick myself afterward for not doing something or saying something that I originally wanted to, but that's okay.
Back to the roles though, there's a time and place for them. I believe they are appropriate and helpful. The moral of this post is that we shouldn't live by our roles. The roles shouldn't control what we do.
We shouldn't only constrain ourselves to defined roles that we've been assigned or created for ourselves. That's living a reactionary life. Live, learn, and act. Do something. Take responsibility. Be someone. Be who Heavenly Father wants you to be.
The one role you should always play as your safeguard and main position is yourself. Your fears, worries, emotions, logic, intelligence, strengths, weaknesses, spiritual-ness (or lack thereof) should always be the foundation. This foundation can grow and change. The weaknesses can become strengths. The fears, worries, and anxieties can be overcome. The lack of spiritual-ness can be conquered. It isn't an excuse to falter or fall back. The atonement (the suffering, death and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ) can give you strength to move and act. To make decisions. Heavenly Father loves you very much. He wants to help you. Through the Holy Ghost, Heavenly Father will guide you to where you need to be. The teachings of Jesus will help you to move along the right path, and if you've fallen away, help you back. There's a love there that I do not comprehend, but I know that the love exists. Unconditionally. Don't be afraid to love God. He loves you first. You just have to love back. It's there. Just reach for it.
That's what I'm working on. Learning to love. Learning to let that into my life. It's there. Just go for it. Be scared, it's okay. Just have faith. Science is good, true and necessary. But have faith.
"You won't find faith or hope down a telescope.
You won't find heart and soul in the stars.
You can break everything down to chemicals.
But you can't explain a love like ours."
The Script got this right. I may not be able to explain love, but it's there. I know it's out there somewhere. Just gotta find it. Maybe she's out there somewhere waiting to teach me. Maybe I'm being taught. I dunno. Live, learn, act. And learn to love.
SoCalDWat
tl;dr? Roles in our lives can help us move through difficult times, but we shouldn't build our lives on those roles. Otherwise, these roles begin to control us. We've got to have faith in Christ that He can help us be ourselves. Emotions and Logic can co-exist, just like Faith and Science. Just give it a shot.
