on…
CONDITIONING, COMMONALITY, COMPLACENCY, COMPETITIVENESS, COMFORT, CONTENTMENT, COMPENSATION, CONFORMITY, CONDESCENDENCE, CONTRADICTION, COGNITIVE DISSONANCE, AND GRACE
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I know, catchy title.
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It’s 3:30 a.m.
My younger brother is just now going to bed after studying for finals.
He still feels he’s unprepared so he’ll be waking up at 5:30 a.m to study some more before school starts.
He is fifteen
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To some of you, this is tragic.
To some of you, this is familiar.
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I live in orange county, Fullerton to be exact.
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Heard of us? We’re known for our scholastic excellence. depravity.
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I’ve encountered a disturbing trend over the past few days that I thought I’d share with you all:
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We’ve got it wrong, this isn’t life.
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Life shouldn’t be about being “comfortable” or “content”
Life shouldn’t be about your next paycheck.
Life shouldn’t be about what you look like next to someone else.
Life shouldn’t be about conformity.
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You know that feeling you have, the one that says “this isn’t worth it.”?
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It probably isn’t.
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Let me digress a little so you can stop feeling like you’re being beaten in the face with a boldface sledgehammer.
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School’s ending all over California right about now. I went to my brother’s 8th grade promotion today. He’s the school president so he led the pledge of allegiance. He also gave a speech. I am proud to be his brother.
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I flipped through the promotion program to see a list of all the kids moving onto high school. I did this in an attempt to look for funny names. I was bored. I’m immature. Moving on.
To my surprise, next to each student’s name were symbols indicating their achievements.
Yea, this is 8th grade.
There were symbols for honor roll, national junior honors society, 4.0 GPAs, and perfect attendance.
There was a noticeable prevalence of marks next to the Asian surnames.
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There were, of course, a few names that had no marks. Nothing special about them, just… graduating. (promoting?)
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How embarrassing.
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Not even a 3.0 GPA.
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They could have at least tried to get perfect attendance.
Maybe extra school time could dampen their mediocrity.
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Their parents must be ashamed.
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No.
Robert, that’s too harsh.
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And yet, that’s exactly how we look at them, how we look at ourselves:
failures that don’t measure up.
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We’re too stupid.
We’re too lazy.
We’re too short.
We’re too awkward.
We’re too fat.
We’re too ugly.
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We are too critical.
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I remember once I was sitting in class (a time we joke about now) and one of my friends said she would just like to be comfortable when she’s older.
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The rest of us asked how much she’d need to earn to be comfortable.
She replied $500,000 a year, plus whatever her husband made which better be more than her.
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For some of us, this actually doesn’t seem that ludacris. (Ok. spell check just told me that’s an incorrect spelling. Impossible.)
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I’m not sure when it happened, but apparently someone decided that the point of life is to be comfortable.
And the only way you can be comfortable is with a lot of money.
And the only way to earn a lot of money is to go to a good college.
And the only way to get in to a good college is to get good grades.
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By transitive property, the point of life is to get good grades.
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We have it so backwards.
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Over the past few days, a lot of people I know (including myself) have expressed thoughts of unworthiness, shame, uselessness, and rejection.
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Feelings of not being good enough for the expectations of their friends, their families, of themselves.
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I don’t know a lot.
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But I don’t think life should be that way.
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I think the last thing God wants us to feel is shame.
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Genesis 2:25 : “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” [NIV].
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You know how God knew something went wrong in Eden?
Adam was hiding because he was naked. He didn’t want God to see him the way he was.
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That’s not how God made Adam.
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That’s not how God made us.
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I’m sick of judging others. It doesn’t make me feel better about myself.
I’m sick of others judging my friends and my family.
I’m sick of people I love feeling like they’re not good enough.
I’m sick of feeling like I have to measure up.
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It’s counter-intuitive to our nature.
We’re all different people.
Why should we be measured the same?
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You wouldn’t try to measure the worth of a car and a house the same way:
Cars aren’t worth more if they’re bigger.
Houses aren’t worth more if they have a detachable roof.
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And yet we only measure success and goodness in a person in one way.
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I wonder what God thinks when he sees that.
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He’s willing to accept us no matter how many times we mess up, say we’re going to change, and don’t.
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We reject people because their hair looks weird.
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We need grace.
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We need to receive it.
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We need to give it.
