the sound.

wow. i haven’t done this whole blog thing for a long long time. and this isn’t really a post. just me liking music. which i do a lot.

surprisingly, i’m not even ranting about switchfoot or jon foreman or something related. anyways, the new coldplay album, in my opinion, is absolutely amazing. musically, lyrically… just such a sweet album. i haven’t really been a coldplay fan until the past couple months, but this album is my favorite by them (out of the ones i’ve heard).

there’s one song on there called u.f.o. that’s only like two minutes long and is just a verse and a chorus and bunch of typical coldplay “oohs” and “ahhs”. but the few words that it does say describe my life exactly right now. a lot of change, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of worries, a lot of new direction and new plans. but with the way things are right now, the only way to go is up, to rip a whole in the sky and let the light flood out the darkness, even though there’s still such a long way to go. i know i’ve got that hope to hold onto; that’s what keeps me sane.

anyways, here are the lyrics to the song, if anyone actually ends up reading this, give the album a listen (or at least this song)… you’ll probably like it. (and you can thank me later.)

lord, i don’t know which way i am going

which way the river gonna flow

it just seems that upstream, i keep rowing

still got such a long way to go

still got such a long way to go

in that light

its your eyes

i know, i swear, we’ll find somewhere the streets are made of gold

but let’s fly

split the sky

but that’s all right, sometimes sunlight comes streaming through the holes

i’ve still got such a long way to go. but let’s fly, split the sky, sunlight comes streaming through the holes.

this is the sound.

so i am obviously terrible at this whole blogging thing. i feel like school just owns all of my time. so unfortunately, this blog has been put on the back burner, but as school is ending, i can hopefully get it going again. 

so while working on an essay (obviously), i decided to go on to tumblr and look at what people have been posting. a good friend of mine (you can check him out here: http://mrkitkat.tumblr.com/) wrote a post about grudges called “bury the hatchet.” he kept what he had to say short and to the point (a quality that i lack) and it really challenged me.

i’m a usually pretty laid back guy. i can get stressed out and be really hard on myself (and sometimes others) but overall, i don’t think i’m too uptight (or i hope not anyways). but i have to admit, there are some things that i just hold on to and don’t let go. there are grudges in my life that cause me to build up bitterness, resentment, and anger towards that person or people. 

i feel like i say this with every post i write, but again, it is not my intention to force religion down anyone’s throat, but to say what i think and how i think.

i try to live by the idea of  ”forgive and forget”. i’ve been taught that i am called to forgive, just how i have been forgiven. so it’s not always the forgiving part that i have a problem with but the forgetting. i’m starting to think that just saying or thinking “oh, i forgive them” is not enough. forgetting is just as important. it says in micah 7:19 that “He will have compassion on us and throw our sins into the depths of the ocean”. in psalm 103:11 it says: “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west”. so just as i am forgiven, and what i am forgiven for is completely removed and forgotten, so too should i forget whatever it is that i need forgive. remembering takes far much more effort than forgetting, and i’m pretty forgetful (and lazy). so if i am really putting that much effort into remembering something that someone has done to me, it’s a waste of my time and effort that i could be using more constructively.

i don’t want to live in a constant state of bitterness and unforgiveness (if that’s not a word, it is now). i want to keep learning to bury the hatchet. i’d rather forgive and forget than hate and remember. 

this is the sound.

a bucket list is sort of a strange thing to me. it’s a list of stuff to do before you die. but commercials, celebrities, motivational speakers, and our parents tell us all the time to “live life to the fullest.” so why do we need a bucket list of things we want to EVENTUALLY get around to if we’re supposedly living life to the fullest? this is something that i honestly try to do. but it’s hard.

why is it hard? i don’t really know. i think sometimes we (or maybe it’s just me) take life for granted, assuming we have all the time in the world. we say that we want to live to the fullest or that we are living to the fullest, but are we? do we really go out of our way every single moment of the day and live life to its maximum potential?

this is probably the nerdiest thing you’ll ever read (if anyone even reads this), but in my physics class, we just studied the topic of energy. gravitational potential energy is calculated by the product (which means the answer to a multiplication question) of mass, gravitational acceleration, and height. so if i throw a ball that has a mass of 1 kilogram, the potential energy gets bigger as the ball gets higher. the potential energy is completely determined by the height. the mass and the acceleration are totally constant. and it might sound stupid, but maybe that’s how we have to measure our potential. life is constant; we are the variable. our potential completely depends on us.

we are our greatest obstacle when it comes to living our lives to the fullest. no one else. just us. crappy things can happen, but it all depends on what we make of it. that’s not to say to just be heartless and get over everything bad that happens as quick as possible; but to grieve, and eventually move on.

over the past month, i have come to this sudden realization of what death actually is. my grandmother passed away over two years ago now, and not even that made me realize it. if you ever realize what death really is, you’ll know it. it hits you like a tonne of bricks. it made me feel small and less significant than i sometimes think i am. i don’t own my life. it can be taken in an instant.

so why NOT live it to the fullest every moment while its still here? ‘case when it ends, it ends quickly. thinking about it now, maybe a bucket list is a good idea. if living to the fullest means i need a motivator, then so be it. but at the top of my list, it will say:

be thankful for every day. for everyone. don’t miss one moment, because it could be your last. be the highest possible variable in your own equation for potential. don’t JUST live. live loudly and abundantly. live like no one’s watching. live like there’s no tomorrow… ‘cause there just might not be.

this is the sound.