Life, Philosphically

Follow me through this land
We will soar the sky and then we'll land
Ill hold you close, you hold me near
Between us both, we'll have no fear
Close your eyes and trust the One
He'll guide our paths until it's done

Be enlightened, don't be afraid
Don't wander into plato's cave
See the forest, forget the trees
Don't waste your time on countless leaves
In reality, truth is intrinsic
Don't be deceived, it's metaphysics

We will find the truth, it's never lost
It lived a life and bore a cross
We'll always wander, we'll always Rome
Until we find that great shalom
Forget the pain, forget the strife
Only through love, we live this life

Let's Get Real for a Sec...

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another. ~William Shakespeare



What exactly does it mean to be real? It may seem difficult to put that into an actual definition, but i think that it is worth a shot. My definition of being real would be to know who you are and then unapologetically being that person. This may sound relatively simple, but we all know people who could use a lesson or two in this area.
We all know that person right? That one guy or girl just tries so hard being someone that they're not. Maybe it's the girl who has been a cheerleader all her life who gets so caught up in all of the drama that cheering has to offer and loses sight of her own identity because for some reason she thinks being a part of one social group is more important than actually being your her person.
Maybe it's this person: The old me. I'm a baseball player and I always have been. Being a baseball player brings a lot to the table. Are we the most skilled athletes in sports? Probably.. Are girls genuinely more attracted to baseball players ..? Probably.. Can you see why being a baseball player can suck someone into a full blown "baseball" lifestyle? Well it's not too hard to figure out.
It wasn't until about a year ago i finally started to see baseball in a better light. It was something that had defined me for so long, but I finally was able to let that go. Does that mean I don't want to play baseball anymore? Absolutely not! This just means that my life is no longer of service to the baseball world. I can still be a part of a group, but it no longer sustains me.
I've found that it is a lot more worthwhile to look at yourself very objectively and find out who you really are. That's what i did. Hopefully, if you know me, you know that I love intelligent conversations, music, politics, literature, theology, giving advice, and a plethora of other things. I would hope that people don't look at me and automatically think, "one dimentional baseball player". There is a lot more to me than that. Here's the thing though, I believe that there a lot more people who can take this as a lesson. For me, it was overcoming baseball as a crutch to be "who i was". What is it for you? Is it your grades, or your job, your religion(another story for another time), your girlfriend/boyfriend, or even just your full-blown pride?
Find out who you are and what it makes you happy to be. If people don't like it, then that might actually mean that you're doing something right. Whether you know it or not, the person that everyone likes probably isn't too likable on the inside if they think they have to please everyone. I've always heard that the best decisions piss off about half of the people at first, so that might be some encouragement on how to live. Whoever it is that you really are is trying to get out, let him or her live. They will appreciate it more than the people that are used to you just trying to please them. :)

Confidence- Not Cocky

“You are the only person on earth who can use your ability.” -Zig Ziglar



Let me start off by apologizing for not being very faithful with my blog. I don't blog as much as I'd like to, but I do plan on making it more of a habit in the future. It's a pretty soothing thing. If you don't do it, you should try it. Anyways, this summer has been a pretty interesting one in more ways than one. It's had some pretty highs, and some pretty lows, but all the while, lessons are being learned.

Let's be completely honest. How do successful people get successful? You're probably thinking, " a lot of hard work", or " a lot of luck involved", or whatever.. but the key is confidence. When your first thought when looking at a test is "oh shit".. what is usually the outcome? When you're up to bat in a baseball game and you have the same thought when you see the first pitch come your way, what will be the outcome? I think you catch the drift.

The same thing applies for life situations: careers, relationships, family matters, on and on and on.. Without confidence, where would you be? And maybe you're the kind of person that doesn't have much confidence. I would dare to say that even the most confident of people have struggles with this from time to time, but it doesn't have to be a daily habit. Everyone should have plenty of confidence, we live in a time where opportunities are endless, when you get down in many areas of life, there are so many methods to get back on top. There should be no excuses.

Let's take a moment to analyze the consequences of being a confidence person:
First of all, people would want to be around you. People are naturally attracted to others that have a higher level of confidence. That goes without saying. Secondly, Confident people have an easier time getting through tough situations. A lot of situations can take us by surprise and bring us down, but the confident person looks at themselves and thinks that they can make it through any situation because there is nothing new under the sun. There is no situation you can come to that someone hasn't gone through before.

What if you have no confidence? Well first off, it's a repellent. No one wants to be around a person who is always down on themselves. This applies to friends or romantic relationships. It is not an attractive way to be. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that people with no confidence almost look at confident people as if they're acting out of line. And lastly, when the person with no self confidence gets in a difficult situation, it's oragami. They fold under pressure.

Basically what I'm getting at is that there is no need for a lack of self confidence, we are all made in God's image and He wants nothing more than for us to live life to the fullest and to make every moment count. If you get broken up with, who cares? It's that person's loss because if someone doesn't want -YOU-, then they aren't worth your time. Trust me. You can aaaaalways do better. Relationships can blind you.. But with self-confidence, you can say that you're the prize and you're the one that is worth being sought after. If school isn't going well, try to wake up everyday and think that you're going to make it a good one, no class can conquer a person. You have the capability of tearing down a classroom with your mind. Make it happen.

Above all, negativity can get us down. But when you have self-confidence, you can do anything. Dress up for class, talk about yourself sometimes, let people know you're worth it.. because you are. ALWAYS. Confidence is key. It'll get you places.

Baseball cards bringing out the kid in me!

Life gets rough right? Well it does for me from time to time. I'm getting closer and closer to the end of my college career, worried about grades, trying to stay in shape for the upcoming baseball season, thinking about future jobs, having my girlfriend ten hours away... It can all get pretty frustrating. But what better way to clear the air of the soul by letting yourself feel like a kid again??!!

Lately i have been looking through my vast collection of baseball cards, and i tell ya... it is more than doing the trick. As a kid, i would just lay in my floor for hours just looking at the different cards, keeping track of the stats and so on. I don't know why these cardboard, credit card - size portraits of these guys playing the game that i love are so awesome. I guess that when you have literally thousands of these things, you begin to see trends from player to player, team to team, what they looked like as rookies, how the look as veterans, and so on. It is basically like an allegory of modern america. You see it all just by looking at these amazing specimens of collectors items.


It's funny to see how the differences in hair style, way of dress, use of equipment, and lets not forget the STEROID ERA, have come to characterize how we view the game of baseball. Side note: a vast majority of the baseball cards that i own are from the late eighties into the mid-ninenties and it absolutely insane... that's the time period that steroid use was swept under the rug and players used at will, and it showed! It was like i was looking at the San Francisco 49ers instead of the Giants half of the time! Anyways.. The baseball cards tell a story. They take me back so much and it is a feeling of relief. If you own baseball cards, look at'em for God's sake.. Either way, find something that will take you back.. you won't regret it!

Oh my God! wait.. who is my God?

"God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh" - Voltaire

If a stranger walks up to you and asks, "Who is God?", what would you possibly say? "Well he's the Creator of the universe".. true... "Well he's the highest authority".. etc. You could really go on and on. All of those different titles are fine, accept for "big man upstairs" and stuff like that, I mean really? You could know the Bible inside and out and still have a terribly skewed idea about who God is. I'm no scholar on theology, but I do like to think i have a pretty good idea about who this person we called God is.

The goal of this post is not take the misconceptions that are found in such a high percentage of Christians and shed some light on them. God isn't easy to figure out (thank God).. No one would want to worship a god that you could know all there is to know about. You can't know everything, so let's see what he is NOT.

#1. God is just a bully. Many people think that God punishes them because He is mad or wants to show you up. This couldn't be further from the truth. God does discipline His people. Life is a roller coaster. You can be on the mountain one minute, and in the valley the next. The problem is that in the valley, people tend to blame God. But the truth is, it's all because of love.

Proverbs 3:12 because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in
-It's simple, if God is disciplining you for something and really letting you know, the best way to look at it is further proof that God really loves you. After all, what is a father that doesn't discipline his children??

#2. God demands that we go through life walking on eggshells. Once again, a big misconception of God is that He wants us to go through life worried about whether we are making the right moves. This isn't to say that we should go through life without ever stopping to see if we are in line, but the point is that as Christians, God wants us to live fulfilled lives and not have to worry ourselves to death about the hassles that come with that life. After all, there is no condemnation in Christ.

Romans 8:1 - There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.


#3. God really wants his people to boast about what they're doing for him and look down on people that don't do the same things as we do. There are certain duties that we have as Christians, not necessary a list of rules that say what a Christian does and does not, but certain things that are expected. These things mean nothing if they're bragged about, or for self-righteous gain. For someone to think they're more holy than someone else just because they do certain charitable things or hold a certain type of ministerial position, or anything like that, it is meaningless.

Isaiah 64:6: All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
If someone from Isaiah's time period were reading that, "filthy rags" would translate to something along the lines of a used menstrual rag. So whatever "work" you do for God, it can never be more than filthy rags compared to His righteousness, so when thinking about what you do for God and what someone else does for God, nothing you can do makes you more holy than them. So the only way to judge someone is to know their heart, and only God knows the heart.


Well this post has just been a result of something sporadic thinking that I have been doing lately. God is love. Everything He does is out of love. His discipline, His blessing, His Word, His instruction. You owe it to yourself to never take any of it out of the context of love, trust me.

All Guys Are Just the Same!!!

"Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."
Robert Frost


Whether you are a girl or a guy, young or old, I'm sure you have heard a girl complaining about all guys being the same. You hear it all the time. If one guy does them bad, they resort to making these kinds of generalizations about the male species, some even saying they're done with guys all together (yeah right). But let's be honest, i guess some do mean it.. (Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen Degeneres). Well I think i have come to a conclusion and here it is right here: All guys are capable of being what girls like to hate, but it takes right girl to make him actually be the guy girls dream about.

Let me go into a little more detail about this. Say for instance you have had, or know someone who have had horrible relationship experience, guy or girl. Most girls have no problem admitting this, but guys, many times, lose interest in girls and that's when a relationship turns into what Dane Cook calls.. a relation..shit. It's not good. That's when the girl complains about the guy never being sweet or showing her attention and so on, while the guy always complains to his friends about his girl always nagging him. At this point, that particular relationship is through.

Girls, most of you really try. That is your nature. You're made to be more endearing and want to make things work.. EVEN if you KNOW that it will never work out. Most times than not, you genuinely want it to work out. But if the guy is not responding, most of the time, he's not the right guy, and you're not the right girl. Not in that particular instance. It's a tough pill to swallow, but this shouldn't be a depressing thing. Trust me. It's better to be single than with the wrong person.

Okay, I got a little bit side-tracked. Let me get back to the point. If a guy is in a position to where he isn't experiencing the thrill of the possibility that a relationship might really work out, he absolutely will not be the guy that a girl desires. It's physically impossible. It's pretty cliche to say this, but it takes two. The girl usually will try, and more often than not, it comes down to the guy to really make it work or not, after all, he is the one that does the asking out, taking on dates, and proposing right? The girl plays a huge role but it's no secret that if the guy doesn't play his part, that equals no relationship.

So what does a healthy relationship look like? Well you can usually look at the guy and find out. He will be absolutely thrilled by the person he desires. He will brag about her to his friends, and want nothing more than to be with that person as much as he possibly can. A lot of guys have two images of girls. The outside.. and the inside. Many love the outside, and wish the inside would improve.. or they really like the inside.. but trust me, if the outside isn't up to par, they won't give that a chance either.

Here is my point, there comes a time when a guy's view of a girl on the inside and outside becomes the same and everything about that person is all he knows he ever wanted with absolutely no doubts. Is that true love? Yes i believe it is. And until he finds this, he might not be a complete dick to a girl, but there is no way he can really express himself and give all he has to give to someone until he finds the unique person that truly gets to him like not other can.

So my advice, be real, you can't find that person until you're real with not only everyone else, but yourself. Demand that people like you for who you are, and I swear that good things will happen. Trust me, i've learned from experience :)

The Special Day of Valentines

"If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question?" ~Lily Tomlin

It is that time of the year again. Not the day when we celebrate Jesus' birth, not the day that we commemorate those who fought for our country, not the day that we give thanks for family and friends, not even the day where we all pretend we're Irish (I don't have to pretend), wear green, pinch the shit out'a people and drink a whole lot of alcohol. I'm talking about another holiday. A holiday where dreams are made true and inspiration is at its peak: A glorious day where teenage couples who have known each other for 2 weeks go and spend their parents money on something that will eventually be given back to the giver after a brutal breakup. This is the all-to-real scene of Valentine's Day.

Now let's analyze the origins of this stand-out holiday. The name "Valentine's Day" originates from "Saint Valentine's Day." Established by Pope Gelasius I in AD 496, the day is supposed to be set apart for intimate couples to express love towards one another. Another thing, who was Saint Valentine? Answer: Saint Valentine was a Christian Martyr. Hey! My name is Saint Valentine and i was martyred for the Christian faith, and my last wish is to have couples act like they like each other for one day out of the year and for Wal Mart to show their cheesiest commercials.


We are honoring him so well..
Valentine's Day is a day where you hear, "every kiss begins with K" in every other commercial, or watching some giddy chick talking about how he went to Jared. If you're single, you probably aren't much of a fan of Valentine's Day. If you are part of a couple, you probably... aren't much of a fan of Valentine's Day either. I think that the only people who like Valentine's Day are the people who enjoy watching people choke on the gamble chocolate. I don't know why it is, but I always get the one filled with what tastes like sensodyne, ugh.

With all due respect to the day, it's still good for something.. and that is keeping Hallmark from going out of business..