2020-05-03 — Big Changes

Happy Sunday, y’all 🙂.

I think we swapped weather with Washington State today. We had the misting type rain that is so common up there, and at least where one of my sisters lives in Washington, she had an absolute downpour.

I love both. 😎

Anyway, it’s been quite the day today! I was excited to get my last autobiographical sketch draft completed early early early this morning. As I think I mentioned before, I’m considering these as drafts, so I will be going back over them periodically to add pictures and fill in details that I overlooked in my first passes or that should be added to provide a more complete picture of my life. If you’re curious, I’ll have a date stamp for the last time each was updated just like I do for my home page. Hopefully, I’ll get a bunch more pictures up as well. 🙂

I also spent some time this morning re-doing my About Me page, making big changes to the text to correspond to the big changes I’m making in my life. Feel free to take a gander if you’d like.

I even added emoticons. 😁

Among the decisions I made today was at least one that will get added to the little ticker I’ve been keeping a record of for addictions and bad habits I’m working on removing from my life.

Anyway… if you’ve read my The Provo, Utah Years, Pt. 3 (’09-’13) autobiographical sketch, I mention that I spent some time teaching at a private school. Well, one of activities that I came up with during my brief time there was an uplifting media fireside.

In the summer of 2009, before I started teaching that fall, I had a life-changing experience. I was studying and writing about the importance of positive media in our lives, and I had an impression to get rid of all my DVDs that had anything in them that in any way wasn’t uplifting. At first, I recoiled from the thought. I didn’t want to get rid of my DVDs! I had lots of fabulous ones!

But at the very moment I recoiled, I felt like god said to me that I could become like him. And when did I want to start?

I immediately stood up, walked back to my room, opened the filing cabinet that had all my DVDs (somewhere around 200, I think), and one by one, I went through each using the criteria that if there was anything that wasn’t uplifting, it wasn’t gonna be in my collection.

By the time I got finished going through the DVDs, I want to say that there were only like five movies left, and three of those later got the ax as well.

This experience was part of a collection of similar experiences that were part of a huge turning point for me that summer. My life just got better and better, and I felt closer and closer to god and became more and more the person I wanted to be, using my time for more productive and outwardly-focused things instead of staring at screens and whatnot.

I think changing my media habits like I did then was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Anyway, back to the uplifting media fireside with my students.

We had spent time in class talking about what media does to you and the importance of only inviting positive, uplifting media into your life.

After a few days of talking about that in class, we met up in the mountains at a park, piled up all the DVDs and whatnot that the students had chosen to remove from their media libraries, and after some singing and some thought sharing by a handful of people, and some prayers, the students grabbed whatever blunt objects they brought with them, and they smashed those DVDs to bits.

Little bits.

There were pieces everywhere. 😁

It was a fun experience for all of us, and hopefully a memorable and inspiring one for everyone as well.

I mention all this because a few years ago, with the major stresses of life, or whatever the cause, I went back to the watching TV and movies and whatnot, and I’ve been much worse off for it. So here I find myself looking at my bed where sit another pile of DVDs, and I’m having much the same experience with them as I did during the experience that I had that inspired the uplifting media activities with my students: I’m recoiling a little bit at the thought of getting rid of them.

But as I hesitate, I’m reminded of the courage of one of my young students from that school to whom I extended a very difficult challenge. She’d had a fight with her mother or something, wasn’t on great terms with her anyway (not really bad terms, but it hadn’t been really good for a little while, and they used to be good friends). I challenged her to stop right where she was, to go over and give her mom a hug, and to not let go until she told her mom that she wanted things to be back the way they used to be when they were close friends.

Now imagine how hard that might be for a teenager to do, with I think some minor hard feelings in the moment and not feeling close to your mom, in general.

As you can imagine, she hesitated, quite a bit, in fact. Hemming and hawing.

But then…

She pulled up courage from the depths of her soul that perhaps she didn’t even know she had, and she went over to her mother (who was nearby) gave her a big hug, said she wanted things to be the way they were before, and in the process of doing that, that young teenager melted hearts and left me with a memory that I’ll never forget, one that has inspired me and that, clearly, has been brought back to my mind many times over during the years since.

So, courage, Stephen–just like she chose.

I might not have the same belief in god that I did the last time I made the decision to get rid of my DVD collection, but the deeper motivations are still the same, god or no god. I want to use my time and energy to promote uplifting things in the world. I don’t want to spend another second wasting my time or being dragged down by less than uplifting media that I’ve invited into my life as entertainment.

So, in the spirit of the story of that young teenager above, I’m gonna take a little break from writing this journal entry right now. I’m gonna put aside the part of me that is recoiling from the thought of getting rid of my DVDs. I’m gonna go through those DVDs, and I’m going to pull out everything that does not belong in an uplifting life.

One moment, folks. Wish me luck…

…

Okay, I’ve gone through them. I’ve got just a handful left. I might even get rid of those. We’ll see. The others are now in a trash bag, and I’ll decide tomorrow if they get donated or destroyed.

So, yeah… I’ve made some new commitments. As of today, I’m not going to waste any more of my precious time with non-uplifting media–be it movies, TV shows, sports news, etc.

Day 1.

In place of wasting my time with those things, I’m going to play my instruments more, serve more, work on the uplifting projects I’m working on. I’m also going to reconnect with family and friends who’ve been neglected by me. I’m gonna travel and visit family…

and I’m gonna start dating… again. 😶

Wish me luck there, too please. 🙃

So… where do we stand? 28 (days without candy/sweets), 36 (continuous days writing this journal), 27 (consecutive days free from porn/sex addiction relapse), 1 (days free of non uplifting media).

It’s been hard today to not watch a TV show or five, putting something on while I was cleaning up my room, etc.

It’s withdrawals already.

But… it’s to be expected. I once had fabulous self-discipline. But I let it all go. My self-discipline muscles are weak. I’ve let myself run amok, which means my motivation will have to hold me up until my muscles can again.

Well, there you go, folks. It’s been a life-changing day today. Honestly, it has come to pass, I believe, because I made the decision to start writing in my journal every day in the public sphere. It’s helped me to hold myself more accountable. It’s helped me to focus more. And now? Here I am.

As far as the day went otherwise, I straightened up my room a bit. I did a little laundry. I did some preparation for work tomorrow. I messed around outside a bit. I played my guitar and my keyboard for a while, and now I’m going to eat dinner and head to bed.

Oh! Gratitude!!!

1. I am grateful for good examples to inspire me.

2. I am grateful for the beautiful misting rain today 😊.

3. I am grateful to have had the courage to go through my DVD collection and cut these things out.

4. I’m grateful to have reached almost a month clean from my pornography/sex addiction. As always, I’m not counting the chickens, but I’m grateful that I am where I am.

5. I am grateful that it appears that I might actually have an employee that I’m going to keep. I was worried for a while, but things appear to be getting better and better. I hope anyway.

6. I’m grateful for the first roses of the year 😊

Good night, my lovelies 😊.

Lift the World.

~ stephen