For the past cou­ple of years, I’ve been on a quest to fig­ure out how the human per­son­al­i­ty works. At the core, I’ve found we are very much the same.  Most of us want bet­ter rela­tion­ships with our fam­i­lies, friends, and col­leagues.  Human emo­tions are very pow­er­ful and patience is a virtue.

I’ve always agreed that writ­ing is a soli­tary activ­i­ty and if you want to con­sid­er your­self a writer, you must be com­fort­able with soli­tude. But find­ing some­thing to write about is often, at least for me, an aggra­vat­ing activ­i­ty.  I have my iTunes up (Yolan­da Adams), sev­en dif­fer­ent books to ref­er­ence, recent expe­ri­ences to reflect on, and a bot­tle of Phi­los­o­phy Body Wash my good friend gave me a cou­ple of weeks ago.  The back of the bot­tle talks about life being a class­room.

(Sigh) Here I go. I am a thinker, this is true. I am always think­ing, think­ing, think­ing.  I strong­ly believe that we can all have what we want out of life. I have faith that we can improve in every area we wish to be bet­ter.  Like most, I want to be hap­py.  Sev­er­al years ago, I went through some try­ing times.  Life was a dis­tress.  I was a qui­et storm, drunk with resent­ment and rage. I also knew that this loss of appetite for life made God sad.  With much humil­i­ty, I fell to my knees and prayed for guid­ance and for­give­ness.  I did so with a lot emo­tion and sen­ti­ment.

Today I am in love with love and inti­ma­cy.  I have per­fect days and life for me is noth­ing short of a mir­a­cle.  Though I am bet­ter today than I was yes­ter­day, I must admit, I still blow it…big time. “The pru­dent hold their tongues.”  I should have been more pru­dent!  For­tu­nate­ly for us, the mind is mal­leable; we can change our atti­tudes and start over.

Moth­er There­sa once said, “If you judge peo­ple, you have no time to love them.”  Late­ly, I’ve been judg­ing.  I have also been doing my fair share of gos­sip­ing.  And though I’ve been taught to nev­er quar­rel with gar­ru­lous peo­ple, I did so…I made a ter­ri­ble, awful mis­take.  I befriend­ed some­one who is every­thing I nev­er want to be, or be around.  I enter­tained her when she defamed my friends, and I did lit­tle to come to their defense.

Human emo­tions are very pow­er­ful.  I said some pret­ty mean things and as soon as I said them, inevitable remorse fol­lowed. I don’t want to hurt any­one.  I want to be com­pas­sion­ate, and tol­er­ant, for­giv­ing and good-man­nered, grace­ful and kind.  I want to be wise and I want to please and impress my God.  He is the only one I am afraid to dis­ap­point.

All expe­ri­ences, whether good or bad are learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties.  The Bible teach­es to “nev­er make friends with some­one prone to anger, nor keep com­pa­ny with any­one hot-tem­pered.  Be care­ful not to learn his ways, or you will find your­self caught in a trap.”

I learned that I have more learn­ing to do.  I also learned that even though there will be more times when I’m thought of as “kind of slow and stu­pid” because I keep qui­et, I rather keep qui­et and be deemed igno­rant than to open my mouth and lose all doubt.  After all, “The right­eous think before they answer.” PSALM 16:28

The moral of the sto­ry is: cor­rect your mis­takes as quick­ly as pos­si­ble and try not to repeat them.  Has there been a time when you real­ly blew it?  What did you do to cor­rect your mis­take?