Why am

I so bad at doing things I know I should?

Such is the question that has plaguing me recently. Well, let's be honest, pretty much my whole life. But it's taken a much more prevalent role in the past couple years.

A: "When did it start?"
B: "Spring, freshman year."
A: "O__O"
B: "Yeah, I know."

I used to think it's been to push my limits, to see what I could handle. But I've found I can stay up late and still function. I've found (my first semester at UA) that I can get away with not doing everything and still get away with a 3.0+ GPA.

B: "I don't take very good care of myself."
A: "Why is that?"

I don't know, person A. I just don't know. Cuss. For no good reason. Well, I guess there's never a good reason for not taking care of yourself. I played Borerlands until 1, then started listening to the songs we're doing Sunday, got distracted with listening to other music, and just now got back to listening Sunday's covers.

B: "I'll do better, I swear."
A: "Don't swear anything. No promises, no swears. Just do it."

I'm good with words. I'm a smooth talker (well, I can be). So far that's all I've done. The challenge to prove myself has presented itself all semester long. And I haven't risen to the occasion.

A: "Nobody cares how late you stay up, or how little work you can do. We only care that you do your best."
B: "*Well, frick. Nothing I can say to that...*"

So that's where I'm at right now. You're very wise person A. Use your head more, person B. There's too much going on up there to just ignore. That's not just me or my attempt at putting myself on a pedestal (in case you didn't catch that, I'm person B). Everyone is just as capable as everyone else. It all comes down to how much work you're willing to put into it. Into school. Into your job. Into life.

A: "You're better than this."

You're right.

There are

so many things that I want to say, that I feel would be worth hearing/reading. This seems a bit pretentious, though, perhaps not untrue. Is it overly egotistical if one feel there is worth and importance of one's findings? Did Newton think to himself "Holy frick, this is going to change absolutely everything about physics" when he discovered gravity? Did George Washington Carver pick up a peanut and tell all his friends "I will revolutionize the world with this delicious snack"? If he did, did all his friends think he was a raging douchebag? Hard to say.

In any case, my most recent life-conclusion (if you'd like to call it that) is one of character development. Not in a story, but internally. I've decided noone should become stagnant. And by that I mean there should always be some level of discontentment within yourself that pushes, encourages, causes you to strive to be more, do better, work harder. But you should also be proud of your accomplishments, what you have achieved in life and who you are today. To attain balance between discontentment and pride is quite a feat that I don't think anyone truly reaches.

So what have I done since coming to said conclusion? Well, I've done many a chin-up and thought several times about reading a book or two. And I've downloaded quite a few new musics. Oh, and torn it up in Geometry Wars 2. I eat up geoms like nobody's business. Srsly. I will blow. Your. Mind. And updated my relationship status on Facebook. I'm working on it, alright?

I think I'll stop there for tonight. I have to wake up early tomorrow so I can give my girlfriend a wake up call to make sure she gets up and studies.

Oh man. I have a girlfriend now.

Best part of coming back.

"Kris, I like you. And I want you to know, if I had to choose between you and not you, I would choose you. Hands down."

Yeah, she's pretty cool.

A note

about returning from Haiti (this'll be fairly short). I hope this post is mostly coherent. At this level of exhaustion I tend to ramble and lose the filters in my head. Because we missed our connecting flight and arrived on Wednesday, instead of Tuesday, last week didn't really seem like it counted to me. However, now that the weekend is over, I'm feeling like it's time to get back to the old grind. But it's not the old grind. In fact, doing so would be a huge insult to Haiti and the wonderful Haitian people I met there. The task now is to incorporate what I learned there, about the world and myself, into my daily lifestyle and use that to grow and become a better person. A lot has happened in the past 14 days. Dominican Republic, border, Haiti, working, people, destruction, chaos, desperation, resilience, hope, strength, border, Dominican Republic, resort, speedos, Philadelphia, customs, missed, Charlotte, early, Phoenix, In 'N Out, and back to Tucson to the most incredible welcome home beyond anything I could've ever imagined.

But, like I said, this past week, up until now, hasn't really gotten me back into the old routine. But I will this week. No, that's not true. I can't. I must adapt. I hope I can. I need to sleep. Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow will be a new day. I will be new tomorrow. I will be better tomorrow.

There is always room to grow.

I hold hands with this one girl now.

I have

decided that making all the titles flow together into a sentence is too much work. If it happens, sweet. If not, I won't be too heartbroken about it.

Seeing as how I will be unable to do so for a week and a half, I felt somewhat of an obligation to post something before I left.

I'm very unsure as to what I should expect in Haiti. I'm both excited and anxious. Excited at the opportunity to actually help an area in desperate need and feel like I'm making a difference in the world, however small. Anxious about what I will see or experience and what effect that will have on me. Anxious that I won't be as useful as I would like. Curious as to who I'll be when I get back.

Farewell, Jarrod Stewart. I'll see you again, I'm sure. We'll stay in touch.

To everyone remaining in Tucson, I will miss you sorely. To those going to San Francisco, good luck and safe travels.

I have this strange feeling of finality as I leave. Like I'm going to be gone for good. Obviously I'm coming back. So why the conclusiveness? I am unsure. But I am slightly uneasy because of it.

Everything will be fine. Everyone will come back. We will work well and grow stronger in our relationships with each other. We will be safe.

I'm sure of it. I know it.

I'll be back.

To try

and come up with titles that are in themselves independent in reference to their respective blogs and yet can be read from earliest to latest and form some sort of coherent idea is incredibly difficult. I'm having a hard time separating the two. I also feel this is kind of a cop-out...

In any case, we leave Tucson in three days. Holy frick. When did that happen? Though it's only for a week and a half, I'm going to miss everyone terribly. Jarrod Stewart won't be here when I get back. That will be very sad, indeed...on a different note, I am very eager for this opportunity. I need to focus. Focus, David. Focus.

That's how I should've connected my title. To try and stay focused is amazingly difficult for me. I've heard an analogy relating men to waffles (in that there are some square that aren't filled with syrup) and women to spaghetti (start at one end, who knows where you're going to end up). Another time I've heard men having boxes in their heads and women having wires. For example, work box, church box, gossip box, friend box. Men open and close these one at a time. Women have wires that all connect in one way or another. The point is, men are capable of thinking about nothing. Literally. Nothing. Women are not.

However, I don't think I have a nothing box or empty square. Rather, I have a music box. And my music box does just that. It plays music. Which is nice. Comforting. Relaxing. Mood-setting. However, the thing about music is that it produces noise and generally blocks out other sounds, aka thoughts. My music box prevents me from focusing.

Sometimes it's not loud enough. No matter what I do, I can't get the music loud enough to drown out what I hear in real life. And it drives me crazy sometimes. Duality is an interesting thing. My music box is both too loud and not powerful enough.

My music box is my distraction. My music box keeps me safe. My music box keeps me from trying and failing by keeping me from doing anything in the first place. My music box is my comfort and my frustration.

I want something else to be my comfort.

I want to focus.

Duality. I hope to write more on it later.

For now, focus.

The desire

to be broken is one not generally sought after. Therefore, I spent some time the other night thinking about why I am so eager to reach such a state and I've come up with a couple answers.

The first is I am still exploring myself and trying to discover who I am and what my limits are. I continually push myself beyond normal limits for the sake of being able to do so. Is it necessary for me to consistenly stay up past 2am every night doing absolutely nothing? Of course not. But I do it anyways. Why? Because I can. Because I am trying to see how I handle it; to see if I can handle it. I'm always up for a challenge to see what I am capable of.

The second is I am looking for ways to prove myself. I want to show others how strong I can be. I am generally not presented with opportunities every day to display my strength (physically, emotionally, or spiritually). Therefore, I jump at the first possibility of being able to showcase my prowess. Some may call this tool-esque behavior. I call it being a guy. Or really, being human. Nobody wants to appear weak or inferior. Everybody asserts their knowledge or familiarity with a subject whenever they can. People are always willing to add their two cents to a discussion, even though it's not necessary.

Example 1 (The Superior): Person A is explaining to a group how a car works. Person A leaves out a very minor detail. Person B, who is also knowledgeable about cars, jumps on the omission and fills in the oh-so-minute gap Person A left out (with the possibility of ridiculing/condescending to Person A in the process).

Example 2a (The Includer): Person A is explaining to a group how a car works. Person B jumps ahead a step or two in the explanation (or outright takes over the explanation for a small period of time) to show that they, too, have knowledge on the matter. This, or, Person B is continuously agreeing with Person A, unnecessarily reaffirming everything Person A is saying.

Example 2b: Person A begins telling a story. Person B immediately interjects with a "Oh, I've heard this before." or a "Oh, this one again." Now everyone in the group is aware of Person B's familiarity with the story.

However, these examples need not always be negative. It is very possible Person B in Example 2a is capable of explaining much better than Person A and is, therefore, more beneficial to the group. Person B in Example 2b may just be responding appropriately to a story told by a family every year at Christmas (I hear some families do that). Person B in Example 1 could have been asked by Person A to fill in anything that gets missed.

So you see, it is very much not my intention to go bashing people who like to be included. I am simply making observations on how I perceive people to interact with one another. I'm not bashing anybody or making any sort of comment on anyone's behavior, positive or negative. I'm not judging anyone. Just food for thought I suppose.

I really went off on a tangent there. Very Simpsons-like. Start with one story, go a little ways in, then COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STORY.

Conclusion: Why am I still awake? Because I want to see how well I can handle life with a continuously late-night life. Because I want others to see that I can stay up late while maintaining a socially normal lifestyle.

I am overly conscious of how I think I look to other people.

I want

to be broken. At Katalyst (my church's winter retreat/leadership conference), kris and I did a cover of a song called Broken; the chorus of which was "I want to be broken, completely by Your word." Rachael talks about how she doesn't really like singing songs relating to the topic of wanting to be broken because, come on, how many people sing that and mean it? I felt sincere when we sang it though. I really did want to be broken, to be humbled, to be brought so low that I could not get up on my own.

I can't exactly describe what I'll be looking for when we go to Haiti or even what I hope to find. Whenever I went on retreats as a kid, it was never quite what I'd imagined. I pictured being out totally in the wild, with nothing but a tent, sleeping bag, and a slingshot. I wanted to rough it. Maybe not to that extent, but you get the picture. I wanted to have all the privileges, all the luxuries stripped away from me on these retreats. Instead, all the Korean ladies brought their own food and stoves and rice cookers and we had a perfectly good home-cooked Korean meal in the middle of the campsite. I'm not complaining, the food was delicious. Just not what I had anticipated.

It is similar with service projects in that it never quite lives up to what I expect. Granted, my expectations are not fully defined before the fact. I think what I want is passion. I want to pour everything I have into projects, into recovery, into people. I want to give absolutely everything I have to give and then some. I want to be totally drained, knowing that I did all I could to restore someone's life or provide them with a new one. But I have yet to achieve that goal. And maybe it's for the better. Maybe I'm just not ready for that kind of sacrifice. But I want to. I want to be broken. I want to be used up. I want to be depleted. I want to give all that I am for a cause.

Perhaps I just want a story to tell. Perhaps I'm just looking for drama. I'd like to think I'm not so shallow as that. I feel I have a genuine concern for people and mankind, and would like to explore that more.

I feel a lot is going to happen in Haiti, that it's going to be a turning point. I would like to see something change in me. Nay, I would love to see something change in me. Something will change. It has to. Whether it's in me or between people.

I want to develop more as a person. Hopefully something as drastic as going to Haiti will help me with that. Hopefully something as drastic as going to Haiti will help me figure out my life.

I'm always up for a challenge.