Obsession cont.

Fear not kindred blog following spirits! I intend to provide the emotional cut of cold steak for those painful shiners. I know. You have probably just finished taking down your life sized Jacob and Edward cutouts, called the cable company and told them to discontinue sports center, and have determined to never discover who receives that final rose. We award you 50,000 shark points for your herculean effort. (Unfortunately ladies and gents, even Hercules himself probably could not have stopped reading this blog. I guess we will all deal with that obsession later.)

Congrats! You have just finished the easiest part, and you have the emotional bruises to prove it! I'm sure Brother Norris is smiling down from Ranger heaven.

In the words of Metroman, "Lets get real for a minute."

If we ask ourselves to list three things that we should give up in order to become better, I'm confident that it would take us almost no time (we did just earn a load of shark points after all.)

Then if its so easy to list these things, what holds us back?

Elder Dallin H. Oaks said, "We should remember that righteous desires cannot be superficial, impulsive, or temporary. They must be heartfelt, unwavering, and permanent. So motivated, we will seek for that condition where we have overcome the evils of [our lives] and lost every desire for sin."

Remember that list we just made in our minds? Those are our righteous desires! This is why real hope and faith is essential to our making lasting change in our lives.

To quote Atlas himself, "move over hercules." The effort required to relinquish obsessions/addictions is nothing to shake a stick at. But lets just keep in mind who we are serving, and I promise the burden will be lighter.

Adieu from your friendly neighborhood blogger,

Dan

obsessions pt.2

Whoa... alright. I don't know about you guys, but I'm seriously reevaluating my life right now. Some of those jabs gave me emotional shiners. Looks like my Twilight obsession will have to take a back seat to... to... Oh, I just can't! How could I possibly get this face out of my mind?!

Am I right ladies?!

Ok, that's enough. gross. I'm sorry. Now I feel sticky, and super mommy.
I was at D.I. the other day, and the woman in front of me at the checkout had a stack of books, the top of which was entitled "I want a Texas Ranger" and it had a picture of a cowboy with his shirt off. Blech! that gives me the jibblies!... a-jibbly-jibbly-jibbly... She was even wearing a wedding ring! how can anyone even justify that? I don't care how much you want a Texas Ranger, if his name ain't Walker, there's no excuse. Besides, he would never stoop to the level of romance novels. Trust me, we're buddies. he told me... and then he ripped a romance novel in half. through the pages.

What's funny to me is when people talk about their obsessions as if they're proud of them:
"no seriously, if I don't have my Diet Coke, I'm such a grumpy-head, like all day. it's so funny!"
...you know who you are.

Well done, Chris! No punches held.

I'll close with my obsession confession. It might be healthy for you to do the same in the comments.
-I am obsessed with dinosaurs. Sometimes I neglect real people because I feel like all I need are my Dino-buddies. Recognizing the problem is the first step. take it with me.

Your real-life buddy,
-Alex

Obsessions

This post is intended to be a change from the joviality of the previous posts. Although popular demand might not agree with this change, I want to prepare of audience for the emotional rollercoaster that we would like for you to experience along with us.

One of my fears for starting a blog was that I would initially become obsessed, writing long posts and including pictures of every event of my life. It would without a doubt be added to the list of 4 or so websites I feel a need to visit each time I enter the wide, wide world of webs (oh blessed facebook). However, the bigger fear I had was that the blog obsession would follow the pattern that most of my obsessions follow - the initial onslaught of effort put forth shortly followed by a period of neglecting, or possibly forgetting completely, the once beloved obsession. Obsessions that don’t fade away are a 9-letter word known as an addiction (the “9-letter word” part is not too significant, so don’t get stuck on that).

Obsessions, of course, take on many shapes and forms. The idea of blogging is just a good example to start with, for obvious reasons (if these reasons are not apparent, please consult the same physician as before). A prime example of obsessions is seen in the frozen yogurt industry, a.k.a. “froyo”, for the younger, hipper crowd. There are approximately half infinity frozen yogurt places in Provo, UT. Another obsession is seen with girls and their desire for diet coke (this one might be an addiction as opposed to an obsession) – “jab”. Another is boys and their sports (this one I will defend to the death – try me). TOMS shoes, Abercrombie & Fitch (an obsession for some people probably 10 years ago), World of Warcraft, anything from Anthropology, Words With Friends, shool, Michael Low, Angry Birds, The Bachelor, aspects of the dating life - I could keep this list going for days, and I will, but not here.

Everyone has his or her favorite obsession(s). I don’t believe there is a magical formula to decide whether a specific activity or thing is an obsession. However, I do know some signs of having an obsession – it consumes your life, you can’t live without it, you can’t go a full day without doing it, etc. (This excludes all things that you should do or have every day).

I have a neighbor. He says the following (roughly quoted), “I don’t have time. I am just so busy.” Come to find out he spends roughly 6 hours per day playing video games. It also doesn’t help that the poor boy has very poor social skills and little awareness of others, but that is a discussion for another time.

There are 2 words that helps me in life: priorities and balance…and smart choices…and smart buying…and practicality…and adventure, too….and some good leisure time. Well, I don’t really know completely where this is going, but it helps me to keep my life in check every once in a while. In the end, I have to ask myself…if Michael Low were here, would he do this?

Tu amigo,

Chris