A Year Into the New Era

Hello folks,
Starting in the new year I do plan to keep up with my blog on a weekly bases at least. I won't do it by notes like this one but I wanted to post this one by note. This is a crazy time of the year for me because of work. After typing on a computer all day when responding to emails and processing applications, blogging tends to feel like work. It generally takes me all morning if I do nothing else before lunch. But you have incoming phone calls and traffic to tend to as well. Everyone is stressed with their own duties, but I have to say that part of me loves it. I love staying busy and to see how quickly I can get the job done. When it comes to pressure, "some people fold and others focus." "A deadline has a remarkable way of focusing the mind." I do get a break and do what is best about my job which is talking to families about ECU during our information sessions.

But that is work that generally stays at work. Personally I am a little over a year into the New Era. If you don't know what the New Era means then that only means you don't know me as well as you think. Those that are closes to me know what I am talking about but I won't punish those that don't. The New Era basically is term I came up with that labels the major lifetime seasons of my life I feel God has lead me to or helped me through in my spiritual development. These tend to last around three years I've noticed. Prior to the New Era was called Post-Depression Era, then Great Depression Era, then Pre-Depression Era, The Great Wars (basically high school), Years of Hell (basically middle school), Survival Age, then Birth. Not very creative names but pretty accurate. Maybe I'll rename them later but it doesn't matter, the point is that I have seen the design of my life and each season has helped shaped the next and so forth. How can anyone not see how God is involved in everything that they do, good or bad, free-will or destiny, their is always a plan.

I discovered this around November 14, 2007. I keep a journal and I highly recommend it for anyone. A journal helps you take a step back and really look at yourself and evaluate your life. It helps you to see the great parts of yourself and the worse parts. It shows you how you have grown which motivates you to keep growing. It also leaves your legacy for someone else to be inspired by your testimony. I mean let's face it, not all of us are going to be analyzed and known in history books like Lincoln or MLK. So let's leave something behind for our families to learn and grow from our experiences. And don't allow fear of someone knowing your business prevent it, I promise you that when we're dead, we are not going to care. If I'm wrong, "I owe you a Coke."

Moving on, the New Era is the season that I am currently in right now. It is a time in my life when I feel like I am looking at life brand new again. Without being seriously inhibited by the horrors (extreme word) of my past. No doubt that I could have been a much happier person if my past situation wasn't so unstable. If you know me then you know what I am talking about. But please don't mistake me, I LOVE my family and my friends I grew up with, I would have wanted better from our past but I don't waste my time worrying about how things should have been. We worked it out and we made it through by the grace of God and we all are doing well. We have gain a great deal of wisdom, faith, and perserverance from the struggles of our past. Although it caused some emotional and psychological side effects, we have worked through them and are still pushing forward.

The new year is coming up, and I evaluate the year. I look over the goals I have set out for myself and determine how I can do better and how I have done better. Then decide to take it a notch up into the next year. I will start drafting my New Year's theme beginning of December. Remember this year was "Humbling Forward in a New Era of Faith in 2008." I am always glad to hear recommendations, my past favorites from folks are "Making it Great in 2008, Going to Heaven in 2007, Getting a Fix in 2006, Picking up Sticks in 2006, or Throwing Bricks in 2006, and Staying Alive in 2005." They tend to be pretty creative..lol...So let the bidding begin.

I heard something like this once, "Did I have have it rough? Yes! Should you feel sorry for me? No! Why? Because though it was bad there are still people who had it a lot worse than me. And if I don't want to acheive any more than I already have, then please respect that. But if I don't because I think it would be too hard or I don't feel like being bothered, then Thank God, you don't even want to know me."