Betterment, not just change.

Today, Barack Obama has done a great job in ingraining the word change into the minds of Americans.  I have come to the conclusion, that although his intentions and rhetoric are nice and make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, the word change, is not enough.  But I will admit that Obama’s message of change is much more inspiring than the rhetoric of John McCain who seems to be unable to get rid of the nasty chip on his shoulder and needs to learn how to smile more appropriately (his canned jokes followed by his artificially plastered smile is not one I would like to be in a photo with – it would scare all lady prospects within a 100 mile radius).

The past couple of days have been full of inspiration.  I have somehow managed to squeeze into my daily schedules that have become hectic, some late night times for movies that not only inspire, but provoke incredible thought and action.  The movies in the title of this blog, “What do Lions for Lambs, Charlie Wilson’s War, Trade, the Kingdom, and Amazing Grace have in common?” Derives from the inspiration I have recently received due to the disgusting politics, process, and performances of people in political office, ivory towers, and in the masses.  The following are a few take aways:

1. People who “get it” are rare.  People who are willing to do something after they “get it” are needles in a haystack.

The more I live life, the more this reality finds proof.  It’s one of those things where I think about the world surrounding me and how people don’t really care because they don’t really get it.  In the movie Charlie Wilson’s War, Charlie Wilson (played by Tom Hanks) asks the chair of the defense committee to increase the budget to provide marginalized people groups with the weaponry to be able to defend themselves from the Soviets during the Cold War.  The chair at first denies him, and through a series of persuasive efforts, he finally agrees to go to Afghanistan to see for himself, the refugee camps.  It is only after he sees this with his own eyes and hears the stories of rape, murder, and genocide that the chair of the committee “gets it” and backs Wilson’s (funny how Hanks goes from having a best friend named Wilson [a volleyball in castaway] to a Congressman named Charlie Wilson) proposals to fund the war.  With that, Wilson was able to increase the budget from $5 million to $1 billion ($500 million from the US and $500 million matched from another country).

Here’s the problem I have with this.  If people like the chair of the committee needs to have emotional reasons to do the right things, we are royally plucked (imagine a better word).  Theodore Roosevelt once said, “If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness.”  Of course he was talking in the context of a moral war (if there is such a thing – debatable) and no war at all, but I think we can go deeper and say that this righteousness is a moral choice to do the right thing regardless of how uncomfortable it is for us and this peace is an inner peace or an outer discomfort for us to resolve emotionally.  There is a clear progression in how people think of life

- 1 – They see their own world and are selfish in their little tiny bubbles.  I was once told by a child psychologist that when you close a child’s eye they think that they have disappeared to the public because of their small world view and their egocentricity.  They have an excuse due to their youth, what’s yours?

- 2 – They see that there is a world outside their own and 1) don’t care and become bitter about how terrible the world is, or 2) they begin to realize that their needs and wants are not that significant and that there are greater and more pressing matters in the world to deal with (like racial injustice, slavery, sex trafficking, genocide, poverty, famine, and epidemic diseases).  I have a good friend that told me her world started to expand and she started to shrink as she read and discussed world events.

- 3 – They ignore the facts and pursue the “American Dream” or they do something about it.  Most people find moments of inspiration, but few people follow through because they wait until they feel like they should do something.  Feelings inspire, actions produce results.  In any great endeavor, without great purpose, great and disciplined action is not taken til the task is completed.  Most people start and stop at the first road block.  The people who don’t make the world a better place contribute to the pain of the world.

- 4 – The people that do something about it and stick to it are those the history books are written about.

2. Betterment comes at all levels, and only when seemingly disparate entities come together, does great betterment gain the momentum it needs to truly make a difference.

Today, we live in an integrated world where public relations, policy, marketing, and execution all meet in a melting pot of ideas and action.  If one piece in the puzzle decides to act as a renegade, equilibrium is disrupted, and we find ourselves asking questions of “what went wrong?”  When the players work in sync, then synergy erupts and we find ourselves on the path to betterment (sounds like some zen statement).  It must be the perogative of leaders and followers alike to work harmoniously for one cause after another to tackle the challenges and problems that this world faces.  Apathy will kill us, ignorance will marginalize us, and selfishness will destroy us.  We have one life to make it count.

…

After much thinking, although this will be one small step in the grand scheme of the betterment process for the world I take on, I know that the Peace Corps is the right one.  It promotes both righteousness and peace, to help those who need it the most, and to sacrifice my comforts for those who can use the blessings of eduction and some competencies.

One life.  Still trying.

One night, one morning.

Last night, I started “Band of Brothers” for the millionth time, and this morning I finished it.  I am walking away from it with two thoughts.

Thought #1:  Heroes are made in harsh conditions

To all those who serve in combat, who fight for the freedom of others, and those who fight for the person they are serving with in any capacity, I want to honor you.  I personally appreciate those who fight with purpose, to serve and defend the values of freedom and justice, although freedom and justice may not always be served.  To those who are personal friends of mine who have served in this war against Iraq, accept my deepest gratitude.  Especially you Tim, the brother I never had, my prayer is that you will find God in a personal way during your last few months as a Marine.  I am proud of you and love you dearly.

…to the post…

It’s amazing the type of lazy definition we have of our heroes today.  Heroes today are seemingly celebrated for their mediocrity, not for their heroism.  I would even cringe to call some of these people heroes.  Celebrities for example, are not heroes.  I appreciate the acts of kindness and compassion that some of these people have, but the more I reflect on the idea of what a hero is, I cannot accept the conclusion that it is a mere spokesperson for a cause (even though their influence is always helpful).  Angelina Jolie just doesn’t do it for me.

Real heroes, I am beginning to realize, are made in the trenches.  But please don’t confuse this statement; just because they serve in the trenches doesn’t mean that they are heroes either.  Real heroes come out of uncomfortable conditions – conditions that generally require a mild to severe degree of physical discomfort, mental turmoil, and emotional frustration.  Yet, these people learn to suck it up and deal with it for the benefit of those that surround them.  They learn to respond in a way that will lift the spirits of those around them up, instead of further discouraging them in an already depressing situation.  It is the leaders who learn to give their privileges for the well being of their followers, even though they fully deserve the added comforts, who are lifted up in their humility and sacrificial mindset.  And it is those who remain consistent to principle and to people that are held in high esteem decades after any incident, war, or experience.

Who are these heroes?  Well, the obvious heroes are those of wars.  From the privates to the colonels who exemplify this type of leadership that pushes people forward, while tending to their needs, without accepting any excuses.  But heroes also exist in our neighborhoods and cities, in our work places and schools, and in our homes.  These heroes have learned the virtue of sacrificing themselves for their families, so that their spouses and their children can attain a greater influence than they themselves could.  These heroes have perfected the paradigms of service, to take a lesser salary for a job that isn’t as glorious as the one their education could have afforded them.  These heroes are the ones who have learned to live with the highest of standards for themselves and simultaneously help people reach those same standards.  They are the people movies are made of, books are written about, and those who are never heard of outside of a small soup kitchen that meets every Thursday, a free clinic that takes care of people who can’t take care of themselves, and the neighbor that hears of their neighbor’s struggles and knocks on the door to invite them over to dine with them regularly.  All of these heroes are in the trenches, as they take the position of those they serve and sacrifice for, and makes sure that their needs are taken care of.  These heroes exist.

… I wonder if I will ever be considered a true hero.

Thought #2:  Promoting peace is better than fighting war

As I was watching “Band of Brothers,” one thing I kept on noticing was the reality that war is not a good thing.  Although it has the capacity to create heroes and develop bands of brotherhood, it also has the force to strip people of their conscience, to remove people from healthy emotional lives, and to twist peoples’ minds to believe that the world is something other than it really is.  I think that it was because of this HBO series that I saw the Peace Corps in a new way.

Outside of the subversive feelings that I get that the Peace Corps is a subtle form of imperialism, I love the rhetorical heart of it all.  Although I appreciate what the Marines, Army, Navy, and Air Force do, I wonder if what JFK had in mind was actually the right step towards creating this illusive “world peace” that seems to be the dream of every pageant girl.  The military should be a final measure just in case everything else doesn’t seem to work.  Instead, the reality often seems like it is step 4 in a 10 step process of foreign policy.  This idea that there is a Corps for Peace is actually quite revolutionary if you really think about it.  To take the positions of people like Gandhi, MLK Jr., and Nelson Mandela as a nation, to have people become a sort of hero, to bring in expertise due to a privileged educational background and national infrastructure that invests in the basic development of people and give up the comforts that we take for granted to live amongst people who are considered to be amongst the poor (in my region, every placement has at least a 70% poverty rating for the country).

I was having a conversation in a group with some friends in the Marines and they came to the conclusion that war was not only inevitable, but it was necessary.  They backed it up with historical facts of war and the reality that in the world at any given time, there is a war going on – like it’s in our blood to be at war as humankind.  Although I agreed with the realities of war, I have a hard time accepting it as the solution to every problem.  The problem seems to boil down to one of three things; resources, misunderstanding, or injustice.  The problem with the majority of wars is that we exist with a hoarding mentality, to take it all before someone else get’s their hands on it, and to strip it from their hands before the grip gets too tight, and if the grip is too tight, then to kill them so that we can easily take it from their grip.  This idea that the world is a zero sum game is fallacious, regardless of how many letters some of the theorists have behind their names.

The fact of the matter is that throughout history, when people worked together in harmony through means of peace for the sake of helping instead of hoarding, great things were accomplished.  A modern day organization is Kiva, which, along with other organizations centered around microlending are making huge advances to change the qualities of life in people around the world.  One can also note that civilizations that were built through ideals of freedom, liberty, and justice for all have learned to progress in ways unimaginable in the past.  And great problems are constantly being solved under solid leadership and harmonious teamwork (look at the Apollo missions).  Its when we help people rise up out of their desperation that they don’t hit a point of needing to steal.

The key is to hit the sweet spot, to know the difference between need and excess.  To understand what is essential and what is not is what will determine whether we hoard from people who are less fortunate from us or whether we give to those who are marginalized.  But one thing is clear, if we help meet the needs of others to the point that they don’t have a reason to steal, maybe the wars will end.  Or maybe not, but peace is definitely better than war and a much higher virtue.

One thing I am certain of is that I want to experience the premise of Band of Brothers, and it is to go through the next two years of unusual discomfort and learn for myself, what it means, to have a band of brothers and to serve in the company of great heroes.

One life, thinking things through.

I am inspired, on a binge of being inspired, and never want to stop.  My mind is reeling with thoughts and ideas all day.  So much so that I can’t focus on what is going on around me and cannot concentrate on what the people around me are saying.  Its crazy.  So, this is my outlet, an online blog for the world to see.

I write with a light heart tonight.  After a lazy day just hanging out at home, I was able to rejuvenate and almost recluse into my shell.  I like days like this, where nothing is pressing, nothing happens, and nothing is required of me.  Its a selfish day to myself so that I can just relax and not worry about anything, almost to the point of lethargy.  But these are also the days that refresh me, like a spring of cool water on a hot summer day in the mountains.

Every ten minutes, I still go into shock at the fact that in less than a month, I will be in Panama doing who knows what in who knows what kind of conditions.  If you read previous posts, you will find through some blogs that I encountered, I was informed of the types of conditions that other volunteers were living in.  Its not one to marvel at in any positive sort of way, except the fact that maybe, it will be an incredible feat for someone like me (who has never gone camping, ever) to do.  I am not the type of guy who likes to rough it by any means.

On top of that, I am beginning to feel the pressures of performance as time inches closer.  It has already passed a week since I found out of my placement, and here I am, just preparing in no way except taking the Rosetta Stone course that they provided for me online to practice my Spanish before I arrived in Panama.  I opened the program today and went through about 4 hours of lessons already.  Time flies when you are becoming tri-lingual.  I can’t not do something.  A part of me wants to take an engineering course, plumbers course, wood shop, and hair cutting course before I go so that I can provide my community with a few practical and hands on services instead of just my mental and organizational capacities.  I hate to plan though and the old adage that those who fail don’t plan to fail, they just fail to plan, doesn’t usually apply to me – although I know for certain that planning would never hurt.  Whatever, let the chips fall where they may.

But yes, I find myself wanting to escape to pray all day, but this laziness within me is preventing me from kneeling down to do so.  I can barely muster the thoughts, “Dear God…” before I go onto another thought.  This is not a good sign.

One thing I do want to surface to the top of anyone who stumbles across this post mind’s is this idea of primacy.  I can’t shake the word even if I wanted to.  The past few days, I have been surrounded by relationship talk, and it is a certain truth that to those we let our guards down and allow into our most vulnerable of chambers, we will place a weight on their words that the rest of the world cannot fathom unless if they have encountered either a platonic or romantic intimacy with another.  The words and thoughts of someone who we have allowed into our vulnerable chambers can rock us and move us to security and confidence or insecurity and self-pity.  They can determine whether we find ourselves worthy or not of love, of success, of following our dreams, and of having hope.  This is one of the beautiful dangers in our lives and what I think all great writers and the Creator, God, had in mind when he considered the relational capacities and effects of people on each other.  Its dangerous when we allow people who shouldn’t be in our vulnerable chambers into those places to be able to speak into our lives, and they end up deceiving us, putting us down, and making us feel like we are worthless.  On the other hand, it is beautiful if the person(s) we give that power over to cherishes it more than their own life and takes it to nurture us, build us up, and to inspire us.  My hope is that we learn to do that for each other in any relational capacity that we are in with anyone else.  That means that we must go out of our ways for those people, even those we may not know well, so that they can experience the very love that we all yearn for.

So the question boils down to whether or not we prioritize ourselves above others.  If we are constantly putting ourselves (which includes our hurts, our desires, and our insecurities) above the person we are supposed to put above and before us, we will never really find ourselves in the place that a relationship was intended to be.  But its an uncertain plunge that we take that feels much like diving off into a swimming pool blindfolded.  Its scary, but once you splash into the water, you know it feels fresh and nice all over.  What are you waiting for?

One life, make it count.

Of all the things that I am struggling with, I have to say that the contrast in lifestyle and comfort is and will be the hardest aspect to overcome during my experience with the Corps.

At this point in my life, I have it good.  My schedule is to do what I want, when I want, with whoever I want.  I have no serious obligations and all I do with my time is read, watch movies, hang out with people, and just enjoy my 1700 sq. ft. loft in downtown Fullerton.  Everything is decorated nicely.  I have leather sofas, top of the line appliances, a full bedroom set, a complete entertainment system (including Bose surround sound and a flat screen plasma), and an office downstairs.  My bed has the tempur material and the many people that have the privilidge of laying on it find that it is the most comfortable thing they have ever slept on.  I have Marc Jacobs’ Home scent ruminating in my room and a drawer full of luxury items.  This is my domain.  I have a two car garage and a Lexus that I get to drive around in, there are 50 restaurants and bars in the local area, and I drink great wines from boutique wine houses as I please.  I have the luxury of having my own bathroom with Redken and Paul Mitchell hair products and Bumble and Bumble styling products.  On top of that, I eat like a king, literally.  This past week, I had 4 steaks (2 rib eyes and 2 filet mignons), lobster, crabs, shrimp, fish, Thai food, Chinese food, Mexican food, breakfast food, sushi, and of course, the best food of all, Korean.  I’d consider this eating like a king.

Although I have yet to figure out what my life will look like in Panama, I am certain that it will not come close to the comforts, no, the luxury of this life I live in LA.  The contrast will be night and day.  At least it will be in my mind.

The thing is, our pursuit of comfort in this world is actually quite ridiculous.  We all want to find peace, yes, but we sometimes confuse peace for peace and quiet; two totally different things.  A lot of people derive their internal experiences from their external circumstances.  This is why so many Eastern religions have to create an ambiance and a setting for one to truly experience the type of sensation and “peace” they are describing.  And although I don’t have a problem with ’setting the mood,’ I think as with all things in life, that if it is taken too far or overly emphasized, we turn those appropriate moments of solitude and setting into obsessive pursuits to control our environments.

The reality is, that we, ahem, I need to learn how to find peace in the midst of chaos, to find comfort in the midst of pressures and intrusion.  This is why getting used to a certain lifestyle is so scary, because we confuse what we need from having in excess.  I am afraid that my being accustomed to a reliable toilet, a comfortable bed, a full kitchen, and entertainment around the clock, has become a vice for me.  Although it would be ridiculous for me to go around everyday and praise God for running water, hot showers, and access to a refridgerator, I think it would be even more ridiculous for me to ignore the reality that to others in the world around me, these things that are so much a part of my regular day to day BASIC standard of living is very much a luxury to those in most parts of the world.  And the attitude that I hate to see the most, especially in the developed world is the attitude that, “I was fortunate to be born in America and they weren’t, so why should I go out of my way for them?”

Ironically, I was getting a golf lesson yesterday.  I woke up at 7:30a to drive the two minutes to the golf range right by my house.  In my 2007 Lexus, with my brand new golf clubs, a new golf shirt, and new shoes, I walked up the sidewalk to where my instructor was waiting.  When I got there, we began the lesson.  The weather was still a bit misty because it was so early in the morning – a fact that I will have to get used to when I move to Panama as I am sure the combination of sunlight, neighbors, and roosters will be sure to wake me up at the crack of dawn.  Towards the end of the lesson, we talk about the Mexican guy who works for $90 dollars a day.  He comes in at 5a and leaves at 3p to go to his second job as a dishwasher.  My instructor goes on to say that the yard worker was a happy guy because he could find such work.  I was disgusted at the idea of a guy who charges $50 an hour to sit there an teach someone how to swing a metal rod with a little clump at the end of it for the arbitrary sake of getting a tiny white ball that costs $5 into a hole several hundred yards away telling me that this guy who probably worked 14 hours a day was happy because to some people that lifestyle is good.  My instructor who drives a nice Acura NSX completely missed the point while he was talking to his hypocritical student who was actually paying the $50 to learn the worthless sport.  I simply walked away saying, “Universal quality of life, think about it.  I’ll see you next week.”

What is this socialist mentality of a universal quality of life that I talk about?  It isn’t a world without competition and capitalism.  Instead, it is an idea that there is a universal standard that all humans should not be without and that we should collectively work together to achieve it.  If we don’t start now, even in the midst of a flawed and imperfect system, we will never start.  Fortunately, in this day and age, real change is coming from a grass roots movement where just a few people with the passion and the courage to go forward with an idea are marching towards creating a type of basic equality that all people deserve.  The question is, are you on that march or just standing by and watching it?  The time for change is now, not tomorrow.

One life, make it count.

So, I have just over a month before I take off for ’staging’ in Miami then to Panama to begin my next two years.

I just got back from Vegas and was fortunate enough to get hooked up with a free room. It’s crazy to think about it, but going to such an extravagant place allowed me to compare and contrast the differences in lifestyle I will have in a mere month from this day on. From Thursday to Sunday we stayed at the Palazzo ($300-800) a night because it was the 4th of July weekend (it’s the same company as Venetian, but a newer hotel). At this point in my life, I am just trying to prepare myself mentally for whatever it will be that I will go through. So far, this is what I know:

The first 6 months, we live with a host family, then have the option of moving into our own place. Our housing can range from a small hut made of wood and thatched roofing to a cement house with multiple bedrooms. Some places have electricity and running water, most don’t. You are pretty much guaranteed cold showers which is great after a long hot day of work, but might suck if you’ve been sweating through the night and the well water underground is close to freezing in the morning when the sun hasn’t even come up. I will most likely eat rice and beans most of the time and the every day access I have to sushi, burgers, Korean food, and chocolate will be diminished to nil. The thing I will miss the most will definitely be a flushing toilet with a porcelain makeup. Yea, a nice thrown room is just about the greatest luxury a volunteer has abroad. I saw a picture of a latrine that a girl had to walk over a crappy (literally poop filled) swamp to and just do her do in the swamp, 5 minutes away from her place of residence. As I spent a good amount of the last two days reading the online journals of other people who are in Panama, I also read that one girl literally lives in a small square shack, has a hole in the ground she calls a well for a bathtub that has muddy water and about 50 feet away, has a smaller shack with a hole in the ground for an outhouse that smells wonderfully terrible.

The thing that I am learning most is that most of the things we place our meaning really have no meaning at all. I think that most people who have a conscience confront this at one point or another, but few people actually take the time to take an inventory of their life to see if their actions are aligned with their convictions. As I was traveling Vegas, laying out in the pool, gambling money away, eating lobster and steak, laughing at Wayne Brady’s stand up performance, and dressing in threads that cost more than what most people around the world make in a year, I was confronted with the brutal reality that everything I enjoy will mean nothing to me for the next two year (except maybe the steak and lobster that I will be dreaming about nightly). The things that I will find most valuable are the friendships that will stay with me throughout the next two years and support me in anyway while I am abroad, the new friendships that I will forge with others who are going through a similar experience or those of whom I am living with, and the simple notions of helping out a neighbor, lessons that nature will teach, and the value of being alone with my Bible in the wilderness.

We should never get too busy for the essential things in life, but most of us have misplaced priorities, where we truly think that providing for our family is becoming excessively rich to the point that faith and dependency on God is not required while we live on this earth. We lose sight of the essential doctrines of friendship and surrounding ourselves with people that make us better, not worse. And we learn to compromise Truth and values for fun and social status. We lose ourselves to the influence of the crowd.

I am certain that upon my return I will be socially awkward, bitter at the abuse of resources by people, and probably an outcast because of the transformation that my experiences have brought me. My abilities to relate to people will diminish, my humor will be different, and I won’t find enjoyment in the things that most people find enjoyment in. I wonder what I will be like when I come back…

It’s mental turmoil. I go back and forth on this journey of ambiguity and uncertainty, wondering if I could actually go through with this. I have been so blessed that I have taken the blessing and become spoiled with it as to consider myself so much better than the conditions that the majority of the world has no choice, but to experience on a daily and lifetime basis. This is the curse of being blessed I guess – where one loses sight of the things that are important and places comfort over character, lifestyle over learning, and self over service.

One life. Trying to make it count.