This World

I've been thinking about the world. Sometimes it makes me extremely happy and sometimes it makes me extremely sad.  I saw Star Trek last week and it was Amazing (or at least I thought so) but during the movie, a police officer came in two times to check the door.  This occurred because of the shooting at the opening of batman last summer.  It made me extremely sad, and as the violence of the film hit the screen, I found myself feeling even more sad.  Violence, is not this pretend thing that happens only on screen. We live in a world in which people hurt other people. And this hurts my heart in a serious way.
On a smaller scale, individuals have the potential to lift, or hurt one another.  This potential, in the positive light, is beautiful and amazing.  I am so lucky to have the people in my life who have lifted me when I have been sinking, and I hope to help lift others in return.  But the potential to hurt is something I am increasingly aware of.  It is a potential that I hope to avoid at all costs.
Lately as I have been thinking about the past year and a half or so, the time I would have been on my mission, I have been feeling fairly sad.  Feelings of guilt and shame have been flooding me especially in the past week or so.  I know with my brain that these feelings are unwarranted but with my heart I find myself unsure, especially when I look at the contributions that my friends, fellow missionaries, sisters, were able to make. Sometimes as I look at my contribution it seems like a complete lack. I served in Korea for only two weeks before being sent home, I did very little teaching and my skills in the Korean language are little to none. It sometimes feels as if I have nothing to show for my time. Nothing, except a feeding tube. I know that I would not have been able to serve as a missionary. I know that I did what I was meant to do. But that doesn't stop me from wishing for what I could have had.
I live with two of my friends from the MTC now, and they are the best. Seriously, I have the coolest friends. I am so grateful for the time I had in the MTC to meet these girls, I am so lucky and blessed (for some reason I hate saying blessed, but there you have it). Anyway, life is mostly pretty good and, for that, I am exceedingly grateful.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to try some eating, so me and my roommates ordered some pizza. I ate and as per usual, I got fairly sick. For some reason on this particular night it really upset me. I went out that night and ran as fast and as long as I could before I returned to my apartment feeling somewhat better. The next day was pretty good, I fixed my bike and rode it to meet my friend for a movie. On the way back home I found myself with a flat tire and began to  walk back home with my bike. A friend had called and I was trying to buzz back to meet her but I was not quite fast enough. Anyway, while I was walking, I passed a homeless man on a bench with a grocery cart of belongings, he was smoking and talking to himself. I started crying right there on the street. Just the night before, I had been crying in my sweet apartment about the pizza I bought, while this guy was stuck without a home. It was something of a reality check, and one of those times where it seemed like everything would be different from then on.
Much like Levin in Anna Karenina, I was sadly mistaken. The next day I was sad again. But my roommate helped me feel much better that night. And again, like Levin, I had a realization. Epiphanies rarely result in immediate and complete change. Change is work. Sometimes I will be disappointed and angry and upset. The choice to look on the bright side and to keep perspective, is one that I must personally make over and over. But I can do it.
Things get hard and crazy and unfair, but I have the power to choose, even when it sucks.  So that's kind of what I'm working on. Wish me luck.