Category: Ideas & Beliefs

At what point do you just give up? Because at times, life just continually beats you down. Any highs are instantly followed by multiple downs, so moving forward never seems possible. And just as you see some light, the rug is pulled out from under you. As that light diminishes, the option of giving up can often be appealing. So why not?

Over the last few years, one thing that has often thrown my life into chaos is health issues. Just as our son was finishing his treatment for cancer, I was hit with a sack of bricks: I have a congenital heart defect that has considerable worry. Still in my early 30s, I had had multiple heart attacks, had went into cardiac arrest and was clinically dead for a short while, and with all of this, have a host of other health issues. Which is on top of other issues, such as having Crohn’s and autism, as well as issues with my spine.

The last week or so, these issues have been often at the forefront of my thoughts. While progress has been made health wise, constant complications have also arisen. The last couple of weeks have seen a number of these complications, which are often incredibly frustrating, as they always seem like a step back.

Having chronic health issues also leads to other issues though. For some, it’s depression. Others, it’s drug addiction, as it’s the only escape they can find. And then there is suicide, because for some, that’s the only escape they can imagine. Yet, there are those who overcome all these issues; giving up just isn’t an option.

To be honest, the idea of giving up has briefly crossed my mind in the past. What that exactly entails, I’m not quite sure as it’s not an idea that I have ever really entertained. So what differentiates those who don’t entertain the idea, and those who do eventual succumb to it?

Such a question always reminds me of Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was a psychiatrist who survived the horrors of the Holocaust. After being liberated from a concentration camp, he founded a school of psychiatry called logotheraphy, which described man’s search for meaning to be a primary motivational force. Part of this idea rested on his observations within the concentration camp that those who had a reason to live, a meaning to their life, had a better chance of surviving. Those who had no reason to live, those who succumbed to giving up hope, tended to perish quickly.

What that meaning was didn’t necessarily matter. The fact that they had a meaning drove them to push ahead. It gave them a reason to fight for survival. Granted, this didn’t mean they necessarily would survive, but it meant they continued trying to make it through, regardless of the hardships they encountered.

I first read the book about a decade ago. Over the years, I’ve come back to it from time to time as the message is so moving. It’s a message I think many could do well to hear. As having some meaning to one’s life, whether it be family, or a manuscript you want to finish, as Frankl had, can make a huge difference. For me, I think it’s the primary reason that there just isn’t a point where giving up seems reasonable.

The idea that we control our destinies, that we have the power to pull ourselves up by our boot straps can often be comforting. If we only work hard enough, we will succeed. However, reality is often different, because the actions of others can have massive repercussions.

This past summer, my wife and I helped out an individual who would end up costing us greatly. A few simple rules were set up, and because this individual refused to abide by them, multiple reports were filed that someone was “living” or “staying” behind our store, in the parking lot, in dangerous conditions due to the temperature. Our insurance company would find out, and because we were “seemingly doing nothing to rectify the situation,” we were found to be in breach of contract.

Time and time again, I attempted to speak with this individual, and come to an understanding, while making sure they were aware of the damage they were doing, but it was to no avail. Even though we had set out to help this individual, in their mind, we were the ones in the wrong.

The ramifications of this have been ongoing. It would first result in higher premiums, and then extra fees. We then had to change our coverage, which would prevent us from doing a number of things we wanted to with the business, costing us potential earnings. And then because we have a breach of contract on our record, it has cost us other opportunities.

Honestly though, we probably should have known that helping this individual would have caused issues. Over the last few years, their actions, or refusal to actually do anything, had cost us countless opportunities, while at the same time costing us financially. And most recently, it cost me an opportunity to receive some great tools. It turns out that I’m on a blacklist as I had recommended this individual for a review tool a couple years back, and because they ignored this companies phone calls, and emails, I was deemed unreliable. Which caught back up to me recently.

Now, maybe part of it was our fault. Having been burned before, we should have known better. But then again, who wants to live their lives thinking that helping someone will end up hurting you? At some point though, one has to learn their lesson, and the lesson for us is that you can only help someone so much before it becomes ridiculous to help them any further. If that person doesn’t want to help themselves, then trying to help them will achieve very little.

Forgiving that person will also become necessary at some point. Not for them, but for us, as hanging onto the hurt and anger does us no good. It just causes more stress on us. That’s not to say that forgetting what they have done is a good idea though. As forgetting such just sets us up for additional problems in the future.

Most importantly, we can’t allow the actions of this one individual taint how we see the world, or how we respond to others who may need help. It is very easy to become cynical, and see the worse in others because of the actions of a few. But trying to overcome that, and seeing that people are still truly good, is something I believe is worth striving for.

Yep, I was that pompous jerk. There’s a difference from bringing up the history of Christmas, and pushing it at others as a sign of why Christianity is a joke. I was the latter.

Christmas was never a pagan holiday though. After Christianity grew in numbers, and more people were converting, there arose a need to add some sort of festival to the religion.

Around the winter solstice, there were some festivals already present, and many Christians would still participate in them as it was part of the culture.

To help bring these people more fully into Christianity, Christmas was born and placed around this same time period. It was a way for converts to really connect with their new religion. It was a piece of assimilation, and it worked quite well.

Over the years, Christmas has really changed as Christianity moved to new places, and new cultures were being put into the mix. As those new cultures entered into Christianity, they also brought some old traditions that were mixed into the new ones.

That’s really a simple summation of it. I do have a reaction or response video planned that will dive more into this though.