A way of learning.

The past couple of days I've sort of had an epiphany about something. Sometimes it's great to almost have an out of body experience to really sit and think about how things sort of go in the universe; and sometimes, how God let's things work out.

First of all, I believe we ALL learn things through personal experiences and occurrences; it's the best way to learn something, is by something happening, whether that be a good or bad thing. You can only learn so much through someone telling you to do this or not to do this; you can only learn so much by watching other people go through something. Until you've truly experienced something yourself, you can't really learn 100% of what you should.

This goes for nearly anything; for really hard times, like a near death experience teaching you to be careful, or for really simple things like being late to an appointment teaching you to be more careful with your time.

This all came to mind because of my roommate getting really upset because things didn't work out how they were supposed to mainly because of not paying attention and planning more accordingly. Because of this, her plans to go home early were sort of shot down and she had to stay at the dorms another night. She was upset for a good hour or two, and wouldn't really get over the fact that she was "stupid" and "an idiot". She kept calling herself that. After trying and trying again to tell her it's not true, "you're not an idiot", I just realized that even I have beat myself up over something like that that I felt like I did wrong. However, it's not the right reaction to beat yourself up over it and dread on it. Everyone has that right to be upset, don't get me wrong, but what good does it do to repeatedly be upset at yourself about something? It won't change the fact that it happened; it may gain you sympathy, but, what how long can sympathy salve a broken ego or the feeling of disappointment? The only reason those feelings of disappointment, embarrassment or shame last is because you allow them to.

I do this to myself all the time; dreading over things, getting easily disappointed or ashamed with myself for doing or for NOT doing something correctly. It's natural human instinct to want to be perfect, but, the beauty of it is that we're NOT, but God will still forgive us anyway. I know, I know, it's not like the daily human errors like being late to something is considered a sin, per say, but hear me out; isn't dreading and hating yourself over something like that a sin in itself? Doesn't God teach us to turn to Him to repent our sins so they're in the past, forgiven, forgotten?

So, wouldn't He gently guide us to do the same with our every day mess-ups like forgetfulness or carelessness? Don't you think He'd agree that we shouldn't hold onto those, but learn from them?

Sometimes I just think almost too deeply about things to really put them into words, but, hear me out; coming from someone that does this quite often, beating yourself up over past mistakes or sins won't take you anywhere new and refreshing in your life. It won't strengthen your spirit and it won't strengthen your walk with Christ. If anything, it's like jumping into a web and tangling yourself in it; it's keeping you from being the truly greatest you can be! I hope I can find a way to take my own advice this time, because, it truly is an epic epiphany in a sense -- one that may not be unique to the world, but, that's a pretty monumental one for me, haha. :)

Thanks for reading, and keep reaching high guys!