Conflicted

It's odd for me to compare my blog to others. The content of my blog is vastly different than what most blogs have. Most blogs relay the events of someone's day and usually points out something funny or something to be upset about. I seem to talk about things going on inside my head that no one else can see. These tend to be fairly abstract things.

I suppose that part of the reason is that very few things are interesting in my daily life. I'll show you an example:

Ok, so today I sat at my computer and answered emails. A few students came in to talk to me. Some had easy questions but most were quite needy. After sitting in one place for nearly 9 hours, I went home.

Are you hooked, yet? You can see this isn't very exciting. Anything that's interesting is going on inside my head so that's why I share thoughts. My work situation is made worse by the fact that I get bored to tears. I have deeply held beliefs about what life should be about and my work touches on NONE of those things. But I can't easily change my work because I need to get paid. I have bills to pay and we have only my income to live on.

I digress. Ultimately, the issue is that the things I do and the plans I make do not match what I truly believe to be essential to life. Adjustments need to be made and I do not mean they ought to be made only to external circumstances. I need to examine my own beliefs and see if they are realistic and grounded in truth. Once I know what I need in life, I can start making my circumstances match that.

This may still be a bit vague. I'll explain further. I run into problems when I consider decisions on where we will live, the level of comfort we will live at, what I will spend energy on, where I will work, how I spend money, who I spend time with and a host of other questions. In the last decade or so I valued things in life differently. I looked down upon the "snobs." I would have considered it a great honor to live a poor lifestyle in Romania or somewhere in Africa and be one with those that the world seemed to have forgotten. Caring for those people and not caring about my own comfort seemed to me to be the way to live my life and to not waste it on trivialities. The only work that mattered to me were those things that would clearly be considered ministry. The only education I desired was from a theological seminary.

I have already reconsidered some of the things I believe. I know amazing people that are truly good that also happen to be quite rich. I have also known people with one of those super-expensive seminary degrees that turned out to be somewhat of a jerk. I could go on but the point is that these are things that are up in the air for me. How can I really decide which class I should take at work when I don't even know what I want to study? How can I feel OK about committing to a home or a more permanent place to live when everything in me still wants to break away from the comfortable life and see the world? Doing those things could potentially make me feel very constrained if I do not determine what I truly believe and then act accordingly.

Ugh...I have dragged this conversation on far too long. I hope it made some kind of sense. It does in my head at least.

Peace!