Forgetting

       It's so silly, really--forgetting. It's such a simple and common cause for such an eternally significant effect.  The danger of it is that it is almost unnoticeable--like a long strand of hair that slips quietly into the flowing breeze, or the moment of subtle change from late sunset into twilight.  We walk on--small, shifting moments all around us--but our focus is elsewhere, and it may be days, months, or years until we realize how much we have let disappear.
How many times have we doubted ourselves simply because we forgot the celestial beings we really are?
How many times have we bitterly wondered why we are here because we forgot in whose plan we first trusted?
How many times have our hope and faith faltered because we forgot about the matchless gifts of love our Savior has given us every step of the way?
How many times have we repeated a bad decision because we forgot what we once learned?
How much longer will we continue on in a state of stagnation because we forget the greatness we were sent here to achieve?
       Could it be that perhaps remembering these things would be among our greatest tools for success?
       What difference would it make if every day we woke up remembering these eternal truths?
It would have made a world of difference in my own life.

       Of course, I did not know I was forgetting.  I was once so strong and grounded.  Yet while I never lost the knowledge nor doubted it was real, somehow as days went by, I forgot what it meant to me.  I forgot that this truth was exactly what it was--true--and that it is glorious, personal, and life changing.  I never stopped living the teachings, but I forgot for awhile the important of who I am in the plan of things.
       Oh, how much sadness and discouragement I could have been saved if I had but remembered!
But here I am, reminded once more of all those things I have learned.  I feel renewed, strengthened, and I am happy again.


And my soul sighs, because remembering feels like home.

Life Lessons from Tom

Day twenty-three: A picture of someone who inspires you.

          My grandfather, Thomas Kasparian.  He was a crazy yet incredibly brilliant Armenian who lived one of the most unique yet most inspiring lives I know.  He was born and raised on the streets of Bronx, New York, by parents who had fled to America to escape the Armenian genocide.  At the age of 16 he moved out on his own to Arizona, and eventually moved to California where he met my grandmother.
          Tom believed that there was no other way to live life but full throttle.  He had an uncanny ability to take a task and marry it with fun.  He lived his life almost in glory to God, recognizing that He's made all these great things and the best way to give thanks is to enjoy them!
          He had a sense of adventure in everything he did.  He walked to the beat of his own drum.  He had a different perspective on everything, and always thought way out of the box.  He was always honest; he was the epitome of the phrase "say what you want to say when you want to say it."
          He loved the gospel and he loved the priesthood.  He used it often and with so much faith that it forever affected all those who saw him.  There are so many amazing stories of him using his priesthood, like when he miraculously blessed a deaf and blind girl with her sight along with the return of 60% of her hearing, and commanded a girl, surely dead from being hit by a motorcycle on their street, to arise and live.  His testimony was vivid and apparent and he shared it with such color and power that people just sat on the edges of their seats while he spoke and loved it.
          He was always doing something for someone else, whether it was giving money or letting people stay at their home, as he did with 44 people over the years.  He was always faithful to my grandmother.  He never spoke any disparaging thought about anyone--that was simply unacceptable.  And people loved him for that--no one could ever tell him to walk a mile in their shoes, because they knew he already had!
          He was brilliant.  He double majored in Math and German, and spent his days as a genius computer programmer, working on military planes and later the space program.  He also helped develop the first online travel reservation system.  He had an intense and original love for history.  He passed on great pride for his Armenian heritage.  He also loved literature and had an unparalleled knowledge of the English language and a broad range of intellectual vocabulary.  He was creative and a home repair guru--if there was something you told him needed fixing, it'd always be done the next day.  He could restore some sort of functionality to almost anything.
          He was also a little bit crazy, like buying fuchsia polyester pants, taking his sons (age 16, 13, and 11) on a cross-country motorcycle trip of over 7,000 miles, and quitting his job while buying a mint-condition convertible Camaro on the very same day.
          He believed in his kids and supported them in everything.  He was the kind of dad that when his kids had long hair he said it looked great, or if they wanted to dance then he'd always pay the costume fee, of if his son Rhett loved Bon Jovi then he thought there must be something to it, so he started listening to Bon Jovi too.
          He wasn't perfect, but he was perfect in the important things.  He got baptized when he was 26 and never faltered in 56 years.  He died having lived a full life with no regrets.  What a man!

I hope I have some of him running on through me!


Love you, Gramps.

Whoops.

Day sixteen: A picture of something you wish you could forget.

I wish I could forget embarrassing moments!  Not the kind that really taught you something and helped you realize how to better handle situations, but the ones where you were seriously just being an idiot, made a total fool of yourself (in a way that wasn't even comical) and now it's forever stuck in your memory.  These experiences don't benefit anyone in any way-- begone, red-faced moments of the past!

I once saw a picture with the words:
"Remember that one time when you did that one thing that was really embarrassing?
              Yeah, no one else does.
Get over it!"                                                                 Words of wisdom.

Learning the Language of the World

Day fifteen: A picture of something you want to do before you die.

I desperately, wholeheartedly want to be fluent in another language.  I don't care what language (though preferably Italian,) when I learn it, or how long it takes me-- only that I'm fluent before I die.
I want to be beyond a uni-lingual, typical, white American from Utah.  I want to be a citizen of the world. :)

"...True Poets, They Who Are Seers, Seek to Express the Universe in Terms of Music."

Day fourteen: A picture of something you wish you were better at.

MUSIC.  The thing I most wish I was better at is playing musical instruments.  I play piano, I'm picking up the ukulele, and I played some guitar for awhile but now it just feels huge and awkward in my hands compared to my uke.
But I'm just average.  And I want to be, "Daang.  That girl has got some serious talent."

I feel like a part of me is lacking, or is not fully developed...like I can't fully express myself yet.  Ideally, I would be proficiently awesome at playing the

• Piano
• Ukulele
• Guitar
• Drums
• Harmonica
• Tambourine (Does that really even count?)
• Harp
• That small flute-ish instrument like from Lord of the Rings

Yeah.  Pretty much.  And no, that's not unrealistic.  I'll get there.  Even if it's not until the millenium.  :)

"Music is the purest form of art...therefore true poets, they who are seers, seek to express the universe in terms of music... The singer has everything within him.  The notes come out from his very life.  They are not materials gathered from outside."  ~Rabindranath Tagore Indian poet, playwright, and essayist; won Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913  

Further Improvement Needed

Day four: A picture of a habit you wish you didn’t have.

Consciously and unconsciously, day in and day out, I compare myself to others.  Almost a tragic habit--common yet unseen, unproductive, and unhealthy.

So, what shall we do?

Perfect advice from a Zen blog:

http://zenhabits.net/lifes-enough-stop-comparing-yourself-to-others/

Breaking the Habit of Comparing Yourself With Others

So how do you break this cycle of comparing yourself with others? Here are some tips I’ve found useful:

• Awareness. Most often we do these social comparisons without realizing we’re doing it. It’s a natural act, I suppose, and as a result it’s something that is done without consciousness. So the solution is to become conscious — bring these thoughts to the forefront of your consciousness by being on the lookout for them. If you focus on these thoughts for a few days, it gets much easier with practice, and soon it’ll be hard not to notice.
• Stop yourself. Once you realize you’re doing these comparisons, give yourself a pause. Don’t berate yourself or feel bad — just acknowledge the thought, and gently change focus.
• Count your blessings. A better focus is on what you do have, on what you are already blessed with. Count what you have, not what you don’t. Think about how lucky you are to have what you have, to have the people in your life who care about you, to be alive at all.
• Focus on your strengths. Instead of looking at your weaknesses, ask yourself what your strengths are. Celebrate them! Be proud of them. Don’t brag, but feel good about them and work on using them to your best advantage.
• Be OK with imperfection. No one is perfect — intellectually, we all know that, but emotionally we seem to feel bad when we don’t reach perfection. You aren’t perfect and you never will be. I certainly am not, and I’ve learned to be OK with that. Sure, keep trying to improve, but don’t think you’ll ever be the “perfect person”. If you look at it in a different way, that imperfection is what makes you who you are, you already are perfect.
• Don’t knock others down. Sometimes we try to criticize others just to make ourselves look or feel better. Taking someone else down for your benefit is destructive. It forms an enemy when you could be forming a friend. In the end, that hurts you as well. Instead, try to support others in their success — that will lead to more success on your part.
• Focus on the journey. Don’t focus on how you rank in comparison to others — life is not a competition. It’s a journey. We are all on a journey, to find something, to become something, to learn, to create. That journey has nothing to do with how well other people are doing, or what they have. It has everything to do with what we want to do, and where we want to go. That’s all you need to worry about.
• Learn to love enough. If you always want what others have, you will never have enough. You will always want more. That’s an endless cycle, and it will never lead to happiness. No matter how many clothes you buy, no matter how many houses you own (seven, in the case of one famous candidate), no matter how many fancy cars you acquire … you’ll never have enough. Instead, learn to realize that what you have is already enough. If you have shelter over your head, food on the table, clothes on your back, and people who love you, you are blessed. You have enough. Anything you have over and above that — and let’s admit that all of us reading this blog have more than that — is more than enough. Be good with that, and you’ll find contentment.