Why my life is pretty cool right now. And a Chuckle o' the day

At first when I saw this cartoon I didn't laugh, but now I find it funny. I think it might be that I had been in a funk, and the last little while has definitely pulled me out of my funk. I've hung out with good friends, calmed down on my busy-ness, and hung out more with God which is cool.

The momentum of my life is pretty cool right now. Things are going fairly well in all aspects: God-wise, work-wise, improv-wise, church-wise, friend-wise, and plus its spring, and everyone gets happy during spring because its like the best season ever. 

So I hope this cartoon makes you chuckle, because it made me chuckle. But then again I'm in a good mood so it didn't take the absolute most hectic amount of work to make me chuckle.

Connect with Michael-John If you'd like to connect with me follow me on twitter at @MJPhillip , and on Google + by going through to my Google Plus page.

Chuckle o' the day

 

Connect with Michael-John
If you'd like to connect with me follow me on twitter at @MJPhillip , and on Google + by going through to my Google Plus page.

The Quest for the Elixir of Happiness

The Cricket World Cup has come and gone. People got really bleak about the Proteas losing and now it is all forgotten. Sport takes you from ecstatic ecstasy to tearful tears of tearfulness. One minute a team can look like they're going to beat New Zealand convincingly, and the next they lose. Such is the nature of sport.

I think to some extent sport mimics life in that both have these highs and lows. You get the courage to ask a girl out, she says yes, and later you find out that you have nothing in common. Or you get the job you really wanted only to find out it’s just an internship and you only get paid in beer. Or you think that you’re going to win an award for a short you directed and then you don’t and then you get bleaked out because you thought that this time you were going to win. You thought that this relationship, this prize, this job was going to take your life from average to awesome, but it hardly ever does.

I'm not saying that everything fails and life is pointless because people do get dream jobs where they’re paid, and they do marry awesome wives, and they do win best director. What I am saying is that these high points are often only short lived. We think these mini-challenges are major climaxes that will solve our problems, and we focus our lives and thoughts on achieving them. And while you might have the best job or best wife it still isn't plain sailing. There is no everlasting happy ending. Unfortunately life is work and it has its ups and downs.

My point is that we should enjoy these mini-challenges for what they are, simply steps towards a better story, not as the elixir of happiness.

Relationships for 6 Year Olds

When I was very young before I had any real girlfriends I used to think that when I got a girlfriend I should set up a contract to say that I was her boyfriend and that she will love me until death or until I met another girl whichever came first. If she ever wanted to renege on the deal I would be able to take out the contract and say “ha…you have to love me because it says so in this contract.”

Sure I would try and impress her when I arrived to school in a cowboy outfit or sang extra loud at the Gr.1 school concert. I would sporadically hold her hand and give her flowers I picked in the garden. These acts should not only serve to impress her, but entitle me to get what I needed out of the relationship. I don’t know what a 6 year old needs out of a relationship, probably biscuits, but whatever I needed she was bound by contract to give it to me.

I have since learned that inter-personal relationships are slightly more complex than forcing people to like you because of a contract they signed.

I think sometimes we view our relationship with God in the same way I viewed my relationships with girls when I was 6. We seem to have a sense of entitlement when it comes to God. We follow Him and then we are entitled to happiness, healthiness, and a really big house in heaven. We forget that we are invited into a relationship with God, a dynamic love affair with Him.

It’s as though a relationship with God is simply about what we can get out of it, namely escaping hell and getting into heaven. Christianity can quickly become a stepping stone to a never ending supply of milk and honey, and the beauty of the relationship that we are welcomed into gets missed.

Distraction

There are only three types of people in the world.
People with ADD
People who claim to have ADD.
People who don’t have and don’t claim ADD.

I fall into the third category. I choose not to claim ADD because really not everyone can have Attention Deficit Disorder. I do however get distracted relatively easily.

Usually it’s either sport or girls that draws my mind away from where it is meant to be focused. I’ve already checked my football fantasy team, so that isn’t distracting me today…