chang|e one’s mind

do you ever feel like people are just expecting way too much out of you?  or even worse, do you ever feel like you’re putting too much pressure on yourself?

i feel like lately, pressure has been building up on me.  like for some reason i’m expected to just do certain things and when i don’t, or if i don’t do them well, i’m being a diappointment.  it’s not really anything i can put my finger on, it’s just… pressure.  expectations are high – for myself and from myself.  sometimes i feel like i’m going to explode.

and then there’s the voice in your head that says, “just quit now, you can’t go anymore.  you can’t do it.”  and however you interpret that to be heard in your head whether it be a challenge or a criticism of your performance, it seems to be true.  and either way, you’ve screwed yourself over.  if you take it to be a challenge, you run the risk of spreading yourself too thin and suffering from burnout.  and if you take it to be a critique of yourself, you get down on yourself and it makes you not want to try anymore.  so where’s the medium?

honestly, i don’t know.  i suffer from both tones of voice.  and like my description, i usually get burnt out or want to quit trying.

pressure is an interesting concept.  what causes it?

lack of boundaries – i can’t say no.  it’s a huge flaw of mine.  i just want to help everyone all the time oblivious to the fact that i haven’t taken my own needs into consideration.  and yes, i know there’s a book by cloud and townsend about this, and i have it (borrowed from a friend a looooong time ago, sorry buddy) but i still haven’t read it.  i was in a meeting on sunday where i kept volunteering to do things and facetiously would say “no!” after i volunteered to do them as we were talking about setting and keeping boundaries.

lack of communication – a lot of times, people have no idea they’re putting pressure on someone else.  how could they?  they don’t know all you’re doing through, how’re they supposed to know that pressure’s building for you?  i think it helps to let the other person know where you’re coming from and hopefully, this leads you to the third point:

lack of understanding – some people do communicate what all they’re going through and the other person still puts pressure on them.  this is where understanding comes in.  it’s not enough to just listen to all the pressure and expectations someone is being put under, but there needs to be an understanding along with it that lets the other person know that you are trying to see what they’re going through and that you empathize with them.  i think that definitely helps to relieve some pressure.  and i think for introverts like myself, the communication aspect can be hard so i don’t even get to make it to the understanding stage.  i just kinda keep it all bottled up inside until the pressure gets to be too much.  man, that’s unhealthy.

wouldn’t the world be a great place is people tried to understand each other better?

so continuing on with my post on worship…

something that i’ve been thinking about for a while is how we view worship.  as stated previously, in case you may not know what i’m talking about when i say “worship”: worship is a response to a stimulus or stimuli.  in the Christian sense, worship is a response to God.  i guess by my definition, being angry at God would also be considered worship because it is also a response to God.  maybe that’s true, or maybe i’m just being completely blasphemous.  i’m going to say it would be characterized as worship.

but anyways, a huge part of what worship is in today’s culture is music.  it seems like “worship” music bookends everything we do as common as prayer is.  you know, how we “open” and “close” our meetings and fellowship times and services with prayer.  the same thing seems to be applied to music.  someone “opens” with a song and ends with a sending song.  it’s almost second nature.  to me at least.  are we doing something church-related?  oh, well, we better find someone to open with some songs and have some songs after we’re done to close us off with.

it’s almost like the whole please excute my dear aunt sally thing in math – you know, parentheses first, then exponents, then multiplication, then division, addition and subtraction last.  here the parentheses would be prayer and the exponents would be music.  it seems to take second priority in the order of “worship”.

so my thought has been, “what would happen if a church or body of Christian believers had no one with musical ability?”  would that mean that they couldn’t worship?  ok, so maybe not that extreme.  does that mean that their worship is incomplete?  or say someone does have musical ability but maybe they’re not that good, is their worship any “less” in quality than other people with more skill in music?  or if somehow they got around this issue, what do they “replace” music with?

i hope you see where i’m going with this.  it’s as though music is just built-in to the skeleton and outline of the church where anything other than music would be foreign to the order of worship, almost or sometimes directly as a replacement of music.  well, we can’t have music, so we’ll do this instead.  instead of thinking, man, worship is not only music, we should explore different media and forms of worship!

i hope that we don’t pigeon-hole ourselves into being confined to music.  although music is beautiful and creative and can communicate much, it should be our only means of worship.  i mean, put yourself in the position of a non-Christian, how weird would it be if people invited you to a meeting or assembly and they asked you to sing songs you’ve never heard of?  and not only that, but they’re asking you to sing about something you don’t know much about.  why would you want to sing about someone dying on a cross or singing about how you want to give your life to a god you know nothing about or this thing called “grace”?  what’s that about?

now, i don’t have an alternative to this.  i guess all i’m trying to bring up is that i think our view of what worship is is very narrow and culturally insensitive at times.  and i hope we can keep an open mind as well as stretch our minds to the whole unexamined and unexplored world of worship that is all around us.

i just got back from a miss vintage show.  if you don’t know them, they’re pretty awesome.  that’s them on the right.  i actually got to open for them up in philly back in april.  they characterize themselves as “art rock”.  personally i like them because they’re so personal with their music and lyrics and are so passionate in their performance.  but anyways, they’re on a nation-wide tour.  they’re half-way done with their tour and are about to head out to the west-coast so if you’re out there, please support them. they’re good people.

so enough of the plug.  me and a friend were talking the other day about musical instruments and what we thought people played growing up.  it seemed like certain people who play certain instruments have a certain personality.  i then proceded to ask the question, “is it the instrument that molds your personality or does a certain personality have an affinity for a certain instrument?”  i think this is a valid question. if you don’t really know what i’m talking about, i’ll explain it a little further using instrument examples:

guitar/lead vocals – the more outspoken of the other instruments.  they like the spotlight.  usually have a really good sense of humor and are pretty funny.  easily recognizable and very personal and sociable with other people.  however, they can be the more reserved and anti-social of the group.

back-up guitar/solo guitar/rhythm guitar – whoever the non-lead vocal guitar guy or girl is is pretty quiet relative to the lead vocal.  they have a sense of humor and can be funny at times.  they like the spotlight, but not too much.  they also like to blend in to the background.

bass – i think the bass player is my favorite to characterize because i see so many similarities between all the bassists that i know.  the bassist is kind of the odd-man out.  the bass as an instrument doesn’t get noticed much, but without it, the rest of the band sounds horrible.  the same way with the bassist.  no one really notices the bassist (no one can really name a famous bass player, well, maybe flea from the rhcp), but they’re pretty essential to the dynamic of a group.  the bass player can be perceived as “not as cool as the rest of the band” but personally i believe that to be based on perception only.  i find this to be my favorite because some of the bassists i’ve seen are pretty dorky/geeky, but man, they can tear up a bass.

drums – have a strong personality.  usually the “clown” of the group.  have no fear of what other people think.  very conversational and sociable.  very supportive of other people.

now, a couple things about these personality/instrument types:

i only included the main instruments in a band setting.  of course there are others, but i chose to focus on these for this blog.

this isn’t to say that all drummers follow this pattern or all bassists have this personality.  of course there a lot of people out there that don’t follow the mold.  i wonder if these people either chose the wrong instrument, or the instrument hasn’t changed their personality.  but from what i’ve experienced, this is kind of the stereotype i’m putting out there for these instrument/personality types.

so based on these, what instrument should you be playing?

so it hit me after i posted my blog yesterday – did i really just blog about sandwiches?  man, i must be hurting for topics to talk about.  i did enjoy a sandwich today though.

do you ever think about how quickly our emotions change?  or not even that, but even how quickly our circumstances change?  for example, all of last week i was pretty stressed over leading worship for emerge plus doing the schoolwork i was behind on.  then last weekend, i had the time of my life.  the stress just went away and i was enjoying the moment.  this week is back to the grind, preparing to lead worship for a bunch of things in the next week, performing for a wedding in 2 weeks, trying to get caught up in my schoolwork, etc.

all i can think right now is how much i would like to go back to last weekend and enjoy my time there again.  and not be in this stressful grind again.  and i’m like, dag, just a week ago i was enjoying life and living free and now i’m a little stressed and pretty busy.  it’d be kinda nice to spread it out, but i guess at the same time the really bad or stressful times make you really enjoy and appreciate the really good times.

i also realized that i’m really good at procrastinating.  i always knew i procrastinated, but i didn’t think i was this bad.  but i always seem to get everything done that i absolutely need to get done without staying up all night.  some people call me a nerd because of this.  maybe i am?  maybe i’m just a lazy nerd.  i mean, i’m not trying to brag about myself or anything.  i just can’t get myself to do work.  but when it’s go time, i finish it pretty quick.  maybe i just need the pressure.  i never thought of myself to be this kind of person.  darn… i’m a nerd.  and not a good one, i’m a lazy one.

i just found out that there is a blog on worship that featured my 4 part blog on the ultimate worship experience.  pretty tight huh?  maybe i’ll blog some more on worship in the future.

so when people ask me what my favorite food is, they usually laugh when i tell them my answer.  for a lot of people it’s steak or pizza or something like that.  mine?  i love sandwiches.  i could eat them everyday.  just about any kind of sandwich – pb&j, grilled cheese, paninis, subs, cuban, tortas, vietnamese sandwiches.  oh my gosh, so good!

there used to be this place that made the best sandwiches i’ve ever had in my life it seems like.  too bad they went out of business.  the place was owned by one of my friends.  i guess i could just ask her to make me a sandwich every once in a while. there’s something about eating a sandwich made by someone else that just makes it feel better.  it could be the same ingredients, same order, but just something about someone else making it makes it more delicious and enjoyable.

do you eat your sandwiches in a particular way?  i do.  i tend to eat my sandwiches outside in in a swirl-like fashion.  i eat them counter-clockwise until i’m just left with the middle.  the bad part is, sometimes the insides spew out because there’s no buffer to keep them in.

so what’s your favorite food?  and do you eat it in a certain way?