Better Man.

Influence has a way of altering our standard. Initially, our acts are noble and glorified, with influence, we see that our acts were not as favorable as originally thought to be. An idea of "higher standards," while in its infancy, impossible, for we can only do as well as we know with what we know at the time of doing it. Once we learn more or better ways to perform and identify underlying motives, the standard, just like our threshold of knowledge, also elevates. A plethora of information at our fingertips, self-help books, spiritual teachings, on-line material, counselors, healers, the Bible with the Psalms as a steady resource (not in this order I hope) are all here. Information to saturate the senses, overwhelm the mind with expectations of the highest caliber, and a self that is seemingly incapable of even a minuscule amount of achievement.

His gift to us. 

We are not incapable beings overall, however we are merely incapable of what is being asked of us. We are at times disgracing the person we want to be, the person we know, deep in our mind, that we should be. This person, this ideal version of ourselves exists in some realm of imagination despite never having experienced them before. There are too many pitfalls, too many character traits, too many faulty beliefs to base a decision on to achieve that ideal version in human form.

His gift to me. 

Is all the material can do is remind us of this simple fact: we will not achieve an ideal self, not until that fateful day when this physical specimen no longer houses the soul. When we are freed from this body and allowed to soar above the clouds, into the heavens, looking down on loved ones along with those we despised while wearing this flesh. We will no longer experience or relate to what we know to be experience or feeling while in this body. We will be these existences that will have finally existed and see this world the entire time we were trying to see it as. This glorious day our physical self fears, the end of the existence of our human condition, will finally be the day when we get to be who we strove to be this entire time.

The best we can do is continue to do what is futile in the process. Continue to work, play, live, experience, educate, love, laugh, all the best ways and reasons to be in existence. God made us for him and he wants us to work, he wants us to live, we wants us to experience trials and tribulations, for it is the only way to really get our attention and discipline us, keeping us on the path for which we were always intended. We, the guilty parties, see ourselves as the victim and therefore do not take reminders of mistakes well. We tend to forget about all we were given, the passes we've seen, and the experiences that were shared with us as a gift from the Creator of the Universe.

This journey to be better men and women is again, a journey upward and onward, without a stop, without a destination, for it ends when it ends, there is no check for this box. Is all we can do is continue to surround ourselves, enriching our lives, with those who enhance, read that which adds, and contribute to this cause: improving the lives of each other. Achievement is both audacious and abhorrent at the same time, our fallen selves, despicable, yet attending, seeking that which not only displaces pain, but contributes in ways that satisfy.

My contribution to those
who struggle. 

Is all we can do is try.

I have tried to contribute and want to keep the dream alive. If you know anyone with body image disorders, men with what is called Bigorexia, I have written about my own story, Here. 

God Bless.

May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us-yes, establish the work of our hands. - Psalm 90:17