Rivers and Roads

Looking back on 2014, I see the juxtaposition of two phases of my life. The first 6 months of 2014 comprised the end of my time as a college student. The last 6 months included the start of my time as a working professional. Both phases included a lot of transition. In the first half, I did my best to spend as much time with my fellow graduating seniors as possible; I didn’t know when I would see them again. In the second half, I started a new job, got involved in youth ministry, and started traversing the great unknown of the “not having all your friends within a 1-mile radius” world, among other things. One of the biggest things I was anxious about graduation was how my friendships were going to change when we all went our separate ways. Would going our separate ways weaken my friendships? How was this going to all work out? The thoughts of my already strong friendship dynamics changing scared me because of the fear to the unknown.

A couple of months ago, I was introduced to the song “Rivers and Roads” by the Head in the Heart (and that’s why this post is titled as such). In a lot of ways, the song really gets where I’m at. A lot of my friends moved away after graduation and I have no idea when I’ll see a good number of them again. We’re all walking our separate paths now and yes, I do miss many of their faces like hell. Listening to this song helps bring this topic to mind and helps me reflect upon it.

It’s true; there are rivers and roads that separate me from a lot of my friends. But one of the biggest surprises for me is that the distance hasn’t hurt my friendships. Sure the dynamic has certainly changed, but it hasn’t made my friendships any worse. In fact, it’s like the new dynamic has breathed new life into them. Unlike college, when I was having the same type of experience as my college friends, we’re all having different experiences. But it’s in those different experiences where we bond now and there’s a certain really cool thing about that. I learn so much and am fulfilled by listening to the different experiences my friends have. When I do see them again, I’m more appreciative of any time I have to talk and re-connect. The 15-minute conversations I used to think were “short” are now some of the most fulfilling I can have with them. In addition, just because I may not talk to many of them for weeks or even months on end, when we re-connect, it feels like little time has passed. This point was especially driven down when I hung out with wonderful Bellarmine friends recently and a number of us were like, “It’s been six months? It doesn’t feel like that long.”

On the flip side of things, I’m one of those people who has a lot of friends younger than me who are still at SCU. That has definitely been a struggle at times because as much as I would want them to be able to relate to where I’m at, I’m at a different phase of life when they are. It’s been easy to think my life’s not as interesting as theirs (and self-admitting: I’ve been very prone to that the last few months). My pace of life has slowed down, contrasting the “go go go” lifestyle of college they still are a part of. But at the same time, having the different dynamic has helped some of those friendships and helped spark new friendships as well. Outside of my work schedule and my 2-3 regular commitments per week, my schedule is no longer as full. This has given me the opening to cultivate new friendships with those people I wanted to but couldn’t with my previous commitments and also to deepen already-existing ones. Having the extra added energy to pursue those friendships has been a really cool surprise of post-graduation life and is one I hope to continue to take advantage of in the coming year.

As 2014 draws to a close, I feel more settled in with where I’m at with my friendship dynamics changing and transitioning away from being a college student. Here’s to 2015: to visiting out-of-town friends, getting more involved in youth ministry, new retreat experiences, T-Swift concert, and so much more which is currently unknown =)

The Two-Sided Decision of Empathy

A few weeks ago, my good friend Kate shared a really insightful video on the difference between empathy and sympathy. I’ll link to it here if you’re interested in watching it. It’s only 3 minutes long and brings up a lot of good points. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

The part of the video that struck me the most was how it explained that empathy is a choice and a vulnerable one at that. To empathize with someone requires reaching deep within yourself to find an experience that knows the negative feeling that person is going through. It came to light for me a few weeks ago when in the span of 8 days, I was present to 5 different health-related hazards despite not being directly related to the affected person; I was either in the vicinity when the hazards occurred or someone I’m connected to was related to them. After the 5^th one, I noticed I was actively feeling downbeat the rest of the day after hearing the news. I spent a lot of time thinking about that concept and came to the following conclusion: because I cared for those who were directly affected by the news, I decided I wanted to feel their pain. I cared about them enough that their sadness mattered to me, so I made a conscious decision to feel with them. I wanted to empathize and to connect with their feelings, so I was intentionally downbeat as a result.

Today I was having, to put it lightly, an emotionally crappy morning and it wasn’t even work-related. Things were going haywire in my head. I was freaking out over what turned out to be a whole lot of nothing and there were other things I couldn’t make sense of that morning. Gratuitously enough, one of my best friends responded to a funny story I told them and that simple text helped me start the process of getting out of that emotionally crappy place. My emotional state started to stabilize from that moment and the rest of the day I felt I was going to be okay and slowly but surely felt better about things.

When I was at Santa Clara, it was really obvious to most people when I was having a bad day. I would be lacking the energy and happy-go-lucky attitude that people associate with me. People would see that and ask me what’s wrong. But now that I’m in the workplace where I get a lot of time to myself, none of my friends are going to see me continually shrugging and displaying drained body language. I’m starting to realize that if my friends are going to know that I’m struggling or having a bad day, I’m either going to have to text/message them indicating just that or have them happen to contact me when I’m going through that phase. It turns out during that morning, I told only very few people that I was going emotionally haywire when I was in a place where I would’ve just wanted many more of them to message me and remind me that they’re thinking of me.

Reflecting upon that experience, I’m starting to think there’s a second side to this decision of empathy. I make a decision whether to let people have a choice on whether they want to empathize with me. Many times, I instinctively take away the choice from them. For as seemingly adept as I am with reaching out to people to spend time, it’s ironic that I struggle with reaching out during times when I absolutely need support or need a friend. I make a lot of excuses as to why I sometimes don’t want to let anyone into my dark place. These examples include: “I’m only going to drag down the mood.” “I shouldn’t burden them.” “They’re having fun. I don’t want to ruin it for them.” If I would choose to empathize with the people I love and care about in a heartbeat, shouldn’t I give those same people that care about me the opening to decide whether they want to empathize with me? Shouldn’t I trust them to actively want to feel with me when I’m going emotionally haywire and in a dark place? I know today I had a few friends in mind that I was rather close to telling, “I’m having a bad day and I wanted to let you know” and then proceeded not to because I made various excuses not to tell them.

To be honest, these thoughts leave me with more questions than more clear-cut insights. But if there’s an insight I feel more solid about, it’s this: empathy is a two-sided decision. One side of the empathy decision is the choice I make to connect with someone in their emotionally dark place. The other side of the empathy decision is to decide whether to let others choose whether to empathize with me or not; to let others know, “I’m struggling and I need a friend” and to let them make their own decision whether to empathize with me or not. Through all these questions and unfinished thoughts, I can certainly say the latter is a huge growing edge for me in terms of empathy.

Hail to the Blogmother

It’s been one year since I posted my first entry on this blog. No matter how good or how bad of a blogger I’ve been, it’s not something I could’ve ever imagined myself doing at this time last year. The way I describe it to people, this blog has become my “journaling that I don’t mind sharing with the world”. I could never see myself becoming a professional blogger but to have this as an outlet has definitely been healthy for me. One of the biggest inspirations for starting this blog has been my friend Maira (who I’ve mentioned at least once) and I'd like to share a little more about her.

To tell you a little bit about Maira, she is a lot different from me personality-wise. For example, if there were a picnic table right next to a lake, I would be more inclined to climb on the table and yell at the top of my lungs while Maira would be more likely to stay where she’s at and take in the moment. She is very introspective and always committed to growth. I always feel like I learn something new from our conversations and she is one of the wisest friends I know.

More specific to this post, Maira is one of the biggest inspirations as to why I started a blog in the first place. She has her own blog which I started reading a while back and I always gain something out of her posts. I get really excited every time Maira writes a new post. She has a well-written blog and shares herself in such an authentic way. It is never easy to share oneself in such an open setting, but for Maira to challenge herself and set herself as an example in that way speaks volumes about her. And of course, I’m proud of her for continuing to maintain her blog and post every-so-often.

There’s one post of Maira’s that always keeps me going whenever I’m writing about something and I get stuck. It’s about ego and the concept of writer’s block. Essentially what she writes (which I find to be true) is that our ego keeps us from sharing ourselves because whatever is not “good enough”. I’ve found my ego to be the biggest challenge to blogging. Many times, I think to myself that what I would write isn’t “good enough” or that anyone who chooses to take time to read my writing will find fault with what I write. I can feel awkward sometimes linking my blog posts to Facebook as if I’m trying to shill for readers. I often can think I’m not that interesting of a writer (and for all intents and purposes I may not be). But it takes me away from the biggest reason I started this blog. I share myself in this way in the hope that at least one person is better off for having read my writing. And if it’s only that one person that is better off, then I’ve achieved my major goal. It’s always healthy for me to have a reminder of the true goal of this blog.

After a year, I’m amazed I’m still at this and I’m glad I’ve stuck with it. I choose to blog rather spontaneously. When there’s something on my mind that I feel like I absolutely want to write about, I’m almost going to force myself to make the time to write it all down in a blog post. This blog has served both as a way to share myself and a much-needed form of self-therapy at times. It’s certainly something I plan on keeping for the time being.

Without Maira and the encouragement of many different people, my blog would’ve died and fizzled off a long time ago. And reflecting on it, Maira is one of the biggest reasons why I started blogging and still blog. That being said, it is only fitting that I dedicate this post to her, the one who I affectionately refer to as “the blogmother” from time to time.

And here's the link to Maira's blog post I referred to earlier in this post: http://mtgutierrezblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/lego-and-write.html

The "Hidden" Love within an Apology

At least some people would probably say that I’m typically on top of reaching out to them about many different things. I don’t dispute that at all. If it takes a while for them to get back to me, I see in the response some apology for how long it took to respond. “I’m so so sorry I didn’t get back to you.” or “I’m sorry for not responding.” Typically, my instinctive response is to feel guilty inside and immediately try to respond as fast as possible saying that absolutely no apology is necessary. What causes my guilty reaction? I start feeling guilty that I seemingly unintentionally placed harsh expectations on my friends. I’m afraid that I might appear that I’m “expecting” way too much out of them and that my friends may feel they’re not “living” up to my “expectations”.

That guilty reaction was not something I ever questioned until quite recently. In the matter of a few hours Monday, I got two messages from different friends profusely apologizing to me on slow response times. Considering their circumstances, I had no expectations whatsoever for a response after reaching out but had a stronger “guilty” reaction than usual as a result.

Sitting at my work desk today, I started getting into my head way too much. Many of my feelings of self-doubt came back and bugged me most of the day. Those feelings told me, “You’re not really worth it to others.” I was sitting, searching for something to remind me that wasn’t the case. Then I thought back to those “apology” messages I received. What if the fact that my friends apologized for slow response times was their way of telling me, “Joe, you’re worth it to me and I want to make sure you know that.” I never thought about it that way before. The fact that my friends thought they took a long time to respond and acknowledged it (even if I didn’t think it was long or warranted an apology) is actually quite the act of love on their part. While outside-the-box, those apologies are reminders I can use to remind myself that my friends care about me and are willing to make the effort to match the effort I put in.

It’s funny to think about my friends’ apologies in this total outside-the-box context. It’s only now that I’m starting to realize that guilty reaction I’ve had for so long hearing the words "I'm sorry..." may not be the healthiest one. I’m writing this not wanting my friends to apologize to me for every little thing now. But writing this really makes me want to commit myself to seeing my friends saying “I’m sorry” as an expression of love instead of a reason to feel guilty, regardless of whether or not I feel the apology is warranted. And at the same time, if I’m the one saying “I’m sorry”, I want to recognize it my own expression of love as well.

Fly, Butterfly, Fly

One of the best meetings from the small group I was in last year was based off a meditation that described a butterfly. It was one of the most hilarious yet reflective meetings and the meditation was one that stuck with me for a while. I mention this because this meditation came back to me today. This post will be based a lot off this meditation. It would make this post REALLY long to place all the text here, so I’ll place the link here with the disclaimer that I’ll be referring to it.

http://www.ignatianlife.org/the-voice-not-of-god/

Over the years, I’ve learned I have a strong sense of initiative when it comes to my friendships. I’m often the one planning things, reaching out asking to hang out, having an idea of my schedule whenever asked, that sort of thing. It serves quite a purpose in the post-grad world when 40+ hours of life is consumed with thinking about work and it’s a lot harder to keep in touch. And it makes me happy because putting in this effort means I’m more likely to be able to spend time with people I care about. I’m able and willing to put in that extra effort because making that time happen is important to me. As is typical of my extroverted nature, friend time excites me and it allows me to experience God in other people.

But everything has its limits and late last night and today, I felt burned out by my constant initiative-taking. This created a chain reaction where a few not-particularly-healthy Voices appeared in my head. Just a sampling of the different ones that ran through my head:

The Voice of Doubt: “I wonder if people realize how much effort I put in. They probably don’t.”

The Voice of Cynicism: “Everyone’s busy, so it’s not like people will reach out.”

The Voice of Insecurity: “Everyone has other people to call on/spend time with, so I’ll probably be out of the loop. It’s not like they really need me anyway.”

Those Voices dampened the enthusiasm and energy I have for making things with friends happen. The joy and the energy I gain from taking initiative just wasn’t there. I was like the smashed butterfly with a broken wing, sitting helpless on the ground while everyone else seems to be flying high. One wing up….…weakly waving.......weakly……waving.

Almost right on cue, two kind-hearted friends of mine flew in right in time to be with me in that state of vulnerability (despite not in-person). During my lunchtime walk, one of my friends studying abroad heard me out when I told her I had hit an emotional rut. She told me that I’m someone a lot of my friends depend on, regardless of whether they make it clear or not, and that my friendship came when she needed it. Another one of my friends had messaged me during my lunch break and reminded me that I’m not the only one who can feel sometimes like I’m carrying way too much of the load. In my head, I imagined both of them stopping to take the time to repair my broken butterfly wing. Slowly but surely, I started to feel a little bit better. I started to spread my wings, fluttering bit by bit and slowly ascending to the sky on mended wing.

The reassurance from those friends has been helping me recover from my “reaching out” burnout. Whenever I start telling myself that my friends don’t depend on me or don’t need me, I have that friend’s reminder that, yeah, they do, and that I should be okay acknowledging that (as reluctant as I may be to accept it). I’m also not the only one who puts in a ton of effort in friendships. I have other friends who do the same and may know how I feel sometimes. It’s not the false reality the negative Voices tell me: about how my friends don’t really depend on me or that they don’t appreciate the effort.

This also gave me some time to reflect on the theme of, “What is the Cost?” in context of my strong initiative-taking, a topic a good friend of mine talked about on a retreat once. The cost of reaching out so much is that I’m prone to burning myself out with the extent to which I pursue my relationships. At the same time, the reward for my initiative is that I have an added ability to maintain and grow those relationships further. This challenges me to keep a better eye on myself that I don’t burn myself out pursuing different relationships. But during that reflection time, I concluded that the cost of an occasional burn-out every few months is worth spending the time and effort that I spend on my friendships because I gain so much from my interactions and relationships with different people. That gain makes it worth it for me.

I’ve heard before that writing things out can be a form of self-therapy. I find that to be true, considering I feel a lot better having written this out. I feel my burn-out period will end soon and be replaced by a sense of reinvigoration (while of course, keeping an eye on myself).

After this entire experience of today, I can hear a much more positive voice within now telling me the following:

Fly, Butterfly, Fly.

The Timing of It All

Sometimes I feel there are moments in life where things just happen and I can’t help but think to myself, “that could not have been timed better”. I had one of those moments recently and how it came about led me to think…maybe it wasn’t such a coincidence.

Enter my good friend Sarah. Currently she’s studying abroad in Sweden so I won’t get to see her in-person until next year. Last Wednesday, I had woken up to a really nice message from her. At the end of the message, she mentioned how she had been praying for me during my time of transition and trying to find a permanent job, etc. That was really nice and awesome by itself. A few hours later, I received an email from a company that wanted to interview me in person. The first thing I thought was how Sarah really was watching over me and that her prayer had definitely been answered through that email. It was definitely a sign of true friendship and how she had been taking the time to support and think of me while being knee-deep in her abroad adventure.

To be fair, it is perfectly possible that Sarah’s message and my interview email coming one after the other so shortly could simply be an extremely convenient coincidence. In my personal opinion, I believe there was something greater at play. I call this the “power of prayer”.

Bringing it back, it really is quite the experience to see how and when things come together and to think, "Maybe it’s not just a coincidence". Regardless of whether the interview turns into a job offer or not, this experience spoke to me and reminded me of that “power of prayer” that I believe strongly in. And honestly, it could not have been timed any better.

A Memory Revisited

February 9, 2014, a Sunday. After attending a Valentine’s Day party with friends, I learned the sad news of my friend Nick Votaw’s passing. Nick was universally loved at Bellarmine and the true embodiment of the Bellarmine motto “Man for Others”. He was extremely committed to serving others and sharing his faith. In addition, he was an overall great guy. He had been suffering from cancer and I hadn’t heard from him for a while until the news broke. I spent the rest of that day grieving and in a somber mood, only telling a few close friends before the 9 PM student Mass what had happened.

I took care of a few things before that Mass. I borrowed a cowgirl hat from my friend Emily to carry in Nick’s honor that night. She was the only one I remember explaining why I had wanted to borrow the hat. I asked my friend Molly, who coordinated the Eucharistic Ministers at Mass, to volunteer as a special request, which she granted. In addition, it was the day when those who went on Discover retreat came back (quite a few people I knew) and a lot of my friends had gotten their abroad placements, so there was a lot of happiness and excitement going on, and for good reason.

Fragments of my experience at Mass that night had come back to me a few day ago. I remember that feeling of being around people right before Mass, all the happiness and excitement people felt, finding myself incapable of feeling those feelings in that moment. I remember the questions about, “Why do you have a cowboy hat with you?” and not being in a mood to explain it then and there. I remember some friends starting to notice I was uncharacteristically sitting quietly before Mass and sensing something was off with me. I remember clutching the hat that entire Mass, and clutching it especially harder during the prayers for “those who had died”. I remember walking out of the Mission and walking silently to my car, followed by a very silent drive home.

To be honest, I could tell you very little about what actually happened during the “Mass” part of Mass. The candidates for RCIA were being presented, which included two good friends of mine (one being in RCIA and the other a sponsor), but I couldn’t tell you past that. I don’t know what songs were sung that night; all I can say is that I sung a lot less dynamically. I don’t remember who the priest was and I don’t remember anything from the homily.

Normally this is the part of the blog post where I start explaining the meaning behind the story/experience I present. But to be honest, I don’t know what the meaning of my blurry and fragmented memory of this Mass was. I don’t know what it means that I could only remember my internal experience and not anything else about what actually happened during the service. Maybe it’s one of those things that are meant to just be what they are.

At the very least, I can say this: this specific memory is a part of me. That experience of being, amidst the sadness, is a part of me. It happened when it happened and just so happened to come back to me recently.

I miss Nick, but I know he’s up in Heaven where he deserves to be. RIP Cowboy.

So Ratchet. Much Love. Wow.

If you asked me heading into my senior year, I probably would’ve given very little thought into the houses my friends lived in. Like I’d know they were in an off-campus house, but I probably wouldn’t think anything was special about it. Ratchet House was different and changed that view of mine. The people who comprised that house made that seemingly ordinary little house at 807 Bellomy Street special.

First the name: I honestly didn’t know “ratchet” was a thing until Ratchet House came into being. Now I can’t seem to get it out of my vocabulary. Or at least more in the sense where I now refuse to believe you can refer to anything as “ratchet” without knowing about Ratchet House. This is probably more of a Joe thing that’s extremely ridiculous but still.

What was special about Ratchet House for me was how welcoming and loving of a place it was. It was the one place I had friends living where I was truly comfortable randomly knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell and seeing what happens.  I knew I wouldn’t be judged for randomly coming by and more often than not, someone was there to give me a friendly greeting. Even if no one was there, I was completely fine with making the effort to see what happens. The women of Ratchet House created that welcoming atmosphere for me and I fully appreciated it.

For whatever reason, it was the perfect house to celebrate birthdays. Going there to celebrate friends’ birthdays was always cool: there were some of the coolest people there and it was just an enjoyable atmosphere. The bell was quite unique and hilarious; I’m grateful no one minded that I tended to have water in my hand (instead of other stuff) when the bell was rung. My own birthday party was celebrated there actually. I wish I had known there was a door into the kitchen instead of thinking that there was flat-out open access to it. I might’ve been able to figure out the surprise waiting for me inside. Ah well it was awesome. And it spoke a lot to the generosity of Ratchet House to hold a surprise birthday party for someone who didn’t even live within a 10-mile radius of campus.

Many spontaneous adventures came about as a result of random visits to Ratchet House. My first time at Ratchet House, I came over with one of my friends and got to say “hi”, though in hindsight I could’ve picked a better time to ring the doorbell. Thankfully I didn’t get judged for that. Sometimes I’d walk in and randomly watch the end of a movie I’ve never seen. There was the one time I came over with another one of my friends and I ended up watching “UP” for the first time. There were a couple of Sunday nights where I just followed Celia and Laura back to Ratchet House and had quite the friend times. Going over to Ratchet House set the stage for one quite unique graduation night experience.  The space to come over at any time and feel welcomed, no matter how awkward of a time I came over, was such an amazing thing that the ladies of Ratchet House created and made my last year of college that much better.

Ratchet House was comprised of absolutely amazing and special people. Maira set up my birthday party and was the first person whose birthday I celebrated at Ratchet House. Sarah was always welcoming and answered the door for me quite often during my random visits. Celia and Laura were the Casa alumni, helping actively promote the program and just being awesome and wonderful people overall. Lauren was one of the SCCAP cogs, always seemingly having a meeting or somewhere to go and yet bringing her smiling face to everyone she sees and everything she does. Caroline was super cool and one time during my random visits, she answered the door (even though I interrupted her cooking dinner) and had a really cool, spontaneous conversation.

Each of these things about Ratchet House made it a special place and a special part of my senior year at Santa Clara. It wouldn’t be possible without the people that comprised Ratchet House.

This is to the lovely ladies of Ratchet House. I’m so grateful to Maira, Sarah, Celia, Laura, Lauren, and Caroline for welcoming me into your humble dwellings and being just awesome and amazing people. Because of you all, Ratchet House will always have a loving place in my memory.

(Photo courtesy of Ryan Selewicz, taken off Facebook =P )

Reminders...

The first part of post-graduation life is rather interesting. After 4 years of being surrounded constantly by the same people, many of whom you got to know and bond with, you’re no longer physically surrounded by them. It’s not a bad thing per se but it’s certainly different. Something one of my good friends told me during this stage of post-graduation transition was rather interesting. They told me how sometimes the last 4 years were like a dream and that they were alone. It wasn’t real and something reminded them that the “dream notion” was a false reality and there was so much to look forward to for the future.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the notion of reminders. One of my friends gave a reflection on this a fall quarter, when he said that sometimes all we need reminders. These come in all forms: reminders to do certain tasks, reminders that I’m meeting people or talking with them, or reminders that you’re loved just the way you are. I always felt bad when needing reminders primarily on the last part. For example, I was a “CP” person for CLC leaders this year (someone who externally supports small group leaders as needed). I was looking back through my text messages with one of these leaders and didn’t realize how down on myself I was, making comments like “Sorry if I’ve been crappy on the CP front”, to which this person told me to not even say that and that I was a great CP person. Reminder came in handy. Other important reminders come in the form of little messages and letters people give me. I go back to them to remind myself that despite my faults, I am loved for who I am. It helps me put myself back in the place and to dispel false realities that I’m a “bad” person just because I make one mistake or that I’m not “as good” as others or something.

One of the biggest things that serve a reminder for me are photos. I’m pretty sure I got this from one of my mentors, but especially during my last two quarters of college, I became really intentional about taking photos to document the time I spend with people, provided they’re comfortable with it (going off the reminder theme, making sure to be and respect where people are at). Every few days, I go back and view those photos and it reminds me of the joy I felt when I had that time with that person/those people.  Whether it’s as small as a coffee date or dinner, or as big as a birthday concert/big group gathering, every moment is precious and it’s my way of documenting that experience as a reminder. Now I concede that for some people, taking photos could take away from moments. But I’ve learned for me, it’s a fulfilling reminder of joy and good times had.

For the past year at my internship, I have had a “friends photo wall” going on the shelf above my computer. While I couldn’t ever fit all of my friends on it (too little room), looking up at it for brief moments gives me instant reminders of friendship and experiences. In the sometimes stressful and fast-paced work world, it’s healthy for me to look up and give myself a reason to smile. And it always grows as new experiences add up, so the amount of reminders only goes up.

At the same time, there are also moments that live on within me even without photos. For example, the experience of spending graduation night laying out on blankets in the Mission Gardens with a bunch of the most amazing people you can think of lives on fresh in my memory.  I don’t have a photo of that but it’s still something I will remember for a very long time. It was an experience that where I truly felt “alive” and gave me a lot of fitting closure on my time at Santa Clara. Photos aren’t a be-all, end-all for me, but in most cases, they serve as wonderful reminders of the times I spend with other people.

I know for myself I need lots of reminders of various things in my life. Photos are one of my biggest reminders of life, but I’m just one person. Different reminders work for different people but if there’s something I believe, it’s that reminders are just a part of everyday life.

The Compliment Challenge

Something that has been a long-standing struggle for me is accepting compliments. When someone tries to tell me that I’m awesome, I’m good at (insert quality/ability here), or something similar, I’m likely to brush it off or downplay what they said. I’ve always had this internal fear of letting the compliment get to my head and becoming arrogant as a result. So I’ll overcompensate and downplay the compliment to the point where it almost goes in one ear and out the other. It’s not because I don’t appreciate it (I do), but I get frozen by that fear of arrogance that I won’t accept the compliment for what it is. From discussions with some of my friends, I’m realizing that’s more of a human nature and less of a uniquely Joe problem, which makes me feel a little better. It reminds me of a quotation I’ve heard before:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

I fear putting myself above others. I fear that I’m going to be so powerful that I’m going to put others down. But at the same time, a number of people I know I have that same struggle. So the quotation makes sense. A few days ago, I was discussing this with a very good friend and realized to what extent that accepting compliments is hard for so many people. It’s not like trying “compliment practice” would work; just feels too unnatural. When I reflect on how to face this challenge, I think of how a lot of my friends take the time and effort to affirm me for my gifts, even for the little things. One way for me to look at this is to look at a compliment like a gift. People want you to accept it. Wouldn’t it look awkward to not accept and appreciate it? But then that fear holds me back.

When I reflect on this whole accepting compliments thing, there are two examples that come to mind that are representative of all of the friends who put time and effort into lifting me up and affirming me.

One of these friendships that come to mind is the one I share my very good friend Maddie. One of Maddie’s best gifts, in my humble opinion, is how she’s able to give non-stop encouragement and positive affirmation. From a little 2-minute conversation on the stairs in Benson to providing advice, Maddie always lets me know when she appreciates something. Each little piece of Maddie’s affirmation and acknowledgment keeps me going and is something I often go back to. Her affirmation serves as a reminder of all the good I hold within me and reminds me of the positive impact I have on people.

The other friendship that comes to mind for me is the one I share with my very good friend Maira. One of the ways Maira shows her love and care in our friendship is by pointing out how much love I bring into her life. Maira essentially paints a picture in front of me of a “loving Joe”. My instinct sometimes initially wants to turn away from that picture, but I know it is a labor of love for Maira to take the time to paint that picture for me. If I’m going to go back to that “gift” metaphor, Maira creates the “loving Joe” picture for me to accept because she wants me to know how loved I make people. That’s something I’ve slowly begun to accept and take charge of with her assistance, though it’s still a work in progress.

I share the examples of Maddie and Maira to paint a bigger picture: there are so many people that want to lift me up and make the effort to do so. I appreciate all of it, I really do. I mean really, if I brush off the compliments, I might as well be doing people a disservice after all the effort they put in to compliment me. Thinking about this invites me to be more intentional about accepting compliments than I’ve been in the past. It can be difficult sometimes, but if anyone wants to share affirmation with me, I promise I will be trying my hardest to accept it for what it is instead of internally brushing it off as “oh I’m not that great”. The sooner I let go of my fear of being “above others”, the easier it’ll be to accept compliments friends want to share with me more fully for what they are. That is a challenge I’m committed to taking on. 

Discovering a Gift and Accepting It

There are typically three questions that come up in CLC meetings all the time: What are my passions? What are my gifts? And what does the world need from me? This blog post is going to focus on that second question, or an experience I’ve been having moreso of discovering that a gift of mine is actually a gift in itself.

Over the past four years, I’ve developed myself to be a very reach-out person. Part of that is a function of being a huge extrovert (at least according to Myers-Briggs, which scored me a 30/30 on the extrovert scale). But expanding upon that, something that gives me joy and gets me out of bed in the morning is making someone’s day. Making someone feel loved and giving them the reminder that, yes, they have gifts that make them the amazing person they are. I have a coffee cup album going where I get someone else’s name on my coffee cup (think Starbucks typically) and use that as a way to reflect upon how that person has had a positive influence on me. That doubles as an affirmation of that person as well.

During last summer, a couple of very good friends and I were having a discussion in the car on the way back from 10 PM mass in Berkeley. I don’t remember how it got there, but the discussion centered on a birthday celebration for one of them I helped coordinate the previous week. What they both told me was something no one had told me before: they were amazed at how I was able to bring people together. While some of the friends at the celebration were expected, they were really surprised at some of the others I had been able to contact and bring together (with some help from other people obviously). I appreciated the acknowledgement but when at that time, I didn’t really think too much of the ability to bring people together for a common expression of birthday love. There were two experiences within the past year that started showing me how much of a gift that was.

The first occurred at the end of fall quarter. Another really good friend of mine was going to reach the first anniversary of a really important yet emotional day. I had a greater opportunity to bond with that friend during fall quarter. There was one night a few days before where I felt spurred to compile a card together showing how much her friends had known about that day and wanted to express our love and support for her. After a bunch of emails and group texts, I had compiled a whole lot of messages to give to her to open on that important day. That following day she blogged about that outpouring of love and how much it meant to her. Helping to coordinate that had a positive effect on her. It was a way for me to use my gift of bringing people together to make an important day that much more special for her.

 

The second happened just recently actually. A really close friend of mine had her birthday coming up. I decided that leading up to it that my intention for her birthday was to think of a way to bring as many people that she had positively affected together. How to do this: a giant birthday card of course. After a huge mass email, carrying around a seemingly unsuspicious green posterboard, and meeting a bunch of people, a 22 x 28 posterboard was full to the brim with birthday wishes. All that was left to do was to deliver the card, intentionally while my friend was out of the room. She did figure out it was me that helped organize it but to hear that she was grateful for it felt really good. Like my previous friend’s experience, she felt loved and ultimately, that was what I was hoping for.

What I’ve learned from these experiences is that I have a gift for being able to bring people together, even people who don’t necessarily know each other. I don’t say this to brag (because even as I’m writing this I’m a little self-conscious about that) but moreso to recognize this area that I’m strong at and can use to make a difference in people’s lives. Bringing it back, I am really passionate about making sure others feel loved. One way I’ve learned I can do that is bringing the people that also love them together for one big, old expression of love. It’s important for me to think about the time and place about whether something like that is appropriate for certain people at certain times, but acknowledging and taking possession of my “bringing people together” gift is what I’ve slowly begun to do over the past few months. Knowing and accepting that gift, while making sure to be thoughtful and intentional about when to utilize it, can only help amplify its intended effect to help people feel loved.

College & Cupcakes? Yes please!

Currently I’m in the middle of typing up parts for a draft of the Senior Design Thesis due on Thursday. Naturally I’m going to get easily distracted and Facebook typically is one of my modes of distracting myself, for better or for worse. After some random clicking, I stumbled upon this blog called “College & Cupcakes” written by someone I know at Santa Clara. In my state of distraction, I read and read and found some really awesome stuff. I’ll link to it at the end for reference because you should really check it out. Especially if you’re an aspiring baker. J

Now I haven’t read all of the blog (I only got through the first 3 pages) but even then I wanted take some time to read it today. There are some really cool insights I read. I was invited into the experiences this person described. I could put myself in their shoes. I feel a greater appreciation for this person now that I’ve had a chance to see a different side of her. She already is a great person in-person but seeing this side of her through her blog just opens up a new side of her to me. And I feel so much better for having the opportunity to see this side. This was a random occurrence which was very fulfilling by virtue of stumbling upon her blog.

This actually reminds me of why I was encouraged to start my own blog by one of my own friends. He said that I had many insights that people could get a lot out of. Theoretically speaking, someone could stumble upon my blog and get something out of what I write. That’s exactly what happened with stumbling upon this friend’s blog, and I’m so much better for it.

So let me conclude by saying I am thankful for the writer of the College & Cupcakes blog for the insights into this person that I have received and for giving me a reminder of why I started my own blog in the first place. J

I invite you to read her blog for wonderful insights and baking recipes. If you're so inclined to accept my invitation, here’s the link: https://collegeandcupcakes.wordpress.com/

Riding the Struggle Bus

You’d think spring quarter senior year would be a happy time, right? I mean there’s a lot of stress about finding that elusive job tree where jobs grow. But it’s the last quarter of college, graduation’s around the corner and all of us are happy spending time together and soaking it in. I’d like to say that it’s my reality. But if I said that, I’d be lying.

I’ll be honest: out of the three quarters of senior year, spring quarter has been the toughest. That isn’t to say it’s been a bad quarter, but there are elements of spring quarter that haven’t been what I envisioned. Accepting that has been difficult for me. It’s caused me to be more sensitive and emotional about things. The reality I’ve created in my head is that everyone else has it better. It’s hard to dispel that false reality when I see everyone else have their 50 life-giving commitments to take care of while I’ve had my issues. On somewhat of a whim, I opened my email and went back to a message a good friend sent to me a few weeks ago; she told me she had the following thought:

“I guess even happy people have some hard times too. We are all human. It's just that sometimes people don't talk about it.”

By nature, I’m a very happy-go-lucky person. I love to bring the joy of life to others and to make a positive impact in their lives. That is something that makes me happy and gets me out of bed in the morning. But let me admit that while I’m a happy person, there are times when I am going through a hard time. One of these times is right now, as I write this. I’ve had an emotionally draining day and am trying to dig myself out of the emotional hole I’ve fallen in today. Just because I’m a happy person doesn’t mean I’m happy and life is good 24-7-365. It’s part of human nature to struggle and I’ve had more moments than usual like that this spring quarter.

Going back to my friend’s thought, I’d like to share what she said next:

“Thank you, Joe for always sharing who you are, even when it's not always easy!”

This gets to the core as to why I’m writing this blog post. I remember hearing this insight once that stuck with me: at our core, what we want as humans is to be gotten. I want you to understand that despite my happy nature, I go through hard times too. We all do. It’s easy for me to forget that fact of life when I’m seeing many of my friends dive into their commitments and I feel like I’ve got less going on. But it’s also about finding ways to dispel that false reality that “everyone else has it better”.

If you’re reading this, I want you to know that if you’re struggling, please know that I’m perfectly capable of struggling too. I don’t want you to feel like whenever you’re going through a hard time that you’re the only one who’s struggling while everyone else is living up life. I promise you that whenever you’re going through a hard time, someone else is too. Feeling like the only one on the struggle bus is something that I’ve felt again and again. Maybe later tonight I’ll have that feeling again. But when you’re going through a hard time, I promise you you’re not the only one.

I want to put myself out there to help someone else out. Other people have helped me recognize that I have a gift of sharing myself authentically, even when it’s not easy. So this is me activating it and doing my best to harness it.

To all those on the struggle bus: you’re not the only one who’s riding it; I mean case in point, I’m riding it right now. I can guarantee you that everyone has ridden it at least once in their lives, even if people don’t admit it straight up. Despite my happy nature, my life isn’t all bunnies and rainbows; no one’s life is all bunnies and rainbows. That’s what makes us human and that is what makes us alike. There are always other people riding the struggle bus at the same time you are; you’re never alone when you’re riding it. Guaranteed.

Descending the Mountaintop and Finding New Ones to Climb

Being a senior at Santa Clara on the eve of my last quarter, there’s definitely been a lot on my mind. Graduation, jobs, where are my friends going to be, etc. Did I mention graduation? Three months to go until we go out into the “real world”, so to speak. I’m reminded of Fr. Jack Treacy’s homily from a few weeks ago, that if the undergraduate experience is like a mountaintop, there comes a time where we must descend it. Whether you agree with that metaphor or not, I know that time is coming and it’s inevitable. Personally, I resonated with the general concept: there comes a time where you must leave things behind, taking what you’ve gained from those experiences and finding it in other places. I have a specific case that’s very personal to me that I’ve related this concept to.

For those who don’t know, I love retreats. I have loved the concept of taking time away from the busy-ness of everyday life and taking time to be with myself and other people, to have a better chance to see people for who they really are. This has been with me through high school and has extended to my college experience. Throughout the past 4 years, I have been involved time and time again with the Search retreat. My first experience of Search was my first true sense of community at Santa Clara. Along with my experiences in CLC, I was so moved by this experience of community that I wanted to come back as a leader and I had the amazing opportunity to be a leader fall of my junior year. Having grown from that experience and having taken a retreat off (I didn’t feel called to lead), I was offered the opportunity to serve as a coordinator of this retreat this past fall. Each of my experiences with this retreat has been amazing and an opportunity to grow. After a period of discernment and reflection, I was at peace that the last retreat I led would be my last one. Therefore, I consciously chose not to apply to lead the retreat this spring. I felt okay with my decision and subconsciously thought I wouldn’t struggle with it. After all, I know I had my opportunities to lead and it was time for others to have that opportunity.

Well that subconscious part of me turned out to be completely wrong. As it turns out, many people I share close connections with are leading in the spring. Throughout the weekend they were on the leaders’ retreat, I was suppressing negative feelings, but I didn’t recognize them as such. It all came to a head after 9 PM mass that Sunday. I did a pretty good job hiding them from my friends as I was hanging out outside the Mission Church right after Mass. But driving home, my head was a mess. I couldn’t think straight. I wouldn’t be able to tell you all of the specific thoughts that were hovering in my brain, but I can remember one particular voice from within talking to me that night. It said the following:

“All my friends there are going to bond and grow close. That’s awesome. But they’re going to grow so much that they won’t need me anymore. I’ll be useless. I’ll be worthless to them.”

It was the voice of fear. It had taken over my thoughts and was clouding my sense of rationality. After having conversations with friends both on the retreat team and those outside about this experience and fear, things came back to perspective. One really good friend reminded me that I have empowered and inspired a number of leaders on the team. Another told me that through those connections, I’m effectively still leading Searchers through the current leaders. That same friend gave me the opening to come to him if I ever felt the current leader team was starting to seem exclusive. Yet another good friend invited me to take what I’ve gained from these experiences and to find ways to share it in other communities. I’ve grown so much from these retreats and I have a lot to offer, both for those on the retreat leader team and to other people in other places. Since that friend gave me her invitation, I’ve been trying to take on that challenge and to expand the circle of Search love which I draw so much from. With their help, I began to feel calmer inside and my heart was no longer crying out as a result of this voice.

That sense of peace and further reflection allowed me to realize where I was. I desire to find communities where I can share a sense of emotional intensity and deep intimacy. During my time at Santa Clara, I found it in my three experiences with the Search retreat. At the time I was experiencing this voice of fear, I had no ideas where I would find this type of community after college and I was becoming confused and demoralized internally as a result. I was caught between a rock and a hard place when it came to my search for this type of community. On one hand, I couldn’t see anything within the darkness of confusion. On the other hand, I was looking back and seeing the “mountaintop” from which I descended. That “in between” isn’t the easiest place to be, but last Saturday I started to see glimpses of mountains, glimmers of hope through the darkness of confusion.

I attended World CLC Day on the recommendation of one of my good friends on the council who couldn’t be there. Considering it was the day after the end of Finals Week, very few students not on the council were there. Naturally I felt some hesitation with the age gap of attendees. But it was through this day I started to see new mountains to climb within the darkness. At lunchtime, we went on an Emmaus walk with one person we didn’t know and shared various elements of our faith life. I picked one of the younger non-SCU attendees and walked her to the Mission Gardens. She’s 10 years older than me and has had a wealth of life experience. During our sharing, we struck a common chord on retreats and the effect different retreats have had on us. At one point, she shared her experience on a retreat called Caritas, which had a really strong effect on her. She then proceeded to share with me about her own experience on a silent retreat (after I shared how important mine was to me). Hearing her testimony about both retreat experiences, I felt a burst of inspiration. After the past few weeks of crawling in the darkness of confusion, I finally had ideas. I finally had learned of opportunities to find the type of community I desire for after graduation. I was no longer lost. And it helped me feel at peace with where I’m at with my search for communities post-graduation.

Going back to Fr. Jack’s analogy, descending this mountaintop hasn’t been easy. On my descent, I’ve faced internal struggles which have sometimes gotten the best of me. But when I think about it, there’s another mountaintop in the distance for me to ascend. For the past few weeks, I couldn’t find that mountain; it was shrouded in darkness. But with the help of my friends and a chance encounter, I see a whole new set of mountains to climb, a whole new set of mountaintops to reach and find the type of communities I desire. It won’t always be comfortable and it’ll be a challenge, but I hope I can lean into the discomfort I might feel and use it to grow as a person. I’ll conclude this post with the somewhat-paraphrased words of a wise friend of mine.

“Lean into the discomfort. It will ultimately help you grow.”

The Self-Comparison Problem

I’ve always had a problem with comparing myself to others. For me, it’s difficult not to. To give an example, I’ll look at a mutual friend and think that their other friend got to do “XYZ” with mutual friend while I only got to do “X”. I’ll look around a group of people who will look happy and I’ll think to myself, “Everyone’s so happy and I’m here with my own set of problems. I’m just dragging the mood down”. 

I’ll compare experiences with other people too, and this one has more layers. For example, when talking about weekends and hearing about another friend’s experience, I’ll explain I did “A” except whatever they did (regardless of what it is) sounds like “ABCDEFG” in my head. Their weekend sounds so much more fun than mine. Or worse, if it’s the same type of experience (albeit in different times) that I and another person have, I’ll start thinking how the other person’s experience was so much better, so much more fun, and that I missed out. And I’ll be prone to being subtly obnoxious (oxymoronic as it sounds) and trying to interject myself into a conversation other people are having about their shared said experience with my own tidbits to try to block out that “theirs was so much better” feeling.

“People have got it better than me. They have more fun. They get to do more. Their lives are so much more interesting.” The things that run through my head…

It’s a really self-destructive mindset that burns me. I often put myself down compared to others because I think they have all the fun. By virtue of being “not me”, whatever others do is better. That’s what this mindset tells me at least. Thing is, I know that's completely ridiculous, but my mind can think that way anyway.

I guess it’s a good time for me to blog about this because my Lenten goal is to try to phase out the “self-depreciating” part of my nature. I want to stop comparing myself to others. I want to have a greater appreciation of my own self-worth while balancing that with having an appreciation for others. If I can stop comparing myself to others, I’ll take a giant step towards that goal. It’s definitely something to strive for.

It Is What It Is...

It’s a phrase I’ve been saying both in my head and out loud a lot more lately. Maybe it’s because it’s the blogger handle of one of my really good friends or maybe it’s more because of my instincts. I really don’t know. What I do know is that there’s a lot more wisdom in that little phrase than what first meets the eye. I’ve wanted to write and reflect on this for a while, but I never found the moment to really focus on it, until now.

While I don’t plan on going into it very much, over the past few days I’ve had trouble sorting out things in my mind. There’s been a lot going on in there and some of my mental energy has been spent on trying to sort things. So let’s just say I’ve been in a worse position lately to be completely thrown off.

And thrown off I was. Tuesday night, I arrived at a friend’s house expecting to have pasta for dinner, when surely enough I opened the kitchen door to the sound of “Surprise!” and “Happy Birthday!” If only I had taken more seriously the one friend who told me that my friends were thinking of changing my birthday celebration date to Tuesday. Should’ve also realized Ratchet house had a door to the kitchen. Oh well. I was surprised, I was happy, and that was pretty awesome and funny.

Though actually, I’m scarily good at hiding my negative feelings. Beneath my happiness was a nasty swirl of emotions that was taking my attention away from the surprise that was going on. I immediately took notice of who couldn’t make it and the fact that my calendar had been thrown upside down. A not-so-fun fact about me, I can be a bit picky when it comes to dates. It’s a mindset thing for me. If I’m expecting to do “X” on a day, then I’m going to put my mental energy towards “X”. Except if “X” really happens on a different day, more likely than not I’m not mentally prepared (which is probably the point of a surprise). So there I was, thinking to myself, “Wait. That’s actually my birthday celebration happening now.” That swirl of emotions included things like “Oh no, (so and so) couldn’t come” and feeling like I got bumped off the original day for something/someone else, among other things.

It was recognizing that I had those feelings afterwards that made me lose sleep last night. I had those negative feelings deep within, but I felt like having those feelings meant I was being ungrateful. Those feelings existed, but how could I let down all my friends who had put in an amazing amount of effort to put it on by having those feelings? It’s the definition of being between a mental rock and a mental hard place. I was dwelling upon the negatives amidst all the blatant efforts of friendship and love people were trying to show me. How could I make sense of everything? What kind of person could be consumed by negative feelings after such a wonderful birthday surprise? Me apparently…

That night before I went home, I opened up to one of my friends who planned it and admitted the negativity that was lying within. Those feelings were raw and I felt like the worst person in the world to admit their existence after a highly thought-out birthday surprise. He talked me through it though that negative swirl of emotions fully affected me on my drive home. I just wanted to sleep.

Surely enough, that friend texted me addressing this same issue the following morning. He had a birthday recently and spoke about how one of his first thoughts on his birthday was how “why didn’t (so and so) do this specific thing…they are my best friends”. Upon reading that, I felt reassured. It was okay to have those feelings and to never invalidate them. He also shared with me about how he remembered the friends that made that specific birthday thing what it was. That was the balance I think I was looking for. To acknowledge that some friends weren’t able to make it, but there were other friends who were able to, and to be grateful for both (because I know those in the former would’ve tried their damned hardest to make it). Back to my friend, for those friends he was referring to in his own case, they did do their own special birthday thing for him. It may not have physically manifested in that certain thing, but they put in their birthday efforts for him too.

It somehow didn’t hit me until seeing his text. I was so focused on one specific thing that I was overlooking all the other birthday efforts my other friends have made. Moreso, I’ve had or will have opportunities to spend birthday friend time with those who didn’t make it to the surprise. Imagine Dragons, birthday lunch, brunch, dinner, etc. How could I forget all that? Or forget the friends who have been super busy but made the effort to pitch in (even if the schedule prevented them from physically being there)? Sometimes it’s those reminders that really help get you back on your feet.

Going back to the titular phrase of this post, I started thinking those exact words after reading my friend’s text. Surely things may not have been as my mind imagined it. I mean really, what night are you going to be able to squish all of your friends into Ratchet House? For someone who doesn't get surprised very often, changing the date is something that needs to happen for the surprise to work. But for the way it turned out, I want to express my gratitude. Thank you everyone for all the efforts for my birthday and making it quite memorable. =)

With all that written, I do want to end with some wise words that I’ve been coming back to time and time again.

“It is what it is. But remember there is always a reason to smile.”

Learning to Fall

A few weeks ago, I started listening to the band Love and Theft a little more, checking out their music since I already liked a couple of their songs. I stumbled upon their song “Learning to Fall” and really liked it.  Of course as it happens with many songs I listened to, I stopped listening to it for a while. But when reflecting upon some things, the overall theme of the words “learning to fall” kept coming back to me. And honestly, I think I found some insight there.

If there’s something I’m learning about myself, it’s that there are areas of my life where I’m a total perfectionist. There are some areas where I know I’m weaker at (drawing and athleticism to name two). I know those types of things aren’t my strongest traits, so falling short in those areas isn’t too much of a big deal to me. But when I fail at areas that I feel I am stronger at, I take it hard. In my head, I think I need to be perfect. “I know better, but how could I mess up?”

When I fall short in my strong areas, my first instinct is to feel regret over where I messed up and then see how I can improve. I think inherently, acknowledging where I went wrong is a good thing. Same goes for the intention to improve on myself. Lately, I’m finding myself becoming unbalanced on the former. I regret where I went wrong, but then I take it to a point to beat myself up. In that case, the worst of my perfectionism comes to light: it no longer becomes a mechanism to better myself; it just makes me unnecessarily feel worse. And I let it sit with me for a good amount of time. There becomes a point where that regret turns into shame, which isn’t good. While failure can help me see areas where I could improve, dwelling on it too much isn’t a good thing.

This is where I believe learning to fall is a good challenge. For example, I value relationships with other people and the joy and love I draw from them. I like to think that loving people and making them feel cared for is a strong trait of mine. When I fall short in my relationships, it hits me hard and it takes me a little more time to be able to accept that I fell short. I tell myself: “I have to be perfect with other people. I don’t want to hurt the people I care about.” But when I think that, I forget one fundamental truth: I’m human. I’m not perfect nor am I capable of being perfect. Learning to accept my humanity and imperfection is part of the process. I’m going to fail from time to time, even in the areas of my life where I feel I’m stronger.

For me, it’s a hard lesson to learn. Using my relationships example, my failings mean letting people down sometimes. But that possibility of failure exists because of my fundamental humanity. I have to learn to accept that possibility of failure because I’m inherently capable of it. Turning a failure into a net positive means things will be better in the long run. I struggle with accepting my own failures in certain areas of my life. In relationships specifically, I worry about failing and letting others down. But ultimately, regardless of what it is, letting go of that fear of failure is all part of learning to fall.

“And I don't worry at all
I'm still learning to fall”

-“Learning to Fall”, Love and Theft

Experiencing A Simple, Yet Powerful, Act of Love

In my first blog post, I talked about my constant battle with my long-standing FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Taking the advice of one of my best friends, every time my FOMO would come back, I would try and think back to what was I doing that was life-giving, helping myself, or something similar. If I wasn’t doing something and was starting to feel like I was missing out, I must’ve been doing something to help myself. But what happens when that doesn’t work? I stared at that situation straight in my face today.

Two months or so ago there was a Senior Night at school. To try to explain it, our student government puts on a Senior Night for all the seniors where they can essentially celebrate being seniors. Last quarter it started at 10 PM or (some similarly super late time like that) on a Tuesday night. In addition, with some sort of donation, there is a “souvenir” or something that can only be obtained by going to said Senior Night.

Flash forward to today. I was sitting in Campus Ministry around noon hanging out and doing the usual. Eventually within a 5-10 minute period, a whole bunch of seniors, like 8 or so of them, who I’m friends with were all congregating around the desk. Most of them stated their excitement at receiving their souvenirs, which are steins marked with our class year on it. Within all my friends’ excitement about receiving the steins, I stood there feeling awkward inside and rather uncomfortable. Of course naturally I happened to be the one person within that group of senior friends that wasn’t getting a stein. I started being consumed by my FOMO again. I tried to think back, “What was I doing during that Senior Night that was beneficial to me?” Sleeping? Doing homework? Having a conversation with someone? I couldn’t remember; I was drawing blanks. I spent the next hour or so dwelling on how I had missed out on Senior Night and didn’t have that memento that so many of my friends had and were excited about. My FOMO has always been a part of me and in this case, it had activated full force. In my head, I had missed out and I was seeing it in plain sight with all my friends who were moments away from obtaining these mementos. Despite all my best efforts, I was allowing my FOMO with Senior Night to make me feel crappy about myself.

Before I move on, I do want to emphasize that none of my friends could have known they ended up activating my FOMO; they had every reason to be excited after all. Most times when my FOMO activates, it’s innocent and unintentional and is no fault of anyone. That is true in this case.

There were other events through the day that allowed me to shove my FOMO to the side and not let it affect me. Walking around the Villas after dinner at Pintrest Palace, I ran into my friend Katherine Burkhuch who happened to be in Campus Ministry while my FOMO was consuming me (I had started talking about it to those who were in CM after all my other friends left to claim their steins). Katherine stopped for a moment and told me that my name had been included in the list to contact if there were extra steins. I smiled and told her I really appreciated it and went on my way.

Saying “I really appreciated it” turned out to be a massive understatement. During the drive home, I kept thinking back to that moment. Katherine had made her best efforts to alleviate my FOMO. When I couldn’t do it for myself, she took the time to think of me, consider me, and wanted to make me feel included. With these thoughts in mind, I started to feel a rush of emotion. I felt loved and I felt like I mattered enough to someone that they’d make the time and effort to reach out and include me. It filled me with just pure happiness. Out of compassion, love, or whatever it may be, Katherine took the time to reach out her hand to the lonely dark corner I was in and helped pull me out. For someone who has had many experiences of the proverbial lonely dark corner in my life, having someone pull me out of that corner means a lot.

A few days ago, I checked in with one of my mentors about life. One of the things we touched upon was how I shower love on people a lot. She challenged me to find the balance between showing love to other people and letting other people show it to me. Taking it in, this is really a moment where I allowed Katherine’s act of love to surround me. For something I’ve always struggled with, this act of love came at the right moment. And really, it’s amazing what a simple act or consideration for someone else can do. I’ve done my best to do it for other people but when it’s done to you, I feel like it’s that much more impactful. And my mentor’s advice about letting people show love to me really came to life.

Whether I ultimately receive the stein or not doesn’t matter. I may even feel I wouldn’t deserve it because I wasn’t at Senior Night. The stein would be cool, but it’s not really the point of why I’m writing this. Sometimes when all else fails, letting someone do an act of compassion for me is the best way of doing things. My negative feelings because of my FOMO got replaced with an act of love shown by someone else to me. Was it a simple act of love? Yeah it was. But it was powerful. All it took was a simple act of compassion to assist me in batting my FOMO. It really is amazing.

A Snapshot into the Core of Joe Sarmiento

A few weeks ago, I heard a talk where somebody made the point that passion originates from

suffering. He said many of our passions come directly from our suffering and used Jesus’ example (suffering on the cross because he was so passionate about saving humanity) to illustrate that point. Essentially, what we develop our passions because of our sufferings. It’s a really good point actually. Upon reflection, I found most of the things I’m passionate about are because I’ve suffered one way or another. I could write a whole series of blog posts about this, but I’ll see in due time if that happens.

My mind likes to wander a lot; there is always something on my mind. One particular day on a jog, I was starting to think about this notion again. I felt like I was onto something and had one of those retrospective thoughts. It regards something that is at my core and makes me who I am today. As far as I know, I’ve only shared about this once: when I led Kairos 92 at Bellarmine as a senior, 4 years ago. Not that I can read minds, but I’m sure many people have probably asked themselves one version of this question, “How is Joe so full of energy and full of life?” I bet I've been asked that question myself. With that in mind, I’m here to answer that question. And maybe, just maybe you’ll understand me a little bit better than you did before reading.

When I was in 7^th grade, I had a big problem personality-wise: I had a really short temper. I was really easy to make fun of because people knew I would get frustrated quickly. I’ve always been sensitive but at this stage in my life, my buttons were easily pushed. I would yell, scream, and be out of control. I was hurt and would quickly take it out on people. Even as a 7^th grader, I was really outspoken about certain things. Most notably, I loved Cal football and absolutely despised Stanford. That’s still true today but I trumpeted that much more in middle school.

This anger issue came to a head one day in Mrs. Richter’s pre-algebra class. We had some extra time at the end of class. I don’t remember how this happened, but some people, including one of my middle school friends, decided to write on the whiteboard some version of “Go Stanford! Boo Cal!” I…was…livid. Filled with anger, I walked up to that friend and proceeded to twist his wrist tightly to seize that whiteboard marker out of his hand. Well, Mrs. Richter noticed my fit of anger and I proceeded to get called out. That wasn’t the end of it; I got a misconduct slip for my actions. Upon receiving that little red slip, my heart dropped and I realized, “Oh no…my parents are going to know about this.” A little while after this, Mrs. Richter and my parents had a talk (with me in the room) explaining my short temper was a huge issue. I don’t remember what we talked about that day after school but at least my parents knew about my problem.

Before 8^th grade started, I made a promise to myself. Whenever people would try to get me angry, I would smile at them. I would smile at people and at everything in general instead of letting my anger get the best of me. Slowly but surely, times I would get angry would be replaced by times where I’d smile and laugh things off. Thankfully, I reached the point where my anger became a non-issue; I’m all the better for it.

When I think about and reflect upon this experience, I realize I’m still living out this promise today. This takes many different forms: joking around, sharing smiles with people around me, being with people and enjoying their presence, and many more ways. This experience is more deep-rooted within me than I realize sometimes. It's something that makes me...me.

I’d like to conclude by answering the question I posed early in this blog post: “How is Joe Sarmiento full of energy and full of life?” Here is my answer:

I suffered in the past because I would allow myself to become angry and be wary of people. Because of this suffering, I took it upon myself to live life in a different way as a result. I committed myself to live a life full of smiles instead of anger. This is why I have such an energetic and full-of-life personality.