In accounting, there is this thing called opportunity cost. Basically, it is a measure of the benefits you give up by choosing to take a certain path. The benefits of the path you choose should (hopefully!) outweigh the opportunity cost that you had to give up.
This concept applies to pretty much every choice in life. Do I get a salad or a burger? If I get a burger, I give up the health benefits of that salad. If I get a salad, I give up the enjoyment of that burger...and I would definitely enjoy that burger. These choices seemed somewhat trivial growing up. I chose T-ball over ballet and then I chose horses over baseball. I guess those choices did have a last impact, but they were so much easier to make because I didn't think about it. I liked baseball better, so I chose it. I didn't think about how I would meet people in baseball and not get to meet people I would have met in ballet. I didn't think about how much more flexible and coordinated adult me might be if I had stuck with ballet instead. I just picked.
I wish it were still that easy, but the stakes feel higher.
I'm doing a mission's trip in Ireland this summer:
Benefits:
- I get to go to Ireland.
- God is going to work. I know it.
- I'm going to meet such cool people and build such unique relationships.
- SO MUCH ADVENTURE
- I get to go to Ireland and the adventure is calling my name. (These deserved two bullets)
Less: Opportunity Cost:
- I will get to spend literally a week with most of my friends and my brother.
- I'm missing an extended family camping trip with cousins I haven't seen in a long time.
- I was going to buy a car and work.
Both the benefits and costs have lasting effects on my life. There's a lot of pressure when we make choices these days. For me, I know God wants me in Ireland. I don't know why, but he does. Hopefully he'll let me in on it someday, but for now I rest pretty easy. When I start to stress about decisions I've made I just remember why I made them and I'm usually okay with it. I've found that for the most part, everything will work out in the end. That doesn't mean you should go try meth. I can't promise that's going to work out well for you.
I've just found that I make decisions much more complicated than they are. I should think less.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
The future is coming...someday.
I've never really been someone with passion. I'm pretty calm externally. I'm more of a thinker than a doer. I've never been swept up by the idea that I could change the world. Maybe that's a confidence thing, like other people can make a difference, but nothing I do could ever make a big enough impact to change things. To me, the world has always just felt like a huge tide. It's destroying life as we know it, but we're all swept up and no one can really stop it. The politics in this country are gridlocked by bipartisan hatred, the corporate world is a mess, priorities are skewed, the things I've trusted in the church have been revealed as only slightly more reliable than the rest of the world. I guess in the end we're all people and people make no sense to me. To me there's no changing it.
So I became an accounting major. I enjoy accounting. I'm pretty good at it. It's black and white. That's pretty much enough, right? I can be an ethical accountant in the evil world of business. That would be enough. I don't need anything bigger. I'm just trying to live my life. My job is not my identity. I just want a job. Other people can be passionate about things...Good for them.
Research shows that above a subsistence level, higher income has no correlation with happiness. Things outside your wage make you happy. I already knew that, but thinking about it does beg the question...is accounting fulfilling enough? I kind of figured that since I liked it well enough and it would provide a good livelihood, that would be enough for my life. I could find fulfillment in other places. I wanted to be able to do cool things and travel and not worry, but I guess those things aren't enough to make someone happy. They won't keep your marriage together or force your kids to listen to you.
What I find myself asking is, "Is it enough to go work each day for a company whose sole purpose is to turn a profit?" Can I really spend my whole life helping the rich keep track of their money and maximize their profits? Maybe it's just the finals week crisis talking, but I feel completely disillusioned with the world of business and money.
Everyone I meet in business school seems to have the same motive, and I don't share it. Their life goals and mindsets aren't the same as mine so why are we pursuing the same track?
Why am I pursuing business?
I guess I started into business with two things in mind. Business is full of people with a less than powerful moral compass...obviously I'm generalizing here, but I figured I could be one of the good ones.
I could also be one of a minority of women in the big business-corporate world.
But I already work in a place where people aren't that excited about their job, and I go to school with people who think predominantly about themselves....and I don't like it.
I realized that it's really easy for me to go through life and be passionate about absolutely nothing. I know my job doesn't have to provide that passion, but why shouldn't it? Why can't I work at a place where people care about other people? Why did I even want to start working in big business? I don't want to spend my life crunching numbers simply to find out how to make those numbers bigger or smaller. I want to crunch numbers because they're actually important.
I'm not leaving business because I actually do like it. But given the opportunity to choose between a career at a big accounting firm and a small start-up with a big vision...I'm picking the start-up hands down.
That's definitely not something I was planning on when entering business...I don't even know what is happening to me today. Have you ever just woken up and been completely dissatisfied with your own view of the world?
That's today.
I just want to do things that help people. I just want to change the world.
So I became an accounting major. I enjoy accounting. I'm pretty good at it. It's black and white. That's pretty much enough, right? I can be an ethical accountant in the evil world of business. That would be enough. I don't need anything bigger. I'm just trying to live my life. My job is not my identity. I just want a job. Other people can be passionate about things...Good for them.
Research shows that above a subsistence level, higher income has no correlation with happiness. Things outside your wage make you happy. I already knew that, but thinking about it does beg the question...is accounting fulfilling enough? I kind of figured that since I liked it well enough and it would provide a good livelihood, that would be enough for my life. I could find fulfillment in other places. I wanted to be able to do cool things and travel and not worry, but I guess those things aren't enough to make someone happy. They won't keep your marriage together or force your kids to listen to you.
What I find myself asking is, "Is it enough to go work each day for a company whose sole purpose is to turn a profit?" Can I really spend my whole life helping the rich keep track of their money and maximize their profits? Maybe it's just the finals week crisis talking, but I feel completely disillusioned with the world of business and money.
Everyone I meet in business school seems to have the same motive, and I don't share it. Their life goals and mindsets aren't the same as mine so why are we pursuing the same track?
Why am I pursuing business?
I guess I started into business with two things in mind. Business is full of people with a less than powerful moral compass...obviously I'm generalizing here, but I figured I could be one of the good ones.
I could also be one of a minority of women in the big business-corporate world.
But I already work in a place where people aren't that excited about their job, and I go to school with people who think predominantly about themselves....and I don't like it.
I realized that it's really easy for me to go through life and be passionate about absolutely nothing. I know my job doesn't have to provide that passion, but why shouldn't it? Why can't I work at a place where people care about other people? Why did I even want to start working in big business? I don't want to spend my life crunching numbers simply to find out how to make those numbers bigger or smaller. I want to crunch numbers because they're actually important.
I'm not leaving business because I actually do like it. But given the opportunity to choose between a career at a big accounting firm and a small start-up with a big vision...I'm picking the start-up hands down.
That's definitely not something I was planning on when entering business...I don't even know what is happening to me today. Have you ever just woken up and been completely dissatisfied with your own view of the world?
That's today.
I just want to do things that help people. I just want to change the world.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Happy Sexual Wednesday? (Well, kind of)
It seems like everyone in my life is obsessed with sex. Maybe "obsessed" is a strong word, but it sure does seem like it's everywhere. It permeates every form of entertainment: music, movies, TV, advertising. High school and college are always about who's sleeping with who, who's not not sleeping with anyone and who's sleeping with everyone. I learned to have safe sex in school, abstinence at church and home, and promiscuity from my peers. I watched my friends explore (or deny) their sexuality. Everyone had their own way of dealing with it, whether publicly or behind closed doors.
(Just to preface, I'm not discounting how amazing it is to wait. I really truly think that's how it's meant to be. What I take issue with and what this blog is about is how both non-Christians and Christians approach abstinence.)
I've grown up being told that sex is pretty cool, but it's meant for the context of marriage. I've had the once yearly relationship series at youth group, constant teaching in D-Group, and the everyday reminders at home. I've heard everything under the sky about why you should wait:
"Your sex will be better"
"It's your gift to your future husband"
"You don't want to have any regrets"
I wish I hadn't been told these things and I wish we didn't continue to tell them to young girls. You can't promise my sex will be better. That's ridiculous. It sets girls up to idolize marriage. There is no way you can know the sex will be better. You hear those studies that compare the happiness of married couples sex lives between those that had sex pre-marriage and those who waited until their wedding night...they also say so-and-so percentage of couples who waited are happier. What about that percentage of couples who waited, but don't report that their marriages and sex lives are fantastic? It's not that cut & dry. You can't guarantee that it will be all peaches and cream when they walk out of that church. Don't imply that I will/won't have a happy marriage based on my pre-marriage decisions.
Then there's that whole "gift" thing. This one probably makes me the most mad. It made sense and seemed compelling when I was 13 and had never held held hands with a boy, but beyond that it just makes me feel like crap. It implies that I'm only as valuable as my abstinence, that I'm worthless without my virginity, that my husband will love me less if I fail. I have a lot of "gifts" to bring to marriage and I don't consider my virginity the biggest one.
"You don't want to have any regrets."
I don't think that's true. Most people I've talked to don't regret their pasts. Even if they are now in a committed relationship or married, they know how they felt at the time and they don't regret their decisions. (Btws, I'm talking about sex in other committed relationships, not random hookups. I think people regret those more.) I know people who do wait always are glad they waited, but I don't think that it's necessarily accurate to say that those who don't wait regret it.
So what should we tell young girls?
- God intends for us to wait. Sex outside of marriage is a sin...just like lying, murder and gossip. Sex is intended to be the signature on the contract of marriage. So God wants us to be pure. It's not something to give away lightly, but just like everything else, God's grace covers you. And it's okay to long for intimacy, there's nothing wrong with you if you desire sex, but know that a casual hookup or even a relationship isn't going to fill that longing. It can only be filled when you know that you are loved, both eternally by God and completely by your partner.
In a Christian culture that prizes abstinence above all else, I watch Christian couples push boundaries, but don't worry because they don't go "all the way." In a Christian culture where the biggest concern is "How far is too far?" the focus is all wrong. Darkness is the absence of light, but light is not absence of darkness. It is its own entity, with it's own source, not dependent on the darkness. Similarly, having sex may mean the absence of purity, but purity is not simply the absence of sex. It too is its own entity with its own source. I'm a virgin but I have definitely gone through times where I was less than pure. Purity has to be more than physical. Can we please focus less on the act of sex and more on the mindset? Because it's very possible to have had sex and be far more pure than someone who is physically "pure." I'd agree that it's probably harder to be pure after sex, but let's be real...crazier things have happened. So let's stop telling God that he can't forgive and restore people that have sinned sexually. And let's stop telling teens that God can't or won't forgive them.
I think sex is a sin and should be treated as such. But that's all it is. Living a sinful lifestyle is just as easy whether you're sexually active or not.
(Just to preface, I'm not discounting how amazing it is to wait. I really truly think that's how it's meant to be. What I take issue with and what this blog is about is how both non-Christians and Christians approach abstinence.)
I've grown up being told that sex is pretty cool, but it's meant for the context of marriage. I've had the once yearly relationship series at youth group, constant teaching in D-Group, and the everyday reminders at home. I've heard everything under the sky about why you should wait:
"Your sex will be better"
"It's your gift to your future husband"
"You don't want to have any regrets"
I wish I hadn't been told these things and I wish we didn't continue to tell them to young girls. You can't promise my sex will be better. That's ridiculous. It sets girls up to idolize marriage. There is no way you can know the sex will be better. You hear those studies that compare the happiness of married couples sex lives between those that had sex pre-marriage and those who waited until their wedding night...they also say so-and-so percentage of couples who waited are happier. What about that percentage of couples who waited, but don't report that their marriages and sex lives are fantastic? It's not that cut & dry. You can't guarantee that it will be all peaches and cream when they walk out of that church. Don't imply that I will/won't have a happy marriage based on my pre-marriage decisions.
Then there's that whole "gift" thing. This one probably makes me the most mad. It made sense and seemed compelling when I was 13 and had never held held hands with a boy, but beyond that it just makes me feel like crap. It implies that I'm only as valuable as my abstinence, that I'm worthless without my virginity, that my husband will love me less if I fail. I have a lot of "gifts" to bring to marriage and I don't consider my virginity the biggest one.
"You don't want to have any regrets."
I don't think that's true. Most people I've talked to don't regret their pasts. Even if they are now in a committed relationship or married, they know how they felt at the time and they don't regret their decisions. (Btws, I'm talking about sex in other committed relationships, not random hookups. I think people regret those more.) I know people who do wait always are glad they waited, but I don't think that it's necessarily accurate to say that those who don't wait regret it.
So what should we tell young girls?
- God intends for us to wait. Sex outside of marriage is a sin...just like lying, murder and gossip. Sex is intended to be the signature on the contract of marriage. So God wants us to be pure. It's not something to give away lightly, but just like everything else, God's grace covers you. And it's okay to long for intimacy, there's nothing wrong with you if you desire sex, but know that a casual hookup or even a relationship isn't going to fill that longing. It can only be filled when you know that you are loved, both eternally by God and completely by your partner.
In a Christian culture that prizes abstinence above all else, I watch Christian couples push boundaries, but don't worry because they don't go "all the way." In a Christian culture where the biggest concern is "How far is too far?" the focus is all wrong. Darkness is the absence of light, but light is not absence of darkness. It is its own entity, with it's own source, not dependent on the darkness. Similarly, having sex may mean the absence of purity, but purity is not simply the absence of sex. It too is its own entity with its own source. I'm a virgin but I have definitely gone through times where I was less than pure. Purity has to be more than physical. Can we please focus less on the act of sex and more on the mindset? Because it's very possible to have had sex and be far more pure than someone who is physically "pure." I'd agree that it's probably harder to be pure after sex, but let's be real...crazier things have happened. So let's stop telling God that he can't forgive and restore people that have sinned sexually. And let's stop telling teens that God can't or won't forgive them.
I think sex is a sin and should be treated as such. But that's all it is. Living a sinful lifestyle is just as easy whether you're sexually active or not.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Finding love
I think I need to admit that I need to be loved. I don't like to admit that. I don't like I admit that I need anything from other people. It feels like such a girly thing to say. That I desire for someone to care about me, to think I'm beautiful. And I hate to be girly.
But I do want that.
So I try to find it in all the wrong places. Guys don't care, or maybe they do, or they could, but I'm throwing a lot of time and energy their way for something they can't give me. It's time and energy they don't even know about. It's time spent worrying and dreaming and feeling something I don't even really want.
I don't know what I want.
Because what I want is not something I or this world understands. It's a longing that can only be filled when I realize that I am loved and I always have been and that it is in fact enough. I think the world tries to tell us that there's never enough. That I'm not smart enough, pretty enough or social enough. No matter who you are, you will never be enough. So I forget that under all of my confusion and pain and longing there is a God who made me, loves me, and will fulfill me if only I'll let him.
He wants me to let go.
Let go of the frustration, the planning, the need and just let him love me. Because only then can I love myself and let myself be loved by others.
Which in the end is what we all want, right?
But I do want that.
So I try to find it in all the wrong places. Guys don't care, or maybe they do, or they could, but I'm throwing a lot of time and energy their way for something they can't give me. It's time and energy they don't even know about. It's time spent worrying and dreaming and feeling something I don't even really want.
I don't know what I want.
Because what I want is not something I or this world understands. It's a longing that can only be filled when I realize that I am loved and I always have been and that it is in fact enough. I think the world tries to tell us that there's never enough. That I'm not smart enough, pretty enough or social enough. No matter who you are, you will never be enough. So I forget that under all of my confusion and pain and longing there is a God who made me, loves me, and will fulfill me if only I'll let him.
He wants me to let go.
Let go of the frustration, the planning, the need and just let him love me. Because only then can I love myself and let myself be loved by others.
Which in the end is what we all want, right?
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Thankfulness Jar: 2012
Some are serious, some are silly, here are a few of the highlights:
- I'm thankful people at UW get my sense of humor.
- I'm thankful for raincoats.
- I'm thankful God made me so smart.
- I'm thankful for the Christian people God has given me at UW.
- I'm thankful for the light at the end of the tunnel.
- I'm thankful for fall.
- I'm thankful for opportunities.
- I'm thankful for God's timing.
- I'm thankful for the freedom to make good and bad choices.
- I'm thankful for new friends.
- I'm thankful for adults in my life who support and love me, no matter what. Not everyone gets that base.
- I'm thankful for coffee and youth pastors and good advice.
- I'm thankful for winter mornings.
So yea, there are some of the things I was thankful for this year. A few I don't even remember the stories behind. Excited to start clean with an empty jar in 2013. And I made a little book of this past year's thanks!
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I love you all. Thanks for making it an awesome year.
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