Thoughts on patience and giving a crap and my ambivalence towards that.

TL;DR: Live life, make decisions, don't fret. I'm Colton and I make a lot of sense sometimes, but today my thoughts aren't incredibly coherent.

I've noticed that I manage twice-monthly posts on this blog, so I figured it's about time for another. I am in a strange season right now as many friends will attest to my claiming that. As I was telling my Baptist friend Jacob today, I almost always want to skip steps. When I'm doing tedious or menial tasks, physical stuff, I like doing everything in order and doing it properly, but when it comes to people or relationships or life, I want to skip steps. Physical pain easily fades, I have just faint memories of the worst pain I've ever been in, nothing that scares me or keeps me from doing stuff now. The thought of emotional work and doing stuff that's not easy is scary, though. I know it's necessary and I always end up a better person from either the experience or the lesson learned from it, but that doesn't make it any easier in my head. A thing that goes along with that is that since I'm a pretty black and white person (much to my own chagrin), I tend to hate the transitional learning period because of the lack of wholeness in it. I want to be done with something shortly after I start it simply because I don't like not being "there". I hate mess-ups and especially steps backward. These are all necessary in the learning process, but it's a pain in the butt.

Patience. Yep, patience is what God's working with me on right now. I'm too impatient for this.

It is, however, in the steps, the mess-ups, the mistakes where we learn the lesson. That said, I'm 20 years old and often feel as dumb as I did when I was 16, making similar, if not the same mistakes. Thankfully, I make them less frequently. I talked with a friend last night who's in his mid 30's (man, I have a lot of friends who are older than me) and he was describing to me how he still feels like he's 18, it just hasn't sunk in yet. I also have friends who are younger than me that say they feel old. Life, feeling old or young, being mature, they're all fickle things. The more I grow into God, the less I care about that stuff. It all comes out in the wash, I think. I care about that stuff and about appearing a certain way because the desire to care about it is innate within me, but the more I learn of God and the closer I grow, the less important that stuff becomes. Yes, being mature is important, don't get me wrong, but becoming mature comes from growing in God and making proper decisions, not willing or wishing or thinking yourself mature. That's why I try not to fret too much about feeling young or feeling old or feeling or being mature. Those dang decisions though, that's part of the whole "steps" thing that I want to skip. It's inescapable, life is a series of decisions, or however that inspirational quote goes, and I will always have decisions to make, steps to take and all that. (The Step-by-Step theme song is playing in my head right now.)

Breather. Okay, let's boil this down to the simple points that I do for myself and for the reader that may be lost in the point I'm trying to make since I'm not that good at making a cohesive point with any tact:

• Life is difficult at times, but is usually only as difficult as we let it be. 
• Don't fret, just live and trust God. He's better at this than you. See above bullet point.
• I'm really, really ADD today. Many rabbits found in the holes I've traveled in my conversations today.
• I'm impatient, but the main way one becomes more patient is to just simply be patient when things test your impatience. Like my friend Alex Norwood says "Don't ever pray for patience." 
• The only thing I care about right now, which is a good and perhaps bad thing, is God. That entails Jesus, my relationships with people and my ability to love them and show them the love of their Savior. Good because, well, that's good, but bad because I don't care that much about anything else. Like my job or whether or not I have money in my bank account. I care some, but the only reason I care about those is because they're relevant to my loving people and God.
• Like I said, it all comes out in the wash. Get your priorities in order and it will all fall into place. Lord I hope that's true, look at the previous bullet point.
• Scripture and really the whole Trinity is kicking my butt right now. 
• I love life. Oh my gosh do I love life. It's awesome. I wish people who hated life could see what I see. As much as I complain about stuff and even life itself, I love it and could not currently think of doing anything else. 
• Random songs that have entered my head during the course of this blog: the Step-by-Step theme, Alive by P.O.D., and one more I can't remember. Wait, it was How to Save a Life by The Fray. Not sure why.
• Whoooo, I'm lacking in making sense today!

Haha, well, any semblance of coherence in thought now gone, I'll wrap up. I am a son of God. He will always be my Dad and I'll always be learning from Him. That relieves a lot of pressure. Now you, yeah you, stop fretting. 

Hahaha, oh gosh. I hope I don't weird anyone out. Like I said, I'm feeling strange today. I normally make more sense than this, I'm sorry. I'll make more sense tomorrow, hopefully. One thing I'm certain of is that I am a multifaceted individual. There is rarely a normal Colton, but the one most common aspect is that I'm smiling a lot. At least that's an aspect I like to have a lot.

Gah.

Love,
Colton