Pandora's Finale Part 1

     A million dollars.  World peace.  A significant other.  As human beings, we hope-- it's our nature.  It may not be as big as these, but at all times and in some degree, we expect for something good to happen [to us] in a given time.  However, with each glimmer of optimism, it's immediately dashed by events uncalled for.  A bombing in the Middle-East.  A plane crash over Eastern Europe.  A great recession.  Unemployment.  Divorce.  Death.  The smile that you had had turned to a face of uneasiness.

     "Doggone it."

     The expletives fly and maybe a few tears, too.  A block of cynicism is added upon the wall of the pessimist, lying in the back of your head.  Disappointment.  Resentment.  It's an amazingly different world now-- someone shaded your eyes with a filter of darkness.

     "Life isn't fair; life sucks.  I'm never going anywhere."

     Surprisingly, it's really easy to bring negativity in your life.  Frighteningly, it can control how you act and even how you think.  This may not be the first hope crushed-- neither the last.  In our lives throughout, there are many things we have come to expect-- they may not turn the way we'd think and we can grovel for it.  To cry over spilled milk-- somehow, we justify that there's a reason to do so.

     In my life, exactly about a year ago, I was in a fight with a friend.  Words were exchanged about trust and behavior.  In a nutshell, I was acting like a toddler and was just blasting at this person that this person would simply forget me and abandon me as I would continue my missionary service.  Evidently, that was NOT the case.

     Point being, midst such argument and accusation, midst me even picking the wrong choices in life even before my mission, this friend still had compassion for me-- this friend had hope for me, never having given up.  This person hadn't just ditched me, crying "grow up, you're so needy.  Get a life."  I would have pretty much destroyed every expectation that my friend had of me-- someone who could be pure, caring, and of integrity.  I feel like, of all these expectations, I've crushed them all, yet my friend had pressed on-- with a steadfastness of hope.

     From this little reflectional lesson, I could see two things:

1. With every disappointment you face, expect hope for many things afterward-- the coming of a new day, a time to repair relationships, or even a time to just change your outlook.
2. Like a long-term economic investment, hope requires time and a LOT of commitment.  There will be drops and falls, but remember that no matter how deep the fall, you'll be able to climb back up and climb higher than you fell.

     On a dark and dreary Friday, the day that Jesus had hung in excruciating pain on that crucifix, He had hope.  When the Holy Ghost had left Him, He was completely alone.  Yet, He still had hope.  Jesus died an incredibly lonely and painful death-- even God, His Father, hadn't talked to His Son for a time!  On Sunday, though, an angel had proclaimed "Why see ye the living among the dead" (Luke 24:5)?  He hoped-- He knew-- that He would witness glory in three days' time.  He had preached it to all!
    
     In the words of a church leader some time ago,

"Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come" (Wirthlin).

      If you seemed to have misplaced your hope, lean on a friend.  Their words may help you find it again.

Talented! Part 1

     In such a wonderful time of growth and development, we human beings learn and acquire a great big many skills that will come quite in handy!  Whether it may be sports/physical prowess, intellect, creativity, or whatnot, when you're around 18-19 years old, you're destined to learn.

You have a great potential

     What's that I hear?  You don't think you're good at anything?  You don't have a specific thing you're above average at?  Your friends and peers are better than you in every possible way?

     That's okay.  Actually, that's more than just okay-- that's awesome!  You see, we're not supposed to be a Michael Phelps or an Albert Einstein!  Though, we do have to use what we were given and constantly improve it.  This is how we progress!

     There's a quote that I really like-- it goes something along the lines of: "If you're not good at anything, practice working hard; then you'll be good at something!"

     Myself included, many of us lack the willpower to be awesome-- we have the potential, but we don't let ourselves be.  The dross we see in ourselves inhibit us from seeing that inner awesomeness that we do, in fact, possess.

     While I write, I aspire to my favorite literateur: Oscar Wilde.  His witty, flamboyant language in his writings just capture the type of writer I want to be.  However, it's like looking at a skyscraper in downtown Manhattan-- how in the world do I get up there from down here?

Optimism is key

     Now, I write.  It's evident on my blog.  However, I used to hate it.  In fact, the reason for my extreme dislike was because of the fact that my grades in that class weren't very good and my teachers in the past (except for sophomore and senior years) weren't very supportive.  Likewise with reading-- seriously, what the heck is a metonymy?  Anywho, as I was given opportunities here and there, I started picking it up and used it as a vent-- an activity I would do whenever I was stressed, angry, or bored.  The more I did it, the more it became fun for me.  Some time later, here I am, doing what I do!  Honestly, writing how I feel is a lot more comfortable than verbally sharing them.

     It's funny, because through this journey, I feel like I picked up a whole bunch of other random skills too, like playing soccer,* teaching people [English and the gospel], and being patient with others.  Seriously.  The stuff I write are, quite frankly, the things I learn and convey rather recently.

     So yeah, just as how Jesus, the Messiah, and the king of storytelling, relates the parable of the talents to the crowd in front of him, not all were given equal amounts of money-- heck, the lord of the three said servants gave some guy 5 talents while others 1-2 talents!  The guy who was given a ton of money obviously had the advantage over the other 2 guys in every way possible, but the fact that he worked hard to multiply it was something that the lord of the servants was pleased about!  Now, the guy with the two talents could have complained at the fact that he was given nothing compared to the first guy.  However, he, too, worked to make more of what he had.  The last guy-- I'll leave that to your own explanation.  He didn't fare too well.



Pick yourself back up

     Point being, we start life without the same amount of bestowed skillsets.  Some of us are awful at one thing and professional in another.  With what we have been given, though, we have to, at some degree, use it.  If we let any precious skill of ours stagnate, no matter how bad it may be, it'll be taken away from us and given to the super rich guy, leaving you worse off than you started off with.  Improve ourselves!  Improve our talents, even if we may have only been given a quarter of a talent.  If we do, it'll be enormously gratifying.



*message me in private if you would like to know the story behind that!  It's pretty funny!

Mightier than the sword

     Striking the paper, pen in hand, the smooth, blue ink runs its trails along the white medium.  Strokes.  Curves.  Dashes.  Scribbles.  They all work in harmony under the hand of the artist to form images of great visual worth.  People.  Objects.  Landscapes.  Amazing feats of imagery are conveyed just by the dexterity of a knowledgeable hand.

     However, not all illustrations turn out so great.

     Lately, I've been doodling a lot.  Let me just go ahead and tell you that I'm in no way talented at drawing, but I just do it as it helps me shift my focus away from the stresses of the world.

     While I was drawing, I would get noticeably frustrated when a line fell out of place here or when I shaded an area I wasn't supposed to.  Usually, I would just throw the paper away in disgust or dissatisfaction, but something in my mind told me to keep on going. 

     "You're going to waste a perfectly good piece of paper on something you half-heartedly attempted to draw."

     Drawing further, I really didn't realize that that one small, little line didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.  The face turned out to be a face.  The grass turned out to be grass.  The sun turned out to be the sun.  The pictures turned out alright-- not as Claude Monet as I'd liked it to be, but that's no matter.

      As a rather awkward and misunderstood child in elementary school, I would make a huge fuss doing a ton of things that the teachers would yell at me for.  I would just do a ton of things that others would deem weird.  I would just annoy the living daylights out of my teachers and my peers.  Sure, the awkwardness would get to the teachers and the kids, but I didn't really care at the time.  Now, middle school came up and it was the exact same thing but with a larger crowd.  Here, as a missionary, no one really cares or knows about the things I've done back home; it's almost tabula rasa, in a sense.  I'm beginning to shape myself to be who I really am-- the faults and lingering awkwardness will still exist, but it doesn't matter a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.

     As we discover who exactly we are, we can know that our imperfections and follies mean absolutely nothing-- it's not worth abandoning your principles for.  We were sent here with a divine destiny.  For this truth, I am sure of.  We were never made perfect beings to grow and develop in perfection, or else Thomas Moore's funny little concept wouldn't be so exciting!

     When you think you've made a stroke of error, whether it be anything minor from posting a typo-ridden status on Facebook to even bigger ones like bopping your little brother in the head, it's not the end.  Let the days pass and you'll see that it'll eventually be experience in your repertoire for growth.  From the mistakes that you've had, you can look back and learn from it. 

     "Oh, right.  I shouldn't do that because it ended like that."

     I really enjoy reading Jeffrey R Holland's, another leader of my church, sermon when he says these words as he describes himself in a long journey from the West to the East Coast for school:

“Don’t give up, boy. Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it—30 years of it now, and still counting. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”

     Let me just add my witness that even though there may be challenges ahead, BIG ones for some, let it go its course-- it'll get better.  Give it some time.  Give it some more effort.  It will work out.  Ask for strength from on high and it will be given to you.  The experience from these things will only aim to make you a more refined being.

If possible, make a U-turn

     Still not even a year into living here in Southern California, my dependence on a GPS is rather worrisome.  I live in the heart of Orange County, yet I'm not familiar with places like Brea, Fullerton, and even any of the beaches!  Sad to say, I'm attached to my Garmin more than it is to the car windshield.

     A good quarter of the time, the GPS may guide me through a route that I know is extremely indirect; there's quite blatantly a faster route with less traffic and less hassle.  However, it just tells you to go like that.  Most of the time (now), I know just enough to navigate through these wrongtold routes.

     Now the other three quarters, the GPS does in fact guide me toward my intended destination in the quickest, timeliest manner possible.  This is why I'm very grateful for one.  Although I am grateful, I am also sad to say that I'm not the most navigationally bright and attentive driver around.

"In point-five miles, make a right turn," the GPS says.

"Okay, sure," I reply.

"In five hundred feet, make a right turn," the GPS confirms.

"Gotcha," I reply.

"Make a right turn now," enunciates the GPS.

"Right on it."

"Recalculating.  In ten point six miles, if possible, make a U-turn."

oops.

     Nothing razzes my berries more than ignoring Garmin's heed.  It's extremely frustrating that a good many times, it seems like he's leading me off cliffs or into exorbitantly priced toll roads, but at the times where he does in fact lead you toward the right path, I ignore the warnings and I ignore the instruction given to me due to my own hubris and past experiences with Garmin's guidance.

     In that sense, I think I can see how difficult it must be to be completely obedient to God's word.

     As a Latter-day Saint missionary, our conduct is dictated and outlined in a little white booklet with 80-some pages telling us what we should do and what we shouldn't do.  Every single rule we have to abide by and like Garmin, it may sometimes lead us to an expensive toll road or a cliff.  However, most all of the mistakes we will make will result from our own follies and ignorance, thinking we're higher than the law.  This applies also to living the gospel principles and the ten commandments.  It's not a lot of rules we are told to abide by and it's not hard to understand them all, but we break the rules out of our own neglect.

     The path toward perfection is right there-- laid in front of you.  All you need to do is make a right turn and you're on your way.  A good chunk of life, though, will be lived through course correction.  We've failed to make that right turn.  We've failed to uphold the law we're supposed to live.  That 10.something-mile waiting time until that U-turn is a very treacherous and unpleasant probationary period, but it teaches us one very important lesson: repentance.  We recognize the mistake and we act upon it, taking it upon ourselves-- putting in the effort-- so that we won't make it again.

     As frustrating a GPS is, it does redirect you correctly on your way to course correction.  Even though it may take you a great many miles more to reach your destination, you'll still get to where you need to be.  Likewise, God Himself does not quit on you, no matter how far away you stray away.  Even through your pretentiousness, you're always led toward the right-- it's only a matter of if you want to follow it or not.

     Now, if you remain stubborn in your attitude for quite some time until you have to make a U-turn in over 30 or more miles, don't despair!  There is repentance.  It is only through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we are able to correct the paths successfully and have that motivation to travel toward the correct path again.  His death enabled us all to have that spiritual GPS put into our souls.  If we are repentant in all things we do, we won't have to ever stray too far from the correct path.  Similarly, a church leader, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, quotes 1 John 1:9 and also Isaiah 1:18 to relate to the context that has been given here.  God is a loving God, and I can testify of it.  He hasn't set us up here to fail.  As we have faith in Him, He will be faithful to us.

Men are that they might have joy

"South Coast Plaza" or something.

     Out and about on a casual Monday morning, my companion and I stumble across a gargantuan building, completely beige, and filled with parking garages.  People from all over the world, from France to China, seemed to gather in the building.  I think it was called "South Coast Plaza" or something.

     Anywho, we were touring in the building and were basically window-shopping at the most expensive-looking places we could find.  Burberry, Gucci, Tiffany and Company, etc.-- all the big names were here, alright.  However, there was a store we decided to drop by: Louis Vuitton.  As my companion and I were browsing their $800 sneakers, a sales associate comes up to strike a conversation with us, as protocol directed, I presume.



There goes my marriage plans.

     "Your nametag-- what does it say?"
     "Oh, it has my name, Elder Chung, and our church in Korean!"
     "So you speak Korean?"
     "Yep, I'm a Korean missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
     "Oh, missionary-- what are you doing at a store like this?"

     From there, the conversation actually hit its apex.  We tell her that we were just simply window shopping and enjoying our Monday there.  The sales associate then tells us that many of the clients that come to the store are usually extremely wealthy people.  Upon further conversation, she mentioned that many of these people were extremely arrogant, buying for themselves to boast of their expensive outfits.

     "People don't usually serve others here; they serve themselves."

     These words that that sales associate said left a pretty big impression on me-- quite frankly, I was shocked.  I was aware that Orange County was rather affluent, but to hear a sales associate working with such denizens say such a cynical statement was just-- "what?"  Now that I think of it, though, it kind of makes sense.

     In the mind of this peculiar person, I think that rich people analyze cost-benefit in every aspect of their personal lives.  This goes beyond social, marital, and familial lives.  What seems to be more important?  Boasting yourself up to impress peers and alienating family or Being that strong, fatherly example for your family while sacrificing occupational privileges?  Let's look at a scenario.

     You have a week to allot to either work or family.  Of course, for the sake of your family, you would pick work.  Each day, leaving at 6 in the morning and coming home sometimes at 9 at night, the days pass.  Your kids begin to miss playing with you like you normally did!  At the office, you get a call from your kid saying exactly so-- he wants to hang out with you after work tomorrow!  It just so happens that it's a short day that day and you can get home early!  Although you're a young, urban professional and you want to climb the corporate ladder, you're excited for this time!  Giddy, you go to the place where you clock in for the day.  Before you check in, your boss comes to talk to you.  He tells you that if you work overtime on an "important" project the next day after the work hour, he would give you not just a pay bonus, but a chance to work on the 43rd floor-- two floors away from the CEO's office.

     This is a HUGE privilege.  And this may be a decision you would probably have to make in the distant future (as the married yuppie you are).  Affluence and power or family?  Seriously, what stands in your way from earning a seven-figure sum?  Likewise, what are you will to sacrifice for the loves of your life?

     Rich people-- they have so many tough decisions to make.  Later on, though, that sales associate told me that those people who had bought the glam of designer apparel were not usually happy-- their family relationships were virtually nonexistent and these rich fellows, at that point, were only aiming to impress a crowd that would abandon him if he ever called on for help.  What a dilemma!

     That rich man's children-- who will they lean on without a strong father figure?  The wife-- where will she go without a help meet?  From a post way back when, I want to emphasize on family.

     No cost-benefit analysis will ever oust a family from being a #1 priority.  They just cannot be replaced with money!  If hell came out from below and swallowed up your employment, friends, resources, parents, and offshore trust funds, who will you go to?  No one, I hear?  Ummmm, no,

YOUR FAMILY!

     Your wife and children-- with a strong, stable family, they are the ones who you can cling on for safety.  They enrich your life-- your work-- to have meaning!  With a strong family, life's challenges are slightly more tolerable.  It's a difficult journey that results in a happier state of mind.  Here's a few things that you could do to strengthen your family today:

• Spend 2 hours with your family at a given day (maybe Monday) just to hang out and enjoy each other's company!
• Do something you've never done before like hiking, picnicking, etc.-- just do it responsibly.
• Go on a date night with your wife!
• Cheer your kid on in his soccer games!
• Embrace "take your child to work" day!
• Family vacations!

     To conclude, let this quote resonate within your mind:

     "Human relationships are primary in all of living.  When the gusty winds blow and shake our lives, if we know that people care about us, we may bend with the wind.. but we won't break."  --Fred Rogers

Also, the title is a nod to a really awesome person, supporter, and fellow missionary [now back home] doing her own thing +Sister Katie Jensen