Best Friend

Everyone, I dare say, has a best friend. Some have more than one, some have just one, and some change one every year or so.

Best friend defines my existence. She gave me identity and stuck a label on me, which I did not even know about until I met her this summer. We've only known each other for 4 months now, and I just feel as if we had known each other from the very beginning. Maybe because it took us exceptionally long to get to know each other or because we talk to each other all the time. It doesn't make any sense because we don't see each other at all. Perhaps once a week if I am free on Sundays or if I have time to go to church with my family. Yet, she knows all my secrets and I know all hers as well. From this friendship, I know that mental support is more important than any other possible factors that shape typical friendships. Not kindness, similar interest, or similar sense of humor. But, it's understanding and mutual support that really get the friendship going.

It also seems normal enough to have new best friends as we grow more mature and therefore change both inside and outside. We all change no matter how consistent our homes and school environment remain. I, too, feels like a totally different person from middle school, not to mention elementary school. Although still the same student, I am different - everyone feels it, and even I myself have noticed changes, even the subtle ones, in just a few years. Therefore, every time we change, we need new sources of communication, connection, and understanding. It is interesting how our criteria of determining our best friends constantly change, and we rarely know of this.

Life is...Beautiful

Life is beautiful! Disagree? Well consider the following quote:

"philosophy: the most beautiful moments in life are free. hearing the words i love you puts our hearts at peace. saying the words i love you comforts both giver and recipient. giving a really good friend a full body hug renews us and the friendship. laughing uncontrollably at ourselves is better than any medicine we could ever buy. sharing a kiss that is both tender and soft melts down our defenses. holding the hand of a child is the one way to feel not only young but very special. becoming one with the sun and stars lets us know we are never alone. falling in love with the beauty and fragility of a flower keeps us true to our greatest connections in nature. singing and dancing to our favorite song sets our spirits free. isn't life beautiful?"

I am sure reading this quote puts a smile on our faces. Really, life is not worth complaining. We only have some years to enjoy our beautiful lives here on earth before going back, so take this philosophy and live your life...!

Accomplice?

Gossips and gossipers are everywhere...And it's true that you can never avoid them all at the same time. Neither can I.

To be honest, sometimes I gossip, and I don't even realize that I'm doing it. Well I should never gossip about anything, but sometimes it's automatic, and there's no way I can control my emotions from just letting everything out. And thinking about what people talked to me about this past week and even what I thought about during those conversations, gossips take a huge part. It is interesting, though, how 50% of the time I am just a listener, but for the other half, I am actually partaking of a shameful act of talking bad about people in their back. What a coward!

But the worst thing is, I let people talk about other people even though most things they talk to me about are never true, at least from the experiences I have had with those people who are unwillingly give false labels. It is just amazing how my mind and my mouth work independently although I only have one control center ordering things to my body.

And for this reason, I sometime feel like the opportunists from Dante's Inferno.
I have to admit that I do not correct those gossipers' false rumors because I want to stay an all-favorite at school. This was, of course, an unconscious act, but now that I think about it, I remember the guilt I felt after becoming an accomplice by just letting an unjust, unfair action continue on. Well, I guess I just didn't want to confront anyone about something that is self-explanatory. But, that still does not justify my complicity.

Chance vs. Plan

Things used to seem to happen merely out of luck for most of my early years, and even now I can remember complaining about such things, things happening the way I did not want them to. Now that I feel I have settled down in a new home quite successfully, I come to think of this complicated, unanswerable question of whether things really do happen out of chance or based on any kind of plan or predetermination...

Last week, when I attended the worship at my church, the pastor told us a story that shows that God's work is full of purposes for every one of us and how everything is already determined, and we are too shortsighted to alter God's plans. And this story has brought a permanent change on my outlook on life in general.

Here is how the story goes...
The story revolves around three families who are preparing to be on their way to church on one Sunday morning. One family, just when they get in a car and try to start it up, finds that their car is broken down from the cold weather, and they live about half an hour away from the church. They have never ever missed any service for past few years, and this has never happened to them before. The other family wakes up and finds both of their children sick, so they run to see the doctor right away. This, of course, has never happened to this family before, especially on Sundays. The last family wakes up 20 minutes late but runs to the church as soon as they can. They arrive 20 minutes late to the church. This family has always been on time to church, and this was the first time in 5 years that they have woken up late because the alarm stopped working in the middle of the night. By the time all three families arrive at church, they see that the church has been burnt down 20 minutes ago.