Day Thirteen - Signs of the Times

"He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, 'A shower is coming.' And so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat,' and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?" - Luke 12:54-56

I think we're all sort of blind when it comes to our own lives. I think that's probably why we all act so surprised when the results of our stupidity are disastrous when all of our friends are holding in their 'how did you not see that coming?' faces. And yet, the mistakes other people make are glaringly obvious. Which is why we look at our friends with the 'how did you not see that coming?' face. But after mistake after mistake after mistake, even my thick skull has started to pick up on the warning signs that I'm already making poor decisions, or about to. And, in a rare moment of synchronicity, each warning sign has an opposite that tells I'm doing well.

Warning Sign #1 - Mess. As everyone who knows me knows, I'm not the tidiest of people. Not by a long shot. But I've noticed that the mess gets 10x worse when I start making mistakes. Sometimes, the mess is created because I'm in a rush to leave the house when I know I should stay home instead. Sometimes, the mess is created because I stay home and sit still when I should get up and be productive. Either way, I don't want to clean the mess because it forces me to face my mistakes. The longer the mess just stays there, the easier it is to continue ignoring the mistakes. Each mistake seems to somehow make its very own layer of mess. By the time I accept that something is wrong, the work of cleaning it up seems overwhelming. If that isn't blatantly metaphorical, I'm not sure what is.

Warning Sign #2 - Passions. There are some things I am passionate about. I love books. All sorts of books. Especially theology. I love video games, especially social ones that I can talk to Linz while I play, or talk to her about the game play (and then of course read her blog). I love decorating and crafting and cooking, and I adore spending my weekends doing all of those things. And when I'm making mistakes, I don't do those things. I don't do the things I love because I can't just relax and enjoy them. I'm too wound up, too busy avoiding the rest of my life to find any relief in, or time for, my passions. I don't read because as soon as I pick up that book I'm going to have to face the fact that I'm being an idiot. I don't game because I can't get settled enough to even pick a game, or throw myself into a story line. I don't decorate or craft or cook because of the mess.

Warning Sign #3 - Sleep. I sleep like shit when I'm doing that which I shouldn't, or not doing that which I should. The stress gets to me almost instantly, and slowly builds until I'm trying to function on less than six hours a night and sore all over. (Ask anyone. I'm useless with less than 8, and function best with 9.) Because of the loss of my passions, I have no stress release. And mess just stresses me out in general. And to top it all off, I'm sleep deprived.

In reverse, when I'm doing well, making the right decisions, and have my head on straight, my house is mostly clean, I enjoy my passions almost every night, and I'm sleeping like a baby. Even when the choices aren't obviously right and wrong in my mind, the consequences start to bleed into my life pretty quickly. The last set of decisions I made honestly seemed like the right choice, and I meant well, but my house is messy, my books are gathering dust, and I'm sleeping like crap.

So today, I'm choosing to see the signs of the times, and change them before it gets any worse. I can see the storm coming, and it's in my power to stop it before it starts to downpour. Today, I started to clean the mess. My living room is livable again, and my sink is empty. Tonight, I'm going to crawl into bed with a book and a note pad. Tonight, I'm going to sleep better than I have all week. Because just like the warning signs stem from the decisions, working on fixing them somehow always lead me to enough introspection to change the root cause and get the peace filled life I love back.

So I challenge you to look back on old situations and try and find the warning signs in your own life. And then look at your life now and see if any of them are flashing red. And if they are, change before it gets worse. Because looking at the mess after the storm and realizing how much time its going to take to clean it up is a really sucky feeling (again, blatantly metaphorical). Join me, and change it while you still can.