Posts Tagged ‘depression’

Playing The Victim

// May 4th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // My Life, My Thoughts

Lets face it… all of us are whiners sometimes… everybody is to some extent given some grace when they complain about how things are going for them… in fact, its better to be honest about your feelings that to pretend that everything is going fine. I spent years whining about my divorce and how bad it was… and how much I was paying for it… call it the stages of grief or whatever you want… at some point everyone gets tired of you playing the victim. There is some kind of dysfunctional human mechanism that feeds on attention and sympathy and it can really sabotage our lives! Constantly playing the victim wears on friendships and sometimes exhausts them completely… There has to be some point when you recognize the problem for what it is… Your perspective is skewed! If your life is constantly a train-wreck then you should be taking a look at what is going on.

If you are in debt up to your eyeballs then get drastic… get rid of credit cars…get a much smaller house… or sell a car… get rid of your “stuff” live more simply… Last Christmas I can’t count how many people were complaining about how they couldn’t afford Christmas gifts… but almost without exception each of them bought a 40″ or larger flat panel TV… sorry but I do not understand the logic there! No wonder you are miserable!

I see so many people walking around complaining about health problems… yet the single solitary thing that they should do they simply ignore…. eating unhealthy, living lives filled with stress… drinking alcohol… popping prescription drugs like candy…smoking…

One simple word…. QUIT! just quit quit quit! I am sorry but it is just that easy… if you are fat because you over eat… quit! your life will be better for it… if your job is stressful figure out a way to do something different! God gave us free will for a reason… we can choose to make a difference in our lives…

and if you think I should practice what I preach… here is what I have done in the last few years..

  • I was suffering from anxiety attacks and decided to quit a stressful job and found a new one… and accepted a cut in pay and benefits including a company vehicle to reduce my stress
  • I realized that I was very unhealthy and began eating healthier and smaller portions… consequently I lost 60 lbs, and several health problems completely went away!
  • I realized that being in debt was making me miserable and frustrated so we decided to rent the cheapest apartment we could find so that we could get out of debt.  and we are only 4000 away from being debt free (waiting on the income tax check)
  • I realized many things that I never had time to do was because I was addicted to video games … so I sold my Xbox 360 and now I spend  lots more time with my family
  • I realized that my relationship with my wife had become strained so I decided to be more responsible and helpful… things are much more on track now.

The point I am trying to make is that the sum total of your life is affected by the actions  you take on a daily basis… the bible says… “do not be deceived, God is not mocked whatever a man sows that he shall reap” Gal 6:7   if you continue to wallow in self pity you will end up years from now wondering where your friends have gone… and why you feel so abandoned…when the reality is that you abandoned yourself a long time ago…  Take hold of your life and live it to the fullest… Make bold and righteous choices… live radically and do something about your problems… exhaust all options,  find your joy in simplicity and wholesome-ness  step away from the world that you have created for yourself and ask yourself… what are these things adding to my life…if the answer is nothing… well then you know what to do… whatever you decide… stop playing the victim…

Tags: debt, depression, Faith, life, stress, struggle, victim mentality

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Good Question (part 2) My answer

// March 25th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // My Thoughts

I got this question posed to me recently by a young… on-fire christian and I figured it would be great if you answered it… I will post my answer afterward.

I am so depressed… why does it make a difference what people think? I am sick of caring, and I am sick of everyone acting like there is so much time…and making everything funny or light hearted. Like people that take being a christian seriously are so looked down on… I am sick of it! what do I do.

so what do we say to this?

My answer:

Love them.  Take your walk with God seriously, take yourself not so
seriously and let others take resposibility for themselves. Ultimately
you cannot hold someone accountable unless they give you the ability to
do that. It is earned by just loving and caring sometimes for years…

I was answering in a text message so it is a pretty short answer… but the truth is … we cannot cannot make others take responsibility for their lives only God can… and we can make as much of a fuss as we want and it will make hardly a difference in their life…unless we have earned the right as someone that loves them.  It is tough to love people… Love hurts… it hurts more when they act like they don’t love you or they don’t love the things you love… but the sacrifice of love is the only thing that ultimately redeemed us.  Feeling sick with frustration is the sacrifice of love… Solomon said it best “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.”  Hope deferred… drawn out…seemingly forever!  love that continues to believe that there is hope… even though the time grows long…and it is over and over ignored… can you imagine how sick God is?!!!   Paul says in Romans 8:22-23 “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”  If all creation groans and labors together… and even we do… can you imagine the Love-sickness and long-suffering of God as he waits for us to “Get it”?

Anyways.. that was my answer… feel free to expound further!

Tags: Christianity, depression, Love, spiritual leadership, spiritual warfare

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Good Question

// March 21st, 2010 // 10 Comments » // My Thoughts

I got this question posed to me recently by a young… on-fire christian and I figured it would be great if you answered it… I will post my answer afterward.

I am so depressed… why does it make a difference what people think? I am sick of caring, and I am sick of everyone acting like there is so much time…and making everything funny or light hearted. Like people that take being a christian seriously are so looked down on… I am sick of it! what do I do.

so what do we say to this?

Tags: Christianity, depression, Love, spiritual leadership, spiritual warfare

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Internet Addiction…America’s New Dysfunction

// February 3rd, 2010 // 10 Comments » // My Thoughts

I have heard of bizarre cases of internet addiction in China… and even that there are some pretty harsh boot camps in China to deal with internet addicts.  The odd thing is that the addicts respond in every way exactly like any other addict would when they are deprived of the object of their addiction.   It seems that the reality of internet addiction or “Excessive Internet use” is upon us… and is actually linked to depression.

Excessive Internet use is linked to depression

People who spend a lot of time browsing the net are more likely to show depressive symptoms, according to the first large-scale study of its kind in the West by University of Leeds psychologists.

To me this is a serious wake up call because I spend an incredible amount of time on the internet… (like right now writing this post!)  The reality is that we are slowly trading the personal interactions of the real world for the sterile transactions of the virtual world… No matter how we polish it,  the internet is slowly disconnecting us from the reality of our lives.    As we further disconnect from reality our morals and ethics become less important or even relevant to us because … after all … its not real! right?

In my head it feels like I have somehow looked into the face of advancing technology and seen too far… too far for comfort at least… and all I want to do is walk away… partly because I am beginning to recognize the intrinsic value of  life… inconvenience… and even Oranges… and partly because I have a very real feeling that in the not too far distant future possibly within in the next generation… that we will be struggling to retain our humanity as we become less connected to the physical world around us and more connected to more interesting “virtual” realities.

Getting back to the subject… statistics show that a good majority of our country is clinically depressed and rather than going after the key causes of depression we often choose to continue our lifestyles and sidestep the issue with medication.  I am not condemning the use of medication for the treatment of depression. I actually took Lexapro for a year myself for depression/anxiety.  My point is more that we cannot ignore the drivers that are creating the condition of depression in so many people!

  • How do we move forward as Christians in an increasingly disconnected society where social interaction is so sterile?
  • How can we deal with technology like the internet that is so addictive?

What do you think about this?

Tags: addictions, depression, internet addiction

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When You Can’t Go On… Pile Stones

// January 4th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // My Life, My Thoughts

What mean ye by these stones?

What mean ye by these stones?

When I was young I remember my dad reading a passage from Joshua 4:5-7  that stuck firmly in my mind

5And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of Jordan, and take you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel: 6That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying,

7Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever.

As I matured I began to see the value in marking important events in my life… It all started when I realized that God was taking an active role in my life… I remember the first time that I decided to set stones as a remembrance… well I didn’t really pile up stones… but they are there… in my heart… The first time was the day I met my wife I realized then and there that God was undeniably acting in my life in a very specific and purposeful way… As my life began to change from that day forward I began gathering stones to mark the points in my life where God showed up and did something… I really had no idea where this was leading though…

Life throws itself at us with all it’s might… we experience great successes and great hardships…  there is love and love lost, life… and death, courage… and fear,  joy… and sadness,  pleasure… and pain.  All of it joins together in the amazing cacophony that we call life.  But then there are times when the balance shifts and there is only hardship… and love lost.. and death… and fear… and sadness… and pain… and we wonder where it all went wrong…  We feel abandoned and without hope… when we cry out the only answer we hear are the echos of our plea’s against the emptiness of our souls.  Those times… are the times that we can look back… and see the piles of stones to mark the deliverance of God.   The stones are the difference between faith and belief… between faith and hope…  “Faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for…the evidence of things not seen”  Hope will will wait to see what happens.  Faith starts gathering stones to mark the site of deliverance.

Look back on your life and find where God has been faithful to rescue you… and mark those places… and when the pain is too great to bear… or sorrow threatens to swallow you whole… when you can’t go forward… look back… and see those stones…strengthen your faith that God will deliver you… and start gathering stones again… for his deliverance will be upon you at the perfect time…

Tags: depression, Faith, fear

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Selfishness

// May 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // My Thoughts

We all struggle with our flaws… addictions… compulsions.  Somehow religion has evolved to promote a sort of self loathing mentality. We have somehow been convinced by modern religion that if we focus on our imperfections then we can somehow root them out.  The sad truth is that the pinnacle of Christianity for some Christians is the very day that they are saved, on that very day they truly believe that salvation is a free gift. After that they begin trying to earn it. Somehow our culture of modern religion begins to convince them to start the life long task of trying to rip their flesh off their soul.  I truly believe that this is not what God intended for us. Jesus constantly corrected the religious leaders of the day because they focused on every little legalistic point and attempted to instruct others to do the same.

Our problem  is selfishness, pure unfettered unchecked selfishness. Addictions… selfishness. The sooner we realize that selfishness is the problem the better! from that point all we need to do is to focus on “loving the Lord your GOD with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself”   I know it sounds elementary and simple but that is the single solitary cure for all of the dissatisfied, angry, addicted, perverted, horrible, sad, etc. etc… people in the world.

Tags: addictions, Art, christian, Christianity, christians, depression, failure, God, jesus, Love, modern religion, Religion, righeousness vs. self righteousness, self loathing, selfishness, sin, truth

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