Just the WAY I LIKE IT!!!

Trust me, I’m optimistic…

This week there has been a phrase that I have been using to help look at my life the way it should be looked at. Like I said before I am one of the most optimistic people you will meet, but something had occurred in the past few months that had slowly transformed my optimism into a optimistic viewpoint for others, but quite brutal for myself.

I think it was just one of those times where I kept seeing all of the things that I didn’t have. Actually, I think this is something that most people in their twenties can connect with. With questions of what I want to do with my life and wondering who I want to spend my time with I began to see what others have. Instead of finding joy that the world around me was such a happy place, I saw that I was somehow left out.

But as I said I decided to change things and strengthen my temporarily weakened strength (hope that makes sense to you, it does to me). I looked back and thought of all the stories I had learned of hardships that others went through (But more specifically anything before the 1950s). Others would often talk of the difficulties that they went through, describing them as they were described in the Tale of Two Cities, “[they] were the best of times, [they] were the worst of times”. How could this be so? Weren’t these hardships the worst of times? For me I knew when I was struggling it was usually just the worst of times.

As I started to think about these things I learned that sometimes, you can find joy in your time of misery. Many of you can recall the movies scenes where the main character has their car break down after the worst of days. And they shake their heads and say, “well at least it cant get any worse”, then it suddenly starts to rain like cats and dogs.  It is in these moments that you either laugh or cry.  In fact, in these moments I believe that we naturally feel the need to laugh.  In our hardest of moments and hardships, the cure of laughter brings energy to our wearisome hearts.

So this week I kept saying this phrase, “Just the Way I like it!”. I found myself complaining all too often. So in order to counter that negative attitude, whenever I caught myself complaining I would always say “just the way I Like it”. Like when people were asking about my love life (an already solemn situation) I would say something like, “You know it’s hard to try to find someone that you can connect with (in a depressing tone).” But then I would follow with “It’s Just the WAY I LIKE IT because if it was easy than I wouldn’t really cherish something once I found it.

Or when they asked, how are you doing….really? I would often think of all the thinks that were going wrong in my life and start spouting those out (difficulty making career choices, feeling alone (who doesn’t at times), and other personal issues), but catching myself would follow up with, “just the way I like it” and describe the good things. One of which being that I have job options in a hard economy, or that being alone gives me time to think about becoming who I want to be.  Somehow I was able to talk about the things that were bothering me and leave feeling optimistic about all the things that I saw as negatives in my life. I was enjoying the hard things in my life.

This little trick is helping me to see why, the things that are harder in life really are helping me. The easy way, isn’t the best way.  Quoting the song A-Team, “the worst things in life are free” and I couldn’t agree more. When I have had to work, cry, pray, struggle…..when I have felt like I couldn’t keep going….when I’ve had to push myself, that was when I received the things that I cherish most in my life. When I feel like I am on the brink of giving up, it is usually because I am pretty close to achieving greatness and it’s the last hill before the summit.

The hill is steep and may seem impossible, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. My momentary summit is just over the next grueling hill, and it’s just the way I like It!!!!

Things that Confuse me

Girls parties: Almost every party I have ever been to where a girl has organized it, there seems to be an unexplainably large quantity of men compared to women. When girls are planning parties do they not think about numbers or do they just not care? If you ever go to a guy's party they have planned this out. Girls you should think about it next time. 

Questions: Why is it when we greet someone we ask "how's it going?", but we rarely answer this question with how we are really doing. Nor do we expect any answer besides "good". What's worse is we have come up with questions like "What's up?" when walking by someone one without even expecting an answer. Why do we ask questions like these, without intent of listening to the answer. 

High Heels: I really want to know, what was original purpose of high heels? Really please explain that to me. I really want to know. Because I definitely know the original purpose wasnt to make a women's butt look better!

Okay speaking of butts this may be weird, but it really makes no sense to me. How in the world do we find butts attractive? it makes no logical sense, yet I still am. 

Harry Potter: Why did Harry Potter, not just go for Hermione? I think we all knew that she was in to him. Besides she turned out better than Ginny and Cho. Seriously Harry I think you made a big mistake, am I the only one? I was rooting that one to work out.

Use of Money: Really I don't know why anyone would spend one hundred dollars on a meal where it doesnt even fill the plate. For me I would personally rather buy 10 meals for 10 dollars each. Ask any person that has ever been starving before, and they would agree with me. 

Fear of being Called Gay: Okay guys when you say that you can't tell if a girl would find another guy attractive are you serious? Or are you just scared of being called gay? In my experience I can pick out a guy that I know my sister will find attractive. 

Nerds=Trendsetter?: Why if you read a book about something you are nerdy, but if you watch a movie about the same thing everyone thinks it is awesome. Example: some one reads a comic book=nerd, some one watches all the comic books in movie form= normal;  reads lord of the rings=elf want-to-be, watches the movie= film supporter; reads the book Moneyball= stats geek, movie comes out and everyone watches= thinks what a great story. Hmmm see any trends, Nerds are really setting the trends and we are too stupid to even notice it. Lol

Pop Music: So in most popular song there has to be a phrase repeated at least 40 times, how does that make a quality song? For example listen to any Pit Bull song. lol Is Pop music really the most well liked music? if not should we call it POP music?

Dub Step: When did we record dinosaurs fighting on the death star and when did the audio of it become famous to dance to?

Let me know if you agree with any of these or can think of any other things that confuse you

My Life is Uncertain

When I was 16 an imminent fear came upon me that I would never figure out what I wanted to do with my life. In past posts I have referenced that I have thought about being a husband and father since I was 13 years old. With that forward thinking, came the fears of the future. I questioned how I would truly provide for my family. While I was able to see some of the things I was good at, I never saw a potential career sprouting from my love for basketball or desire to talk openly with others. Now, some of you may say, “hey it’s so obvious Landocommando, I know what you should have done”, but I wanted to know for myself what should be done.

This fear loomed and consumed my being. I tried to ignore it, but I believe this was one of the reasons that I feared growing up and going off to college. To say that I had similar a complex to Peter Pan was an understatement. I slightly feared each birthday knowing that it signified a landmark in my progress to becoming an adult.

My only comfort came through the advice of others who told me that I would know when I was older. When the time was right, I would really know. So I ignored my fear my first year of college and continued my college education as an open major. Then I took a two year leave of absence for personal desires. I figured by the time I was back I would definitely know what I wanted to do for my career. But time passed and I returned to the college life, yet still my fear and confusion continued.  I came to my last possible moment to choose my major; I had finished all of my general education and needed to specialize in something. I honestly took a list of all the majors available and crossed out all of the options I knew that I would not enjoy and/or would not provide an adequate salary for a family. Before I eliminated ALL the options I finally chose statistics. And it was nice to know I had some sense of direction.

I bring this up because I have talked to many friends recently about the confusions of life. I often learn that I am not alone in my confusion with finding a direction in life. Others were also told or convinced that they would “JUST KNOW” what decisions they needed to make once they were old enough. But to those individuals who told us those calming fortunes… you lied. It is okay, I am not mad. Maybe for you that is what happened. But for me I am still left in my confusion of what I want to do with my life. I have less than a year left until I graduate with a statistical science degree.  The only thing I have figured out is that I hope I don’t work with numbers all day for the rest of my life. But I will continue with my major because it has lead to great opportunities.

So here I am living evidence that even though the time has come to make a decision about my life, and I still do not know exactly what I am doing. Most importantly I share it’s okay that I don’t know. I am learning to take life one decision at a time. I know the key things that I want, but I have no clue how to get to this amazing vision I have.  Life is good each day should be enjoyed. I look to see how each day leads me to my final vision of financial security, time with my family, and sharing the moments that matter most with them. But I cannot see past the next couple of year.

My life is uncertain, and that is okay.  The future is unknown and I wouldn’t want it any other way!!!

Do I really know you?

This week there has been a reoccurring theme that I would like to talk about. I recently moved to Salt Lake City and as an outsider I often notice the differences between what I am accustomed to and the way people act here. I notice the different types of people and I have always loved observing others. I have noticed though, that my curiosity to understand the people around me is not a bad thing, but it can often lead to a negative action that we all participate in. What is this mysterious negative action that we all participate in?.........Judging others.

Now some may roll their eyes because they think about some lecture that their “Parentals” have given about seeing the good in people. I want to talk about a couple of things that I have reflected upon this week.

First I wanted to talk about when I was a Junior in High School. Like many men I was self focused and overly focused on the 3 things that mattered most to me at the time: Sports, Girls, and Doing wild and crazy things (note: I never really got myself into any trouble, just stupid teenage pranks, and other shenanigans). At the same time however my little sister was going through a hard time, but differing from the self-esteem issues that many teens struggle with, hers was a chemical imbalance. At the time I understood little about depression and at first found myself almost afraid of my own sister, who had been my best friend (“my sista”, “sisi”) turned worst enemy.

To better understand you must know that I was the most carefree person alive at 17. Every day was a “great” day, and I felt that I could make it a great day by making a simple decision. I was the optimist who loved being around other people.

But as I started to see my sister struggle with depression, it was confusing and at times angering. I thought to myself, how is she not able to get up and go to school? I could not understand what she was going through, nor could she explain it to me. As time passed I began to see that there were times that she did not have the capability to function the same way I did. Some days I could see the strain that it took for her to get up and get ready for the day. I began to realize that she did not have the capability to do so. As I noticed these things, my anger was swept away. Feelings of compassion came to me.

Though at times she would push me away, I would stand near as close as she would allow me. I would watch her girly shows (like one tree hill, or even pride and prejudice, which she must have watched 30 times that year) just because it was time we could be together. My eyes were opened to see, that if she had been injured and confined to a wheelchair I would have taken care of her, so why would I not do the same, when she needed my care more.  The more I was around her, the more I saw that this was a physical ailment, and not sparked by wrong decisions that my sister had made.

I need to preface this, saying that I was an immature teenage boy, and though I wish I could say that I always stood by my sister’s side, I often grew tired of the effort it took to be around her. I often did things that made her angry, but I will say that I TRIED, with the emotional ability I had as a 17 year old boy.

I learned many things from these experiences and here they are in a list to be simply seen:

1. I was afraid of what I did not understand

2. I judged my sister wrongfully from my perspective, which only took into account the way my life was.

3. Mental wellness should be viewed similarly as physical wellness (we need not run away from it or shy away from expressing our need to medical attention)

4. We all have different capabilities that allow us to be good at some things, while we may have weaknesses in others. 


5. I learned that if I used my strengths to bless the lives of those around me, then I would live a happier life, whether others chose to do the same or not.

This week I had a great conversation with a co-worker who has a brother with crohn’s disease.  He expressed to me the difficulties that he is having trying to grasp the concept that his brother cannot control his actions. He explained that he felt like if his brother would just eat the right things, take care of himself that he would be fine.  I tried to explain the lessons that I learned (listed above), but I often feel like in the moment my mouth to mind connection does not exist.

Here in Salt Lake City I find the same lessons coming back to me. Both in application and in explanation. As life often does, it cycles so that we can re-learn the lessons that we have in the past. I need to both apply and openly talk about what I have learned from my experiences.

I often feel like the young man who said:

Riffraff, street rat.

I don't buy that,

If only they'd look closer.

Would they see a poor boy?

No, siree, They'd find out

There's so much more to me

They say don’t judge a book by a cover, but I move to change this statement that we should not judge a book by its cover or its first 20 pages. Just we because we “think” we get to know someone does not mean we understand what they think, feel, or can imagine their personal experiences. Again if we bring back the story of my sister. I had lived with her my whole life, and “knew” everything about her, yet I found that I had no room to judge.

From a song dear to me I quote, “Who am I to judge another when I walk imperfectly? In the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can't see.”

I recognize that my imperfections make it so that I cannot see why people are the way that they are.

There is such good in the people around me. When my eyes are opened to see the gifts that people around me possess, I am made better. I begin to believe that the world will be a better place. I find hope that when I have children those good gifts will shine brighter than the constant darkness we are convinced surrounds us.

To the man who plays guitar outside the restaurant, thank you. You have brightened my day, many times.  To the old man who waves when I leave for work, thank you. To the random lady, that gave me something to read at the trax station, thank you. And finally thank you for reading this,

Landocommando

Hey everyone this took a lot longer than a blog, but I think it allowed me to feel better about some things. It didn't quite turn out how I wanted, but I'm not that skilled when it comes to musical or video production. 

Just let me know what you think. I'm not really sure if this will make sense to anyone else besides me. 

Well Enjoy your week, I will be enjoying mine.

-Landocommando

Nice to meet you....

So as my first post I just wanted to introduce everyone to who I am and what I am up to:


So I'm Landocommando, the overly social, versatile kid, that doesn't really know what he wants for his future. I have grown up with 4 sisters but I think I have done a very good job at maintaining my masculinity. Growing up I was always the carefree type, who's favorite song was always "Don't worry be Happy!". I have come to realize that with that attitude came some consequences where I often didn't seem to think about what mattered most to me. The last couple of years I have changed a lot of my viewpoints on life, but have also found that what is important to me often doesn't match what the people around me place as their priorities.


Things that are important to Landocommando:
1. Real Conversations: I enjoy having REAL conversations about things that matter- while I understand that the "Get-to-know-you" conversations are a necessary first step, I will often ask people questions that surprise others. For me I like talking about things that will actually make me think or get to know the way you think, not the role you play in the act we call sociality.


2. Sports: sports are an important part of my life. I realized in high school that there is more to life than sports, but when I left high school I also realized that I hold Sports (basketball in particular) very close to my heart because of the lessons I have learned from it. I was the kid that hung around parks just waiting to find a pick-up basketball, frisbee, soccer, or football game.


3. My future family: People may ask me why I am so focused on a family that I don't even have yet (nor do I even have a girlfriend to be pondering about marriage). But I feel like since I was a young teen I have been excited to be a father (Not so excited that I wasn't going to be willing to wait til marriage, but none the less....Excited). I know that the decisions I make now will effect the husband and father I will become. I look forward to finding someone to share my life with and raise children that will cause us so much worry, but also increase our capacity to love.


4. My Faith: For me my faith has made me the person I am. I know that I can become better each day and have a large influence for good (if I am living my life in accordance with the teachings of Jesus Christ). I spent two years serving people in the Caribbean area and most importantly teaching that Christ is our redeemer and that we can each have a personal relationship with Heavenly Father. It is true when Christ said, "He that loseth his life for my sake (Christ's) shall find it." (Matthew 10:39). When I forgot about myself I learned a lot about the greater things in life. Now I am back in the real world and am trying to create the life that I potentially saw for myself in the future. One thing that has helped me is to find a way to serve  someone else and you will feel happy and your perspective will be the correct one. Feel free to ask me any questions you want: Landocommando@comcast.net  place BLOG in the subject line or I probably won't read it.


Those are just a few things that are important to me, but as I write more you will get to know me.


Well I feel like this has been an adequate introduction and I am sure I will write some blogs  involving friendships, relationships, funny stories, and maybe even take some requested topics.
My goal for today is looking for 5 things I am grateful for (I definitely need to)
See ya,
Landocommando