The reality of Choice and Accountability.

So I'm in China. Alive and well. If you want pictures, you'll have to check out facebook. If you want stories, I will hopefully get around to telling some here, but also feel free to email or text me. I've been journaling a bunch while I'm here, and I meant to blog too, but my computer's battery promptly died upon being back here, so I have to blog from my phone, and that's a tough way to type haha. But I'm struggling through it right now, so maybe you'll hear from me again before too long.

The thing I want to talk about today actually has nothing to do with China. I just wanted to share something that I think is very important. There was a long thought process behind this (starting with some stupid article I found on facebook that made me worry for a minute that I might be a disappointment to my mom and dad), but this is the end result:

I am comfortable with who I am and the life I live and most of the choices I've made. I don't see eye to eye with some of the LDS teachings, and I love some of the LDS teachings. I'm grateful for the music I've found and incorporated into my life, and there are many people who I've met who have changed the way I think and I'm grateful for those growths. I'm proud of those growths. I've made a lot of choices in my life that lots of people think are mistakes, but I stand by every single one of them, and although I have actually had people think less of me for my belief in God, or for listening to rap music, or any number of other things, I hope someday we can all have the ability to not care about what other people are doing with their lives and focus on what you're doing with your own life.

Because as I see it, the choices I make in my life don't matter nearly as much as why I made those choices, and I made my choices for myself, not for validation from someone. And to compare me to anyone else would be an insult to us both. The only competition I need in my life is with myself. The only choices I feel I've made that were poor are the times when I knew I could give 95% of my effort, and I chose to only give 60, the moments where I looked at someone who needed me, and I had the time to help, but chose to walk away instead.

I will fix those choices, but putting off school to go travel the world or prioritizing climbing over homework? Those were my choices, and they are no one else's business, and I am happy to accept the consequences of my choices. That's why I made them.

And I suppose, if you really want to make them your business, then go ahead and judge me off what you see. I'll just be over here continuing on with my life.