A Rant

I realized something this morning. My anti-histamine pills for my allergy to my house are having some side effects, specifically, drowsiness. I knew that was a possible side effect but didn't think it was because I haven't noticed it during the day. This morning though as I struggled to get up at 6 despite going to bed at 9:30 the previous night, I realized that I've been doing that for several weeks now and it all came together in my mind. I had noticed it previously but assumed it was because the World cup games and power cuts were throwing off my sleep schedule. I'm not really sure what I can do about it though. I need the pills to not break out in hives but they are ruining my favorite part of the day. :-(

This past week I have also noticed something of an issue in my life. I am young and inexperienced. This hurts my confidence in standing up and making certain arguments. This is both in work and belief situations. (be prepared this next part gets a bit long but should be an interesting read for many of you)

For instance, this past week I had some friends over for dinner. These friends are from a more Baptist background and it shows. Since my background is economics, talk eventually got on the topic of money. I happened to mention that I fall closer to the beliefs of the emergent church on this topic and specifically that I don't believe in storing up safety nets of money for myself. This is when he pulled out Proverbs 13:22 (NIV) "A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children..." I really wanted to go off on him for cherry picking on what I really feel is a pretty clear subject in the Bible. I didn't though because I can't quote sections of the Bible perfectly from memory and to counter-argue with him would have just pointed that out. When I read the Bible I remember concepts and flow much better than I remember phrases. Should I be so ashamed to admit that I can't (or maybe just don't) memorize it word for word? I wanted to point out to him the birds of the air and the lilies of the field who the Lord provides for or how Jesus told the rich man to give it all away or how hard it is for the camel to pass through the eye of the needle or how Jesus commanded the disciples to go and take NOTHING with them. I wanted to talk about how part of my belief comes from the fact that some of what I believe comes from the fact that when Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment he replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself." (I googled it and it comes from Luke 10:27) The important thing to notice here is that he didn't stop at the most important part, but also went to say that the thing that obviously must be there if you do this properly is to "love your neighbor as yourself". Jesus then responds to the question of who one's neighbor is by telling the story of the good Samaritan. Which along with his saying "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?...whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." (Matthew 12:48-50 looked that one up too) This along with the good Samaritan example have lead me to rethink what I consider family references in the Bible to mean. I also take note that an inheritance is not necessarily money. We all inherit traits (and in my case some craziness) from our family (and friends) as well as things like history and wisdom. For instance, my Grandma Birkey didn't leave any money behind when she died but one thing that I found obvious from stories of people who came to visit her in the hospital before her death was that she was leaving behind a legacy that changed quite a few lives. In short, I view the Proverbs verse about leaving an inheritance for my children's children to be about how I should live my life in relationship to others rather than about how God blesses those who save up money for their grandkids. But instead of saying all this, I sat there and mumbled something about disagreeing with that view but respecting it.

This behavior of mine carries over into my work as well. I've recently been reviewing a project proposal for my boss and one of my criticisms is that many of his numbers aren't based off anything other than speculation. I point out how we should be getting the information on these. He agrees and then talks about the thought process that went into determining the speculative number. Eventually, he still agrees with me but doesn't act on this at all, the plan continues forward unchanged. We recently had an expert on the subject pass through the office while doing some research and we asked for his opinion on our proposal. Low and behold, he points out the same thing I was just pointing out, and then tells them to completely drop it from the budget, which they promptly do. Que the rolling of my eyes.

I guess what I'm trying to point out with all of this is not that I'm right. I'm mostly trying to point out that even in situations where I may be right or just believe strongly that I'm right, I have very little confidence to push the issue. Part of this is probably because something about my mannerisms when pushing an issue makes me come across as arrogant (something I've had pointed out to me numerous times). Part of it is probably because I am to willing to admit that I'm not an expert and could be wrong (as I have also been countless times). In the end it seems to me that there are two solutions to this problem. I can either just push my opinions as truth until proven wrong (thus really going far into the arrogance spectrum) or I can just slowly work towards discerning when my opinions are worth pushing and when I should drop the issue because I'm being foolish (maybe underselling my potential contributions in the mean time). Is this an accurate perception of the options available to me? I've chosen the latter option for most of my life. Maybe I should pursue the first option more while looking for ways to make it sound less arrogant than it currently comes across? Also, how closely are arrogance and stubbornness to each other? I'm definitely pretty stubborn.

I should probably wrap this up, I've got more to write but I just went on a fairly long rant so I'll quit before I risk making myself look more the fool.