Reflection

            This is just an assignment right? Wrong. This was much more than an assignment, this was a life experience.

            I went to bed Thursday evening preparing myself for the day to come.  I was dreading the following day.  What was it going to be like when I let go of my one defense? How was I going to cope without my sarcastic armor?  I wasn’t sure, and frankly I didn’t even want to think about it.  Finally I put the thought out of my mind and went to sleep.

            I woke up Friday morning with a glimmer of perspective. I knew I had to force myself to do this. It was for a grade and more than that, I refused to let my experiment fail.

            To think more about my day I went to my quiet place; the shower. In the midst of shampooing and conditioning I found the answers I was looking for.

            I realized that in order to make it through the day I would have to have the right mindset.  I knew that the love for others that I wanted to portray with my words had to start in my head. So I made the decision to keep my thoughts positive, in hopes that my words would follow suit.

            The first hour of my day was really easy, that is, until Molly woke up. After just thirty minutes around my sister, I blew it. Demeaning sarcasm to start the day wasn’t exactly what I was going for.  But as the day went on things looked up, it became almost easy to abide by the rules of my experiment.

            I fulfilled all of my requirements. I told 5 people things that I appreciate about who they are. One of the people was my dad. I told my dad that I really appreciate how he’s able to lead our family and still be relatable. As for the 10 general compliments, those were pretty simple. I told one girl that I don’t even know the name of that I liked her shoes, and another that her sweater was cute.

            One thing that I worry about my assignment is that it wasn’t fair. The day that the experiment took place; a large portion of the school was on a field trip. Most of those people on the field trip would have been people that I would have struggled to be nice to. So I kind of wonder what would have happened if they would be there. Would I have messed up a lot more and then have had a different experience? I really can’t know, but I feel that my experiment would have gone a lot differently.

            Maybe it’s because all those people weren’t there, but I found the whole experiment pretty easy. And although it was pretty easy, I had this weird feeling all day. I was driving home, thinking over my day and still feeling kind of off.  And that’s when it hit me; it’s not that hard to love others, it’s not that difficult to say nice things. The only thing stopping people from loving others more is themselves.  All you need to do is make the decision to put others first. Plain and simple, all you have to do is forget about yourself! How completely selfish am I that I can’t give up nit-picking at myself to love others.

In that moment, I was disgusted.  I couldn’t handle humanity, how can we all be so selfish that we can’t take a few seconds to decide to love others? And that’s when I started to paint. 

            I worked and I worked, and I put all my heart into my work.  And then it was done.  I call it “Edify”.  It’s based off of a multitude of scriptures including Romans 14:14-21, 1 Thessalonians 5:11, and 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.  The basic idea is that on the list of important things in my life, I should be last. Being last means that when I speak to others, I should speak in love and kindness.

            In sitting back and looking at the painting, I was able to see the hypocrisy in my experiment. I chose to go a whole day building people up with my words, when just twenty-four hours ago I chose not to go an hour without some sort of biting sarcasm. (Key word there being chose…) And then, I go ahead and do my experiment and realize that it really wasn’t that difficult. I realized that although I believe that we should be kind to one another, I never really acted on that belief.  Therefore, I was a hypocrite.

            Now though, I see that I was wrong, I see that I could have been different and (once again…) chose not to do so. But in seeing my fault, I am also able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I now know that being positive doesn’t have to be as complicated as

I think it does. I really don’t have an excuse to be mean anymore, and that scares me. What am I going to hide behind now? Nothing. And that’s how it needs to be. (Booo)

            It’s crazy to think that even though my experiment ended up kind of blah, it had a major impact. Even a whole day of making yourself do something that isn’t that tough, but differs from your routine can change a person. I know it can.  I’ve seen it happen.  I am the proof.

            So what the heck am I supposed to do know? What do I do when I know that I’ve been wrong and now I know I can change? I change.

Now that I’ve seen the error of my ways (not to be overly dramatic or anything...), I know that I need to be better, I know that I need to love people more. I can see that it’s a simple choice like most things in life; all I have to do is make the conscious decision to love more.  I’ve done in for 24 hours, the rest of my life will be a cake-walk right? (Right…?...)