“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s” Exodus 20:17
On my way home from work today, my mind was running a mile a minute. Today I discovered at work that some things have change that I'm not entirely happy about, but it got me thinking about some other things in my life that haven't gone exactly as I've wanted, and it all lead to the above scripture and commandment. It makes a lot more sense to me. There are I'm sure plenty of reasons that this commandment was given, but I think one of the main reasons is because of what it does to our psyche.
How many times have you sat down and thought to yourself how much you hate your life and wished you were someone else? Or looked at someone else and thought, “must be nice to have everything handed to you!” or something along those lines. Well, I'm not afraid to admit that I've been one of those people. It's so easy to get caught up in what is happening in our own lives because that is what we know. People go hungry around the world and so many people are suffering through natural disasters and war, but what we think about is what is happening in front of our faces. It's human nature. It's one of the main factors in depression and what commonly leads to suicide. Now, I'm not saying that I'm suicidal; I'm simply making a point.
What happened at work is that they are starting to schedule me in for Sunday's. I haven't had to work Sunday's in YEARS. Now, to most, this may not seem like a big deal; however, for me it's a huge deal. In my church we don't work on Sunday's and it's a very important thing for me to follow. It's not as though I'm going to hell if I do, but it's a commandment and it's also important to me because of what the day represents. The more I thought about it though the more I realized how lucky I am. There are so many things I love about my job and so much they've done for me and I've been really lucky up until this point and so I've decided not to make a big fuss over it. My job is shift work and many people in many other fields have to go through it, so why can't I?
This led me to other things in my life that I've been thinking about. I've found myself over and over again in a place where I have found a reason not to be happy. I keep telling myself it's only been the last couple of years, but anyone who truly knows me knows it's been for far longer than that. Everything that has happened to me over the last couple of years has really only added to an already declining mental state of mind that I've been well aware of but too afraid to truly face. Over my 28 years of life I have had so many interactions with people whether family. romantic relationships or supposed friends that has given me every reason not to trust people and it has caused me to build up walls and back into corners. It’s ironic to think that in my everyday life I can’t open up and tell anybody anything for fear of how they’ll judge me, but here I am exposing myself to the world via a blog. Maybe it’s because it’s unlikely very many people will actually read it, who knows. Either way, it needs to get out. I feel as though I’ll explode if I don’t get it out. I don't want to be like this anymore. I want to be what so many people are fooled into thinking: outgoing, happy and completely carefree! And that is true. That's who I truly am; that person just backs away every time someone does something that gives me a reason to think they'll betray my trust or hurt me. I don't like it. I want that way of thinking to change, I just don't know how.
A wise person once said, “Sometimes you put up walls not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break it down.” I have no idea who said it, but I couldn't have said it better.
