You Raise Me Up to Stand on Mountains

So I am really not looking forward to moving back home with my parents...

These past few weeks a lot has been changing and I am blessed to have a new job starting soon. I will be moving closer to the city (with my parents of course), which is also is something to look forward to.

This unanticipated new job is starting sooner than I thought although my lease doesn't end until May. I prayed about this I really did. Like "why is this happening now God? Why??" But like always God will not tell me until the time is right. I think I've realized this over the past year, that somethings are just out of our control and we just have to learn to accept it.

Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the Serenity to accept
the things I cannot change...
Courage to change the things I can...
And the wisdom to know the difference

This picture above was by my footsteps as I walked by the lake today, just calling for my attention. It really makes me think that I have to let God help me live my life by his/her will. I cannot keep pushing against it. It wasn't my wishes to move back home so soon, but maybe it's best. 

To be honest, this post was not just about that. It's really about how thankful I am for the family I have made through the Church of Christ. For many a time, I was scared to say it... that I was and I am searching for God...not religion...but God and in other ways but one. I have been attending the Church of Christ since September of 2013. I really maybe was scared to say that to people, especially those of my community, think they will look down upon me. I think it was hard at first to also have my parents understand why I was doing this "soul search" as I would like to call it. Like why on earth do I need to look at other religions other than my own to understand God, they didn't seem to get it.

They seem to finally get that I am on this new journey to "Haqiqati Samaj" as some Muslims say...as in the journey of knowledge. But through this journey, I have found more than just knowledge, I have found LOVE, and not that love you see in movies, or that love you think about with your significant other, but the love you never hear about...that love that I thought had gone ancient. The love of strangers who treat you like family. The love of friends that treat you like siblings. The love of humanity that really had no common cause but to share the love Christ and through their actions, my friends and family of the Church of Christ has so graciously made me feel at home.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be

These weeks have gone by quicker because of them. The random dinners, get-togethers, potlucks, church-Sundays, brunches, Chili nights, everything has made me feel loved. The love I cannot describe. When I struggled through seasonal depression and loneliness from my family and friends, they are the ones that took me to their homes, even though I was a stranger and brought me good conversation and pretzel buns (not kidding). They took in my uneasiness about religion and God with patience and still didn't give up on reaching out to me. They really met me at where I am at right now and where I was months before. They lifted me up when I was down and made me stronger to get back on my own two feet. I cant thank them enough for all they have done and are still doing.

I really think I've changed for the better and hope to not lose what I have gained from them when I move back home. Their values of selflessness, of true kindness, of prayer, and relationship with God are very important to me now, even more than before. I also learned how important it is to be thankful and realize the blessings we receive from God each day, not only for simple things like the Sun is shining, or thanking God for waking us up in the morning, but also being aware of how much we do have even when we think we don't. God puts obstacles in our way for us to later appreciate the ''golden era" that comes and goes and to realize that pride is never a good thing because our blessings can instantly be taken away. Lastly God loves us, and it doesn't matter if we make mistakes, and/or we are not the best. God's love is unconditional, even when those around us isn't always. So I rather seek God for now, than seek superficial pleasures that may not be their in the long run, like money, boyfriends, clothes, etc. I mean all that is great but those are also so temporary.

I know I've said God so many times in this past paragraph, but I honestly thank God so much for this knowledge he/she has given me and for awakening me. God bless. Amen. 

INADEQUACY

I wrote this blog post a few months ago. I thought I'd post it just to share my thoughts. I'm sure many people have struggled with this and still are. Keep pushing forward and doing YOU :)

INADEQUACY

Have you ever felt inadequate in your life? Like you can’t live up to your own expectations? But then you realize they are not your own expectations, but the expectations of the ones around you, like your parents?

Well that’s how I have been feeling lately. I know I’ve been putting myself down a lot and my counselor and friends think I’m very good at bashing myself and I need to simmer the harsh talk down a little. But do you know what it’s like to live in an Indian-American household? Where you’re not a conformist but you’re treated like an outsider because you do everything opposite your own culture.

You’ve had a boyfriend of every ethnicity other than your own. The fact that you’ve “dated” several guys itself is considered ‘bad’ or taboo. You don’t wish to get married in your 20’s, especially not to an Indian guy (yuck!). You don’t follow the money-making jobs out there and are not a financial analyst, a doctor, a lawyer, or anything in the IT field. You spend your time more so interested in the arts; you want to spend the rest of our life in another country. You love any language other than your own.

YES, all of those characteristics above are me. I’m also a feminist, who doesn’t see myself being the housewife, the cook, the mom, and working on top of all the that (aka superwoman). So reading this as an American sounds like such an easy lifestyle to live, right? Well, it’s not.

Being a nonconformist in my culture is difficult, especially when it’s looked down upon. My own parents want me to follow their stereotypical desi dreams, get rich and marry rich…well it’s not happening, at least not in the next 10 years (haha if that).

My life is confusing right now. I don’t know what I want to do with it. Whether I’d like to travel or stay here. I also don’t wish to live with my parents and “give back” to them for all they have done to me. I think it’s selfish of desi or Indian/Pakistani parents to expect that from their children. I mean yes, they came to America, with little or no money and worked their butts off for us, but does that mean I need to stay in my parents’ house till marriage and not go for my own dreams? I don’t think that’s the way I’d like to live.

To be honest it sometimes makes me cry, feeling this way. Because this is what my parents actually tell me I should be doing. It hurts to feel inadequate. I want to conform but I have my own dreams.

It’s been such a struggle growing up in America with Indian parents, not wanting to budge on the culture. Yes, they’re modern but some things are unarguable.

Cognitive dissonance was something that was brought up in church today. According to dictionary.com, it is defined as anxiety that comes from having simultaneous contradicting views about things. This is also something I learned about in Psychology (perhaps Advanced Social Psych?). The topic relates to a lot that I feel each and every day living in a American society, trying to balance out being culturally oriented in my home values and also balancing that out with the American values I learned from friends, school, peers, and societal norms. For example “I think this guy is cute, but I know my parent’s would disapprove so I can’t date him” or “I really want to go to Spain, but who will take care of my parents if I do?”

I also learned this weekend, during an uplifting conversation with a friend that I tend to not only be so judgmental outwardly, but I am ten times more judgmental internally. I may have received this negative trait from my family, and how I was brought up, with such a harsh tonality with everything they said, so blunt and straightforward, but also hitting me like pins and needles. I don’t know how some people say they have learned to let things fall off their shoulders after hearing such harsh criticism, where as I feel I’ve just turned more into a fragile egg.

What I do know is, I will never be happy following my parents dreams. I have to reach for my own, even if that means not seeing my parents as often. I love them to death but I’m not willing to give up my life in replacement for theirs. If that’s selfish to some, that’s okay, I think I deserve to put myself first. I don’t really care.