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I like carrot cake. With milk.

My friend once ordered me carrot cake Oreos for my birthday and had them shipped to my house. It was one of the most thoughtful and surprising things anyone has ever done for me.

And if you don’t like Oreos, that’s okay. Homemade cookies/cake/etc. are always better.

Sometimes reading the scriptures isn’t very enjoyable. I’m reading the Old Testament right now, and I’ve just finished 1 Chronicles. It gets repetitive and I don’t understand quite a lot of it.

But I enjoy it when I’m looking for verses and phrases that resonate with me and can help me in my life.

In the middle of genealogies and lists, I came across this verse:

Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the Lord God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord.

1 Chronicles 28:20

I don’t like every single verse when I read the scriptures, but I come to love the scriptures when I search to find the single verse that can help me.

Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.

-Anne of Green Gables

Sometimes I am talking to someone and we just connect with each other. I have been unable to quantify exactly why.

There are other times I have a great conversation with someone, but even if we share lots of things in common with similar interests, I don’t feel very connected to them.

I’ve had friends where we just understand each other in a deeper way. I’ve had other friends when I feel like we’re always talking just past each other.

What is a kindred spirit anyway?

Having a kindred spirit means that you can be with someone without judgment, where you feel completely comfortable in your own skin and you can completely be yourself–and the other person feels the same way.

It means that you see enough of the world in the same way that you both are in focus with each other.

I just got a new vacuum. It’s a cordless vacuum, and I like it a lot in some ways, but it’s not perfect.

I own one cordless stick vacuum, one cheap normal vacuum, two shop vacuums, a combo vacuum-mop, and a carpet cleaner (that has been indefinitely loaned to my sister-in-law). I’ve also owned a car vacuum. That sounds ridiculous.

But I’m not alone in my vacuum struggle. As I was in the vacuum aisle, I had an acquaintance–our daughters were in preschool together–come up. She had a nice vacuum, but it didn’t have enough power to clean her house. Vacuums break easily and don’t work as well as we want them to.

But with all my appliances, my floors aren’t clean. My kids go in and out all the time, tracking in dirt. We spill food and stuff. I don’t clean as often as I could–I feel like I need to do it multiple times a day to keep up on it.

How do you keep your floor clean? How often do you clean it?

I’m thinking back to the days before vacuums existed. They would sweep and take rugs out and beat them with a stick. I think maybe they were probably just more tolerant of dirty floors back them?

I have moments where everything is great and I’m super happy and life is good.

And then something will change and suddenly, I am struggling.

Sometimes my outward circumstances look exactly the same, so many people don’t know that anything is wrong.

So many struggles are invisible.

So let’s be kind to each other and take the time to listen.

What are you struggling with?

In Star Trek, Vulcans think they are superior beings because they have suppressed emotions and work purely by logic. It’s a common narrative that we have rational, logical thinking opposed by emotions.

But what would happen if you have no emotions?

If you were never afraid, you would may constantly yourself in dangerous circumstances. If you never loved, you wouldn’t make a family. If you didn’t feel anger, you wouldn’t fix injustice. If you didn’t feel happy, what would be the point of living?

Basically, if we didn’t have emotions, we might die.

So emotions are rational. Our brains constantly work by using emotions. Emotions help us make decisions. We make sense of the world by feeling things and acting on these feelings. Emotions keep us wanting and keep us doing.

If purely logical Vulcans existed, they wouldn’t be higher beings: they would be dysfunctional.

The most important direction and goals you can have is how you want to help others and improve the world. If you spend your time pursuing things like wealth and experiences only for yourself, you are easily forgotten. But when you focus your life on improving other people’s lives, then you leave an impact that will last.

I think a lot of us are trying to figure out our lives. Life changes and we often have to reanalyze where we are going. For me, my kids are going into school which means I have more time in the day. I’m entering into this new stage. And I think about all the friends and family members I’ve talked to lately who are facing major decisions about careers and jobs, schooling, location, family, and more.

For quite a few months, I struggled to figure out my next step. I just felt unsettled and I would decide on something and it wouldn’t feel right, so I would keep thinking about it and keep looking. I was a bit frustrated with my own indecision, but when I finally questioned some of the assumption I had, then I was able to make a better decision about some aspects my life that I feel totally at peace with.

I got a degree in economics partly to increase my earning potential, and while I wanted to go to graduate school, I wasn’t sure what to study. While economics interests me, I don’t want to sit and study complicated statistics, collecting data on super-specific problems and coming up with conclusions simply based on that data.

I’m going to apply to graduate school in philosophy. And a part of me says that that isn’t a good investment, since there isn’t a good job market for people with philosophy degrees. But I realized that I didn’t want to go to graduate school to get a better job; I wanted to go to graduate school to study something I loved, and philosophy fits that a whole lot better. (And I’ll only go if I can get in to a funded program that fits with my family.)

Earlier in my life, I really wanted to write novels. I didn’t really give up on that; I just grew out of it. But I did successfully write novels. Having that goal made me persist, writing and rewriting novel after novel until I finally finished one that I’m proud of.

It’s hard to figure out what direction you are going, and it’s okay if it takes a long time. Keep exploring and figuring it out. But when you find it, that direction really helps prioritize your life and give you purpose.

1. Love God and love others
2. Love my children and take care of them so they become well-rounded and self-reliant and able to help others
3. Study philosophy (and other related subjects) and research topics that I am passionate about, such as rationality and ethics.
4. Teach others what I learn.
5. Write and publish books that will help others learn and become better people.

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