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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.

• Start
• Ask questions
• Read
• Write
• Use a notebook app
• Highlight quotes
• Teach others
• Have conversations
• Create topics/tags/categories
• Learn background information
• Create concept maps/diagrams
• Apply it to your life

I hope that things can get better in the world, and even if things don’t get better, that we can get through it anyway.

I hope that I can do better in the future than I have in the past.

I have hope in Jesus Christ that this life isn’t the end of existence and that there is the ability to change, repent, and return to live with a loving Heavenly Father.

I have hope that happy times are ahead, and that I can be able to learn and grow stronger.

I hope I can make a difference in the lives of others and make the world a better place.

I’ve been journaling (almost) every day for years now. Here are some things I’ve learned:

• Don’t worry about the quality of writing. Just stick something down.
• I like going back and filling in any days that I missed instead of just trying to do it every day without fail.
• I write many different types of entries. Some are short records of what happened. Sometimes it’s more about how I feel. Sometimes it is long and rambling about everything I have in my mind. Sometimes it’s more focused on people around me. Sometimes it’s about my goals and dreams.
• Realize the purpose of the journal: my journal is more about the act of journaling than making a finished product. Most of it I don’t think anyone will ever read again. But I also enjoy it if I need to reference something or I want to remember about what happened years ago. My journal is a product for me, not for anyone else.
• Sometimes, I use it as a way to record stories and to record the Lord’s hand in my life. Those are what I would like to journal about all the time, but I’m okay if it only happens on occasion and most of my journal is just lists and whatever small thing is on my mind.
• I type my journal on the computer. I don’t like writing on paper, so this just makes it easier for me.

How do you journal? What works for you? What is difficult for you?

We were hiking and the kids had climbed up this slab of granite and we told them to come down so we could keep going. We started to get going again, but as my little girl ran to join us, she went faster than her feet and fell forward onto the ground.

She cried and cried and she hurt. Her hands hurt and her feelings hurt and she was covered in dust. She kept crying for a long time as I picked her up and hiked onward.

How could I help her calm down? I thought if she could just get her breath for a moment, she would be able to move forward and be okay.

So in a desperate moment of trying to get my daughter to breathe instead of wail, I held up a few fingers and asked her to blow the candles out, pretending that my fingers were the candles.

When she blew on my fingers, I put them down. And we did it again with a different amount of fingers. She calmed down and she started breathing again, and became a very enjoyable game.

I took about two weeks off of social media, and I logged back on to see a whole bunch of pictures people had shared of family reunions and life events.

And I remembered that when I was young, we didn’t take pictures to share immediately with other people. We took pictures to remember things. The only people who saw the pictures of our family vacations were our family.

I don’t think anything is necessarily wrong with sharing photos. It can be nice to see what people we love are doing with their lives.

But there have conversation where I’ve seen something on social media or someone else has seen something on social media, and it’s disappointing that we can’t share more genuinely. I get more pleasure telling a story about my life to a person than I do putting it out there on social media where the people I love may or may not see it.

I don’t know if I benefited much from seeing other people’s photographs. I would rather be with people and talk to people and interact with them.