Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Revelations

My revelation of the week was pretty spectacular. It's about a subject people usually assume there's only on answer for: being a quitter. Most people say "Quitters never win and winners never quit" but I realized last night that this isn't the case. I was tossing and turning, having nightmares about running the cash register at work (don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to), when finally I gave up and began to ponder the deepest questions of life like any genius in the middle of the night. I was really angry about something and was ranting to myself in my head, having the same argument I've had for months. It was about a situation where one side of me wanted to keep fighting because I felt I shouldn't give up on it while the other side of me was screaming to give up and keep moving. As I lay in bed with my angry conscience, I suddenly stopped in my thoughts and thought "Wait a minute, I'm mad about this! Like freaking furiously mad! Like I don't even care about it mad!" Why should I ever keep pressing forward with something that brings me so much anger? Why does it matter if I'm a quitter? It's possible to be a quitter for better reasons than being a fighter! As I pondered this, my conscience did a happy dance, then my moment of genius thinking was gone and I fell straight to sleep. Well, it was fun being smart for a little while.

Anyways, I learned that it really is ok to be a quitter sometimes. When I was in middle school, I fought so hard to keep a friendship together that I had had since the beginnings of elementary school, even though I knew deep down that this friendship was destroying who I was. But how could I give up on something? Isn't it bad to give up on someone that you believed in and cared about for so long? Aren't I a horrible person? It turns out it wasn't wrong to quit. I didn't quit on something because I was a heartless human being with no ambition. I quit something because I knew it was holding me back from fighting for other things. In this case, I would have ended up quite a messed up person if I hadn't decided to be a quitter. It's been the same with other things that I've quit in the past: marching band, tennis team, that freaking awful job at the BYU cafeteria, working out (ha). I didn't quit those things because I was lazy or too weak (well, maybe exercising...). I quit those things because they stood in the way of what things I was supposed to be focusing myself on and who I was supposed to become.

So it's ok to be a quitter!! In a way, you aren't really quitting anything, just moving on to the next page in life. Now don't go away from this page, striving to give up on important things, like your family, school, or showering (please freaking NO). Every person has things that they really do need to give up on in their lives and don't be afraid to =)

Missionaries Farewells, Ruining the Lives of Children, and Revelations

I'm finally home!!!!! There truly is no place like home. Even if the thing to greet me home was a trip to the emergency room for Ansel and spending part of the weekend in and out of the hospital, I'm so glad to be with my family again. Ansel's home from the hospital which makes things even more wonderful =) MaybeI should just drop out of school.....

So Sunday was the missionary farewell of one of my friends Nic Jones,who is leaving this morning for the MTC. His talk was outstanding, laced with Star Trek and Psych references (hilarious) but what most stood out to me was the power with which he spoke. He knew without a doubt that what he said was true and that was something that he had found out for himself. I really hope that my sons can be like that one day. To  speak with so much power that an entire audience can feel it and see it on his face. I sincerely desire that it will be about his testimony of Christ but if not, I hope my sons can stand for something they believe in like Nic. If it's Catholicism, Atheism, or if the only thing he believes is that he is an extra-terrestial goat herder on a distant plant trapped on earth, I hope that they stand behind that belief at any cost.

Last night I went to Lehi High Schools' Ballroom Concert (go Lehi!!), which was awesome. Before the concert, I was talking to my friends Kess and Brenner about life when Brenner, a former employee at Wendys, said, "Do you want to know how they make the food at Wendys?" Here's where that conversation went....

Caylin: They probably have a cow pen out in back right?
Brenner: Yep. They just go in the back and hack off a piece whenever they get an order.
Kess: Oh, that's good. I got a chicken sandwich today instead
Caylin: So they chop off a chicken's head instead!
Brenner: Yep, we have a chicken coop as well!

Apparently we weren't alone in our conversation because when we faced the front again, a little girl no more than five was staring at us with the most horrified expression of my life. She looked like she couldn't tell if she should burst into tears or throw up the last Kids Meal she ate. Yes darling, your McDonalds happy meal comes from cows and chickens, not plastic (to some degree). I have a feeling her mother wanted to kill us last night for destroying her daughter's innocence, but hey, it's a crime to not tell her.

I'll post the revelation section later, it's pretty fantastic stuff. Happy Wednesday people!!


Wednesday, December 12, 2012

A Year In Review: The Time I Bawled All Over My Laptop Instead of Studying Accounting

I just looked at my Facebook Year in Review and it literally made me burst into tears. There has never been a year quite like this one and in some ways I'm very glad it's over. This year, I met incredibly important people and I lost incredibly important people too. I had the best day of my life and the absolute worst day of my life. Some days I danced through life, feeling so happy to be alive and other days I wished a bolt of lightning would just destroy me. Some times I was successful beyond imagination, other times I would have given anything for a second chance. It was the best of times and it was the worst of times and finally we're at the end of it.

As I looked back on the events of this year, I realized how truly grateful I was for the divine intervention in my life. As Ammon in the Book of Mormon said "I will not boast of myself but I will boast of my God." It really was that divine intervention that has gotten me through every moment of this year and every year I will ever experience. I'm really grateful that someone is keeping an eye on me right now because freak yes, I need it!

I'm looking forward to starting fresh next year. I don't know where I will be then at all. I don't know if I'll be at BYU after winter semester. I don't know if I'm still going to study accounting. I don't know if I'll be married with octuplets or if I'm going to be a crazy cat lady who lives by herself all her life (definitely leaning toward the crazy cat lady...). However, I'm glad to know that whatever happens, there will always be that divine intervention in place, ready to stop me from going along with my crazy schemes.

Love, peace, and pizza grease!! Oh, and Merry Christmas too =)