Extravagant

I’m one of those people that has to be sure about everything… well the big stuff anyway. I don’t like guessing. I don’t like taking chances. I used to take more chances but when you get burned it makes you more careful… it’s normal. It happens to everyone and it’s part of life. Getting burned is part of the progression to learning to preserve yourself over the course of your life. Defense Mechanism are created, intuition is strengthened, and self preservation is now key. As a child we give freely, we want to please. But as an adult we grow and realize that freely giving is dangerous. It can even be disastrous.

In the beginning of our lives our little brains are growing and taking lessons from everything we hear and everything we see. Everything that our brain sees it takes note of. It has no idea how to prepare us for our future adventures so it stores all of these notes in a file cabinet so they can be used later. Many of these notes we will not consciously remember but we will use anyway. Youth is our guidebook to adulthood.

Sometimes I think my brain worked overtime as I was young. The notes it held onto left me with a complex map and set of directions. It taught me to be careful, to be wise, and to always be weary of people who seem to nice. Actually just be careful with people in general. My childhood was anything but normal. I got tough at a young age, independent at an even younger age. I was acting out my teenage years in kindergarten. I was always serious about school work but had to do it on my own terms.

Rebellious… not exactly. I was stubborn, I was opinionated, and I was independent but I never really just went against something just because I could. I didn’t do things because I was angry or because I hated my parents. Quite the contrary. . . I loved my parents. I adored them. I even thought that my parents were possibly the greatest people on earth. For everything my parents messed up on… they made up to us with love. Even my eccentric mother did her best.

But there’s something about exposure to the outside world… outside of our family… that woke me up inside. I was trained to think certain things (like all young children are) but soon realized that not everything that I was taught was a reality. Words are pretty and poetic and interesting. . . but actions, actions are reality. Actions and experience and exposure teaches an individual much more about life.

I was born with the gift of understanding. I can understand just about anything that anyone does… however, with that gift comes who I am. And with who I am .. I also have an opinion. So despite the fact that I can understand just about anyone I also do not have to agree with them, side with them, or even approve of the action they have committed. With my understanding comes respect. I respect people for doing what they think is best, what they think is right, what they think is good. And even more so I respect people for trying to do their best each day… even when they mess up, even when they make mistakes (big or small). We’ve all been there right? Well I have anyway.

Yet, with the good comes the not so good. I analyze everything from the way a person dresses to the grip of their handshake. Little details and bigger details alike introduce me into their true character. I often see things about them that they do not see about themselves. I only wish I could say the same about myself. I can analyze the heck out of myself … and try to analyze from an outside position but I am still me. Bias will still exist to some degree. I’ve learned a lot about myself that I may not have if I hadn’t dug deeply enough. I learned that I’m a people pleaser… but that I hate admitting it. I’ve learned that at the core I am rather sensitive and that it bothers me like crazy. I’ve learned that I am strong when I need to be, but a baby when I don’t have to be strong. I’ve learned that I like things my way.. but that I am capable of compromise. I’ve learned that I hate feeling like I’m not living my life and that I continually crave adventure and romance and experience. I get bored easily. I have to constantly be stimulated in one way or another. I’ve learned that I am not content with a simple life… I need more. I don’t always like this about myself but it’s part of who I am.

And about people…
I’m careful but welcoming. I’m dangerously careless in many cases. I take too many chances. And yet I’m reserved to an extent because of the previous chances I have taken. I often hurt people’s feelings without realizing it or understanding why. My honesty can be brutal. But I know what I want… so though I want to please, I also desire what makes me happy. I can be selfish. I try not to be selfish.

 With the important decisions it’s important that I get to make them myself… though I welcome advice. I welcome advice because it does help me make my decision. I ponder and ponder and ponder. And when I am done pondering then I decide. What I decide may not be parallel to the advice that was given. I have to weigh everything. Many times people don’t like this. Sometimes I make others unhappy because they don’t think I’m listening… I am listening. I just know what I want and don’t know how to tell them that what they want isn’t it. I don’t want to hurt them but I don’t want to settle for something that I really don’t want to make them happy. Sometimes I do anyway. In these cases… I am always dissatisfied. What I’ve learned… you can’t always please others and you can’t always please yourself.

I often need to feel extravagant. Though most often times I feel quite plain. I think we’re all kind of like this. There are so many other humans that have so much more on their lifetime resume’s … what makes us extravagant? Extravagant doesn’t come from our resume’s though. It takes different strengths to get to different places. We all struggle. We all fail. We all get burned. BUT we all succeed, we all have victories, and we’re all loved. Well… the latter sentence is true if we allow it to be. It’s much easier to be a winner than a failure but it’s much more difficult to take the chance to WIN or to FAIL. I’m guilty of both.

I often times have to remind myself that I am not simple or plain. That none of us are simple or plain. I often times have to remind myself that I am extravagant. I am made in the image of my creator. How could I not be extravagant? My Creator loves me when I cannot love myself, He built me to be who I am, He gave me purpose, and HE CHOSE to create me. He did the same for you. He created you with a purpose in mind. See you’re extravagant too!

Our Creator made us just the way we are… he made us strong enough to go to battle (our own battles), he made us sensitive enough to love, and he created an entire lifetime of achievements just for us. Some of those achievements we wont see until much later. But we are EXTRAVAGANT. This is something we must never forget.

Not only are we extravagant but we are beautiful. We were made in the creators image. If we say that we are ugly does that mean our creator is to? How is it possible that OUR Creator could not be beautiful. Perhaps we are looking at ourselves in the wrong way. Earlier I said that it isn’t our resume that makes us great… well our resume doesn’t make us beautiful either. Who we are, what we reflect, and what we chose to do makes us beautiful. The world will tell you one thing… and He will tell you another. You are Extravagant. You are Beautiful. And you are not here on Accident.