Calling

Hey Guys,

Something I am struggling with right now and trying to figure out is my calling for my life. You know those people you just seem to hate. Those people who seem to have their whole life together, know exactly what they want to do and have everything together? I use to be one of those people, since I was in grade 4 I could remember that I wanted to be in business, I wanted to be like those guys off wall street, I wanted to be like my Dad. To prove my point I will say this, that for Halloween in grade 4 I dressed up like a business man because that is what I wanted to be. Even through my entire time at high school I could not wait to get to university to study business because that is all I wanted to do. I believe that is what I was called to, that is what I enjoyed and that is what I am passionate about.

Things change though, I am sitting here now in my third, almost fourth year of schooling wishing I would have either gone into education, psychology or history. Though,  do we actually ever know what is going to be our calling for the rest of our life? I was listening to someone today who said this, we will find something that we love to do for 10 - 15 years and then we are going to need change. Whether it would be a change in our career, a change in our environment and a change in something small we need change. I wonder if this is my time in my life for change?

I have a fair amount of things I do on a regular basis, whether it be at subway or as big as my major there are things I do on a regular basis. For subway on a random note: I get Italian Herb and Cheese, Footlong, Cold Cut Combo, White Cheese, Toasted, Light Lettuce, Cucumbers, Southwest Sauce, and Salt/Pepper. I know that is not important in anyway but it gets my point along maybe I need some change in my life. On a deeper point I have lost my focus/calling in my life. However I am at peace with that because I think I have spent too much time just doing what I was good at but now what I loved.

It is really simple, I know I have mentioned this before BUT the best thing you can do in life is do what you love, the rest will follow. My business mentor told me this, your mom was right, do what makes you happy. SO BASIC right? Sometimes the biggest things in our life are the simplest. Look at this:

What do you want to do with your life?

What ever makes you happy, you are passionate about and what you love to do.

How do you deal with problems/conflicts?

Deal with it right away, seek conversation and resolve quickly.

How do I get that girl?

Tell her how you feel and ask her out.

What do I need to do to have people like me?

Be yourself and people will respect that and like you for you.

How do I get noticed?

Be boldness but not loud, stick to who you are.

What do I need to do to accomplish my goals?

Hard work and support.

These are some of the hardest questions I have ever faced in my life. Yet they have the simplest answers of all time. If only it was that simple to get through it though. Next week starting today through Tuesday, I am going to go into these topics one by one and write about them. Well lets look at this first one, what do you want to do in your life? I do not know what I want to do. I do not claim to be able to tell you what you want to do but I can tell you how I am figuring out it and what you can do too. So here is my advice, ask the people closest to you. Something I have started to see in my own life is that it is the people closest to me who know what I should do. The reason is because the see you everyday, they see your strengths, your weakness and your passions. Who else would know you better? Minus maybe a wife but until that day we get married the people that will know you the best our your friends. Next ask your parents or mentor, they will know you just as well and will probably be look at your life in a more logical aspect. For example they will think of stuff I might over look, finance, supporting a family and surviving in general. 

Another way you can try to figure out what you want to do is list your priorities. Figuring out what is the most important priority in your life and find a job/career that is going to fit around that. For me I figuring out what is the most impactful and important things in my life. I want to have a family, I want to be involved in a church, I want to do mentorship, I want to serve in the community and I want to have enjoyment in my life. There is more to that list but that is a foundation, it eliminates a few jobs from my choices. Try doing something like this, list everything you want to accomplish, places you want to travel, things you want in life and other life goals. If you do that, you will quickly find out what jobs/career path fit down that.

These are strategies I have taken, maybe they will work for you too! I am trying to figure out what my calling is but first I have to figure out what is a priority for me right? That will be the first step figure out what is important for you and your career will fit that!

Goodbye for now,

Christian Sawka

Helping People

Hey Guys,

Today I am going to give you the biggest secret and tool to help you for the rest of your life. Completely free of charge with no strings attached AT ALL. Are you ready? Well you are going to have to read the whole blog before I tell you. Just joking, YOU CANNOT HELP SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT WANT TO BE HELPED. If you take this statement and accept this it really will positively affect your life. Now I am not saying that statement to ward you away from helping anyone else. But being someone who does care a fair amount for people, being someone who always wants to help and being someone who never wants to see someone go through life alone, this was tough for me to understand.

When I look back at my life and look at the times I tried to help I realize the only time I can help people is when they wanted help. As much as I do not like to admit it it was NOTHING to do with me, people have to want to be helped. Maybe it is just me here but it has been a difficult idea for me to fully grasp that ultimately I cannot do anything. The reason I started this blog was to try and help people who have or are going through depression. Something I have realized though is that this blog cannot help anyone unless they themselves want help. This is not a giving up attitude saying I am not going to try and help people it means that I need to accept I cannot fix everyone.

Maybe I have a scued idea of what it means to help someone and what it means to fix someone. I often combine the two together but I think they might be two separate things but oh well I am using them as the same. Helping people I think is something that is built into everyone of us. I do believe that ultimately we like to help people to a certain extent, some more then other but deep down we still like to help people. Just be careful right?

You have to be willing to share apart of you though when helping someone. I am not an expert in helping people sadly, I love to but I often feel like I fail half the time. Well more then half. That comes with being human though right? Something I talked about with Lauren, who also writes about struggles, she writes about eating disorders, was that we are not professionals. I know this might shock everyone but I am not a professional in helping through depression. I can tell you my experience, what worked for me and how you can help yourself but I cannot ultimately help you and fix you. As much as I would like to.

For some aspects of life I believe that things are a choice, this is something I believe in that is a choice. I think people need to choose to want to be helped. If you come up to me in October you were going to get me over depression I would have told you yes but nothing would have changed. This was not because I did not want to help myself but I did not even know how to or where to start. I was still denying it at that point and did not want to help myself because I did not want to admit there was something wrong. I guess that is my final point from my experience you cannot fix someone that goes not want to be helped or fixed. In my life it had to be a choice to get help, it was a difficult one but eventually I made a choice to get help. That is all you can really do, until someone asks for help it is going to be difficult to help them!

Goodbye for now,

Christian Sawka

Pornography

PORNOGRAPHY, this is something our culture suffers with. I am not just saying guys because I have known many girls to suffer with this too for a few different reasons. Pornography is something that our culture has taken an accepted and made as something normal.  I come from a Christian background who talks about how pornography is negative. I also do actually live in this world, especially a world that has no problem with pornography. Actually I think we are at the point where we almost encourage it and something is wrong if you do not look at it on a regular basis. Being a guy I think I am well equipped to talk about it. First off I am human and I have look at pornography, I think you will be hard fetched to find someone in today's culture who has not. In this blog I am just going to talk about a few misconceptions and just talk about struggles it has had on me.

Biggest misconception is this, pornography is something that GUYS AND GIRLS struggle with. I hope that is not a shock for anyone at this point in their life but it is true that it is something both genders struggle with. Whether it be for arousal reasons or for body image reasons girls struggle with addiction to pornography too. I do not claim to be an expert that understands the female mind (wish I did) but I do not. What I am talking about is based off personal experience and knowledge hence my blog :)

Something I noticed in my personal life is the more I look at pornography the more I idealize woman and have trouble getting to know them. This might sound weird or it might sound normal though, the more I started looking and idealizing these perfect woman the more difficulty I have/had looking at people as just another person. I do have good news right now which is that it is not a problem for me in my life right now but in the past it has been a bigger problem. In my own experience the time it was a biggest struggle for me was when I was bored and had nothing to do. It has seemed in my life the time I was looking at pornography the most was when I had nothing else to do with my time. It had become some what of a natural thing. Just like what ever NO BIG DEAL, I think that is something that has happened now is that it is no big deal anymore.

If you have not noticed by now I am not a huge fan or the looking or pornography. Unfortunately it is something I struggle with and have this weird feeling that this struggle I have will not just go away. I believe that looking at pornography is a negative thing, I do believe it alters our view of woman or men and will ultimately be negative upon a relationship. A idea I have about why pornography has become to prominent in our society is because of the glorification of sex outside marriage. It may just be a chicken and a egg discussion about what came first. Was it that pornography became normal or was it that the glorification of pre-martial sex came first? That is for another day though.

I do believe looking at pornography has a negative effect on your character, it would be really difficult for you to convince me of the 'benefits' of it! The hardest part though is this, it is not easy to just get rid of pornography from you're life. The temptation is everywhere, even today I have seen  about ten Ad's, stories or news articles regarding or including pornography. It is difficult to take it out of you're life. The only advice I can give is this get someone to keep you accountable to stay away but it is all a choice if you want to stay away. I know a fair amount of people that could honestly care less about watching or looking at pornography or not. It is all a choice we can make. My personal choice is to try and stay away, I am sure as heck not perfect and it is pretty difficult in today's day and age.

Goodbye for now,

Christian Sawka