Tonight something very profound happened to me.  This isn’t to say that I am any better than anyone or that I had a moment that was more enlightening than anyone in the world.  Today I learned that no matter how hard we try, whoever we are, at some point in time, the world will turn topsy turvy on us and nothing will make sense for some amount of time.  This shouldn’t be a grim thing, this should be an amazing thing, not to say you won’t at some point feel like absolute POOP, but it’s all part of the deal.  In prefacing my statements with all of this I would like to say one last thing; I in no way want to sound stuck up, snotty, full of myself, or for that matter, negative: I think this is about discovery.

 I usually maintain a pretty good equanimity about myself and my actions, I am usually able to comfort others in anger or other emotions, and I feel like I lead a good life and I try to view the good things in life [versus the bad things].  Tonight however, I was made to feel helpless, something inside me snapped and I broke down.  I felt like I wanted to curl into a ball and just go to sleep for a week and then come out to check the water if it was safe to come out.  I was at a loss, what would happen when I broke down and felt all these bad emotions?  What would happen when I could no longer console, who would console me?  That’s when I realized that it doesn’t matter, whatever we do, we can always just keep doing what makes us feel good about ourselves and we can keep doing what makes us feel like we do make a difference. 

For me, going to New Orleans is something profound, it is something that gives me a sense of purpose and a sense of fulfillment.  Realizing that I now know that it doesn’t matter how broken I am or how I don’t know what will happen in the future; the fact that I stay with my morals and ideas is all that matters.  I will always be the driving forces in my own life and I control what I want to do.

 Sincerely, David John Chrobuck

**caps are editing

A lot of things have become clearer to me over the past couple of months, I have achieved things I didn’t think I would, I have seen high points and low points, and most of all I have discovered things about myself.  Why am I telling you this?  Because it seems like something I think people should know, it’s something hopefully you all can help me with to better myself further.  I have most recently discovered that life is way too awesome to be sad or mad for too long.  I realized that I can’t be mad because I don’t get to see certain people enough, or sad that I didn’t do well on a test, I just remember, ‘Hey, I have some really cool friends, or, hey, I get to live in Seattle!” It’s like, you have to realize those things, even a single day is worth so much more when you just stop for five minutes and think about it, when you get sad, when someone else gets sad or whatever, just tell them that, think about the good things you get to experience every day.  It may sound really sappy and dumb but think about it, every day is such an amazing event, an experience that has somehow taught you something, if that day has something sad happen then you have been taught how to feel something, hope to cope.  Just stop and think, feeling sad about things for too long isn’t realistic, you have nothing to be sad about in life, you have nothing to be mad about in life.  Ending with a daily example from David’s life, (this is after my epiphany of course) a friend was really sad today and I was like, “How can you be sad with ridiculous curly hair like that?!” (because they do have ridiculous curly hair that just for some reason makes me happy) once I shared that odd fact with them they smiled.  That is something amazing, making someone’s day better by reminding them of something as simple as the fact that they have ridiculous hair is so simple it’s laughable.  Why would you not take the time to just tell someone, I think this is cool about you, it takes not more than 5 minutes and it makes so much difference you couldn’t even imagine unless you are the receiver, in which you understand exactly what I am talking about.  So overall, I’m telling you to take five minutes to think about the good things in your life and another five to tell someone else about something cool they do, that is ten minutes out of your 24 hours, not to mention another five to read this and in the process get free candy (that deal is still on).  So live a little, why don’t you?!

 Sincerely, David John Chrobuck

To preface, if I still am talking to the same cool kids then so be it, but this hopefully being read by more than five people, life experiences should be shared in a attempt to give others the knowledge that we possess.

Today I was talking to a friend and joking around when they had a break down so to speak, I was taken back, it seemed random to me that someone would just take something out of normal conversation and convert it to their own sadness.  Angst, for presence of no better word, is what I used to describe this in my head, they said, “I give up, I just stopped trying.” I felt horrible but I chuckled for a split second, I asked this person why they were so pissed and just flat out having an upside down smiley face.  They responded, “I don’t know, it just seems like people stopped caring so everything seems hopeless.”  I stopped them right there, I said, “That’s a pile of crap, I’m sorry to be so frank and a jerk but seriously.” I went on to explain how things happen all the time regardless of what we do and then if we get lucky they happen because of what we do.  Being a part of the world, let alone a microcosm such as our youth group is something truly amazing and lucky.  I told them that life may not always be awesome and easy to do but that isn’t really the point, I told them that we are here to make a difference and if I immediately thought about youth group.  We are like one body of amazing power, we were created for a reason and I am sure at this point that our reason is to be “the difference” (CLICHÉ!!!).  But really, we are like a single person, except way more powerful, like the Arnold Schwarzenegger of youth groups right now (in the 60’s); we are really strong and really really ridiculously good looking but we aren’t really out there, we have so much influence all we need to do is tap into that and go.  The moral of my semi-distracted story is to say that we shouldn’t get down on ourselves just because our youth group isn’t known around Seattle and we aren’t the coolest kids on the block, what we should do is use our energy and focus it towards being the same awesome youth group.

 Sincerely David John Chrobuck