Thoughts on Education

In recent days,  I had the opportunity to once again be a part of a cool classroom learning experience at Education Week at Brigham Young University in Utah.   I saw how there are opportunities of learning everywhere within the campus that fit the interests of everybody and the joy that we feel from each of the Education Week as part of the learning process shows that life is really about the journey, not just the destination.   When we have a certain interest in learning, it motivates us to study further until we have a deeper problem within ourselves that we need to solve with the use of knowledge.   As I start school again this coming Tuesday, I wanted to share some thoughts on how education can impact us for the better.   A lot of times, many of us don't quite understand the value of going to school because we tend to feel stressed about the temporal demands that life places upon us.   When we desire to learn something, even a subject we hate very much, we find in ourselves a new talent and a new passion.   Nelson Mandela once said that education is the most powerful weapon we can have for changing the world.   Education also removes the barriers of ignorance and prejudice that we tend to keep in ourselves.  When we shut ourselves off to learning, we're shutting off the opportunity to grow and become better people and we don't develop talents that can bless ourselves and others around us.  So take any opportunity to educate yourself, you'll find that you have more potential than you can imagine.

Thoughts on Friends

Friends really are important.   Good friends that encourage you to do you best are just as important as your family, you can't really live life without them.    It's like this quote on a tile that's on a bookshelf at my bedroom, "Friends are: allies, supporters, companions...the family you keep."    Besides serving others, be a friend to everybody regardless of background, race, gender, religion, etc. that are really sincere and do really care about you, and try as hard as you can to keep those real relationships as possible.  Cyber friendships are good too if you know what you're doing and are careful, but unless they cultivate into a real friendship, you're just talking to a picture with words on a screen.   So take time to make real friendships, your life and the lives of others will be greatly enriched as you do and friendships are more valuable than all the super nice material things like gold and cars put together.

Thoughts on Volunteering to Be Happy

There is a wonderful feeling when we go out of our way to help others and it doesn't matter in what way we do it.   We forget about our own problems and our own worries to help erase the problems and worries of others and that we become less selfish and prideful.   Examples of the opportunities that I've had to serve others included being a part of an autism charity walk, a volunteer for special olympics, speaking with the parents of autistic children encouraging them that their autistic kids can end up in the same kind of path as me.  My biggest opportunity to serve came when i served as an especially for youth counselor this past week and I saw for the next 7 weeks of my summer how much we can learn through prayer and faith and good works.  I also had the opportunity to play frisbee with my friends, especially college, high school, and an efy friend, and it shows that by having fun with others, all can be happy as well.   Plus, I had the opportunity to meet people from all parts of Utah, the United States, even some who had backgrounds in other nations of the world.    If any one lonely, the best way to combat lonliness is to serve someone who is lonely also.