grace vs karma.

"i was saved by grace"

it was this line on a kid's t-shirt that sparked a recent conversation i had with alex. which inspired me to think about this concept: grace or karma?

for clarifying purposes of this blog, i will define grace and karma, in the best way that i can.
grace is the belief that all will be forgiven. it is usually believed by people of the christian faith, because according to the bible, god is all forgiving. so for example, if i make you mad by dropping your phone into a fish tank, as long as you forgive me, all it good and forgotten.
karma is the belief that what goes around, comes around. i believe that its origin is in indian faiths, such as the religions of hinduism and buddhism. so if i take the same example as above: if i drop your phone in a fish tank, you will either 1)retaliate by dropping my phone into a fish tank, or 2)get back at me at a different time in a different way such as by spilling a can of paint all over me in my favorite outfit.

so alex's question to me was: "do you believe in grace or karma?"

he said that you had to believe in one or the other. and i think that is true. any action has consequences, have it be small or large. if you don't believe that what you do will come back to you (karma), then it will probably disappear (grace). there is nowhere else for it to go.

so which is it that i believe in? grace or karma?

when i was little, my mom would take me to church. which is no surprise, seeing that she is a christian and, naturally, would hope that i follow in her footsteps. i think it was in the 6th grade, about 5 or 6 years ago, that i discovered that i did not believe in any of the christian beliefs. which, obviously, resulted in my refusal to attend church. since then, i have had no religious affiliation. I do not believe in a god, a higher power, or anything of that sort.

therefore, grace or karma is not a matter of religion to me. it lies solely in my belief of my actions and how others perceive them, and the result of that. on that word, i honestly don't know which i believe in.

i am sure that i have sinned in my life. in my seventeen years and 5.5 months, i have surely disappointed someone, done something to make someone else upset, or even purposely made someone mad. but karma does not only come in one form. as i said before, the retaliation can be at a different time in a completely different situation in a different way. as newton said, "every action has an equal and opposite reaction". in every case that i had ever sinned, i am 100% sure that something has happened as a result of that action. not only sins, but any action i have ever done. even if the reaction doesn't affect me or even has nothing to do with me, it is still a reaction to what i did.

going back to my earlier example: if i drop your phone in a fish tank. if you decide to be ever so kind as to forgive me for doing it, and don't destroy something of mine in return, you will still have some sort of reaction to my action. surely you will act differently that day, as you are probably sad/mad/upset because your phone is broken. you will not act the same way you would if you were happy that day. because of that, something will occur differently in your day and that will be the result of my action. this isn't exactly karma.

yet this isn't exactly grace either. maybe you did forgive, but you did not forget. because of that one thing that happened differently in your day, it will cause a chain of effects that could, possibly, affect my day. in this case, that would be karma (but i would've never known that).

so i guess what i'm trying to say is that you will never know enough about everything to ever know whether or not your action is forgiven and forgotten or if it will eventually come back to you. you may know the immediate effects, like if i kick you on accident, and say i'm sorry, and you forgive me, it is grace, as you forgave me and did not hold a grudge. as for karma, if i punch you and you punch me back, that is karma because what i did came back to me. of course, grace and karma go to much larger scales and include things incomprehensible to me. so i am in no place to hold an argument about it in those cases.

the belief in grace and/or karma is a personal decision. just like religion, it is used in a way of support, to know that the universe has an order and things happen for a reason. my personal decision is that i am undecided. i cannot answer alex's question. grace, or karma? what do you believe in?

i am a very non-religious person.

postscript: i'm really sorry if a lot of this blog didn't make sense or is offensive or contradicts itself and goes in circles. my blog is a way for me to organize my own thoughts and get it out in writing. it's kind of like my diary, but in a public way. like i said before, read if you want, comment if you like. eat some cheese.

okay.

i really have nothing to blog about. but it's been almost 5 months since i've posted a blog so i think that a blog is in order.

i've sat here in front of my laptop with snippets of ideas to talk about but none of them have formed into complete ones. i blame it on the summer. i go into complete brain fart mode in the summer.

so i guess i'll just talk about what i've been up to.

i just got back from oregon, where i visited a lot of my old family friends from when i lived there, around 10 years ago. i went to tillamook, where i used to go as a child on trips with the same family friends. i also walked around my old elementary school with my childhood best friend. oh, the memories that came with it. childhood was so simple.

tax free shopping in oregon was pretty cool too. but i didn't go into an adidas :(. however, i did buy some tennis stuff at nike. i also bought some normal clothes at the gap, american eagle, old navy, and really cheap hollister. it was good.

i'm still doing samena tennis in the mornings from 8-9:30, and some edgebrook, but only a little. tennis is really my favorite sport and it makes me happy. now, if only my shoulder would heal.

in two weeks i will have my license, hopefully. that is the date of my drive test! i already passed my knowledge test with flying colors. 100%, baby!

yep, that's about it. my life is not very exciting.

attention.

what is it about the pursuit of attention that makes it so desirable? i've seen countless people go to extreme measures to get attention from other people. have it be the way they dress, the way they do things, or, what i find most annoying: the way they speak.

the way people speak is how we all relate to each other; how we communicate. somewhere in communication some people can incorporate their desire for attention. no, i'm not talking about tone of voice or word choice. i'm talking about constantly bringing up subjects that clearly no one wants to talk about. or subjects that no one cares about. even subjects that no one wants to know about. especially when the person is hypocritical.

this brings me to a certain friend i have. she constantly puts on an image of tough, bitchy, i-don't-give-a-crap attitude. clearly this is not how she feels. conversations with her always include some sort of "i want attention" attitude. through various interactions with her, i have come to the conclusion that she is insecure. and this has also led me to the conclusion that the pursuit of attention is caused by insecurity.

i haven't ever really had insecurity issues. i'm pretty confident in myself and often don't let others tell me otherwise. because of this, i've never been big on attention, so i really don't understand why people like attention. when the spotlight is on, does insecurity melt away? i fail to see the reasoning behind this. to me, there is no connection.

therefore, pursuing attention isn't a case of positive desire; people don't strive for attention just because they want attention. it is the negative desire to get away from insecurity. this isn't something i can really help with, then. insecurity is slowly bred by years of maltreatment or belittling by friends, family, and peers. it is not something that one person can heal. does this mean that the annoying pursuit of attention cannot be stopped?

this remains a subject i can't lay my finger on.

new year, new beginning.

i know that it's more than a week into the new year, but it's still a new year, right? so i've decided to come back to my abandoned blog and maybe write something else. what am i talking about? i am writing something else.

my meaningful topic for today is truthfulness.

truth is defined by dictionary.com as "the true or actual state of a matter". but why is it that the truth is often swallowed? it seems like such a simple statement: how it really is. sometimes two truths can be different because the perception and analysis of a certain event can differ between two people. but that is not what i'm talking about. i pose this question: what is truth? and to what extent would a statement be considered "the truth"?

is telling half a story still considered the truth? if someone asks you what you did yesterday and you respond by saying, "i woke up, brushed my teeth, went out, came back, showered, and slept", are you telling the truth? surely there is no lie in this statement, everything you mentioned was something you did. but again, was this all that you did? did you eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner? did you converse with others? this statement is not the complete truth, but it is truthful nonetheless.

on the other hand, sometimes telling half the story can be untruthful as well. say two siblings are fighting, and the mother wants to know who started it. the younger sibling responds by saying that the older sibling hit him first. what was not mentioned was that the younger sibling borrowed the older siblings crayons without permission. the younger sibling provoked the older sibling to hit him first. again, the statement that the "older sibling hit him first" is entirely true. he did. but this places all the blame on the older sibling, when clearly both siblings are at fault. this type of statement is not truthful.

what makes one of these situations truthful, while the other not? i like to think of "the truth" as a statement that puts the audience into the situation of what happened and exactly how each character in the situation felt. the entire truth in the sibling bicker would state that the younger sibling provoked the older sibling first. because half a story is not always truthful, even though it may be the truth of what happened, i am adamant about learning the entire story before making any judgments.

now, how to judge after the entire truth is learned is another situation altogether.

more tennis.

so i've come to the realization that tennis makes me really happy. i absolutely love the sport and playing it relieves stress and, i dont know, just makes me happy. recently the tennis director may have offered me a job to work at edgebrook, teaching (or assisting/assistant coaching) little kids tennis.

a couple weeks ago, after a private lesson i had with chris, ross, the tennis director, asked me how old i was. of course, i said 16. he then asked if i would be interested in teaching a little bit of tennis. being the tennis lover that i am, i said yes. i mean, why not? i love the sport and teaching it would be awesome. i didnt know if it was just going to be a volunteering opportunity or a real job.

ross asked me to come last thursday to help out chris and alex with levels 1 and 2. he still hadnt told me if it was going to be a paid job, but i was thinking that if he asked my age, it probably meant that i was going to get paid as you have to be 16 years old to have a paid job. helping out chris and alex was immense fun. chris was the one "in charge" so most of the time chris was teaching/talking to the kids me and alex were just goofing off. throwing balls at each other, hitting on an open court, playing with the topspinator (a ball on a stick that you hit to practice topspin), and occasionally pranking on chris too. being an assistant coach/helper person (i really dont know what it's called) was more fun than i ever thought it would be. it didnt involve a lot of effort, and if it was going to be a paid job, it would be the best job ever.

so i have yet to find out whether or not this opportunity is a paid job. ross said that we would talk on monday. i have a feeling that it is going to be, though. i really really hope it is. it would be a way for me to make money doing something that i love.

...to be continued...

random.

usually i would write about something meaningful. but i have no topics, so i'm going to do a list of 50 of the most random words i can think of:

marshmallow, turquoise, dishwasher, bear paw, superman, glue, click, loofah, bulb, cheese, wagon, teaspoon, printer, pillowcase, cirrus clouds, clothespins, mailbox, recycle, macaroni, meteoroid, cracker, machine, tongue, aglet, paperclip, soles, nuclear, butterfly, sandpaper, spongebob, post its, bottle cap, donut, snowglobe, hello kitty, goal, shark fin, emerald, soap, area 51, vacuum, shin guards, quill, warning, lei, thong, ATM, spray bottle, cake, mario.

that was a nice waste of my time :)

tennis.

so, this summer is finally coming to an end. not that i'm happy it is, but it has been quite a summer.

i dedicated this summer to intense tennis training. i played for two clubs, samena and edgebrook. originally i would have only played at edgebrook, but coach chris asked me if i would join his samena team. even though it meant waking up at 6:30 everyday to shower and make it to the 8:00 practice, it also meant 1.5 more hours of practice for six weeks plus matches every friday. the samena courts were also outdoors, which helped me improve my outdoor playing skills dramatically. during high school tennis season, i remember i wasn't trying to do my best because i was unfamiliar with outdoor courts. i trained mostly in indoor courts, and outdoor ones felt strange to me. however, after playing at samena, i can say that i am comfortable with playing outdoors, although i still prefer indoor courts.

after samena tennis every morning, i chilled for the day until 3:00. edgebrook tennis started at 4:00, and i started getting ready around 3 o'clock. i have to say, edgebrook tennis is far more intense than samena. it might be because there are more people involved in the edgebrook classes, or because samena is early in the morning. but for whatever reason, i worked much harder at edgebrook than i did at samena. i remember the beginning weeks were far more intense than the later ones. i was in the level 4/5 class, which is the highest class in the summer at edgebrook. there were many level 4 and level 5 players signed up, which provided me, a level 4 player, with a lot of competition and experience playing with higher level players. however, throughout the summer, the coaches moved many level 2 players to level 3 for matchplay purposes, and consequently many level 3 players to level 4/5. seeing this, most of the level 5 players quit playing at edgebrook because the level 3 players were no competition for them at all. eventually, the level 4/5 class became more like a level 3/4 class, taking out the competition and experience i would have had playing against level 5 players.

with the training at samena and edgebrook, i also continued to take private and small group lessons with chris. i have to say, these lessons were far more effective than the large classes in the morning and afternoon. even so, i think that the combination of private/small group lessons and large classes helped improve my tennis playing even more. private and small group lessons provided me with individual attention and strict focus on a particular skill or technique. large classes gave me experience using the skills and techniques i learned in real-life tennis situations. i think this method of learning and playing tennis is extremely effective for me.

some people may read this and say, "wow, she's crazy." but understand that tennis is a sport that i love and want to get better at. being a lifetime sport, i think that my learning of tennis probably will never stop. i call this summer of tennis training a success.