People ask all the time what I'm afraid of. I usually shrug my shoulders and tell them probably falling from a cliff. The height doesn't bother me, but the thought of what I would do in the air as I fell is a sobering and terrifying thought. However, that is not what my greatest fear is. My greatest fear is failure. Specifically, failure in making a difference in the lives of those around me.

 I have learned through my experiences that the things I do for myself bring me little joy. Yes, my home theater is fun, and yeah, it does make me happy, but if I do nothing but watch movies up there by myself, at the end of the day, I feel helplessly alone. I cannot bear the thought of not living my life for my friends and family. There is hardly a way to describe the despair and devastation I feel when I think I have failed in my goal in life. All I want is to make a positive difference, for there is where I find peace.

I have high expectations for myself and I try to live up to them. I think sometimes I try too hard to attain a goal that lies beyond my abilities. When I cannot fulfill it, I feel like I let not just myself down, but the one I was trying to help as well.

Honey Boo Boo, the Kardashians, Snooki, Kanye West, Bristol Palin, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton.

These are only a few examples of the seemingly endless ranks of high profile people who contribute to the decline of civilized society. That may seem a harsh statement, but I do not feel in any way that I am unfair in my choice of words in saying that little to nothing these celebrities do will influence your life in a positive way. In fact, I believe that the only way in which any of them could benefit your life would be if you were to live your life exactly opposite how they do.

My purpose in stating my opinion on this today is not to bash celebrities. Late night television shows and the rest of the blogosphere takes care of that. My purpose today is to share with you my deeply held belief in the extreme importance of being yourself.

In our lives, we are blessed with many people. Family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, peers, mentors, roommates, and even strangers. Each person we meet has the ability to influence our lives for the good, or the bad. For the most part, families serve as one of the main sources of positive influence. Generally, boys are molded to men by their fathers. Girls mature through the nurturing of their mothers. The core of who we are, I believe, develops from how we are raised. Though we do make choices even within our young development, most of our adolescent character is somewhat controlled and it is when we reach adulthood that it becomes entirely and more controllably up to us. Here is where I think the problem lies. In the world today, too many of us rely on what we see in the media as a guide to who we should be. Please, if you understand nothing else I say, understand this, which I say with absolute emphasis:

As you may remember (though I may not have mentioned it), at the start of summer I had a tally of all the fun things I was doing to make sure I did not waste my summer. Having successfully kept that tally, let me explain it a little more. Near the end of spring, I was down a lot and not really content with things and wanted to really pick myself up. I made a lot of changes mentally, as a few of my friends from work can attest to. Around that time, I went and played kickball with some work friends and also began weekly games of scatterball with people from church. It felt so good to go out in the warmth and sunshine and to run my heart out and wear myself down, that I began promoting more and more outdoors activities. There was that one week where every single night, we were out doing a different sport. I knew that with all the ups and downs we experience in life, I needed to document all that I did so I could remain motivated to do more, and so I could look back at the end of summer and know that I did all I could to make the most of my time and not waste precious opportunities. This tally represents the main things I did and these served as the launching point for all the other things I ended up planning.

With it being officially Autumn as of Saturday, here is the final tally.

Ultimate Frisbee-IIIIIIII (8)
Soccer-I
Scatterball-IIIIIIIII (9)
Volleyball-IIIIIIII (8)
Campfires in canyon-III
Patio Fires on porch-I
Kickball-III
Hiking-IIII
Shooting-I
Softball-I
Mini Golf-III

To this list, I would also like to add that I attended 6 demolition derbies, 2 of which I was a volunteer as a judge. I attended 2 of those derbies in Preston, 3 in Logan, and 1 at the State Fair in Salt Lake. I also want to include a few other things. I had the fantastic opportunity to go four-wheeling, we went swimming at Bear Lake, went to the drive in movies, had an outdoor movie and several indoor movie nights (which will be even more frequent in the colder months), did several small firework shows and one BIG one for the ward, grew sunflowers, and saw many, many breathtaking sunsets.

I had an extraordinarily fun summer, but what matters most about all these things is that in these activities, in sharing these moments with friends and neighbors, I grew tremendously as a person and as a friend. And it would be an immeasurable mistake if I did not thank my best friend this summer, Cami Nicole Bodily, for allowing me to recapture the qualities in my life that I had lost. Cami is an especially sweet girl who makes you want to be the best you can. It is no surprise that everywhere she goes, she sees friends and family who are excited to see her. Thank you Cami, for all you did this summer to make it memorable. 




Several of these activities will continue into the fall, such as indoor volleyball, ultimate frisbee, and fires. My goal remains to make sure I continue to do fun things year-round, so as of today, I have started my fall tally.

For any of you who may sometimes think you have wasted your time, I recommend starting your own tally. I promise you that if you make the effort to track the positive things in your life, you will gain more than just fun times and fond memories, you will gain a passion for all the good things you need to find joy.

Today, I have a few songs for the Song of the Day. All of them revolve around friendship. First is "That's What Friends are For" from Disney's Robin Hood. Next up is James Taylor with "You've Got a Friend", and to round it out, "I'll Stand by You" by the Pretenders.

My family knows better than anyone how much I love this country. I can't think of a time in my life when I didn't. I have visited national parks coast to coast from the towering sequoias of California to the humble battleground of Gettysburg. I stop at historical markers on the side of the road just to learn what historical significance the area I am driving through has. Just today I came across a former Shoshone Indian encampment from the 1800s that was the site of a massacre 30 miles north of Logan in Idaho. I follow the ever changing politics of this nation and each night I thank God that I live in the land of the free. It is difficult to express how deeply I love America, but there is just something about this country that gives me the greatest feeling in the world.

Today, I watched a video about Mitt Romney and I realized that a lot of why I like him is because he is as deeply moved by this country as I am and I know without a doubt that he will wake up every morning as president and work nonstop to restore America to her greatness.

I paid $85 ($3.82 a gallon) to fill my car with gas today. The cheapest I can get whole milk is around $2.62 per gallon and the rest of groceries are so costly I prepare approximately 2 meals a month at home. My landlord recently told me how much value his properties across the nation have lost. He is glad he has people willing to rent so he won't have to take a huge hit if he has to sell any of his properties. I live in Utah where the economy is doing ok and housing is not as bad, but even I can tell you without hesitation that the last 4 years have done little to nothing to spark the economy and get this country churning again.

Watch the video I watched. This man is not a secretive person; he is a humble person. This man is not an evil business lord; he is a successful and practical business man. He made his money legally and on his own and he pays his taxes legally and gives generously to charity. Mitt Romney has core values of honesty and integrity that will enable him to take charge of a lost and confused government and allow him to work with the best to fix this mess.

I regret to report that I have no exciting news to tell. I took no exotic trips. I bought no fancy toys. I did not win any raffles. I worked another week, paid another bill, and went over my budget. I can guarantee you there is little to be excited about in that.

Today, we had a linger longer again at church. We fed them a baked potato bar. I managed to slice my finger open on, of all things, a stupid aluminum foil box. I was grabbing something from next to it and apparently my coordination is off because my finger went right across the jagged metal teeth of death and it cut it clean as if it was a knife cut. It was deep enough to produce a lot of blood. I slowed the blood flow then used a fingertip bandage to hold the ends together to stop the bleeding and hopefully allow the two flaps of skin to re-bond. I re-opened it this evening to examine and it was a good few millimeters deep. It has that unique sting to it when you mess with it, so I put another fingertip bandage on it. I might glue it shut if it don't close by tomorrow.

Cami is at home in Cove for the week, so it will be a rather drab week. I work a lot, have to drive to Rexburg alone Tuesday, and it's really going to be a rather long week, despite the holiday.

I have napped a lot this weekend but I am still pretty tired.

Song of the Day is "Ob La Di Ob La Da" sung by Ken Lazarus. It's a fitting song because it's pretty much how I feel this week:

Here's some bored animals...

And bored people....

Hahahaha....have a great Labor Day everyone!