Trance

n.-a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s in Germany. It is characterized by a tempo of between 125 to mid 140 beats per minute (BPM), repeating melodic phrases,and a musical form that distinctly builds up and down throughout a track. A trance refers to a state of hypnotism and heightened consciousness. This is portrayed in trance music by the mixing of layers with distinctly foreshadowed build-up and release. A characteristic of virtually all trance music is a mid-song climax followed by a soft breakdown disposing of beats and percussion entirely, and leaving the melody and/or atmospherics to stand alone for an extended period before gradually building up again.

There have been many times where I've tried to explain to others just exactly what trance music is and why it means so much to me. The soaring melodies, the driving beats, the incredible breakdowns...impossible to put into words. When I've tried to pick a particular song to show what trance is, one after another comes to mind for all sorts of reasons. How can you pick one song to display the music that's created for anything and everything? 

Trance is the ultimate form of what music can be. It has the power to fit any and every situation and is perfect for whatever you're doing. It can take you to all new emotional heights and bring you up out of your lows. It is by carefully crafted design and namesake meant to put the listener into a hypnotic trance like state where everything is better because of the music. This kind of music and the feelings associated with it can become addicting, where you simply cannot feed the craving enough and more is always better. 

To take this up a notch, one of the sub-genres within trance is called uplifting trance which is on the higher end of the trance BPM range, usually at around 138-142 BPM. When done properly, it takes the listener to a higher state of euphoria, where the intense excitement and happiness can be so strong that you simply don't know what to do with it. Having experienced this countless times myself, I can't tell you enough how amazing of a feeling it is. Being lifted off your feet emotionally because of the music is like a high that you never want to come down from. I've tried to explain it to others before as a sweet drink that you just keep drinking in but never get sick of and never has to run out.

The king of trance, Armin Van Buuren

For me, trance is a life force that I rely on to keep me going and keep me positive. Be it at work, in the car, or hanging out with friends, trance is the musical blood that flows through my veins and fills my head from my alarm in the morning to guiding me to sleep at night. The strong impact trance has on me has lead me to needing an outward expression, where I'm not just taking in the music but doing something with it. To that end, I've created my own monthly radio show/podcast called For The Soul, where I mix about an hour's worth of tracks together as a DJ set and publish it under the moniker DJ Adaman (https://www.facebook.com/ForTheSoul.DJAdaman). If you haven't checked it out yet, now is the perfect time to do so as the current episode, number 18, is my finest work yet and is on display at the top of this post.

I'm often asked when I try to describe what trance is, "oh you mean techno?" or "isn't that what a lot of pop artists are doing now, that edm stuff?" In responding to this, I try to clarify the differences. EDM is the over arching genre, the broadest label, similar to calling a song Rock music. While that does categorize it, that's a huge category and isn't very clearly descriptive. With Rock, do you mean it's alternative rock, classic rock, heavy metal, indie rock, punk rock, etc.? All of those are very different genres, but they all fall under the label of rock. Now, looking at EDM, you have techno, house, progressive, dubstep, and others including my main favorite, trance.  Within each of those genres, you have sub-genres such as uplifting trance, progressive house, progressive trance, and so on. Imagine it like a tree, where EDM is the trunk and everything branches out from there. There are differences between each, hence their existence, but the lines between each often become blurred.

The many sub-genres of EDM

One of the most fascinating parts of trance music is how it has lead to the creation of "trance families" worldwide. I've seen the music bring people together, with fans flying in from around the globe to attend landmark events hosted by the world's top artists. I've also heard shout outs and voice messages, including my own several times, from listeners around the world on those artists weekly radio shows. It's fascinating to hear the voice of someone from Kenya or South Korea, knowing that you're on opposite sides of the globe but are still listening to the same show. There are communities, such as Trance Family DC, that pop up in response to the music and come together to attend shows, share music, and spread the love of trance. A phrase that's often used to describe this outpouring of community is PLUR which stands for Peace Love Unity Respect. While this phrase has gotten beaten down in recent years as EDM has gone more mainstream, the music still creates a feeling of joy that you want to share with others while allowing them to share it with you. The music is powerful because it brings out the good part of our humanity that we don't often display in our daily lives.

Above & Beyond at ABGT100 at Madison Square Garden (I'm in the upper left of this picture)

Overall, trance is a key part of my life and I hope it remains that way. As I've described above, it has given me the most incredible emotional rides I've ever experienced and it keeps me going day after day. The concerts I've been to range from the smallest of nightclubs to a sold out Madison Square Garden. I even experienced both of these within a 24 hour period one weekend last year. I wrote this post to finally put into written form what I've tried to say to so many before, similar to how I wrote about my love for winter in a previous post. If you haven't heard trance before, I hope this post inspires you to click play on the video above and check out the other links I often share on Facebook. If you want to know or hear more, please let me know as part of my love for this music comes from getting to watch it grow as I share its incredible power with others. Thank you for taking the time to read this post, listen to the music, look at my pictures, and hopefully understand what I've shared here. Euphoria is a breath taking emotion and it can be achieved any time day or night through the wonder that is trance.

2014: The Year of Evolution

   

My favorite track of 2014, New Life (Cold Rush Remix) by Rambacy featuring Danny Claire, an incredibly uplifting song that packs a positive punch. Listen along as you read and feel the moving power of uplifting trance!

     Once again, here we are. Standing at the beginning of a new year with some thoughts and plans of what we want to do this year, but with no real knowledge of what's to come. All that we do know is what lays behind us in the year that we just closed the book on, 2014. Whether the year went as expected or if we were taken for a wild and unexpected ride, 2014 is the past and there's no changing it now. But before we launch our way fully into 2015, I think it's important to reflect back on the past year and remember all that we've gone through. For now I'm going to share some of the highlights of my year, the first full year for me in the "real world".

     While 2013 was easily named the year of change, I had a bit of a harder time coming up with the name for 2014. I couldn't figure out a way to sum it up nicely until I reflected on the year and realized I had gone from just changing to evolving, and thus 2014 had it's name. First off, the start of 2015 marks the second birthday of this blog, Just a Thought. This past year was different from the first in that I felt there were topics I wanted to write about but never got around to, which is why I haven't posted anything since this past May. This is something I hope to change in 2015 and get back to writing as my posts are always therapeutic for me and I enjoy seeing what others have to say in response to my posts. I have a few posts in mind and one I have to finish that I started last summer. I guess the reason this blog has taken a back seat is because of how much focus I've put into my monthly radio show in 2014. If you haven't checked it out yet, please give it a listen and let me know what you think as I'm always looking for listener input (http://forthesoul.podomatic.com/ https://soundcloud.com/djadaman/for-the-soul-episode-11). This radio show is one of the highlights of every month for me as it gives me a creative outlet while knowing that I'm exposing my listeners to great songs they probably haven't heard yet. I hope to keep it going strong in 2015 as my love for trance continues to grow.

     Now to focus on what actually happened in 2014 and see if I can make sense of it all. At the start of the year, I went from living solo in a big empty house to having my brother, his wife, and their little 3 month old move in. This was quite the change as I hadn't lived with my brother since he left for college, which was when I was starting middle school. It took some time for the four of us to adjust to living together, but things are pretty good for now and I keep learning through observation what married life with a kid is like.

     The first third of the year was spent the same way I spent the end of 2013, day after day at home job searching, trying to find something that would fit me well. Things finally changed in March when I got an e-mail from Coastal Sunbelt Produce. I had interviewed with them back in November of 2013 and they wanted to offer me a position as an entry level produce buyer. I had been considering alternatives such as a service program before I got this offer and I had to think about what I wanted to do. I decided that I was being given a chance to explore the position I had been trying to get and I took the job, starting in late April. Since then I've spent my working hours buying tens of thousands of dollars of produce, mostly mushrooms, which we distribute to restaurants, hotels, resorts, and other stores across the mid-atlantic. If you've been to places such as Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse, Red Lobster, Applebees, Longhorn Steakhouse, or even the diners at UMD, and had anything with mushrooms, sprouts, or tofu, I most likely bought and handled part of your meal a couple days before you did.

     One benefit of being a salaried worker is having vacation time to spend visiting new places and doing new things. This year, that meant travelling out to see my Seester and Mr. Greggles and spending a week exploring Seattle. Seattle was a fun place to visit, as everything felt much calmer compared to the DC area. I spent the week checking out the tourist attractions, such as the Space Needle, riding a ferry across the Puget Sound, and even getting pushed to my hiking limits climbing Bandera Mountain. It was fun to hang out with my Kaitlin again and see her in her element, both at work making tasty pastries and drinks and at home making crazy vegetarian dishes (beet tacos anyone?). She and I spent time together checking out some of downtown Seattle and going Kayaking on Lake Union, seeing house boats and sea planes along the way. Overall, this was an awesome trip and was a great way to see what the west coast is like.

     If you know me well, then you know that I have a love for music, but not just any kind of music. Trance music is a part of my everyday life, from being my alarm in the morning, to playing in my head as I fall asleep. This past year I went to new lengths acting on my love for this kind of music. I started things off in March by celebrating my golden birthday with the German duo Stoneface & Terminal, getting to eat cake with them and chat about our love for trance. In October I attended another Stoneface & Terminal concert at a small DC night club, but this was just the warm-up for the day ahead. I woke up the next morning and got on a bus to NYC where I attended the biggest concert of my life at Madison Square Garden. Above & Beyond was celebrating the 100th episode of their revamped weekly radio show and I was one of 15,000 who danced the night away in the same arena that has hosted many others such as Elvis and Billy Joel. The event was broadcast live around the globe and it was the first time I've felt like I was right in the middle of such a big landmark event. In the past couple months of the year, I've started working with a friend of mine, learning how to do live DJing which is something I hope to focus more on in 2015.

     Having spent the entire year living in Greenbelt, I worked towards building a variety of different friendship groups in the area. Just about once a week I headed back on campus to spend time with Navs playing frisbee, joining game nights, and getting to know the new incoming freshmen. I also bounced between 2 churches before landing at MCF Community Church, which is the community version of the church I attended while attending UMD. The friends I've made from both churches are great and making plans with them has given me something to look forward to after work and on the weekends. I've also had a couple of mentors who helped me through the year as I started figuring out how to balance work and the rest of life while keeping my focus on God and my future. Through all of this I've also stayed connected with old friends, keeping in touch and enjoying time together regardless of where our lives have taken us.

     The holiday season this year was a bit strange as it was the first time that I've worked on the days surrounding the holidays. The holidays are usually my favorite time of year but some of the old magic that I used to feel was missing this year. Having numerous families to accommodate made this year different but it worked out well. I spent the final few days of the year with my former college roomie Tyler and we were able to catch up, play games, and discuss life as he prepared to start his first real job. New years eve was a blast as always as I took Tyler down to the same party I've been going to for over 15 years. Having won the annual spoons tournament last year, I worried heading into the night that I wouldn't be able to retain my crown but after taking on many worthy opponents, I once again came out with the winning spoon in hand.

     That's just about it for 2014. As I look towards the year ahead, I'm excited for what it may hold. I've got some big plans and a lot I would like to learn more about. It's strange being at this point, thinking not only of the year that just ended, but also about where I'll be and what I'll be reflecting on when 2016 rolls around. One thing is for sure, as it is every year, I certainly won't be the same as I am now. I tend to think of myself as someone who does things differently and thinks differently than most, especially since that seems to make itself apparent when I interact with most others that I know.

     One of the biggest understandings that has been at the forefront of my mind throughout 2014 is that humans are truly unreasonable creatures, and to think that we will act reasonably is in fact itself unreasonable. What I mean by this is that although we may know the best or right thing to do or say, it doesn't mean we're going to do it. No one has to teach us to do the wrong thing or to look out for just our own interests, but we have to fight a daily struggle to consider others. I believe this will continue to affect our daily lives, regardless of what happens big or small.

     A recent sermon at the church I attend was on wisdom and how you only need to focus on one question when making decisions. The question is, is what I'm doing or planning on doing wise in light of past experiences, current circumstances, and future hope and dreams? The pastor explained how no one plans on having regrets or ending up in a place they don't want to be in, we just fail to plan not to have these things happen to us. If you just float along and allow the trends of society to carry you, you'll end up in a place you most likely don't want to be.
   
     As for me, I plan on continuing to evolve and do what I believe is best while doing what I want to do. Just because my year of change and now my year of evolution have passed, doesn't mean I am done doing these things. In truth, I am just beginning and the year ahead will be full of unexpected events, hard decisions, and opportunities to make a difference. For now, it's time to look ahead and dive into 2015, for which the title of Year of.....is still waiting to be discovered.



Just a Thought
   

The Good Person Delusion

     "Nah, I don't believe in any of that Christianity stuff, but I'm a good person so I'm set." I've heard this statement and variations of it more than once recently and every time it leaves me puzzled. I don't see how those two mindsets are interchangeable, nor do I understand why people seem to think they are. I myself am a Christian but it's not because I'm a good person, nor do I think that me being a Christian makes me a good person. For those who know what Christianity is about, you know that Christ didn't say that you just have to be a good person to be saved. In fact, Christ pretty much said that not a single one of us was good, which is a big part of us needing to be saved. While I can see how these became related, I believe it's time to break the delusion that they are the same.

     One of the first things I question when someone says that they're a good person is what exactly they mean. Is a good person someone who pays their taxes on time and gives to charity? Or maybe someone is good if they do the classic act of helping an old lady cross the street. To challenge fellow believers, are you a good person because you go to church on Sundays, read your bible, and listen to "Christian" music, meaning songs that reference a verse have Jesus, Lord, or God sprinkled throughout? The hardest part in trying to determine if someone is a good person is having a standard by which to go off of. Without this, anyone's judgement is as legitimate as another's and you have to go off of opinions and varying perspectives. Often times it seems as though people base the notion that they're a good person based off of how they feel at a given moment.

     Although it can often have a religious connotation, the word righteous is a common synonym for good. According to Merriam-Webster, a righteous person is someone who is acts in accordance with moral laws. This can imply that a righteous person has character traits such as trustworthiness, honor, and responsibility. My test to anyone who believes that they have these traits is, how often do you live them out? Are you only a righteous person when it's convenient for you or when others will take notice? The famous UCLA basketball coach John Wooden once said, "The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching." One of the challenges of labeling yourself as a good person is being able to sell that label to yourself. For most of us willing to admit it, we're probably not living up to the standard of being righteous all the time. Those who are fellow members of the body of Christ shouldn't be surprised. Paul states in Romans 3:10-12, "As the Scriptures say, 'No one is righteous—not even one. 11No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. 12All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.'” Reading this, it's pretty clear where we stand as human beings. Whether you're a believer or not, it's clear that humans and laws don't mix and that we've been breaking almost every law we can find from the beginning of time.

     Now that we've reflected on what a good person is and how none of us qualify, we need to look at what this means and what to do about it. First off, we need to remain humble and recognize our hypocrisy when we judge others by our "good" standards that we ourselves fail to live up to on a of consistent basis. Beyond that, the distinction between being a good person and being a Christian must be made clear. Being a Christian means accepting the above verses from Romans as true and realizing that the only way to move on and be saved from our failure is through grace. We fail, we can't live truly righteously, and we graciously accept the undeserved gift of salvation that has been freely given by the only one who is good. For some reason unbeknownst to us, God decided to give us a way out of our failure even though we continue to throw the righteous laws back at Him. Caution must be exercised with this; I don't want to give the idea that grace has granted us a free pass and that we can now act purposefully immoral. The saving grace that fixes our unrighteousness comes through faith in Christ, and only you and Him can know how true that faith really is.

     Overall, it feels good to do good. We naturally get a sense of worth and accomplishment when we do something that we consider qualifies in making us a good person. Trying to live your life as a good person is still a good idea and can lead to making your life and the lives of others around you better. However, it's  important to remember to balance your idealistic good person self label with a realistic full picture outlook at just how good you really are. As I've written above, it's hard to determine what being a good person means and even harder to live it out in your daily life. Above all, the sharply contrasted distinction between being a so called good person and being a Christian must be known and maintained. The first looks at yourself and highlights the well intended and moral actions that you have done. The second looks at God and highlights the utter failures and immoral actions that we have done and humbly welcomes the saving grace that says we're accepted anyway. Although Christians attempt to live out good lives, calling yourself a Christian and/or calling yourself a good person and considering them to be one in the same is simply a delusion.

Welcome Back Winter, Once Again

     For those who have just read the title and are wondering if my calendar is still stuck in December, don't worry, I know that winter is just about to come to a close. As most of you living around the MD/DC area know, this particular winter has been a pretty powerful one. We've had the most snowfall since 4 years ago, had temperatures nearly at 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and even tossed around the new phrase "polar vortex". In the midst of all this frigid weather and the closing of countless schools and governments, I have once again found a sense of joy and peace. This post is different from usual because instead of getting into a deep theological topic or a major thought, I'm writing about my love for winter and why I believe it is the most powerful yet peaceful of all the seasons.

     Winter is a season unlike any other. As warm blooded humans, our natural response is to try and hide from the cold, sheltering ourselves from it's harmful effects. This is fine, but if you're like me, you've come to embrace the cold and soak it in, allowing it's chill to penetrate your body to the point where it's all you can think about. One of the main reasons I love this kind of feeling is because of how alert it can make you. For me, the biting nature of the frozen air puts a feeling of energy into me that is hard to beat. Those reading this most likely know of the humidity that comes with the summer heat in this region and for me, that sucks the life out of me because when you're working outdoors you're simply bathed in it. But, in the winter, the air is crisp and sharp with a penetrating force that can cool you down from outside in. The temperature isn't the only invigorating part of the winter air though. While all seasons have a different scent, the one I love the most is the smell of winter, especially when a snow storm is coming.

     Another major reason that I love the winter is because of my upbringing and all the outdoor work that usually involved. For those that don't know, I grew up working outdoors with my father, helping him feed, weed, water, and sell the ever growing amount of plants he has in the fields around our house. This made the busiest times of year the ones that were warm and good times for planting. In the winter though, this all changed. Plants were covered up before the winter hit, nothing needed tending to, no storms would come through except those bringing a gentle snowfall, and everything slowed down to the point where I could enjoy some time with my dad doing something other than working. The start of winter marked a time of rest and fun as my dad would tow my sister and I around on a metal saucer behind his tractor in the snow. The snowball fights, the forts and snowmen that we built, and the rides down my grandparents hill stand as some of my favorite times with my sister growing up.

     Above all, my main reason for loving winter is the pure beauty it brings, wrapped together with a sheer bone-chilling power. It's well known that the odds of having two identical snowflakes are almost zero, with each flake having it's own majestic beauty. Put a large amount of these flakes together and you create a pure white blanket that covers all it touches, hiding imperfections and creating a frozen layer that is perfectly smooth. This makes me hesitant to touch it, knowing I could never make it as immaculate as it naturally is. Beyond just the snow, the true power comes from ice since even a thin coating can cause most things to shut down. When ice becomes thick though, everything becomes encased in it's beauty, forced to utterly halt. The raw capability to cause a crippling standstill while simultaneously creating total silence and peace is awe inspiring. Winter weather stands as a unique symbol, displaying nature's elegance until we clear the roads and shovel our paths, disrupting the natural for the sake of our daily needs and lifestyles. If you've already seen or are planning on seeing the recent Disney movie Frozen, you can get a sense of what I've written about in regards to beauty when you see Elsa singing Let It Go and creating her incredible ice castle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEJ566EnNgM). One of my favorite places to be is outside overnight laying in the snow somewhere with it continuing to fall around me, with no cars racing to get anywhere, no sun melting the snow away, no bugs chirping along, just pure white covering me as I lay in total silence.

     I hope that I've been able to summarize why I believe winter is the best of the seasons. My favorite color, blue, is often associated with winter and cold and I say let the storm rage on, the cold never bothered me anyway. I fully acknowledge that you can't do as much in it and it can force people to stay indoors while taking a day off work, but I feel like we need to slow down every now and then in our evermore busy lives. Although this winter is just about done, I invite you to enjoy what's left and remember your favorite childhood memories playing in the snow. As for me, I'll be enjoying the rest of the seasons as well, but always looking forwards toward December 21st when I'll be welcoming back winter, once again.

When the Needs of the "Me" Outweigh the Needs of the "We"

     Our society overall is constantly shifting, changed by things such as technology and economic cycles. This is a natural occurrence, as it should be because nothing can progress while staying the same. However, as well all should know, not all of the changes are positive ones. Granted, this can often be a matter of perspective, but I believe that there are some that tend to be negative regardless. For now, the focus will be on one in particular that affects many others. No matter the situation or setting, there seems to be a growing and dangerous problem. The problem is that in many aspects of our lives, regardless of age, the needs of the "me" seem to be outweighing the needs of the "we".

     While this problem may sound bad right off because I've said that it is, it needs explaining in order to be understood and dealt with. When I talk about the needs of the "me" versus the needs of the "we" I'm referring to what is beneficial and needed for our individual selves versus the community we're in or even overall society. If you have a situation where you may be able to gain while others don't because you're focused on your needs, but you could instead help a group of others gain while you don't gain as much, you have a conflict. For the most part, our natural response is to help ourselves first before focusing on others. There are many times where this is good or even necessary such as when you're on a plane and the oxygen masks drop down, you're instructed to put yours on first before helping others or else you could end up both without air. The problem is when this kind of thinking and acting goes too far and we forget others all together. When we perceive that our needs are the only needs and that others needs are unimportant or even obstacles to our own, things start to fall apart.

     If you reflect on our society today, the instances where this problem makes itself known aren't that hard to find. Let's start off with an easy one that I've had to hold off criticism from, being a business person myself, and that is with corporations and overall for-profit businesses. The main goal of a public corporation financially is to maximize shareholder value. This seems simple enough but the problem comes in the means of how this is accomplished. Often times, as we saw in the housing bubble crash in 08, companies become so focused on earning profits and meeting their numbers that they forget that they're not alone. When this happens, companies lose sight of the fact that they only exist because customers are buying their product or service. If they suck their customers dry and cause their economic situations to collapse, the direct impact will be felt when people stop coming through the door. Thankfully, a trend that is growing is that people are putting their dollars into companies that are focused on benefiting society overall. More and more firms are proving that you can in fact have a double bottom line, one for the company and one for the community in which they're based. An important thing to remember with this is that companies can often become the scapegoat when really, they can't survive unless we as consumers continue to feed them our dollars.

     Another major and easy target for when looking for where this issue is occurring is within the political realm. Time and time again we see, hear, or read about a politician that has become corrupt. Despite their original best intentions, they've become caught up in some scandal or scheme that's aimed at improving their power or wealth at the cost of their constituents. The unique format of our governmental structure is that it's designed to be representative of the people, where our opinions and needs are voiced and addressed, at least that's the intention. The problem comes when those representatives get off track and have the needs of their "me" more important than the needs of our "we". The tricky part of that though is determining what exactly are the needs of the "we", since many of us can have conflicting ideas of what those are, as most of us well know. However, often times as an overall whole, even if it doesn't seem like it, we get what we ask for. If you look at our government and think it's dysfunctional and wonder why there's so much gridlock, just take a look at things such as online comment boards on a political news article or reflect back on arguments you've had with others on political topics. I'm willing to bet that if I said that Obamacare was the greatest thing ever, I'd get uproar, positive and negative, from you all as my readers that you wouldn't believe. In fact, I bet many of you just now started firing off thoughts in your mind as to why I would be right on target with that statement or way off the mark to the point where I don't even know what the target looks like. But, politically charged statements such as that one are basically begging for controversy as they always have and will be. It's important to look beyond our own needs, and even the needs of our own families, to the potential benefits to our society as a whole. If there's a regulation put into place that hurts your own pocket but makes our country better as a whole, preference usually must be given. Granted, thing are never that clean cut and I'm not saying they will ever be, but hopefully you understand the point.

     Now I'll get into a couple of smaller instances that, while may be not as large scale, are still very prevalent situations where I encounter this problem in on a daily basis. The first of these is when it comes to driving. For those of us who drive on public roads we should know that the roads are indeed just that, public roads. This means that you do not own the road and most likely you're not the only one on it. Accidents often happen when drivers believe that their "me" needs of where they're going outweigh the "we" needs of everyone getting where they're going safely. I know from a lot of observation while on the roads that it takes an incredible amount of engineering to make traffic flow in an efficient manner, but all of that becomes worthless when someone decides that their needs put them above the rules of the road. The D.C. area is infamous for its amount of traffic and horrible drivers because of this. When one driver causes an accident due to this issue that shuts down part of a road, hundreds if not thousands of others have to pay the consequences, which can often compound into others becoming frustrated and causing more of the problem and so on. Remember while driving that although you make think you can do something, the laws of physics don't change and you're on roads with a lot of other drivers that can't read your mind and anticipate what you want to do.

     A final example comes from my main hobby and is actually the area where I see it most frequently, the place that frustrates me the most, and is the original source of why I wanted to write this particular post. I am of course talking about video gaming, more specifically in a multiplayer fashion. A few of the games I play the most often with others include Team Fortress 2, League of Legends, and Age of Empires. For those who don't know these games, what I'm about to say can be applied to any kind of competitive team game or sport. Time and time again when playing these games, those playing love to talk about how great they're doing or have done if the game is over. From "check out how much damage I dealt" to "look at my score" to even "well, that was good, but look at what I did", the amount of self promotion in these games never stops. Often times a part of this is because you're playing with random other people who you don't know, but even among good friends the focus of a team win or loss often ends up on the individuals. Of course, a team is made up of individuals, but it takes the combined efforts of everyone playing together to achieve victory. Many times in TF2 or LoL players like to go solo and try to show off just what they can do or act flashy so that they get the credit. More often than not though, this works against them and their team because while they may do some damage and get a couple of kills, overall their team ends up losing more than that one individual gained. This can often cause the team effort to fall apart and turn into a blame game because the individual is asking the others why they aren't as good as they are while the team is asking the individual to stop trying to be a solo superhero.

     The reason this is especially prevalent in online gaming is that the individual trying to "go huge" is often someone somewhere hiding behind their keyboard that you'll never see again as soon as the game is over. Accountability is non-existent and players don't feel the needs to care about another player. In this case, the needs of their "me" of trying to be flashy and look cool outweigh the needs of the "we" of the team playing together to win. This dynamic changes among friends because most likely you'll still be interacting after the game is over and therefore your perception of that individual as being selfish and a poor team player lingers on when you go to play with them again. One of my best online buds is someone that I met through a random server that I happened to be playing in one night back in 2009. The reason this friendship even exists and he is someone I'd rather play with in a game than some of my other friends is because he understands and plays in a manner that shows it's better for the "we" to work together to win rather than the individual "me" to do a lot on their own. When you look at any kind of team game or sport, those that win and do it consistently are the ones who have team chemistry, not the ones who throw a bunch of selfish stars together and call it a team.

     Perhaps this problem has made itself more and more apparent to me because I've been trained in a sense to see it occurring. What I mean by this, is that my father has told me many stories of his time growing up where he and his siblings would join with others up and down the road, all working together to get farm work done and bring in the harvest, regardless of whether or not the harvest was actually theirs. There was work to be done and they didn't care that they weren't directly benefiting from it, they just had neighbors in need and hands to spare. He was actually the one that coined the title phrase of this post, as least as far as I know, and has raised me in a way to be aware of situations and to be always working for the good of the "we", not just the "me". Being someone who is highly observant and seeing things such as the widening of the wealth gap and increasingly individualistic nature of our society, I'm glad to have this background so that I can work to combat the problem through all that I'm doing.

     We all live in the same world, have the same basic needs, and usually have some dependence on someone else to allow for the lives that we live. So how, I ask, do we forget this basic concept? In most situations, more is accomplished by working together with others to achieve a common goal than we could ever do on our own. We were made to live in community with others while interacting, learning and growing because of it. For those of us who are Christian, we should know that in Mark 12, Christ commands as the second yet equally most important command to love our neighbor as ourselves. As I've shown in this post, we have the love ourselves part down, but what about our neighbors?

     When someone asks if you have time to talk or even seems like they need someone just to comfort them, really consider your priorities before saying you don't have the time. If someone needs help on a task, even if you feel they should know what they're doing, it's usually more beneficial for the both of you if you actually lend a hand instead of criticizing them for their apparent lack of skill or knowledge. When you're playing a team game or a sport and someone is dragging your team down, take the time to see what's going wrong and give them some advice, or better yet, show them what they can do differently. If you actually want to see a change occur, start by making it happen in your everyday interactions with others. The goal is to raise all others up and to become a better society through the contributions of all, not to push others down and create better lives for ourselves alone, especially since this kind of thinking and acting can't last for long.

     This is not a problem that our government can regulate us out of, nor is it one that we can all read about here and simply say that we won't do it anymore. With a post like this, people can also become defensive, trying to mentally reason out why what they're doing is fine or that this isn't a problem in their lives. In fact, some of you have probably already done this and are now catching yourselves having done just that. A disclaimer with this post especially, as with all of my posts, is that I do not claim to perfectly live up to what I'm writing. I can tell you now that I often am focused on what's best for me rather than the overall good, as is human nature. The caveat to that though is that I'm becoming more and more aware of these situations occurring and doing all I can to change my thoughts and actions while in the midst of them. After all, that is the point of these blogs that I write; not to criticize or speak down from a pedestal to my readers, but to challenge all of you to internalize what I've written and begin to make changes in your own lives for the better. If I see or hear of just one person who has read my blog posts and made a change for the better because of it, then all of my time and effort in writing these posts is worth it, especially since all of this started with just a thought.

2013: The Year of Change

     My top track of 2013, a peaceful yet powerful song that fits with all of the 

many ways that things changed in 2013. Feel free to listen as you read:

     Well, here we are at the start of another year, one that holds a lot of promise and I'm sure many adventures. People will continue moving, working, getting married, having kids, and overall doing this thing we call living. But, before we get rolling too far into the new year, it's time to look back and reflect on 2013 and all that it had to offer.

     For me, 2013 was called The Year of Change from the start and it certainly was. I started the year by starting this blog, which I guess makes Just a Thought one year old (happy birthday). Hopefully all of you readers out there have gotten something out of the ten posts that I wrote over this past year. I know I certainly got a lot out of writing them, as they often allowed and forced me to do deeper reflection on the various events happening in my life. As always, I write them for my readers to really consider the points that I'm making and think of how they can apply what I've written to their own lives. I plan to continue this blog into the next year, making my writings more crisp and hitting my readers with a lot of powerful points. For those who have read Just a Thought in 2013, I thank you for your time and appreciate any response you feel that you can give, as that's what I use to make improvements and know that I'm really making a difference.

     Continuing on, in January I started my final semester at UMD, one that was filled from one end to the other and wrapped up my days as an undergrad. Through this semester I was on a mission, one that I described in one of my previous posts (http://asickle.blogspot.com/2013/05/what-and-why-my-mission.html). I came out of a rough winter break searching for answers and landed on the concept that it is critical for you to know what you believe, and more importantly, why you believe it because if you don't then what are you really living off of and how can you expect others to really take you seriously? I spent a good amount of time through the semester meeting with friends and asking them these questions, finally compiling a mix of their answers as well as my own and presenting the whole thing on the last nav night. Since then, I've realized that the mission couldn't end there and I've decided that I'm going to carry it on throughout the rest of my life (see: https://www.facebook.com/whatandwhybeyondthemission). That wasn't the only thing that happened during the semester though. I took one more Nav spring break trip, enjoyed my last days at the Smith school of business, had a few more late night conversations with my awesome roomie/partner in bromance, and picked up my Testudo picture as I walked across the stage. All in all, my time at UMD ended well.

     Of course, despite what it may sometimes have felt like, life wasn't over just because I graduated, rather it was just truly beginning. I was lucky enough to have gotten myself a job related to my major before I graduated, something that's hard to do these days. I started out on my own up in Rockville in July at a company called Avendra as a Strategic Contracting Analyst, a position that taught me more in a few months than I learned in a whole year of school. It was a bit of a wild ride between my new job and my living situation but it worked as a starting place...at least to start. By the time October came around it became apparent that things weren't really working out with what I was doing or where I was living. I left my position in search of one that would be a better fit and I'm now still job searching, looking for an entry level role as a buyer, something I believe will fit me much better. I also was given the opportunity to move out of the place I was living in when my brother and his wife bought a house in Greenbelt, with an extra room that they offered to rent to me. I've spent the past couple of months there living solo which has been a great time for reflection, but that's all about to change when they move in in the near future.

     With all of the changes happening this year, there were a few times I had the itch to travel. My first big trip was when I got to visit Chicago for a few days with one of my classes. This was a unique experience to a wildly busy city, one that acts as a major logistics hub for the US and has many sights such at the Willis (Sears) tower. After graduation, in June, I traveled again, this time heading up to Pittsburgh to see a good friend who I hadn't seen since his graduation over a year before. We went to a Pirates game, checked out the Duquesne Incline, and I saw a lot of road construction including some that had been going on for a while...as in, a quarter of a century kind of a while. My third and final trip of the year came after I left my job, when I felt the need and had the time to travel south and see what my old roomie was getting himself into down in Atlanta at Georgia Tech. On the way I checked out a couple of museums in Richmond, visited a museum/aquarium/zoo in Greensboro, and an awesome transportation museum in Spencer. In Atlanta, I got to meet my bud's new roomies, check out the campus, see the Coke HQ (did you know the reason we have the Santa figure that we do today as a jolly red suit wearing man is because of a Coke marketing campaign?), tour the CNN HQ, and overall relax for a few days. I eventually made my way back north, stopping in Pigeon Forge Tennessee for a day, long enough to visit the most incredible museum I have ever been to. The Titanic museum building itself is a replica of half of the original ship and the inside had some of the most incredible displays, artifacts, and realistic exhibits I've ever seen. I continued north the next day, driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while and stopping for a tour of Luray Caverns. Overall these trips expanded my view of just how much the world has to offer.

     I'm not the only one that change happened to though. This fall I got to be a part of my second sibling's wedding as she brought a man, one whom I've looked to for advice and mentorship since starting my time at UMD, into our family. Being asked to do a scripture reading as a part of the ceremony after all that she helped me with in terms of my faith over this past year was really powerful. I realized and shared that day that up to that point, I had spent more time with her throughout our years growing up than anyone else had, and I figured it was time someone else took over. They decided to go and live out in Seattle though, so I suppose I have somewhere new to be travelling to.

    One sibling didn't entirely steal the show in terms of change this year though. When I mentioned earlier that my brother and his wife were about to be moving into their new home, I didn't mention that they would be bringing an extra person with them. Announced back in February and arriving in October, I became an uncle this year when a new little squeaker made her way into the world. In just a couple of short months I've gotten to see her countless times, learning the different noises she makes and positions she likes to be held in. This is something that will only increase from here once she's living across the hall from me. It's certainly odd seeing the next generation of our family beginning, but it's something I'm coming to like more and more every time I see her little smile.

     The cycle from the old to the new didn't just happen within my family though. Although the year started off rough with one of my closest friends, it seems as though time, a letter, understanding, and some time like the old days may have breathed new life. My moving up to Rockville also allowed me to make some new friends, one of which I've gotten to hang out with throughout this fall semester as she has made up one of the three of the new nav trio, with the trio that I was a part of having made our way out this spring. Getting to hang out on campus some this semester without actually being a student myself was a pretty unique experience, feeling like somewhat of an outsider even though I called the place my own not long ago.

     Even Christmas time was filled with change this year. For the first time, I set up a Christmas tree but it wasn't in the same place that I have for the first 21 years of my life. Luckily we had everyone down in St. Mary's for Christmas eve and Christmas day, but this year my father moved next door and we woke up and opened presents in a new spot. Despite the changes involved with my favorite and most tradition based holiday, things went well and the season was great as always.

     Well, there you have it, my 2013 The Year of Change in review. Now we're here once again at the start of another year, 2014, which I'm sure will hold just as many surprises as 2013 did. Looking back at my first blog post, the one that reviewed 2012, I noticed that I'm once again saying a lot of similar things in terms of moving, marriages, kids, jobs, and everything else. This annual post is the big one though, the one that causes me to really stop and reflect on an entire year rather than just a specific topic as most of my other posts this past year have. I continue to learn each year more about how vastly different humans can be from each other, even if they come from the same family and grew up down the hall from each other. Despite all of these differences, somehow each year all 7 billion or so of us continue to live in some sense of harmony on this spinning space rock we call home.

     One thing is for certain though, as 2013 showed, change is a constant. One of my favorite shows, Doctor Who, just introduced a new actor to replace the main character of The Doctor, something that happens every so often and is how the show has been around 50 years. The actor bidding farewell was Matt Smith, the person who was the doctor when I was introduced to the show a few years ago, and his final words were as follows: "Times change, and so must I... We all change. When you think about it, we're all different people all through our lives and that's ok, that's good, you've got to keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be." I've been reflecting on these lines since first hearing them a few days ago and I believe they cap off 2013 perfectly.

     So here we are, at the beginning of another new year and another new adventure. We can never be certain as to what this year will hold, despite any hopes we may have or plans we may make. One thing I do know though is that as long as we have good people around us to help us go through whatever may come, I'm sure we'll all be back reflecting on everything again this time next year. I know one thing, I've certainly made many impactful changes in 2013. I started this blog, started a lifelong faith related mission, and even started my own EDM radio show called For the Soul. I changed my life verse that I spoke of in last year's new years post to Job 38:3 which says: "Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me." I even made a change right as the new year was being welcomed in by finally winning the annual spoons tournament at the new years eve party that I've gone to for the past 15 years, the first time a Sickle has ever won it (see below). Change is something I've never been fond of but I've been realizing more and more that change is what keeps things going. As some one who is apparently thought of when people think about someone being themselves, I believe that I will continue going from being the one afraid of change to being the one causing it.

Happy new year everyone and thank you for reading what started a year ago now, as just a thought.

The victory spoon with my name engraved! Finally brought the Sickle family into the annually growing winner's circle.

Experience: Life's Greatest Teacher

      (Small Moments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z1pi1boiqo&noredirect=1)

     There's just nothing like it. Time and time again it proves to be invaluable, often more so than anything else. Someone tells you all about a big event in great detail...but you still can't fully comprehend what happened. You look at a picture of a huge moment in time...but you still don't feel the strong emotional attachment. You've read all about it in books...but you still don't have the memories and knowledge that you would have, had you actually been there. What's the missing link that pulls everything together, from our personal lives to our professional, from our friendships to our enemies, and even our huge failures to our greatest triumphs? Experience.

     One of the biggest ways that experience makes itself known and needed is when you're applying for a job. You can read all kinds of job descriptions and apply all you want, but more often than not, if you don't meet the required experience level that those hiring are looking for, you won't even get a call. College degrees are great, even more so with advanced degrees in specialized fields, but if you have eight years of education while someone else has eight years of direct experience, guess who looks more valuable to employers? The reason for this is that experience simply can't be beaten. When you are working in a position, really living it day in and day out, you get the full learning that touches on every sense and stimulates your mind in a way that lectures and textbooks can't. So many things that happen on the job are things that are unforeseen and the reactions to these events all depend on the situation and the human dynamics happening at the time. In my recent position I learned more in the four months that I was there than I did from an entire year of college education. The pace and relevance of everything I learned was incredible. Most employers today need their employees to be up to date and on top of everything that's going on in their industry and the greatest way to do this is by living what's happening on a daily basis.

     Experience doesn't stop in the workplace however and it's not just a check mark on a job application. The greatest experiences we have are in our personal lives. Whether you're experiencing ecstasy or symptoms of depression, everyone experiences life differently at different times and our experiences are constantly changing. One of the most notable examples of how experience makes a difference is when someone tells you about a great event or a great trip they had. You can see the pictures, hear the stories, watch the videos, and even see the expressions on the faces of those who were there, but you just can't fully grasp and understand it fully unless you experience it for yourself. I believe one of the major reasons for this is because we all take things in and interpret them differently. If you're someone who loves the beach and you took me with you on a beach vacation, we would probably have a different experience and remember it differently. You would probably have a great time and feel relaxed while I would wonder what we were doing there and ask when the real fun starts. Either way, we would still understand what happened better and feel more emotion associated with the trip than someone we shared stories with when we got back. The experience, good or bad, still has more impact than no experience at all.

     I believe the deepest type of experience we can have though is the experience we have in relating to other people. Entire relationships, dreams, and even lives are built off of our interactions with others and the overall experience we have with them. It's said that first impressions are the most important but I believe it's also important to look beyond this and really get to know someone before casting any judgement or feeling like you understand them. The experiences you have with another person are the building blocks in any relationship, be it friendship or a romantic one. You learn so much through spending time with another person that you could never understand through that person being described. With this, I believe it's also important to experience what another person is like in a variety of settings. If you only spend time with a person when they're in a happy mood or at a party like event, you don't really get the full picture. It takes the experience of interacting with someone through their triumphs and trials, being able to see them struggle and overcome, in order to really learn who they are. One of the stories my dad has told me about when he was dating my mom was that he spent some time working with her hand in hand on different projects so that he could learn what it was like to be around her in a more typical day kind of setting. If you think you know someone without having experienced at least a sample of what life has to offer with them, you've missed an important teaching lesson.

     Overall, I believe that experience is not just a teacher but the core of life itself. Life is worth living because of the wide variety of experiences that we have, with so many of them being unplanned and maybe even the opposite of what we expected. The interesting thing to think about is how others experiences in their own lives are what led you to the experiences that you've had in your own life and even the opportunity to have them.  As a good friend of mine recently said, "Our time is not infinite here on these grounds, enjoy those little moments like: weddings, first days of school, holidays, small victories, helping others and loving each other." That's really what life is in a sense, a series of experiences that everyone has that make a whole picture when put together. It's no surprise then that experience, is in fact, life's greatest teacher.

Just a thought.