Music

Putting Life on Shuffle

I sat down in CCs this afternoon and decided to sort through my iTunes and clean some stuff out that I either don't use or am not authorized to play (gotta love DRM). As I was sitting there sorting through everything, I listening to a few tunes from back in the day (read: my senior year of high school, or the start of this iTunes library). As I was listening to some of that music (mostly hard rock), it made me think really hard about what I was going through in that period of my life.

I have this weird personality quirk where I remember what I was doing or at least what I was going through at that time period in my life.
Every now and then some older worship song that's not in my iTunes comes on the radio or Pandora, and it takes me back to the times of sitting in my youth pastor's living room, listening to, learning, and then singing along with a lot of these worship songs (Better is One Day, Salvation, You Alone, Open the Eyes of my Heart, I Can Only Imagine, etc.).

In this particular case, it brought me back to a time in my life where I felt like I had no direction.
I was approaching the end of my high school days and wasn't exactly sure how I was going to get where I really wanted to go in life. I figured that I would end up working for some company doing computer work, but I wasn't exactly sure of the steps I was going to take to get there. I had a lot of decisions that I needed to make in the next few months and I really didn't know what I wanted to do.

I was also aimless in my spiritual life.
When I say that, I know most people think that we're aimless all the time, but that is besides the point. When I say aimless, I mean I really didn't see the benefits of continueing my connections with the church and more importantly, my relationship with God.

Also apparent in this time of my life was my lack of honesty. I led a double life.
I had the life that I showed people when I was at church and school, the good little church kid who really didn't do much in rebellion and for the most part remained well-behaved. But on the inside, I was questioning everything. I was only doing what I was doing to keep up pretenses and hoped that everyone liked me. I guess I was somewhat successful, but it left me empty inside. That's when I realized something.

I realized that I was living too much for myself, and that all of my actions were powered my one movitation: how did it benefit me?
I was going through the motions. And it wasn't doing me any good. I started to get frustrated and angry, and that was reflected in the music that I primarily listened to. So when I came to that realization, I began to make a shift in my lifestyle, and that included my taste in music. While lately some of my musical preference has gravitated towards some indie or alternative stuff, I mostly listen to worship music. Not because of something that I think I'm supposed to do, but because I actually want to do it.

Its always interesting how things come full circle...