Revival 1: Release

      This is a repeat post from my first blog, Immortal Combat. I liked the lesson enough and want to add some updated thoughts on the bottom.

     I was a huge fan of Ian Flemming's original James Bond series (which later where turned into movies that the world now knows) and though I will talk more about them in my "Inspiring Jake Allred" series, I want to explain a small part of the book Casino Royal.
     Bond wins. He gets the villian, wins the money, and gets the girl. The girl's name is Vesper, and they are madly in love, though the relationship is incredibly abusive on both sides. They only have a physical attraction toward one another, and it shows. They fight often. Vesper one day then commits suicide after signing the money to the Soviets, the very people that Bond was trying to protect the money from. Vesper betrayed him, not to mention her own country. Bond had come to "love" her, or rather an imaginary her, and this was affecting him and his work. When Bond reports back to his headquarters in London, his boss inquires immidiately about him and her, to which Bond says one line, (pardon me for my french, just quoting) "The bitch is dead."
     Bond moves on from her. She is dead, and the problem is being solved, and now Bond never trusts. He was too close to love her and still go on with his mission, with his duty that was incredibly important. He realized this, and it was not so much that he was sad she was gone, it was that he had so easily fallen into that trap. He would never do that again.
     Of course, because she was dead it was much easier for him to forget her, but that does not always happen when we are ridding ourselves of distractions and roadblocks from our passage. We may frequently see or hear our problem. It may be outside everywhere you go, heck it may be your roommate. However, I like to think that Bond is on to something with what he did. He remembered the lesson and forgot the details. He started to become a man of principles (though funny enough his principles where really quite worldly and destructive) instead of a man of circumstance.
     I was a man of circumstance. I was awful, and had really been blown away by my stupidity. I was ignorant to my work, and I lost it. Just like Bond, I lost everything that I had worked so hard to get and keep. But now it is my turn to say it, to finally cleanse my hands of this awful situation and to rise above the uncertainties, the memories, and the pain.
     Release. I will destroy the part of me that should not be there, the imaginary part that is still addicted to my problems. The imaginary "get rich quick" schemes that I fell in love with. I can't shortcut anything, not love, not experience, not intelligence, nothing. Only through experience and work can I become what I need to become, and do the things I need to do. It is the only way I can become, and stay, free.
     We have rules and regulations because our Heavenly Father knows how we will be happy. We will not be happy when we go to those dark paths, and he cannot follow us there to help us. He knows this, and He wants us to be happy, so that is what we must do. When we tamper with them, nothing good comes out. I can testify of that, coming from experience. I am not sad about breaking my mistake, I am sad about making the mistake, regardless of when or who with.
     But that ends. Now. My past allowed me to not be prepared for such a situation, and my present is now damaged because of it. What am I doing now to ensure that my future does not suffer the same, similar, or in general any mistake?
     Preparation. That is the only way I can do that. The only way I can become emotionally stable is if I work hard and do not dwell on what I did, only what I have done about it. The mistake will never be remade, but the feelings can be recreated, and lust can find its way pretty quickly back into us. How will I prepare to ensure I never do this again?

    Forget yourself and go to work.

Updated Thoughts:

     All too many times I find myself wanting something enough to justify compromising my ideals to have it. It may be small and seemingly insignificant, but that quickly grows. If we become men and women of principle instead of circumstance, we will be able to use patience and love and care into the situation and become stronger. My Father gave me an incredible quote from Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons:

     "But look now, if we lived a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly, and we'd live like animals or angels, in a happy land that needs no heroes... But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, lust, sloth and stupidity commonly profit beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose to be humans at all.... why then we perhaps must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes."

Sir Thomas Moore.

     Sadly, being good is not always easy, but it never was supposed to be easy. Why would we even be here to choose good if good was easiest? So to be men and women of circumstance will merely occasionally be "good" only because the situation permits it. So then, if we want to become the best people we can possibly be, we need to live by principles, morals, and honor.