Fulfillment

Before I started my new job, I was very stressed/depressed over my financial situation. I felt like I had little control over my situation and my fears over what could happen snowballed into terrible worries. I had difficulties sleeping, concentrating and enjoying anything. Starting my new, full time job has greatly helped because I'm making steady money now, I'll get benefits in 90 days, and it's distracting. It makes me too tired to worry; I want to use my energy toward activities more fun/leisurely/productive than worrying now.

Before I got the job, I finally began to understand one of the reasons why so many poverty-stricken people are very religious. Religion is a constant, it's distracting, it gives you hope that something better awaits you and it feels better to surrender control to a higher power than to collectors.

my girlfriend thinks i am an awesome sexy pants

Thank you, Kelly. <3

ANYWAY! I was reading "Self-Made Man" by Norah Vincent at the time and, while she masqueraded as a man, she spent a few weeks in a monastery. I was disappointed at how little of her report included, you know, SPIRITUALITY, but it was very interesting. I looked up monasteries and convents online to learn more. The websites focused on spiritual journeys, the "Call," and doing manual labor as meditation.

Honestly, giving up on the material life and focusing on something higher is appealing. The dogma and utter obedience, however, are unappetizing. And the accounts of read of monks and nuns have so little to do with actual spirituality and focus, instead, on rules. THAT IS NOT THE POINT!!

My material possessions and obligations feel shackling. I knew the whole time I lived in WI that I wanted to come home to Chicago and that, as soon as I would, I'd want to travel everywhere else. I'm so happy to be back here, but all I want to do is to go to new places. The feeling of being trapped is there, but I'm ignoring it because there's nothing I can do about it except to work towards ending my debts.

Related to the want to see and experience new things is a need for spiritual fulfillment. In Dogma, it's stated that spirituality is like a cup of water that constantly needs to be refilled; when you're little, the cup is small and it grows as you do. During that tough, financially stressful period, I did turn to spirituality a little; now that the intense worries are subdued, that need for spiritual fulfillment stands out more.

I don't quite know where to turn for it. I'm too wary of communities, rituals and most clergy because of past experiences. I went to my first Sunday Mass in years a few months ago and I knew the Jesuit; it was wonderful and he said things that need to be said (service, compassion, love, peace). He has since soured in my eyes, though, as a school administrator who has strayed from that message.

And I'm well aware that this need for spiritual fulfillment is probably an aspect of this need to see/experience new things. How to fill those glasses in my obligated situation, I don't know.