Patience, on the other hand, has been a struggle since as long as I can remember. It's taken such a terribly long time for me to appreciate that it really isn't all about me, me, me. If you're reading this there's a good chance that you know me at least moderately well and I'm sure you can agree that I can be pretty overwhelming sometimes when things don't go the way I want them to. I assure you that I am trying. I want nothing but the best for everyone, myself included. At times, this comes off as a flaw in my personality as a result of the way I have presented myself in the past. I recognize this and have been working on that since as long as I can remember.

It is a constant uphill battle. Especially when everyone around us settles for less than greatness...mediocrity should never be viewed as acceptable. Think about it. I mean take a few seconds and honestly think. How ludicrous does it sound to say,

"Man, I can't wait to graduate, get older and be average!"

Kinda a weird example, but you get my point. How many times throughout the course of one day--heck, one hour, do we settle for "just good enough"? I know I'm guilty of it. I give cop-out excuses and just tell people that I'm lazy. We all do it. If I had a nickel for every time someone admitted how lazy they were to me in the last week, I'd probably have at least 35 cents. ;)

Regardless of the sarcastic jokes, my point remains glaring me right in the face every second of every day. Without perseverence, turmoil, more perseverence, more drama, even more perseverence and even more suffering, we would amount to far less than greatness.

And to me, anything less than greatness is worth absolutely nothing. Here's some food for thought:

I messaged one of our new members (in the fraternity) around 4:30 this morning. I was feeling really down about a lot of different things and really just needed to get out of the house and get some fresh air. He ended up coming over and we took a long walk down to campus. After both of us vented about some of our own personal stuff for awhile we were on the way back and came across a bird on the ground. It startled me pretty badly because it was on the concrete stairs by the Cathedral amidst some fallen dead leaves.
We jumped out of the way, and then noticed that the right wing seemed to have been broken because it clearly wasn't able to fly away. Tyler and I chased this poor thing around trying to get it to calm down but it just kept flapping its wings on the ground and skittering away from us.
The weird part about it was that his wings were clearly working--he kept lifting off the ground just enough to get away from us--but he couldn't fly. I finally was able to get my hands around him after a few minutes of cornering him. He was absolutely terrified, but he didn't bite. His little heart was pounding so hard and I could tell just by how fast he was breathing and the franticness of his tiny eyes darting back and forth that he thought for sure he was done for. But after a few minutes of petting him and holding him softly, his breathing slowed along with his heartrate. He stopped fighting against me and I was able to release my hold on him enough that he no longer tried to get away. It was so strange because we kept trying to figure out what was wrong with this bird. His wing was definitely not broken but he just couldn't get into the air.
We thought he might have been just learning to fly but he was definitely not a baby. After Tyler managed to get him to drink some A&W Cream Soda out of the bottle cap (quite possibly the pinnacle of my evening) we got him to drink some water too. He drank the water so fast that he was burying his tiny beak in the bottlecap and blowing little air bubbles in the water
At that moment, nothing else mattered for him. He drank the water like it had been days since he'd had any sort of hope of survival. We didn't know what to do with him--we had just spent the past 30 minutes nurturing this bird and were now faced with the harsh reality that something was still wrong with it.
Tyler suggested putting it in a bush so that it had at least some kind of shelter...so I did just that. It immediately flapped its wings and skittered to the ground and landed upside down.

What happened next is the important part. So listen up if you're not already. We ran over to him and before flipping him rightside up we noticed something wrong with his body. There was some type of serious physical deformation that was clearly the cause of his inability to fly. The cool part about this whole ordeal is the realization that this bird had been born that way. And yet somehow he had managed to grow up and survive regardless of the fact that there is no way he has, or ever will, spread his wings and fly like other birds. He was all alone and most likely has been rejected and ignored his whole life. But he did the only thing he could do--he adapted in order to survive. It hit me pretty hard when I realized that.

Talk about faith. That's faith and perseverence at the absolute core. Accepting the things that we cannot change and doing everything in our power to move on from the setbacks that we are forced to endure on a daily basis. Some are obviously bigger than others. I cannot imagine the struggles that small creature had to have overcome in the course of his short lifetime. But he made it. And I wish you could have seen the way he could move if he felt threatened. He didn't have any problems getting around, that's for sure!

For me, it's always been the smallest things that affect me the most. We all make the mistake of being selfish and thinking others don't have problems bigger than our own...when in reality the chances of your worst enemy facing personal issues bigger than you can fathom are pretty immense. That is something I myself am constantly struggling with--accepting these types of things. But tonight made me realize that we ALL have problems. And I don't just mean you and me--it goes the whole way down the food chain. God puts things and people into our life for a very specific reason, and tonight was just another of dozens of cool stories I could tell you in regards to helping me realize things I need to work on in my own life.

I don't want you to think I'm trying to preach at any of you. I'm not. I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable about the things I'm saying because I'm trying my hardest to help people to realize I don't write these things for me. I've experienced the feelings and the heartache and the turmoil that has brought me to this point in my life---I'm writing this for you. If I can save you one day, one hour, one minute of stress and unhappiness by offering up the hopeful words in here, then I have done what I've set out to do.

I realized tonight more than ever that regardless of how many obstacles we are faced with, it could always be worse. That even the smallest of animals are faced with life-altering situations that are vastly different from what others just like them have ever dealt with before. And so are we...which is why understanding and patience is something that I'm going to focus on more. I challenge all of you to do the same. And by all means, if I'm going back on that and you notice it, please call me out on it.

These are all things that we have to work at. We have to put up with the curve balls life throws at us and adapt to them accordingly. That little bird did it. Why can't we?

We have to deal with the fact that every second of every day, we could be let down and be broken. But only if we let that happen. I, like everyone, have a habit of letting the negative things take over my life.

But at least I'm finally trying my hardest NOT to. Instead, I try to work on the solutions to my problems rather than dwelling on the problems themselves.