Personalizing Songs

Songs are great! They help us with the ability to express how we are feeling and can sympathize with us. They encourage us to uncontrollably dance and they can comfort us in the midst of pain. No matter where you are in life or what mood you are in, music and songs are there for us.

It is no mystery to anyone that songs actually convey meaning and the lyrics that a song has holds this meaning. (However I find it completely disappointing and annoying even when a music beat is great and I love it but the lyrics and the meaning behind the lyrics are either terrible, or just gross to my ears) Sometimes it is these lyrics that we can sympathize with the most in a song because they verbalize how we internally feel. And as much as there are songs out there that are awesome even with their intended interpretation, I find that I enjoy personalizing a song by giving a song a different meaning (not change the lyrics at all but just give the lyrics a different meaning so that the song becomes more personal for me). I have done this lately for a couple songs of which I shall share.

What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction: there are probably a lot of you who are not a fan of One Direction but just hear me out! I may have One Direction Infection but I find that I enjoy this particular song when I put my own spin on it. When I was a kid I had a lot of self-esteem issues and I found what I liked about the song was that the girl in the song was being reassured in a sense that she is beautiful. But my interpretation does not stop there! I like to envision God singing this song (especially the chorus really) to not only this girl but to everyone, wondering why they don't know that they are beautiful because He made them beautiful!

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift: This song is such a great song with an amazing beat, not gonna lie. When this song came out though I was going through a lot of personal trials and without even thinking about changing the meaning of the song, I just naturally did in my head. To me (sometimes not all the time), this song is talking about my relationship that I have with the sin in my life that I like to keep going back to. And how even though this sin keeps coming back and I keep falling for their tricks every time I am NEVER EVER going back with it. Very quickly this song became a liberation song for me, which is pretty cool for me to think about!

Another benefit that I find with personalizing songs (this one is really for the musically talented) is that this actually helps me with writing my own music because I begin to realize what is internally going on with me. Personalizing songs is like a way to self-reflect because it tells you how you are thinking and feeling in that moment which is great for writing music really!

So try to personalize songs out there and let me know what you think and your experience with it is!

#LifeOfRyan

Standards

From the girl who has a list of 186 things that a guy has to complete before she can even consider going out with him, to the guy who only has one golden rule: can she make me a sandwich? Everyone has their own personal standards, a sort of moral ethics that one uses like a net to weed out people. Otherwise, we would go on dates with any and probably every human being that we see (regardless of their gender).

I find that standards are incredibly helpful when it comes to dating and also a necessity that everyone needs to put serious thought, effort, and time into. 

When someone wants to be in a relationship it's easy to just try to put yourself out there and go out with the first person who will. But then you turn into a fish surrounded by hooks because the people that you would attract will do more harm than good to you. Whereas if you had a set of standards that you knew, that you took the time and effort into creating then you would look for someone who actually meets those criteria. And if your standards are meaningful then you will be looking for meaningful people. It's like you get what you put out (and by putting out you're really just making a set of standards that you follow). But not only do standards help you get someone who is worth your time, but standards can make you a better person yourself.

Have you ever heard of the phrase: Be the person you want to marry (you can replace marry with date if you would like)? Well it means exactly that really, you should have all the qualities that you are looking for. For guys this could mean if you want a girl (or a guy depending on your orientation) who is faithful to you and doesn't go around looking at porn then you can't be looking at porn yourself. For girls this could mean that if you want a guy (or a girl) who doesn't flirt with others or shows off parts of their bodies then you need to not be flirtatious and be careful with exposing yourself.

All this being said: I would feel like a complete hypocrite if I didn't share with you my personal standards that I came up with to show you that I too have standards that I follow when looking to date or marry someone (I've even ranked them in order from least importance to most importance cause I'm a nerd like that). So without further adue here is my list and why it is important to me (going from least importance to most):

3. Maintains activity (likes doing things regularly). This is because I like chilling but even when I chill I'm doing something like watching a movie or writing this blog or even playing the piano. My chilling is really me doing things that I like doing. I am not interested in someone who chooses to actually do nothing and can do nothing all day cause that is boring to me and wasteful of a great day!

2. Respects themselves and others (especially family)[this includes their bodies and other's bodies]. This means to me that I will not be dating someone who smokes anything, likes to over drink, enjoys watching adult movies, and things of the like because that isn't respecting their bodies and it is not respecting others. I know a couple people who smoke weed or sheesha and tell me that it is completely fine, but to me it is not. You are putting harmful stuff in your body and therefor I will never date them. This standard also means that they need to respect their family, not like them but respect them.

And finally number 1. On fire for God and Jesus!!! This is huge for me because my faith is huge to me! I don't want to be with someone who doesn't have the same passion (or greater) passion for God or Jesus than I do. And to me, going to church once a week is not on fire.

So I feel like I should wrap up before this begins to sound like I am really just posting my bio for an online dating site. But anyways that is my view on standards and my standards that I have. Don't be mistake though, just because I have standards doesn't mean I'm good with dating right now, having these standards makes me want to get ride of somethings in my life because right now I am not convinced I would date myself if I kept these standards.

So do you have standards? If so what are they?

#LifeOfRyan

Lord Of The Rings Rant

So before you LOTR nerds get all excited thinking that for some reason I will take this blog to discuss how "awesome" these movies are. I won't. I'm not a fan of the LOTR series and I probably will never be a fan. But for some reason when I mention that I do not like the series it's as if I'm calling their mother a  whole (if you catch my drift). I don't understand why people take great offence to my dislike of the movies, and then they try to tell me about all the "great" things about them to try to convince me to change my mind. As if I haven't already seen the movies, I've obviously watched the movies it's why I don't like them to begin with. It's also why I can't really say I don't like Twilight because I've never seen it (although I have no interest in watching them or reading them). And beyond just watching the LOTR movies my dad made me watch the extended versions as a marathon........ so you can obviously trust that when I say I don't like them. I don't like them. Stop trying to convert me, it won't happen.

Let me share with you the top three reasons why I don't like the LOTR series:

1. Frodo smiles three times in the whole first trilogy. To me, this is depressing, I enjoy smiling and laughing (don't be deceived I do enjoy epic and very serious movies and shows one of my top favorite shows right now is Hannibal). But for me if you can go through a whole movie (the second movie in LOTR) and have the main character never smile then why should I watch it? There is no break from the seriousness of the movie. Even Shakespeare knew that having a play continuously serious would be dull and boring after a while and included comic reliefs whereas LOTR decides to just ignore all of that and bore me to death.

2. There is so much fighting in the whole movie that I forget quite often as to why they are fighting. It seems like everywhere they go they have to kill something or someone. Lets go to the forest - kill orgers. Lets go to the city - kill people. Lets go to another wizard - kill him. It's so repetative and dull so very quickly I loose interest because I can't remember why they have to be killing so many people.

3. They walked everywhere. I wouldn't be bothered by the fact that they walked majority of the way except for the fact that there were in exsistance huge creatures that looked like elephants that could carry them a significant part of the way, or even the birds! They could have flown to the eye! And even if they couldn't be flown all the way to the eye I am sure they could have been flown a significant distance so that they were pretty close! Then BAM! Two of the LOTR movies would have been cut and Frodo would have gotten rid of the ring in the first movie.

Now don't get me wrong, I recognize how epic the series can be and I like the undertone Christian message but I just personally find the movies to be dull because of the overuse of battles. What movies are popular that you just don't like? Why?

#LifeOfRyan

Awkward Prayers and Moodiness

Wow am I ever late on writing this one, but my excuse is that my Aunt from New Zealand is over so I've been spending time with her cause I see her every two years. So for all of you who have been impatiently waiting for my next blog... shame on you!

Anyway, you know what can be awkward? Prayer requests. For some people you have no idea why this is awkward but for people like me this can be bad unless I go last. I shall proceed to enlighten you as to why this is. So for prayer requests you go around in a circle and say what you would like prayer for about you or concerning you and in the end everyone prays for you and its awesome. However more than once have I said that I wanted prayer for something minor (like a couple weeks ago I said that I've been sneezing a lot and I'm not sure whether it's a cold or an allergy problem but I would like it to go away (which I still have oddly enough). This to be was a valid prayer request because it was annoying me greatly. But then the person next to me told us how she had something wrong with her throat and how it could be like larangytis or something (a lot worse than my sneezing). And then another person asks for prayer for their chest cause they are having issues and it's starting to hurt. And now I'm sitting there feeling like a jerk because I want prayer for my little sniffles and they have legitimate concerns that they are bringing up. And therefore it is awkward.

You know what else is awkward (not really awkward really but more of weird)? I am a moody person who is a guy. I know, I know. You're probably trying to tell me how all guys are not in tuned with their emotions and can't express them at all how are you able to break free from that curse? Well I have no idea actually. But what I do know is that it sucks at times and I have a slight appreciation for women more who have to go through that in pregnancy and in periods (at least I believe you become moody, either that or you just get pissed off easily, haven't quite figured it out yet).

For all you guys out there reading this and are trying to figure out what it's like to be moody, trust me it's not fun. For example: my emotions tend to go through waves and I cannot stop it and I feel like I don't have too much control over them (although I'm learning how to better manage them but I shall share that later). I go through periods of feeling so awesome in my life and then poof the next day and for following days I don't and I have no idea why but it just happens. Sometimes my mood will change during the day too. Believe it or not a song can actually change my mood for the rest of the day, or even something someone said that wasn't quite right or even what they didn't say.

You guys may be sitting reading this and thinking that it's overwhelming and you know what? It is. And the weird thing is is that I cannot think of a single guy who is moody as well. Probably because we just all assume guys not never be moody and we leave that for the girls to untangle. But people need to remember that there are guys out there (like me [I'm assuming there are others like me, yes]) who can be moody, and have a lot of similar issues that we just push off to being strictly feminine.

Anyway, I said I would share how I am able to cope with my moodiness. Well for me I find that when I realize that I'm in a bad mood, I need to center myself with God. Just last week I was just in a down moment and I had no idea why or what got me there but I just wasn't feeling great a lot. I wound up going to an arts worship service and that really helped me connect with God and help restore joy back into my life. So I'm starting to see that my moodiness could just be me running low on joy. Is that the case with you?

#LifeOfRyan
Ps: does anyone know how long colds are suppose to last cause I feel like I've had mine for a while