Boxing day, What is it?

So I've wondered many times before, what is boxing day, where did it come from? It didn't take long to find out that Boxing day is a totally awesome day but not for what it is today.

Boxing Day dates back to past centuries when it was the custom for the wealthy to give gifts to employees or to people in a lower social class, most especially to household servants and other service personnel.

The tradition was that gifts were exchanged among equals on or before Christmas day. But on Boxing day cash or durable goods were given to those less fortunate. This originated in Britain and thus inherited to Australia and New Zealand.

There are a few origins as to why it is called Boxing day:
- People would give a gift of gratitude to those who worked for them which usually was a box of food or fruit
- Employees brought boxes to work with them on Boxing day which the employer would then put money into as an end of year gift
- A similar origin to the above was that an employer was obliged to give gifts of a practical nature to his/her employees
- The church gathered tithes to give to those less fortunate and were delivered from the collection box.

But it is clear in all these examples that boxing day was a day giving to those less fortunate. How did we lose such an awesome day on the calender, what a great thing to do.

I feel that this should be brought back. Thus today I will be making a group on Facebook, posting this in various places. Time to bring back the true Boxing day! Though I'm unprepared to celebrate the true Boxing day this year. I want to spread the word and I hope for something true next year. Although you could still thank people that serve you today! Even if it's not a gift...
It's all about the true meaning.

To join my group on Facebook or just take a look go to:
http://tinyurl.com/boxingday
You can take a look even if you aren't registered on facebook!

Merry Christmas

Just thought I would add a little note to say Merry Christmas to all readers. Have a totally awesome day and celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Not much more to say really...

Consumerism is not the answer to Happiness

So I had this thought partly also in thanks to Cassie from my youth group who contributed. I with help have devised some thoughts about how economics itself proves that consumerism is not the answer to happiness.

This is what in economics we call a demand curve. The law of demand states that as price decreases, quantity demanded increase. Which says as price decreases you will demand more of a good, because it costs you less.

But this year we studied in greater detail why this is.
Utility is a measure of how much satisfaction you gain from a good or service and from this is the most interesting law for today.
The law of diminishing marginal utility
- Successive equal additions to consumption will generate smaller amounts of extra utility.
Basically as you consume more the extra satisfaction becomes less.

Utility can even become negative. You wouldn't consume something even if you were paid to do so. Thus we have eating competitions where a reward is due, for one to want to enter. Whether it is material or the praise of others.
This whole idea is right in front of us. We know that if we have too much of one thing we will dislike it and can get to the point of sickness.
I believe the same occurs with consumerism, the satisfaction of material things becomes less and less until the person drives themself into depression or something of the sort.
We have heard it all before, people that are rich but unhappy.

I hope you enjoyed your beginner lesson in economics and are also convinced that consumerism does not equal happiness.

Believe in God or not?

Something that really annoys me and I feel quite agitated about is what I used to be. If anyone asked if I was a christian I would say "yes". But now I look back and what made me a christian then? The fact that I believed in God? But did I really, I certainly didn't live like it.
I realised now I bullied other people, I hurt other people. Not all the time but I did and never had a care for it.

More recently it's something totally possessing me.
One should establish whether they believe in God or not.
Then they should live by it.
How do you live by it? By God's word or otherwise you would establish your own way.

This sort of thinking has certainly been challenging me lately. Many people go to church, sometimes you wonder when it will become something more than a routine. I know that Sunday morning was the only time I gave God and even then I mucked around a lot.

Considering Jesus two top commandments:
-Love the lord your God with all your heart, and all your mind, and all your soul
-Love your neighbour as yourself

There is no way such a task is easy. But certainly progress towards this is better than accepting it as impossible or making none. If I really believe in God, I realise now I must give my life to God. Otherwise what am I doing but wasting my time.

I think this is also a key reason why Christianity can be so off putting to others. Outsiders see hypocrisy. One preaching about loving others but seeing the opposite. I just hope that I won't be seen like that and that I truly will be what God calls me to be, otherwise why am I doing it.

Before writing this I was thinking I must make sure this is not so condemning to others, because I know that would be hypocritical. So I decided to write it as much as possible about myself and I hope that it might help you to think about your own self.

Paintball and Swimming

Today I went with my year 9 class to play paintball and go swimming.
Although I wasn't an official member of the class. I joined them after I was promoted to prefect duty and was encouraged to help out with organising a year 9 class.

So I wasn't expected to go to paintball, but a few of the year 9s realised that I wouldn't be coming otherwise and they organised for me to come which was very thoughtful and much appreciated.
So after that how could I turn down such an offer?

Paintball was great they shot me, I shot them, we had fun.
They had a couple of different fields as well which kept things very interesting.

In our first game I found a great hiding spot before an entrance to our base (I was defending). I hid there waited for one to come and was about to shoot him in the back when my gun wouldn't fire. Then when I did manage to fire it after going back into hiding he was alerted of my position. He actually made an amazing shot through the bush I was hiding in onto the top of my head. Having said that I got him back later :p My gun didn't fire because I hadn't taken the safety off, even after listening I didn't understand how hehe

The last field we played in was very small and full of petrol drums. You could see everyone and whenever the whistle was blown we had to move. It was instinctual for me to move forward when everyone moved barely anyone shot at the time but I did, free moving targets haha.
Because I was trying to shoot them I ended up moving forward. Someone got me good, here's the evidence:

Yes that is what we call a welt. It hit me just under the face mask right on the jaw. It's really impressive and the picture fails to capture it's beauty.
As one of them mentioned though, now I won't forget 9BH when it scars haha.

After that we went to H2O Xtreme which is a pool I used to go to a lot when I lived in Upper Hutt so that was nice. We were hitting a beach ball around in the water which evolved into a game of keeping the ball away from the girls, which was fun of course.
But it really is a great pool a lot of things to do there.

All in all I had a wonderful day and I am going to miss those kids.

Soul Purpose

Soul purpose is an awesome christian youth magazine
If you haven't read it before it's definitely worth checking out.

http://www.soulpurpose.co.nz

They have an online discussion forum as well. Interesting discussions can occur there, although recently I have been paying less attention.
All the articles from the magazine can be found online.

I think whats really great is that they through together options for study in theology, mission etc which was a great resource for me to get an idea of what is available.
Another great thing is that you can read a magazine minus the trash of most of todays magazines for teens. Great for an alternative message to be floating out there 100% free.

Take a look, it's worth your time.

Phil Joel - DWYL

This is my favourite song at the moment anyway. I haven't had a favourite song for a long time now.
Listen to it here:
deliberate people
It will play when you enter the site.

Anyway I couldn't find the lyrics. So I recorded myself.

You take away my mobile phone; you’ll take away a part of me
This distinction between the physical world and the virtual one will become increasingly blurred
Those who perhaps are not very aware of this technology will say can’t you just switch it off?
Yeah but then your depriving yourself of your social network
Technology is enormously important for their social lives
24/7 communications world we live in you can even go inside the targets own home even their own bedroom
Don’t give up something
This misuse of technology, allow for a new type of protest which resonates with ordinary citizens

Eh oh oh oh eh oh ohoh oh eh oh oh eh oh

You know its like … oh yeah…Let’s do it

And what if we don’t let it
And what if we don’t let it go
You know, it’s not like we don’t get it
We gotta second guess it
Welcome to the dog and pony show

The dream killers with the time in their hands
They’ll take an inch, they’ll take a mile if we don’t know where we stand
It’s not like we don’t get it
It’ll get us if we let it go

Don’t waste your life
Don’t waste your life
Don’t waste your life
Don’t waste your life
It’s the only one you have

A true fake an ingenious fool
Take my time, take my space, put your face in a cube
It’s not like we don’t get it
But do you have it or does it have you?

Don’t waste your life
Don’t waste your life
Don’t waste your life
Don’t waste your life
It’s the only one you have

Do you have it or does it have you?

Eh oh oh oh eh oh ohoh oh eh oh oh eh oh
Eh oh oh oh eh oh ohoh oh eh oh oh eh oh

You take away my mobile phone; you’ll take away a part of me
Can’t you just switch it off?

Eh oh oh oh eh oh ohoh oh eh oh oh eh oh
Eh oh oh oh eh oh ohoh oh eh oh oh eh oh

Don’t waste your life
Don’t waste your life
Don’t waste your life
Don’t waste your life
It’s the only one you have

So as I pointed out with streetview the other day. Technology is getting pretty intrusive.
It was my favourite song before I analysed the lyrics.

Mainly because I'm going through a stage of trying to figure out where to go, what to do etc
And well "Don't waste your life" seems like a pretty good thing to think about.
But I really like the song as well.

Most of this song makes sense.
Except Dog and Pony show which refers to the small travelling circuses in America which often had Dogs and Ponies to do tricks.

The song is obviously built around a modern culture of mobile phones and social networking.
To me the song appears to be saying that mobile phones and such can end up taking over the real person inside "Do you have it, or does it have you?". With the underlying message saying Don't Waste your life allowing it to eat you up.
It is very relevant with one of my earlier posts. Just be careful what your main focus in life is.

What do you stand for?

So at the last sentence of yesterdays entry I asked, What do you stand for?
Another important thing to think about, otherwise you could end up like a doormat where everyone tramples over you and decides for you.

So a while ago my dad got me the book "The 7 habits of highly effective teens". I guess I was totally skeptical about it and felt that it was going to distract me from God and steer towards drive for success.
However having that in mind, I think reading the book wasn't so bad. I was able to apply success in God. I am yet to finish the book, but so far have been able to get a lot of thought provoking things out of it. I guess it's more things that you know about but the book helps you to apply them more in your life.

One of the "habits" is to begin with the end in mind. To think about what you want the final result to be of your life and smaller matters of life. Anyway there was a section on a personal mission statement.
They can be mottoes, personal constitutions, poems, phrases, quotes or something you make yourself.
It's about establishing your mission in life. I thought this was a great idea and was going to make my own.
But as I was writing this I figured I hadn't actually made my own. But then I realised again that I have. Without actually recognising it as one. My first blog post is probably it. Maybe I will add and subtract from it sometime. But I guess that's what I feel my mission would be.

Have a good think about it. If you don't set where you want your life to go, how will you know where to go or where you are going. The world will decide for you.

Google Maps - Streetview

Well it wrecks my post a day routine. But this really must be mentioned.
My Aussie readers will know about this already.
But here is an example of the new google maps streetview:
http://tinyurl.com/5pvwfr

There is my house and rubbish bin. I know it doesn't tell someone much more than they can find anyway but it still sets them in the scene of my own house :s

Combined with white pages online. If I really pissed someone off there aren't manywith my last name in New Zealand haha
Ah well just a short mention on the matter :p

What will make you Happy?

So yeah after my big bombshell yesterday I got some nice comments on MSN about it. Hopefully over the day you had time to think about it.

It's quite astounding that we often miss such a huge question in our life.
We can get so caught up in the busy world, that we actually don't think about why we are doing some stuff.

I can totally relate to this. I used to play some online games. Don't worry it wasn't WOW or anything like that. I never actually payed to play online games.
I played a couple of text-based strategy games. I got really into them. Way too much.

I am very analytical, but the problem was I was dedicating that talent to the game, not to life. Soon I was becoming a respected player in the game and a leader of a group of people. This was great mind you, I got some great leadership skills from playing this game. However it was really dominating my life. In the holidays I would play for 12 hours a day, because at the time of my holidays I would step up as the main leader. People on this game expected me to be on a lot, I guess I did it because of those expectations.

I got totally caught up in that game. I was definitely addicted. It was quite funny, the police gave all the Year 13s at our school a street smarts handbook. In it was a section of Internet addiction. It had a question on the margin.

How do I know if I am spending too much time playing games?
1 Have you gone without food to keep playing?
2 Have you lied to a friend or family about where you were or what you were doing?
3 Have you borrowed or stolen money to pay for something in the game?
4 Have you missed work or let a friend down because you were playing?
If you answer yes to one of these questions you are probably spending too much time. If you answer yes to lots of these questions then you almost definitely have an addiction.
(your body is starting to crave the endorphins you get from the excitement of the game)

Maybe someone with something similar to this has the same problem.
Having one day realised that it actually wasn't fun anymore, I decided to quit. I did and never looked back.
But here's my confession:
I skipped breakfast and was eating at noon often rather than breakfast because I got hooked in.
I lied to friends and family about what I was doing.
I definitely let my friends down because I was playing. It got to the point where they never contact me outside of school because I would never come anyway.
So I am really sorry to my family and friends who I totally let down.

I set my priorities wrong. I put the expectations of random people I had never met above my family and friends.

Well I got through this totally alone and this I guess is an important confession and a lesson certainly learned by me.

So that was quite a long story. But it's an illustration on what was happening in my life that was stopping me from being happy. Is there anything similar in your life?
Commit it to a friend and get through it.

Time is a limited resource, we can't buy more time. We can lose it through bad choices, not just things like smoking, but what we actually spend our time doing!

Do things you actually enjoy! But not just in your day to day life. Set long term goals as well.
What do you stand for?

About this blog

So I guess I will start with the reason I made this blog.
This is my personal blog on all matters of life. I have a seperate blog on social justice that I created today otherwise that was going to totally get mixed into this blog and it would have become what that is anyway.
I am 18, have finished high school and that's the main reason I created this.
Now I have finished the part of my life that was set out for me. Now I have choices to make for my life and it's direction. This really is huge.
Perhaps this will be read by younger people looking for knowledge of the path ahead of them. Most likely also for my peers who wonder what I'm doing and want to stay in touch.
Or perhaps the interests of older who could pick up on some things new and also help with guidance, I really don't know what will happen :p

So where does the name of this blog come from. Well it comes from a brochure for a gap year programme which totally hit me as something I totally feel about my life and may even go on this gap year programme. But anyway here it is:

Live your life
Some people make a difference, most just make a living. A few Christians are world-changers, other just church-goers. Some play life hard, some hardly play. You can spend your life investing in eternity or retirement.

That really hit me and perhaps as a future plan for this blog I will breakdown each sentence in discussion. But yeh this was totally me when I read it. Really something I had been thinking about.

This blog can also be accountability to that, I want to play life hard.
I guess I will leave you with my hope for you and something I have thought about a lot lately and I think it is vital for all to think about.

What will make you happy?
(With a bombshell like that I think my next post will need to follow up on that matter)