A Classic Gentleman in the Modern World

When I was in high school and during the beginning of my college career, I had big dreams. I'm a dreamer by nature and still to this day I have dreams. I guess you could say that I'm one of those guys that thinks up the idea and gives it to another person to put into action.

I can remember I had dreams of going into the Navy and traveling the entire Pacific. I had dreams of becoming an Olympic athletic during the summer games. I had dreams of becoming a missionary and serving a native community somewhere in the south Pacific. I had dreams of living in Alaska, Asia, and South America. You name it, I had probably thought of it.

However, this year, my junior year in college, my dreams have changed. My dreams are still big, but not on paper.

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said, “We cannot do great things on this earth, only small things with great love.”

This simple quote has profound affect on my heart.

When I first heard this quote, I was like, “What? How can doing simple and small tasks and projects make a big difference? The only way to make a great difference is to accomplish huge and numerous goals.”

That was my thought process at the time. However, with age and maturity, I guess, I've come to realization of what Mother Teresa was saying.

Yes, there are those that do great and tremendous things on this earth and many people hear about it, but there's also those individuals that do a small thing like saying hi to someone and asking about their day. Depending on the individual, this small action of kindness could mean the world to them.

With every passing month, my desire to do small things with great love is increasing. When I return to campus this January, one thing that I'm going to focus on are the small things. For instance, academics are an important thing to me, but so are my friendships and experiences. Come spring semester, I plan to spend more time with my closest friends on campus. These guys help build me up and help me become a better person. These future experiences with be with me my entire life.

When people ask me what my plans are for the future, I have a few things to say, but nothing too far in the future nor out of the ordinary. However, the things I plan to do are going to make a world's of difference in people's lives.

My Future Dreams
•I want to teach Kindergarten at a Catholic school in a small to medium sized town. I want to teach the children not only their basic letters and numbers, but I want to teach them life lessons as well. Lessons like respect, compassion, work ethic, etc. I think Kindergarten is a good mix of school lessons and life lessons that will hopefully carry on in the students' lives.
•I want to coach or assistant coach cross-country and wrestling. I love individual sports and I think these two sports are great sports for high school students. Both of these sports teach self-discipline and responsiblity. I don't want to just coach my students on the sport, but I want to prepare them for the next stage in life, which is college. I want to teach them how to be a mature athlete who is accountable for their actions.
•I want to get married and raise a family. I want to be the best husband I can be for my wife and the best dad I can be for my children. I want to help my wife and kids get to heaven by living a moral and honest life.
•I want to live fairly close to my family and especially my parents. I also want to live fairly close to my wife's family as well. I believe that family is an important thing in life and shouldn't be at the bottom of the list. I want my children to be able to see their grandparents (on both sides) on a regular basis. I want to see my brothers and sisters more often than I do now.

Yep, these are my main dreams. Simple, yet containing a lot of potential to do what Mother Teresa lived and preached:

“To do small things with great love!”

So, most of us know the epic line from the movie, “The Sixth Sense”.

“I see dead people.”

If you haven't heard this phrase or seen the movie, The Sixth Sense, is about a boy that can see dead people walk around on the earth. No one else can see them except for the boy. If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it!

Anyway, I brought up this topic, because like the boy in the film, I have a gift too. I see people's relationships with God.

Now, you may be thinking, what do you mean by that? Well, I'll tell you.

Ever since I was a child, I had a great ability to read people and read my own emotions. It wasn't surprising, when last year taking a Howard Garnder's Multiple Intelligences Test, my 2 highest intelligences were intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences.

Intrapersonal – the ability to know oneself (strengths and weaknesses)

Interpersonal – the ability to sense others' moods, feelings, temperaments, motivations, etc.

With these two gifts given to me from the Big Guy upstairs, I have a great ability to work well with others and sense how to act and speak with others.

Another thing, that no regular textbook will tell you is that with these intelligences, I'm able to sense people's moralities and virtures. I'm able to feel where they are in terms of their journey with Christ.

They say that first impressions are everything. To an extent, I agree.

When I first meet people, I can automatically feel within me how moral of a person I'm talking to.

Sometimes, I'm wrong, which is to be expected, I'm not a robot haha, but for the most part, I'm correct in my “6th sense”.

Let me give you some examples.
•There are people I meet that I can instantly feel their virtues within them. I feel peace, serenity, joy, and a warmth inside my heart. These people are people I can trust and put my guard down for.
•There are people I meet that I feel somewhat comfortable to be around with. I feel that they're a moral person, but they're just misguided. They don't know for sure where to go in terms of morality. These are the people that I feel called to counsel and lead them to a better path (these people are not a bad path).
•There are people I meet that I feel awkward inside. These people may be good or bad people. If they're bad, then this is the reason. If they're good, it probably means they have the opposite personality or multiple intelligences than me. Or they grew up in a different manner compared to me.
•Finally, there are the people that make me sad inside. Sadly, there are many people I meet that make me feel this way internally. When I meet these people, I feel an intense coldness within my heart. If the person is really lost, this is the feeling I'll get.
•However, you also have the people that make me not only sad and sick inside. These are the people that have lived a misguided life for many years. I feel sick to my stomach when I meet these people. Depending on the person, I actually feel pain in my heart. This pain feels like there's thorns and many sharp objects that inflict my heart. I sense no comfort with these people, all I feel is coldness and pain. These are the people, I really worry about and pray for.

Let's see what else??????? Oh, I have this great ability to recognize girls/women that come from divorced families and/or their father never gave enough attention to them nor told them they were beautiful.

These girls or women usually have a low self-esteem about themselves. They usually choose to hangout with all the bad guys and losers. They tend to be very clingy, especially to their friends. They also usually have coping methods, such as needing to be in control, bringing people down with their words, always needing to have a boyfriend, wearing clothes that are too revealing, and always needing affirmation from guys.

Yes, I do have a 6th sense. No, I don't see dead people, but I do see people's relationships with God.

So when I was in grade school, the Pokemon craze came about. I remember everyone who knew everyone had pokemon stuff or at least the cards. Speaking from a grade school boy's perspective, having certain Pokemon cards made you "the coolest kid ever". Every boy had his own special set of cards that would make him the champ. You know the holographc cards with 70 health points or more!

As I used to value my favorite cards and rely on them when I played the trading card game, I now rely on my close friends and talk to them while playing the game of reality.

Currently, I can confidently say that I have 4 close friends. I consider this a prize since I'm only 20 years old! Each of them are different in their personalities, but all of them are the same in what they believe in and stand for.

What makes these 4 friends my close friends. Well, I'll list them below. It's a short list, but very deep.
•Loyalty - I want to spend time with people I can trust. I admire people that say something and actually do it. Commitment, yes, this is a big part of loyalty as well.
•Compassionate - I want to spend time with people that love everyone for who they are as a person. They don't have to like everyone, but they would help them if their life was in danger. My close friends treat everyone the same no matter their gender, race, age, religion, or political view. They treat others with respect and dignity.
•Manhood - This is a very big third. My close friends are chosen because of their view on manhood. Every day, I know they try to live their lives for others, especially women. These are the guys that open doors for women out of respect. These are the guys that treat women as persons and not as mere objects. These are the guys that will put the needs of women, especially their girlfriends ahead of their own needs.
•Faith - My close friends are men of great faith. They honor God with full respect and courtesy. They attend Church every Sunday no matter how busy they may be on Sunday. These guys also pray on a regular basis, acknowledging that they don't know it all and that they need God in their lives in order to have joy and happiness.

These are the main factors that I look for in close friends. As I said before, I consider myself lucky to have these guys in my life. They support me when I'm done and I support them likewise.

Close Friends

Mike
•Hails from Wisconsin
•Great sense of humor
•Special gift: One of the hardest workers I know. He can out work almost anyone his age.

Gary
•Hails from Kansas
•Has a calming and confident demeanor
•Special gift: One of the smartest people I know. He's currently quadruple majoring in college.

Sean
•Hails from Montana, Wisconsin, Virginia, and various other places
•Is one of the greatest public speakers I know. He participates in plays and poetry nights.
•Special gift: One of the greatest writers I know. He already has a book online published on the Internet.

Vladimir
•Hails from Mexico and Colorado
•He's a great listener and deep thinker
•Special gift: Pays close attention to detail. He has the ability to see when something is bothering me, even when I do my best faking.

When I was little I could remember watching movies with my older cousins. I remember that my older cousins would cover my eyes during the "bad parts" of the movie. I would get so frustrated with them when they did this. I would ask myself, "Why can't I just see the naked woman in the movie?"

Well, they did it because first and foremost I was a little kid and little kids don't need to see naked people. Second, there's a difference when viewing a naked person. There's artwork and there's pornography.

ARTWORK

During my freshman year in college, I traveled to Rome. While I was in Rome, I saw many artworks with many of them being naked women.

When I saw these images, I didn't close my eyes.

I didn't close my eyes because the human bodies of men and women are actually very beautiful pieces of art. Actually they are the greatest masterpeices of art because of their artist; God.

Man and woman are made in the image and likeness of God. Man represents half of God's beauty and Woman represents the other half.

Man's body represents God's strength and Woman's body represents God's gentleness.


PORNOGRAPHY

Now, after talking about how viewing a naked person, in my case, a naked woman, is okay, there is a catch.

So back in the day, you had Adam and Eve. Y0u know the story, Adam and Eve are tricked by the serpent and they both eat from the Tree of Good and Evil. Afterwards, their "eyes are opened" and they realize among other things that they are naked and they immediately cover themselves.

Now why would they cover themselves? Well, I'll tell you. Adam and Eve covered themselves because of sin. Sin entered the world once they ate from the tree. One of the consequences from eating from the tree was that Adam and Eve no longer had complete c0ntrol over their emotions and behaviors.

Before eating from the tree, Adam and Eve could look at each other naked and not have selfish desires to use the other person for sexual pleasure. However, after eating from the tree, Adam and Eve no longer had this ability. Instead of viewing each other as persons they viewed each other as objects.

Again, let's fast forward to 2012. There's sex everywhere you look. It's in music, it's on tv, it's in movies, and on the internet.

Why is this disturbing? It's disturbing not because sex is a bad thing. No, sex is a very good thing, but it's being used for the wrong reasons. Sex represents a self-giving love towards the other, where both the man and woman support life.

The mass media is representing sex as a thing purely for instant gratification and selfish love.

Viewing a naked woman on the media is a sin if the viewer wants to use the person for selfish reasons. However, in my personal opinion, if you have a strong enough self-will and self-discipline to view a naked woman as see her a person of God's beauty and love and not an object of use, then I would say go ahead...........but, this is a very difficult thing to do!