I've discovered something about myself. I have this innate thirst for knowledge, for research and learning, but it is limited by an equally inherent laziness and tendency to skim over things. As geeky as it sounds to be putting things in terms of GAAP Principles, it's like I have completeness down, but lack entirely accuracy. I can never master any single thing, but I have to know a little bit about everything. That's just the way I am, and I've realized that I really have to fight to obtain depth of anything. Whether it be knowledge, relationships, or living.

Another thing I've been realizing is that everything about a person leads back to something. There is a reason for everything, and in many ways we are just like machines - our programming may be extremely complex, messy, and in a foreign language - but all of our thoughts, actions, and behaviours are always predicated on some internal program code that was established in our childhood or through significant events in our lives.

Last night I watched The Aviator. Now, while I'm sure much of the thematic material was fictional and speculation only, it was still based on actual events that occurred in Mr.Hughes' life. The first scene opens with Hughes' mother bathing him because of an outbreak of typhus that has occurred in the south. She tells him, "you are not safe" and makes him spell out the word quarantine. This sets the stage for Hughes' obssessive compulsive need for cleanliness and paranoia about germ and disease, which eventually conquered him.

This is why child psychologists tell us that a child's development is absolutely vital. What happens to them, what they are exposed to and how they are taught determines the rest of their life. My mother has a poem framed in our kitchen, which reads, "Children Learn What They Live," by Dorothy Law Nolte:

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

I believe you can switch the words "live" with "learn" and the poem remains equally true. If children learn to be critical, they will live to be critical for the rest of their lives. Under ideal circumstances, it is difficult enough to change someone but if someone is unwilling to change themselves, it becomes impossible. That's the thing about the human condition. Change is possible, I believe. People can genuinely reprogram themselves, because that is what being transformed by Christ is all about. But it requires deep realignment from within, which must be conscious and disciplined and it is a process. I once heard the phrase, "our entire lives are spent fixing the mess of our childhood." For many people, this is not the case. I know of individuals who have grown up in good, loving, Christian homes with wonderful parents. I have even known people who haven't grown up in such ideal circumstances and yet they are just naturally *perfect* people - kind, smart, generous, gentle, wise. To these people, I stand aside and applaud. I don't understand them, but I commend their ability to be ahead of the game. But it does not change the fact that in the game of life, the only person we are truly competing against is ourselves; the only person God judges us against is the person that we should be at our best.

But to the rest of the world, I bear the mark of someone who understands. I know what it means to fail, and I know what it means to have regrets. I also know what it means to be imperfect, in every sense of the word. And for whatever reason God has created me to be this kind of person, I take it as a gift and a challenge. The challenge remains to learn from my mistakes, but not allow the past to haunt me.