Pardon My French, but F THIS!

The Curse and Share Reaction:
I went on Facebook and I saw the title of a stripes.com article which read: "House bill requires women to sign up for draft." I read the article and then shared it forthwith, accompaning it with my unmitigated gut reaction: "Pardon my French, but F THIS."

(Photo found here.)

Why? Because drafting women is a detriment to our ability to be intrinsically equal. "Equal", in the case of men and women, has never and WILL never be synonymous with "same." We are gloriously and equally different, and it is within our differentness that our might lies.

Facebook Had Something to Say:
Interestingly, a number of people agreed with my reaction. Most of the comments were satirical: I always marvel a little bit about how bitter men--even men my age--are about "feminism" as we know it today. They have a "well, that's what you get" attitude about a lot of the things that are biting women in the a** these days. Not everyone agreed with me, however, so I wrote a few responses. What follows are those slightly edited responses:

Hear Me Out: The fundamental problem with the modern "feminist" movement is that it proposes that women are supposed to be LIKE men. We are not. We are fundamentally different emotionally, physically, and mentally in many ways. The marines even produced research that showed that women, because of how we're different (not lesser) than men, will "bring down" the standards of the military. DUH! It's because we're NOT men! 

While women SHOULD have the basic (no-brainer) rights of a fair wage and the right to vote (for example), we should not be forced to fight wars. It has always been considered the DUTY (no the right) of the MAN to DEFEND, and the DUTY (not the right) of the woman to nurture while he is away in a time of war. Yeah, in the workplace, we've seen gender role changes (there's a lot to be said about that in another blog post). But the military is ONE place where we should not being seeing it. "Rights" are not the only things that should determine the workings of society. Nature and duty are real factors too!

In other words, I absolutely do not agree with women being in combat, at all, ever.

Now, thanks to this false idea of "equality", women like me, who have no interest in being in the military, will be forced to fight wars. I thought this only happened in communist and Muslim countries. Or in countries in such desperate situations, nobody really has a choice! The floodgates have been opened, and this is turning into a nightmare that everyone has to deal with.

("Military service is mandatory in Israel with women accounting for one out of every three soldiers.")

I am not calling into question a woman's ability to fight so much as I am calling into question the "need" or the "right" or the "duty" of a woman to be forced to fight in the military in a time of war. My response to this issue and viewpoint are grounded in the Catholic teaching that men and women are essentially two different pieces to a whole. The union of those two pieces is the foundation of society's ability to survive and flourish; drafting women into the military to fight in times of war is, in my eyes, an attack against that foundation. 

In the past, when women would "sit at home" while men went to war, I believe (through my studies of WW2, especially) that women kept the country running while the men were gone, and without them raising the next generation and going to work in the absence of the men, we would have lost the war. It was just as necessary to have the women on the homefront as it was to have the men oversees.

(Photo found here.)

This is why, even as a kid, I've always disagreed with women being in the military. As stated in the article by stripes.com, it logically follows that, since the military is totally open to women, there should be nothing stopping the government from drafting us. I see the draft as an abject denial of my womanhood and the rights, duties, and needs that come with being a woman. I wonder, too, how complex this question would be in light of contraception. How easily does a woman live in war conditions without having to go to great measures to thwart her fertility cycle? She doesn't. According to NPR, "Rates of unintended pregnancy among women in the military are about 50 percent higher than those of women in the general population." Don't miss the last two paragraphs of the NPR article, by the way. They're facepalm-worthy. 

Yeah, so, uh, let's just keep acting like fertility is a disease, rather than lessening the situations in which women find themselves scrambling for birth control and abortion.

(Photo was found here.)

There are times when I can barely function in the traditional workplace because of my emotions and physiology*, so I'm sure many women are already undergoing a variety of procedures, etc. to make sure they aren't "hindered" by their fertility while they're in the service. With every woman of child bearing years being drafted, I forsee catastrophic health results that I think could easily be avoided by the fact that women should not be drafted.

The Guy at the Bar Told Me To:
I was sitting at a bar not long after I wrote the above Facebook tretise, and I met a fellow some years older than myself. In the midsts of our conversation, I decided to ask him what he thought of women being drafted. He immediately said it was stupid and pointless and that women like me needed to open our mouths and say something about it. "It's just those selfish feminists ruining it for everybody else," he said. 

That took me aback. Didn't expect that reaction from some random guy I met at a bar. But, he was right, and I encourage anyone else who sees the folly of drafting women to open up their mouths and bloody well say so!

*This isn't a weakness. Men and women handle work stress differently. The workplace isn't necessarily condusive to my strengths as a woman the way it is to a man's.

You Aren't Dead Yet!

Had a thought today:

I'm tired of running into people who feel like they're at a dead end in their lives. They spend too much time saying things like "I'm a bad person," "I'm not good enough," or "I don't deserve ___." I also can't stand it when they act and talk like they know what they want, and yet never do anything to make it happen. There are people walking around, saying they're positive--but really, they're not, because they lack self-belief and they don't ask God for help. 

As Catholics/entrepreneurs/people who want to be great in what we do AND great at life, we know we aren't perfect. We know we have to keep pushing forward. Always. Always feeding our minds. Always taking risks. Always looking several steps ahead or just plunging forward when we know we have to. We do what we have to do when--or close to when--we have to do it.

I think we should encourage other people to do the same. We should encourage other people to break their own molds. If there are people around whom you usually bite your tongue, now is the time to charitably speak up--or walk away.

If YOU are one of those people who need to break out of feeling stuck financially; who keep making the same huge mistakes; who feel lost in your own mind; who feel discouraged because you think you lack luck or "good karma"; if you aren't where you want to be--if you feel like you aren't good/smart/successful enough--FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO CHANGE, and never stop reaching for where you need to be.

Les Brown memorably said: 

“The graveyard is the richest place on earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry our their dream.”

YOU ARE NOT DEAD YET. You are not what happened to you, and you, through God's grace, control who you are in the present and future. Stop making excuses, and stop settling for mediocrity.

(This is me standing outside of Notre Dame about 24 hours before ISIS attacked Paris. I'll be writing a post about all that soon...I hope.)

I honestly feel like I had a close shave coming out of Paris. I know that God got me out of there right on time for a reason--I also think he let me experience that kind of scare for a reason. He reminded me that he MADE me for a reason, and that I shouldn't spend my life living in a bubble of mediocrity because of my own lack of self-belief.

He made you for a reason, too. Break your mold today! You are meant for more. 

A Glimpse into My Stay in Narita, Japan

Pictures of Japan and the amazing bed and breakfast in which we stayed for the brief time that we were there.

 Can you see the mountain?

 Our awesome, lockwood cabin in Narita, Japan. The man who owns this home provides rides to and from the airport, airport, and bikes! Look it up on AirBnB!

 I love riding bikes in foreign countries.

 We rode through beautiful farmland.

 And bought awesome food at the supermarket.

 I have a thing for staircases.

 Our host was a great cook!

Got some work done before we headed out for our flight to Moscow.

Hope you liked the pictures!

Victory Lap: One Year Later

I have the unfortunate gift of remembering the dates upon which unpleasant things happen to me. I wish I could remember my credit card number, or the good idea I had a couple hours ago, or the order of my schedule tomorrow, but no--I just remember unpleasant dates, like August 10, because of what happened on that day almost exactly one year ago. 
I was lying in my bed, barely able to move because an unwelcome feeling of certainty had found its way into the pit of my stomach. For some reason, I knew. I just knew. It was over. There hadn't been a fight, a disagreement, or even a conversation. Just silence. Enough silence for me to know that, without even an explanation or a goodbye, the guy I'd been dating for several months had decided to disappear from my life.
Thinking about the details of that day and the days of the first few weeks that followed it is never a good idea, so, of course I won't go into it here. But, boy, do I remember that day. And today, I'm actually kind of glad that I do remember it. Here's why:
My life completely changed after that. I'm looking back now, a year later, and I'm grinning. Writing this post to gloat is not my intention--I'm writing this post for you, dear reader, so that you might take heart (if you've ever been in my situation) and truly know that a breakup (even with someone you thought things would work out with) is NOT the end of the bloody world.
After August 10, 2014 happened, I looked at where I was at in life, and I realized that everything needed to change. I needed to change. It wasn't that I was bad, or lazy, or stupid or anything like that. I just wasn't...enough. I wasn't enough for me. I wasn't enough for God. And not living up to my potential or believing in my better future had abruptly landed me in a very sad situation, which I knew I didn't deserve. I needed to change everything. So change everything, I did. I took off like a rocket.
You've heard bits of this story before, or maybe you haven't: travel, business, creativity, family, friends, epiphanies, blessings, improvement, momentum, excitement, advenures, God--happiness. I have it all, and I'm gunning for more, because--Why not? And it's not worth it to "settle"; it's not worth it to not strive for God's dream for you. Trust that God wants to make you happy.
I'll close by showing you where I was the night before August 10, 2015--and the only thing in my stomach then was good food and whole-hearted contenment.

(Me, posing by a stairway after a grandiose wedding in Alabang, Philippines, after having eaten a delicious dinner and watched an amazing fireworks display, August 9, 2015)

I was at this wedding on August 11, St. Philomena's feast day, by the way, which is super cool because she's the patroness of young people ;)

What Gives You the Right?

So many people these days don't do what it takes to change where they're at financially. They boldly, with no real reason other than fear or comfort, refuse to take action or accept the opportunities that come their way. They act like they have a choice. They act like things are going to just keep falling into their laps and that their parents will never stop supplying their every need.
That is DELUSIONAL. And selfish.
What gives you (and me) the right? What makes us think we have the right to reject opportunity? To avoid risk? To avoid doing necessary things that scare us? To refuse to work harder and faster and smarter?
If you're a lay person (a man especially), married or single, it's your responsibility to take advantage of opportunities and make money. Why? Because money is a real way to contribute. To your family and to people in need.
Stuff happens. People get sick, houses burn down, storms destroy villages, children are born--What are you doing to make sure you're ready?
Money gives you options. Especially if you have a lot of it. I don't want to be stuck, scratching for a dollar, when I could be somewhere else, doing something meaningful. I'm doing what I can now to build wealth because, soon, I want to have the choice to drop everything when necessary, to go and be of service to other people--instead of being too stressed with being broke to think beyond how much money I wish I had in my wallet.
Hope that made sense.

Don't Give Up On Anybody

I heard a great quote last night that applies to the story I'm going to tell in this post:

The other day I received an emergency call from a friend who was feeling suicidal. I did my best to communicate with him based on what I knew his problems were and I decided to be very straight with him about the fact that he kept pushing God away because of his misconceptions about God.

Today, my friend messaged me and basically said he has a new, positive outlook on life. I know he is still in need of conversion, but I've sent him a Bible verse and told him to offer his suffering to God for the sake of others (both via text), and he didn't ridicule me for it, so that's a good sign.

I brought this up for this reason: I wanted to share how I came to realize what my distant-from-God, suicidal friend needed to hear from me and see me do. I hope you find the following outline helpful when you face a similar situation:

1) I prayed for him right in front of him at a point when I felt like I had run out of things to say.

2) I told him to stop sabotaging himself with negativity and making the same mistakes. He ended up pausing and then saying, "Tell me how to stop. Please. Because I don't know."

3) I told him that he was rejecting knowing more about God than he'd learned in childhood, or through his personal opinions.

4) I asked him if he believed in hell and the devil (even though he said he did, he still toyed with the idea of heaven or hell not really existing). But I asked him this so that I could point out that the devil was attacking him and that the devil hated God. He admitted that, since the devil hated God, the devil hated man kind as well. Even if my friend didn't fully accept God's true nature in that moment, what's important is that my friend was using logic to realize God might actually care about him.

5) I couldn't dwell on just one thing with my friend. He was always trying to find a way to justify his feelings, so I kept pushing, and I called him out every time i sensed him denying mercy or sabotaging himself.

6) Finally, I got to the point when I asked him, "Don't you want to be happy? Don't you want to be happy after you die?" I asked him this because he kept saying that he wanted to be happy, but never seemed to be abel to get ahead in life. He answered, "Yes." I also said suicide could land him in hell, where he would be unhappy, and that it was a sin to bet on God's mercy in the process of contemplating suicide.

7) After that, I had to switch gears and dig a little deeper, so I asked him, "WHAT do you WANT?" He said "I don't know... What do YOU want?" I said I wanted to go to heaven and I wanted my friends and family to go to heaven. And then he said, "I actually want to make sure my family and friends go to heaven, too." And then I said it was our job, as friends whom God most likely brought together, to get each other into heaven, and he seemed to agree with that.

8) Throughout it all, I kept deflecting his "I have no hope" attitude by making him see that, if he indeed had no hope, he would never have called me. And he was never able to deny that I was right about that. And with that in mind, I was able to get through to him and talk to him long enough for him to get through a really tough few hours.

9) I told him that i wasn't just trying to come up with smart answers to his objections, and he nodded and said, "I know." So I knew he was really taking in everything i said.

So, I told him I would help him clear up some clutter in his life, and after that we ate spaghetti!

Our Lady, Undoer of Knots, pray for us!

Little Adventures: Strangers and Turtles

I'm not sure what this place is called, but it basically overlooks Talofofo Bay (Maybe it's called Talofofo Bay Overlook? Ha.) I had a little adventure there yesterday afternoon just before sunset that I thought I'd share with you guys.

That morning I'd just finished rereading the Harry Potter series (Don't lie, you do it too.), and that afternoon, I worked down on the southeastern side of the island. Whenever I read fiction, I always feel like writing some of my own (which is why I sometimes avoid reading fiction, because writing takes my mind away from business...which is bad for business), so I made the decision to spend some downtime at the beach. First Beach, my first choice (haha), was already a bit crowded, so instead I pulled over at the Talofofo Bay overlook, brought a notebook and pen with me to the precipice (I like that word), and sat down on the barrier, ready to enjoy the view and write a few pages of what might just turn out to be a load of useless fiction (Not everything I write is genius, I admit.)

I was not alone. There was a man there who seemed to be surveying the area. I'd noticed the name of some sort of company on the side of his truck (can't remember the name), so I decided not to mind his presence and get on with what I wanted to do. He was about to leave, however, when he called out to me: "Would you like me to take a picture of you? That looks like a great picture."

In my head I was like, "Crap, he thinks I'm a tourist." But then, I decided to take advantage of his offer and gave him my phone. When he finished taking the picture, he introduced himself, shook my hand, and left.

After writing a bit, I got up to take some pictures of the misty look that was settling over the mountains. The mountains through which Cross-Island Road cuts always start to look kind of misty around 6:00-7:30 PM, and it always looks awesome. I got up and walked to the opposite side of the overlook and started taking pictures, but, as I did so, I was interrupted from my nature excursion by yet another stranger.

"Do you want to see sea turtles? Here, look!" Another man had appeared and was making his way toward me. He joined me at the very end of the barrier, climbed and stood on top of it and, holding onto a metal pole that stood near him, told me to do the same. Naturally, I thought he was going to lure me onto the barrier and push me over the edge, where I would meet my untimely and totally unsought death. That didn't happen, though.

I climbed up and stood next to him on the barrier. "I'm Apache. I'm from Tali," he said. Name and residence: two important elements to social introductions on Guam. I said, "I'm Jess. I'm from Agat." I also had to explain that, no, I'm not military. Some of you can relate. 

Anyway, this interesting being pointed down into the water, which was yards and yards below us, and showed me how to spot the sea turtles that were beginning to come to the surface. They were hard to see at first, but after a minute, it became easier to spot the dark outlines of the green sea turtles swimming against the current, out into the open ocean. We saw three of them! Apache explained that he was a hunter and a fisher: I knew he wasn't watching turtules for fun--But it was fun for me! And when I'd had my fill, I thanked him for the experience and went on my way, feeling very, very glad that I'd pulled over to do some writing at Talofofo Bay instead of speeding past it, like I usually do, on my way home.

Take advantage of little adventures!