Thoughts Inspired By a Song

Over winter break, I acquired a bunch of new music from a friend. I will generally listen to most types of music and I really like stuff that actually makes me think, so I was excited to hear the songs. Most of it was different from the type of music I normally listen to, but it was good. 

One song I had forgotten about came back up my shuffle tonight. When I first heard it, I immediately hated it because I didn't listen to it in-depth. Lines such as "love is just a hoax so forget everything that you've heard," and advice simply amounting up to living for what feels good in the moment had me cringing until I got to the end of the song. The line changes to "love's completely real, so forget everything that you've heard." Having misjudged the song, I had to listen to it again. After listening to it over and over, I know there are parts that I slightly agree. I definitely do not support everything that it's saying (especially since it encourages us to only seek what it good in the moment), but I appreciate that it got me thinking. 

Overall, it's a good song and it got me thinking about the types of people we surround ourselves with and the types of things that we do. Please forgive my overgeneralizing in the next paragraph, but this is what the song made me think of.

I think in life we want to be comfortable. We like to be affirmed in who we are and in the choices that we make. So we surround ourselves with people that are similar to us. When we talk about controversial things, like politics and religion, we might disagree on minor details, but we generally walk away from the conversation thinking the exact same way that we did before. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but if the reason we do not change our thoughts is because we are not listening, it can become bad. We watch mind numbing movies, TV shows, and read mind numbing magazines and novels. When something real happens to us, we ignore it. We don't challenge ourselves and we don't think. I can name times when I have been completely guilty of this.

So what I think I got out of this song about society and love comes down to is this: I don't want to be the kind of person who never challenges myself in what I believe in. I don't want to exist in what is simply comfortable to me. Yes, there is a time and a place for those things, but I want to live. I want to go outside of myself, get uncomfortable, and serve Christ and His Church. I want to remember who I am, and I want to grow from my experiences and the challenges I have faced. I want to take things that make me think, like this song, and figure out what it means for me. I don't want to be content with a comfortable existence where I am never challenged. I want to keep learning new things, and growing from what I experience.