winter retreat

The Genesis retreat was really quite good, for me anyway. There were 12 of us in total. This made for pretty intimate times of bonding and enjoying one another's company. I really, really enjoyed myself and felt that I finally feel totally comfortable with the my surroundings. It's been a long time since I've been able to be totally myself with a group of people. Having that feeling of pure joy is something that I've not felt since my days in Ottawa.

Having less people also gave me lots of time for personal reflection. I'd like to thank KL for suggesting the scripture passage that I ended up reflecting upon throughout the retreat. It not only gave me something to share about but also enlightened me about my current situation. It gave me a chance to think about the numerous ways that God has blessed me in the past year, and also helped me to realize that I should be the happiest guy in the world. Being content and satisfied is such a hard thing to do. How often have you asked someone how's work, or how's school, have they said "fantastic! praise God for everything that He has given me!"? Probably never. I know I've never said that.

Being the second youngest person at the retreat also gave me a glimpse of where I need to be in a couple of years, at least in terms of maturity and spiritually. And sure, I still need to be able to draw the line, from trying to emulate other people to what kind of person I am.. What's important to me and what's important to other people are two separate things. But still, there are things in my life I'm not happy with and feel need changing. Games, for instance, and television -- what a waste of time!

On the left, I've listed so many television shows that I watch, almost religiously, week to week. What a time wasting habit. If I spent all that time practicing guitar, I would probably be good enough to lead worship. Instead, my skills are waning as I squeeze in one 30 minute practice per week! What a waste of time! What a waste of my life!

Yesterday I was trying to think of ways to limit my gameplaying. And I've come up with the best way, which is to force myself to only play games which I've purchased. If I only played games that I bought in the last 5 years, I would have only played 2 games. Whereas the 100+ games I've played when I was supplied my friends or family. I'm not proud of that.

Yesterday on the ride home, dL asked me why there was such a huge draw for diablo2. Why do people continue to play, why is that people are still playing even though they've already conquered the game? Now that I've had time to reflect on it, i think it is definitely greed. I think of the number of times I've said to myself "ok, i'll stop playing once i find a (windforce, or stormshield, or tal rasha's guardianship)". But I have all those now, and yet I am still playing.