Thoughts Regarding A New Year

Wooooooo!  Good job, everyone!  We have successfully survived a full year since the 2012 apocalypse predictions, so pat yourself on the back and ring in 2014 with a hardy drink or four.  I don't know about you, but I'm not a big "revolutionize-my-life-because-we-went-from-one-day-on-the-calendar-to-the-next" kind of guy, so I'm not going to write about all the good times I had/dreams I achieved this year and all the ways I want to improve my life in 2014.  What I will write about is the most recently accumulation of thoughts I've had in my mind, which just so happen to line up with December 31st, 2013. 

There have been a crap ton of lists going around on social media and all the internets with the coming of the new year in the Gregorian calendar.  Lists of "The 28 Most Flawless Emma Watson Moments of 2013" and "17 People You'll Run Into On New Year's Eve" may have attracted my attention, but all in all it's been overwhelming trying to get past the ways to make yourself better, ways Jennifer Lawrence or Miley Cyrus rocked 2013, or ways to skip the beginning phase at your new company and just become the CEO in one year articles.  I'll try to write an article that hopefully gives ya something to think about and is worth your time.

Since the past 365 days have brought a fair amount of change to my life, if only because I graduated from college and needed to figure out a beginning plan for my adult life, there are some things I've learned that I think will stay with me for a while to come.  Here they are in detailed list form:

1.  Travel.  Actually, no.  That will be number 2.  Number 1 is Be Open-Minded. 
I cannot stress enough how internally frustrated I get when people immediately cross things off their mental list because they think something will be too hard, or too awwwkkkkkwardddd, or too uncomfortable, or too expensive for them.  If you are the type of person who is saying "No" to things more than you say "Yeah, sure!", you honestly aren't living life right.  I don't mean that to sound harsh, but that is the one take-away I could give you from the year 2013 that I know to be true about life.  You will never grow as a person or be correct in your opinion if you haven't actively tried to experience new things on your own initiative. 

The reasons I listed above (levels of toughness, awkwardness, comfort, and money involved) can all be overcome.  The first three are all mental.  It's all in your head as to what is too hard, awkward, or uncomfortable.  If a kid like me, from the middle class streets of Cincinnati, Ohio, can spend a summer in Russia of all places after barely learning the language well enough to order from a restaurant, you can put your mind to doing whatever it is you want to do, or don't want to do.  That sentence may have been a grammatical nightmare, but anything is possible if you just believe it to be so.  Simple as that.  

As for the financial aspect of things, the world (or, I guess, the internet) is right there for you to drain of resources.  Want to teach yourself Korean instead of paying for a class?  Click here.  Want to get a fellowship to teach English to kids in Africa?  Click here.  Want to go to Chicago, but don't want to pay for an expensive Holiday Inn?  Click here.  Be practical in your spending, but if you've got the time and the enthusiasm, you can go anywhere and do anything you want.  Except North Korea.  Don't go there.

2.  Jumping off of number 1, number 2 is Travel.
Alright, so I know that expensive travel overseas isn't able to be covered by everyone's checkbook.  My hope for you is that if you can't travel when you're young, you'll have the money to travel after you retire.  But if you think you don't have the money to go somewhere cool, then you're wrong because chances are very good that there's something amazing within a few hours driving distance for you to get to that you've never seen before.

For example, I've recently decided that I want to dedicate one weekend a month to traveling somewhere I've never been.  While I watch for cheap airline tickets in the upcoming months with Kayak.com/explore, I also cannot afford to drop a few hundred bucks on an airline ticket whenever I feel like it.  So I've taken to googling cool sites around Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and even Kentucky to visit for a day or two.  Turns out the Midwest is chalked full of amazing nature sites, cities that are pretty significant cultural centers, and people/friends who want to travel with you.  Who knew?! 

My reasoning for this is that I, personally, am not going to be content sitting in the same place every weekend hoping my life is going to develop immensely from weekend after weekend of the same repetition (which now involves waiting to work on Monday.... :(     ).  I want to see new cities, new places, and new people, and just because I may not have the money or time to go somewhere extremely unique or international, doesn't mean I can't see something new and unique on a full gallon of gas (Even though gas is $3.39/gallon again!! Thanks Obama).

If you can think of a place you want to go to, just put your mind to going there and you can find a way to get there afford-ably.  If you're my age and reading this, you only have a few more years left before you get tied down by the ol' ball & chain (marriage) and the mini ball & chain(s) (kid(s)) and can't just go wherever you want whenever you want anymore.  Unless you're Jay-Z and Beyonce because honestly where can't they go?  They didn't even get in trouble for their Cuba trip!  So yeah, live it up and go somewhere new because you want to and you can.

3.  Don't Care About What Other People Think.
It really sucks that this is something I have to say, but our world isn't the friendliest place to exist sometimes.  In 2013 alone, we ended the year with twin suicide bombings in a large Russian city which killed 31 people and we started out the year with a new pope who is basically everything the world could wish for a pope.  Not even kidding. 

It sucks that in the middle of this spectrum of good and evil, the majority of us are stuck in the grey zone (which I like to think of America as) where insanely terrible things don't really happen to us on a regular basis (like in countries such as Iraq, Syria, and even Russia) but we also don't have amazing things happen in our leadership (Sorry Obama, but the idea of hope and change ended up not making the cut when it came down to politics).

*Actually, I take the amazing and terrible things comment back.  Those things do happen in America every day (the shooting of an inebriated girl in Michigan or the selfless donations to a little girl with life-threatening obesity, as examples); I just mean that those events aren't world-changing like 9/11 or the pope's election are. 

Anyways, back to the grey zone, where I and everyone I know lives.  Since we aren't faced with a reality where our lives could be destroyed or changed at any given moment, we exist in a lifestyle where we actually worry about what our 'friend' might be saying about us, who is dating who (both in high school and in the celebrity realm), and how we're going to look when we go out tonight.  It's all ridiculous to worry about, especially when it is changing who you are as a person.

Basically everything I write about comes back to perspective, so all I can really say here to drive this point home is that you have to keep a healthy perspective about your own life so that you can truly be happy.  Do whatever you want:  Watch a marathon of Parks and Recreation in a single day, eat a bag of bagel bites for dinner, start a blog and try your best to maintain it with things you are passionate about, wear whatever you want, and hang out with whoever you want.  Don't let stupid, close-minded people dictate what you do with your life because chances are they will end up a lot unhappier than you when all is said and done  There are so many more important things to worry about in life than people who aren't willing to support you, so don't let them bog you down as you do what makes you happy.

Alright so those are three viewpoints that I now carry with me after experiencing 2013.  Even though January 1 will not be at all life-changing for you, it is a good excuse to try and make yourself a better person for as long as you can (hopefully your whole life).  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a gin-and-lemonade fueled hangover to get rid of, a bag of pizza rolls to finish off, and several hilarious YouTube videos to watch.  2014, you're doing okay already. 

Thoughts Regarding The Sharing Of Memories/Experiences

As 2013 comes to a close, it is important to remember all the good things that have happened to us this year, primarily because a fair amount of bad things happened that we need to rebuild and move onwards and upwards from.  For the news-watcher with a good memory, the government shutdown in October, the Boston Marathon bombing in April, and the Philippines cyclone are a few examples of terrible things to happen to our society/mankind this year.  For the not-so-attentive person who primarily remembers insignificant pop-culture things:  Miley Cyrus (which, by the way, the Onion totally predicted in 2008….  http://www.theonion.com/video/entertainment-scientists-warn-miley-cyrus-will-be,14246/ ).

In our society, nothing good or bad ever really disappears forever because of the technological, fast-paced, information highway our culture has become.  Memories are augmented by pictures, videos, and social media now where you don’t have to remember a story completely in order to get the tale across.  In a year where the word, “selfie” became a part of our lexicon and official dictionary, I want to talk about the importance of recorded memories as a sort of connector article between the “Nostalgia” and “Social Media” ones.  Anyone that hangs out with me enough knows that I’ll be taking a photo of something or someone sooner or later and I want to try to communicate why I think photos are important to my life.

When I was three or four years old, my grandpa had a stroke that caused him to be physically incapacitated for the rest of his life.  During his 15 or so years of coping with the aftermath of the stroke, he was able to walk with the assistance of someone helping him, eat while only using one arm, and stayed confined to a comfortable sitting chair for 85% of the time I remember knowing him.  Our visits to my grandma and grandpa’s house were relatively few; we usually only went up there for Christmas and the Fourth of July.  

As I got older, my siblings and I became less impatient, squirmy kids and became more willing to talk to Grandpa in his den for extended periods of time.  In the last few years of his life, he wasn’t able to communicate clearly enough to get his whole thoughts across quickly or cohesively.  If we would come into the house with some stories about cross country or track practice, he’d try his best to tell us about the days of his track success back in high school.  One of the thoughts I remember thinking during these long stories was, “I wish I had photos to look at to get a better grasp on what he's trying to say.” 

It was because of Grandpa that I decided to make a point to photograph every event or situation I’m in that I want to remember one day, so that my memories can still be at least partially there for my own kids, grandkids, or great-grandkids one day.  I want to be able to remember the good times, the rough times, the fun times, and the hard times because all of those things are what end up coming together to define you in the end.  If my grandkids ever end up being better runners, or football players, or academics, or band players than I ever was, at least I’ll have photos to show them that I tried my best too.

I also love having photos of the people in my life who I enjoy being around because you can’t go through life without being impacted by other human beings.  I’ll admit that in five, ten, twenty, or fifty years, that those faces may not be around me making me laugh anymore, but I’ll have some photos to look at and remember the times that they did.  It is my firm belief that a full life isn’t one with just a few select people in your life.  There are more than 7 billion people for you to interact with so why not try to maintain as many happy relationships as you can?  Photography will just end up being the record-keeper of those relationships when all is said and done and our memories are slipping away from our senile minds.

One of the main ways to share information about yourself these days is through Facebook (and I guess Twitter, which I do now have but I still don’t really get the serious point of).  In the social media article I wrote, I tried to write out a few pros and cons of using these websites and there’s one more pro (which can also be a con) that I want to address.  Posting too much revealing information about yourself and your friends is definitely something to shy away from because the ways that people can deduce your more secretive, personal information are becoming much more intricate as technology evolves.  However as long as you trust yourself to have a good handle on what to share and what not to share, social media is a virtual gift to help record your life.  

Sure, there’s no way I’ll want to try to explain some of the stuff on my Facebook to my kids (/future wife, Emma Watson, when she asks about why my friends posted so much stuff about her on my wall) one day, but if you’re keeping the inappropriate crap or embarrassing spelling errors to a minimum, it’s going to be a pretty clean looking venue to scroll back through once the first generation of Facebook is closing in on their mid-life crises.  As I’ve used my own Facebook page pretty solidly to add photos to, I’ve regarded it as a digital back-up to my initial photo uploads and I have a feeling this record-keeping will really come in handy in my future.

Since words like selfies and photobombs exist in the world today, it is true that there is a psychological element to taking photos, but that shouldn’t deter someone from sharing or recording a unique, funny, interesting, or serious experience that has happened in their life.  One thing about people, in general, that I don’t find all that great is that a lot of people tend to misinterpret someone else’s self-acknowledgement of success, creativity, or enthusiasm for a selfish brag or arrogant pat-on-the-back.  

Here’s an example of what I mean.  Someone says or posts that they feel blessed (#blessed) to have this opportunity to speak at an interesting ceremony or something.  In my mind there are two ways to view that: You can (A) either be really sour that this particular person doesn’t deserve to speak anywhere because they aren’t really all that great in real life, or you can (B) be happy that this person will soon be having an awesome life experience and you hope that you’ll have one to match it soon.  Here’s what I think you should do:  Option B.  Be happy for the person that their life seems to be doing great, and try your hardest to go out there and have a few life experiences that will make you that happy.  If you try, you’ll get that experience soon enough and you also won’t waste a part of your life being kinda negative for no legitimate reason.

As I posted in the nostalgia article, it’s also important not to get too hung up on the past because you can’t ever live that moment again.  You can try to recreate it.  You can try to live out your life in a way that gets you the same feeling of happiness you once had.  But you won’t ever be in the same time and space that you took a happy photo with all of your best friends, or a memorable game where your team won, or even when you were first introduced to your sibling or your first son/daughter.  Don’t unhealthily live in the past; live in the present where you are feeling just as happy, if not happier, as you once did.

Anyways, I’ll try to wrap this up by saying that I don’t want to go through life happily taking in moments as they come.  I want to go through life happily taking in moments as they come and getting a photo of them so that I’ll be able to look at them again one day when I can no longer remember why the event or the person originally made me happy.  I have absolutely no clue if this is a normal opinion to have, but I’m enjoying my life way too much to want to ever lose any of it.  Thanks for reading, and I recommend taking a few more photos whenever you get the chance.  Also I feel that a fair amount of what I write seems like it belongs in a life-help book, so I apologize for accidentally writing in that style haha.

Thoughts Regarding Physical Appearance/Maintenance

I thought an interesting topic to write about today would be something that’s a prevalent part of our society today.  Physical appearance, which can directly relate to self-perception and awareness of one’s self in the world, is something that is weighted a little too much in the eyes of others, in my opinion.  I want to give my thoughts on how you should view someone and what I think you can do to be healthier. 

   

Just to get this started, I’ll give a brief description of how I view myself physically.  Even though I would prefer you to already know what I look like before reading this.  I am a 6’2”, 178lb, Caucasian male who most people would describe as a conservative 8/10 and usually 9.6/10 when they’re being really honest with themselves.  Alright, so I’m kidding, but I think one part of enhancing your own physical appearance is having a strong, positive opinion about who you are and what you look like.  Someone who constantly spends a majority of their time looking at themselves in a mirror, picking out which clothes they look best in, and making unnecessary comments about someone else’s physical attributes is not someone I find particularly attractive as a person.  Someone who accepts who they are, embraces their own body, and tries to make the best out of any given situation is someone who is worth knowing in my book (or blog, I guess).

It’s a real shame that our society puts so much focus on people’s looks because that is the most superficial thing you can like about someone.  Growing up, kids are excluded and alienated because they don’t look a certain way or dress a certain way and sometimes it takes its toll on their psyche.  I think that sort of bullying kind of peters off during/after college, but physical appearance is oftentimes a factor in getting a job or succeeding at work.  Our society (or maybe just CNN) places enough emphasis on looks to report on times when celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence, Beyonce, or Emma Watson get their haircut and treat it like it is legitimate news.  You should never try to aspire to be like a celebrity in that sense, because it is almost completely unattainable and not healthy to do. 

 

There are 7 billion people on this planet and, unfortunately, not all of them are going to be physically appealing to every single human being.  That’s where you have to decide that you want to know someone more than just how they are on the outside and stop writing people off because they aren’t a certain way.  Last week, I read this article about how Pope Francis had hugged and blessed a man with severe full-body tumors (pictured below) which really backed up my belief that that’s how everyone should treat one another.  

                                  

Switching gears into the maintenance side of physical appearance, I want to start by saying that I believe anyone can be in good shape if they don’t have an extremely severe, exercise-induced asthma condition, have two functioning legs, and have a working understanding of what food is/does to your body when consumed in extreme portions.  However, if you don’t share these same views as me, it’s totally cool to be who you are regardless and do whatever you want.

I consider myself to be in shape and I work relatively hard to keep that opinion.  This is a fun fact about me, but one of my main life goals is to not have a gut ever (which I’m really not trying to throw out as a brag about not having a gut now) and I do try to maintain a lifestyle where I shouldn’t really have to worry about my metabolism not keeping up.  However, one thing that kind of gets to me is when people around me complain that they don’t have time to stay in shape, they don’t like going to the gym or running, or they don’t understand how I can be in such good shape with the copious amounts of food and drink I consume regularly.  

The reason why this annoys me a little is because it’s not easy to be in a shape that you can be personally happy with and it’s going to take work.  Honestly, the main reason I run or work out so much is because I actually enjoy it.  The times I don’t enjoy it are times when I feel like I’m missing out on some social activity or it’s really freezing outside.  But I enjoy doing it because I know how it benefits me and I do actually feel good doing it.  People need to want to exercise for their own personal health over how they think other people see them.  For me, I run and I don’t eat a ton of greasy pizza so that I won’t have a heart condition at age 25 and be permanently entrapped on a couch at age 50.  Having a grade A body is simply a benefit of working hard for it and it is definitely a hard thing to do.

Maybe all of these complaints get to me because I hear them mostly from college-aged kids a lot.  When you’re in college, let’s be honest, there’s a fair amount of free time that is usually dedicated to how much one drinks.  Since I’m pretty sure beer, vodka, wine, rum, and even pop aren’t supposed to be positive supplements to the body, I try to balance out the negatives with a positive run or workout the next day instead of being totally hungover and watching Hulu/Netflix for the majority of my day.  It is usually the most painful thing in the world to do but I try and see it as a just punishment for being a loud, annoyingly happy drinker.  

I kind of slid off topic for a second, but the point of that was that you have to really make time and dedicate effort to be healthy and college kids usually do have the time.  Even if that means going on a midnight run to the gym, getting off work at 5pm and pushing yourself out the door to get to your next exercise class, or lying on the floor doing ab exercises while watching a hilarious episode of Parks and Recreation.  You end up feeling better for it (if not immediately, then in the long run) and I’m guessing you’ll live a little bit longer.  

What I wanted this article to be about was not changing for other people but changing for you.  Become fit because you want to be healthy.  Eat what you want if you can be sure you won’t regret it down the road.  Balance out your time between watching hours of sports/movies/video games/web surfing and time outside.  Within the next decade, when my generation and I get past our best metabolism years, who wanted to be healthy is going to show and I promise I won’t be one of the people complaining about my middle-aged gut.  

As a closer, I feel like this article could give off an overly aggressive vibe or something demanding you to live a certain way which was not my intention.  I just couldn’t really think of a way to write which would give my true opinions and also not seem like I don’t take this topic seriously.  There’s a reason America is one of the more overweight countries of the world, and I think it’s a totally solvable problem when people have the time and prioritize accordingly.  Thanks for reading! 

Thoughts Regarding Nostalgia and the Process of Growing Up

“What you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed.”  A few years ago, I heard this quote which I eventually learned came from Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending.  It stuck with me because I have come to realize that it’s a succinct statement about life.  Selective memory is a constant in most people’s lives and there are two fine lines between being stuck in the past, focusing on the present, and worrying about the future.  In my opinion, living a successful life means being able to maintain perspective on these aspects through your memories, experiences, and expectations. 

 

What got me thinking about this topic was, randomly yet I guess fittingly enough, by watching The Wonder Years (1988-1993) on Netflix for the first time ever.  Growing up, my family opted out of cable so I never ended up watching much of what is now considered quintessential 90’s television.  I had never seen an episode of Boy Meets World until last week; I recently learned that several famous comedians got their start on All That, and I honestly never really liked Hey Arnold all that much.  I wasn’t so deprived that I didn’t get to experience Batman, Pokemon, Kids WB, Toonami, and One Saturday Morning, but I really do have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to most classic Nickelodeon shows. 

 

For those of you who haven’t seen The Wonder Years like I had, here’s my summary of it.  Filmed in 1988 and set in 1968, the show follows Fred Savage’s somewhat precocious, yet consistently self-centered Kevin Arnold through the rough formative years of junior high/high school.  Major themes of life development are tackled throughout the series’ run, with first loves, death, popularity, teen angst, maturity, and immaturity being especially recurring in each episode.  As someone who is now outside the age range that the show spans, I can look back and relate (and also laugh incredulously at how much of a selfish ass Kevin acts like in almost every single episode) to the different developments of life that shaped my opinion of the world today.

What ended up striking me most about viewing The Wonder Years for the first time was how purposefully nostalgic the show is, and thus imbues the same look into the past for its viewers.  The opening credits of every episode show home videos of the fictional Arnold family playing in the yard, barbequing, and hanging out circa 1987.  By the time you get to the series finale in 1993, you realize you’ve watched Fred Savage and his child coworkers grow up in front of your eyes (in my case, in the span of three weeks) and I started to relate this back to my own childhood.  

I am now an employed college graduate with only an educated guess about how the next two decades will turn out for me.  All of my friends are either starting college, deciding what to do as a first job, or settling into the first few years of their careers.  One of my last links to childhood, my two youngest siblings, are starting to get past the innocence we’ve all felt as kids and it’s a little bittersweet to realize.  As I say all of this though, these developments and realizations are what get me excited for the future.  There are always more experiences, expected and unexpected, to check off your life list and having kids of your own will allow you to live your childhood again vicariously through them.  I’m going to be extremely annoying/precise and say that The Lion King was correct in that life is a circle and we get to relive our memories through each new generation while also focusing on our present and future opportunities.  This might be a subconscious understanding that lies within all of us, but I’m really enjoying developing a full understanding of nostalgia’s place in life.

Wrapping up all of this, I want to make one last note on nostalgia as it relates to the quote that I started this whole thing with.  The most miserable parts of life aren’t always going to be the ones that define you and stay with you.  Here's an example: hospitals will most likely have negative connotations and memories associated with them, but they’re also (normally) the places where we are brought into this world.  Being made fun of, failing a test, getting dumped/being in a less than ideal relationship, or not getting the job you thought you wanted are not going to be the things that you look back on.  You’re going to remember the people you had fun with, succeeding beyond your craziest expectations, finding the perfect person to be in a relationship with, finding contentment and reward in your job, and raising a family that you’ll always be proud of.  That’s what you’ll end up remembering at the close of life and that’s exactly what I can’t wait to witness in my life.   

Thoughts Regarding Sexual Orientation/Gay Marriage

A prevalent topic in our culture today, I legitimately cannot believe that it has taken this long for homosexual, bisexual, and transgender to start getting the basic human rights they absolutely deserve.  In a country where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are literally written into one of our founding doctrines, we have a pretty bad track record at making sure our citizens achieve that pursuit of happiness.  I am from the Midwest which I guess still has a fairly significant population that believes that LGBT people affect their regular way of life, but I can’t wait for Ohio, the state I grew up and live in, to join the curve and provide a more social equality for all.

As I've noted before, I am straight and am looking forward to having an amazing family one day akin to the one I grew up with.  I don't think I know enough about the world/science yet to know whether or not a person can be born gay and then become straight, or vice versa, but I’m sure science will answer me soon enough.  I say this, in part because of an interview I read with the Hunger Games actor, Josh Hutcherson, who is also a spokesman for a movement called, “Straight But Not Narrow.”  He said a quote along the lines of “I would probably list myself as mostly straight.  Maybe I could say right now I’m 100 percent straight, but who knows? In a f--king year, I could meet a guy and be like, Whoa, I’m attracted to this person.”  I completely understand that sentiment.  Love, or attraction, isn’t set in stone and 3.5 billion people on this planet are the opposite gender of what you think you prefer.  Don’t be narrow-minded in telling yourself who you could or couldn’t love, and especially don’t be narrow-minded enough to tell someone else who they should or shouldn’t love.  

The marriage part of this whole thing is what makes me the most irritated.  Let me see if I can write this out clearly.  Fact:  Marriage is a word.  Webster defines it as “the formal union of a man and a woman, typically recognized by law, by which they become husband and wife.” Okay, great, so in accordance with that definition and how this simple word takes its place in religion, LGBT people should not follow this particular way in achieving their goal of living a normal, happy life like the rest of us.  They should choose a new word, like “union” or “convergence” or make up a word like “quallaruma” and define it as “the formal union of a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or whoever you love with whoever you love, typically recognized by law, by which they became a loving entity.”  If the concept of marriage is what is going to put people in arms about these basic rights, then let’s just make sure something like a civil union is actually in equal standing with marriage.  These people are people who deserve the same rights and benefits as married couples and the religious aspects surrounding the word marriage should not be the factor that determines a human being’s personal happiness.

There are two common arguments against gay marriage that I would also like to address real quick.  People tend to argue that allowing same-sex marriages to happen would weaken the sanctity of marriage.  This is coming from a country that literally spends hours upon hours watching trash like “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” where it is not uncommon for a Kardashian sister to end a marriage within 72 days.  We also tend to get caught up in TV dramas/real life dramas with our friends where cheating, fights, lies, and betrayals make for some good conversation with our coworkers or friends.  This kind of fits in with the other common argument against gay marriage where allowing same-sex marriages could give in to a slippery slope which will transform our society into one that partakes in polygamy, bestiality, incest, and the like.  I really hate hearing someone compare a love between two humans to a “love” between a human and an animal, but that’s just me.

One other argument I've heard is how gay marriage isn't in the Bible and therefore shouldn't be allowed in any church.  Well that's fine, because I would love to keep stoning women if they look at me wrong or killing my neighbors over our shared crops (For the record:  I don't want to stone women or kill my neighbors).  The Bible doesn't mention gay marriage because it reflected the culture of the time.  We are in the culture of the 21st century and I really don't think there's a God that says people can't love who they want and be happy.  Also for the record, religion is a weird subject with me for reasons I need to come to grips with on my own so I'm not pretending at all to be an expert on all this, but I'm pretty sure the basic theme of religion is that God loves all his children and doesn't choose favorites (as in heterosexuals). 

I really like my generation for typically being pretty chill about all of these huge social revolutions that really are not that big of a deal.  In very broad strokes, the following are examples of conversations I’ve witnessed between fellow human beings.

You’re a woman who wants to be intimate with another woman?  Cool, glad to hear things are going great for you! 

You want to adopt kids with your partner so you can lovingly raise them as well or better than you yourself were? Awesome, where are you thinking of adopting from? 

Someone gave you crap for being who you are?  They are an idiot because you are one of the best people I know.  

Hearing people have this mindset about such a simple, yet complex, topic in our society gives me hope for the future.  I personally cannot wait to see what the next few decades usher in once my generation and I are in positions of power to make change.  But in the meantime, we can wait happily as long as we are being decent people to our fellow human beings.  In conclusion, putting yourself into someone else’s shoes is really the real solution to overcoming any kind of discrimination.  People love who they love and it really is not up to you to tell them otherwise.  Try your best to be a little more considerate of those who aren’t being fully accepted into society, and soon enough society will catch up with ya!