My normal day is usually pretty social. I meet a lot of people, have a few friends call me to see how my wife is doing in the pregnancy, and of course I post and read a few thoughts on the online message boards. I have friends from all over the country, and in fact a couple from around the world. Although, I still have one or two casual friends that still call themselves Witnesses. For the most part my life is pretty much Witness-free. My friends mean a lot to me, and I have often taken steps to do as much as I can to help them.The thing is, with all of the talk in my youth at Kingdom Halls of "worldly" people I have to ask, where are all the "Sluts, Drug Addicts and Drunks?" Why do I wonder that? Well from what it seemed like in all of the Watchtowers, Awakes, Books and Talks. You would think that anyone that was not inside of the Kingdom Hall was completely lost. You would think that no one could do anything right in this life, if they did not follow the worlds of the society. They were all suppose to be terrible people, and people we would want nothing to do with. Yet when I left I did not seem to run into to many people like this. Of course, not all of my friends are these little angels in life, but neither am I. In all though something happened in the last few years, since I left the Witnesses. What happened to me? It is the oddest thing. When I was writing this post, I thought about some of my friends. I do have some gay friends, and I have friends who some might feel sleep around to much, I have some friends who smoke (not just tobacco either), and some friends who drink a little to much. What I realized though, as I set here tonight, I did not really care what they did in their personal life. Because the people I know on the inside are some pretty damn good people. They love, and they cry. They hate and they scream. They joke and they laugh. Yet all of them have the same warmth when it comes to the way they hug and say hello and good-bye. To me they are all just pieces of this whole pie I call my life. I guess what changed in me in this life, is that I stopped looking for the "Sluts, Drug Addicts and Drunks" because I stopped labeling people by the standards of others. I just see all of my friends, as just that "friends" and I am happy they see me the same way. It might seem hard sometimes to think that someone who was a self-righteous Witness would sit in a room at times with people of such sinful backgrounds and lives, from what they were raised in. I always say, "really it is no different from sitting in a Kingdom Hall, only these friends admit to doing it." To me, the real definition of friendship. Is when you find what you like in another person and stop judging them for the things people say you shouldn't like. When you do that, you can't help but get along with a lot of people and feel pretty good about them and yourself. So as I sit here writing my post, and thinking of my friends. I really appreciate that I do not know any "Sluts, Drug Addicts or Drunks" because I do not know those titles anymore in my life. I only know the title that really matters, that these people are my friends. My thought Dragon As an addition to this : I do some times feel concern for certain friends when they overdue things, and I have supported many to get help. In this thought above though, I am more going with the idea that Witnesses throw on these hateful titles to fast when the people had really never done anything that bad to deserve such outrageously cruel labels.
Edited by - kenpodragon on 18 October 2002 4:14:46