[Sometimes I feel like Milhouse from the Simpsons when he said, "Bart, remember when I was crying at recess?  I think I'm finally ready to tell you why."]

I can't help but notice that there's almost always an underlying meaning/message/theme/etc. behind any thought, action, word, or problem.  A few weeks ago, I lost something in my house (I think it was a cable that connects a camera to a computer).  Not a big deal; not a big ticket item.  But the weird thing is that I had quite a bit of trouble getting it off my mind.  And when it came right down to it, it had nothing to do with the cable.  It had everything to do with the fact that I lost something.  I'm a pretty organized person, and I tend to have most things in order and under control.  That's how I am, and that's how I like things.  But losing something is like a shot in the face of my organized lifestyle.  It says that I'm not that organized and I don't have everything under control.  This really got to me. 

The drinking showdown I just wrote about yesterday is another good example of this.  The fact that I can't convince people of what I believe is nothing new to me.  That didn't really upset me.  What really got to me was the fact that I was arguing against a bunch of Christians who I think should have been agreeing with me in the first place.  It showed me that the group isn't as hardcore as I thought, and that kind of made me unhappy.  And it also had something to say about me as a leader, seeing that when people aren't following, it doesn't look like I'm leading.  And whether or not any of these notions are true is beside the point.  Truth often has nothing to do with feelings. 

When I was in high school, I was told by a friend that I didn't have an opinion about a certain issue because I didn't think.  This got me really mad and broke communications between the two of us for a while.  And when I think about it now, I realize that the reason the comment affected me so much was because it was true.  I don't think about things.  I claim to have a lot of thoughts and opinions, but there are certain huge topics that I conveniently glance past because I'm not interested or because they're threatening.  But to be called out on it was beyond what I could handle. 

I keep encountering new examples of this idea.  I feel like I'm Superman and I'm able to see through solid steel, or in this case, the veil of a problem.  Something comes up and I try to figure out what the solution would be, and then I realize that the problem isn't what I originally thought.  In fact, it's often far from what it seems. #psychology