:Time:

As I count the hours before I leave this familiar town where I have spent 18 years of my life I begin to wonder where time has gone. Whenever looking back at an era of your life, time always seems to escape us. I don't think we realize the advantages we have in our lives until you take a step back and observe from a distance. Whenever I am making memories I never seem to realize the situation I am in until days, weeks, months, years later. I fail at enjoying every moment that comes my way and always easily swept by the motion of life. Cherish the ones you love and never forget the position you are in. You are blessed whether or not you want to realize it.

As I leave this town for a new adventure I will treasure each moment I had. Whether it's as simple as walking around a lake, I will never forget how blessed I have been. I will remind myself to remember every blessing and to enjoy every moment that I am. As cliche as it sounds: You don't realize what you have until it's gone.

Thanks to all my family and friends who have gotten me to this spot. I couldn't have done it without you. I love you all deeply and can't wait to share (blog) about all my "new" memories! Time is ticking...appreciate all your memories and enjoy life.

:HEALTH CARE:

Problem: Some Americans don’t have healthcare. Healthcare is expensive.

Solution:
Democrats – take over the entire U.S. healthcare system eventually with a public option or single payer system which is known as socialized medicine which promises all citizens healthcare. Since they can’t get the public option system passed now, they settled temporarily for a massive bill that requires all Americans to buy healthcare insurance with penalties for those who don’t buy it and subsidies to help those that can’t afford it.
Republicans – allow the free market to bring down the cost of healthcare by allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines. Allow people and employers to deduct the cost of healthcare from their taxes. Allow people to set up tax-free health saving accounts to pay for their healthcare expenses. Allow people to keep their insurance when they lose their jobs. Set up a government-sponsored pool to help people with pre-existing conditions get insurance. Continue Medicare for seniors and Medicaid for poor people and introduce competition in these to improve costs and service.

Analysis:
In socialized medicine, the government gives everyone healthcare, but it also decides what kind of healthcare. Because healthcare for everyone is incredibly expensive, socialized medicine is rationed. It is common to have long waiting lists (as in Canada and England where people wait 6 to 9 months for a simple MRI) and for people to be denied care. When the government controls your healthcare, you can’t appeal to anyone else, like you can when you have private insurance. The Democrat’s bill that was just passed sets up boards of appointed bureaucrats to decide what is covered and denied by age brackets. Seniors enjoy long active lives mainly due to hip surgeries, knee replacements, and heart surgeries—all things that will be harder for them to get under a government-controlled and rationed system.
Government healthcare is also more expensive and inefficient, because there isn’t any free market competition or profit-motive. Nothing works smoothly when the government controls it. Remember dealing with the DMV to get your license? That’s a perfect example of a government service. Imagine your doctor’s office being like the DMV-long waiting lines and rude and irritating clerks who only look at you as a number.
Doctors and hospitals and drug companies don’t have incentives to do research and provide quality care when they don’t have any reason to do so. Doctors don’t have an incentive to work harder and be better when the government caps their salaries. We have the best medical care in the world, and it is because most of the research into new cures and drugs comes from our free market healthcare system and because doctors have an incentive to provide quality care.

Bottom line: We are at a crossroads in our country. Our country was founded on freedom and liberty. Our Founding Fathers specifically set up a system of government where the Constitution gave the federal government limited powers. The federal government has never before told Americans that they had to buy a commodity. This is a huge threat to our freedom as individuals. We will be forced to buy it in 2014 under this new law. The federal government has also never told a class of citizens how much money they can make. Will it stop with the doctors? Is it the federal government’s right to do that? No!
The Constitution’s Declaration of Independence guarantees us God-given rights to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. Our Founding Fathers interpreted this to mean that men had rights that could not be taken away by the government because they weren’t given to us by the government. The right to liberty included the right to private property (including your money) and to make your own choices. It wasn’t a right to have your needs provided for by the government, including healthcare—that is socialism and the opposite of our free republic.
We have some important questions to answer for our generation. Our government is incurring massive debt that we will have to work to pay off. That debt will reduce our standard of living. We are also promising massive entitlements to seniors, the poor, and even lower middle class people. Do we want to settle for handouts from the government in exchange for giving up our freedom, prosperity, and the right to pursue our own dreams?

:REAL LOVE:

We are all moving somewhere. All our hearts turned toward someone and our minds consumed by something. At every moment our focus is scattered. As we end the month of 'love' we need to remember that love is a DECLARATION, not a feeling. Love moves and acts. Love changes. What is the purpose of love if it is not shared? We often forget the impact love can have and what it can do to others. We may want to distant ourselves from that 'certain' someone but the least we can do is to pour our love onto them. Let February not only serve as a reminder that we need to constantly love on others but it needs to felt. We have minimized the value we place on love, let someone today know how much you LOVE them.

Real love MUST be demonstrated.

:NEW YEAR:

As 2009 is quickly coming to a close, I am encouraged to reflect on the past 365 days. When a year ends I begin to reexamine my life and attempt to think of resolutions that can ultimately change who I am as a person and furthermore alter my decisions in 2010. To me a resolution represents a new beginning and a transformation. Resolutions are goals that are placed to continue to motivate and check yourself throughout the year. What resolution(s) can you think of that will make YOU a better person. Whether that may be to love more, to encourage others, to have healthy relationships or maybe even living a life of more optimism. I want to inspire you to remember your resolutions in 2010 to cross your comfort level and boundaries and fully live out your resolutions. It is a new decade, a new start go and take chances. Ring in 2010 remembering the blessings that have been placed in your life and begin a TRANSFORMATION.

:HUMAN NATURE PART 1:

Is it human nature that we are constantly changing our personalities for others? I feel as if I'm surrounded in a world where people live double lives. We can pretend that we strive to do all that is right during the weekdays but hey when the weekend hits, we are transformed into someone polar opposite. Maybe that is why we live in such a judgmental world, is it that we don't accurately represent who we say we are are? No one is who they really want to be, but really what others want them to be. Walls are placed up around us and we are layered in our protected zone. None of us want to be different, it's easier to just go with the norm, right? Is it human nature that we are all striving to be the best, whether we want to believe it or not? It's almost as if it's a competition. Who can be the best...at sports, music, at making friends, having the best things or being the best Christian....but really are we just all liars?

It's time to tear down these walls.

:HOPE IS RISING:

:TRAFFICKING:

More children, women, and men are held into slavery right now than over the course of the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade. This is the third fastest growing illegal activity in the world, a 12 BILLION dollar industry. Even worse is in many countries pedophiles figure they can employ children with impunity. Each year 2 million new children are sold or bought into the industry of bondage. Why is it that our culture has come to be like this? Does it not disgust you that this is all for sex? Sex is the underlying cause of the motivation to sell other humans. I cannot even begin to fathom having a mother sell her daughter into a brothel. Many of us think that this issue of slavery is only in third-world countries (Mexico, Africa, Indonesia, etc.) but really the truth of the matter is that it's in our own community. In Orange County alone there have been a few cases of children being sold in Irvine and Lake Forest. This epidemic is sweeping into our own nation, but what is the cause of this disgusting business? Many of these countries that suffer from human trafficking allow prostitution, could this be the motivation of selling children? Pedophiles figure that if prostitution is legal why can't a child be prostituted? There is no thought of a boundary. If prostitution is the reason of child slave trafficking should we fear that Nevada allows some prostitution in some of its counties? Currently, there are sixteen counties with active brothels. Why does our government not interfere with this situation? Could we see an increase of child slave labor as more states legalize prostitution? Many think this is a hopeless situation in which cannot affect us, but really it is beginning to come into our own backyard.