A new year's splurge

Brandon and I did go to Chicago today. At the conclusion of a restless preceding evening, i decided that i ought to treat my friend, whose days with me are numbered, to a day in the big city. My flying experience did suffer, but that's something i can recover in the very near future. A friendship, on the other hand, is not something one can neglect and hope to get back the same way it was before. We did have a very good time, too. We visited the Field museum-specifically the Pompeii exhibit- the Planetarium and dined at a ritzy restaurant called Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.
One observation of note took place in the Planetarium. First off, let me say that modern museums in general are shrines to evolutionary thought. And evolutionists say that WE are the religious fanatics?? After spending several hours around illustrations and videos of evolution since "555 million years ago" decorating the exhibits of cosmic space and flourishing animal life, religion is certainly a word that rings loud in my mind. Anyways, this billboard about the 'birth of stars' had a short explanation that all cosmic bodies began as stellar dust that is "recycled into new stars, planets-even us"!
That will make the front page! SCIENTISTS CONCLUDE THAT ALL HUMANITY IS SPECIALIZED SPACE DUST.
How about that.

During the normal week, I try not to concentrate on the things other than business, productivity and rest time, but technically today is still a weekend, so i can write my impressions from a challenge my friend Brandon gave me tonight on our drive back from Chicago. We were at the first stoplight after Illinois Avenue on Lake Shore Drive when he said that he wishes I would just relax in my relationships, not care so intensely with their success. To which i admitted that my relationships are like a project to me..."there's your problem!" he interjected. We continued on that course of conversation, and of course it branched off to its particular applications, and as I sit here now, i come to realize that what i said about relationships being like a project is actually true. I stay up all night and spill all my effort creating, organizing, critiquing and editing my school and personal projects towards the goal of a brilliant, successful outcome.
Tonight i find myself guilty of making such 'projects' out of my relationships. Those of you who have been with me through the 'editing' stages-or maybe a few of you are still there!- may understand my ways. For some of my friends, the cementing of the relationship came just naturally; no major snags needed 'editing.'
What's the downside of my methods? The downside is that i am fixated on the ultimate end of that 'brilliant, successful' outcome of the project, the relationship. Yes, i have gone to extremes in the pursuit, and it's because i am wired to desire the best result in what I do.
Maybe people and relationships are to be considered different than a tangible, objective 'project' with a self-conceived end in mind. Maybe a relationship is about investing and praying for return. Maybe a relationship is about finding the path of least resistance, and if the walking the path becomes too much of a hassle, then maybe it isn't one on which I ought to be. Even God, at the end of all time, will hear from some, "Thy will be done," and will say to others, "Thy will be done." Perhaps a relationship is about judging what the will of the other person is and acquiescing to or indulging that person's will.
Or perhaps a relationship is solely another adventure along an unknown proverbial road to an unknown destination. That being the case, then Brian and #1, you were and are right all along.

Well, hopefully i've made sense of one thing: if not relationships, then myself. That's one step towards doing better at my end. I will try to relax this topic until the weekend.
For now, Carpe Diem.