You Only Live Once

It’s been a while since I last posted anything here. Perhaps I didn’t see the need to, or perhaps I just ranted on Facebook and let it be. After all, everything on Facebook kind of stays on Facebook; until, of course, someone decides to do a screen capture on my post and shares it with her friends.

Yes, one of my, erm, “friends”, did just that. She screen captured a post on my Facebook and shared it amongst her friends because they were “concerned”. Well, if the other friends of hers are not on my Facebook, then quite obviously they are not quite “friends” to begin with.

Of course, in a free world, everyone can do anything, and sometimes, the respect of boundaries get lost. People feel that they have rights, even if the rights were to infringe onto other people’s rights. There are, however, consequences in everything that we do, and in this instance, the consequence was that I stopped writing about sensitive topics on my Facebook wall; which I felt was a waste for myself and for anyone else who genuinely cares.

On the topic of consequences, I once pondered about God’s love and forgiveness of our sins. For the longest time, I have always felt that I needed to earn God’s forgiveness for my sins, which then seem to make the sacrifice of Christ’s life on the cross redundant; because, to quote the overly quoted biblical word in John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believed in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16 (NIV)

Does that then mean that we can do whatever we want? Well, yes and no. Yes, because God has given us freewill to do what we want, and He does not, so to speak, control us in what we do; and no, because if we truly love God and want to be close to God, then we would consequentially, not want to do anything that would hurt the relationship between God and us, since, essentially, our sins are what is keeping us away from God.

So, if we were to do wrong and sin against God, will God forgive us for our sins? In a heartbeat, yes. God will forgive us for our sins when we turn to God; because that is what the purpose of Christ’s death on the cross is about – that our sins will be forgiven.

There are, however, consequences to our sins; and I have had a fairly long discussion with one of my most-learned friends about this. I think this would warrant a much longer discussion which I wouldn’t go into here, but essentially, the ultimate consequence of sin is death, and our sins pull us further away from God. Sins, such as adultery and theft amongst everything else, result in repercussions; and these sins, besides having spiritual consequences, can also lead to earthly consequences, particularly of the (criminal and civil) law. It did take me a while to get my head around it, but I hope I eventually did; which is why I am doing such a crappy job trying to put it into simpler terms.

So, why am I talking about sins and consequences?

Well, the focus was more on the consequences. I understand that some of my posts on Facebook can be worrying, and rightfully so, I ended up having to deal with the consequences of writing to what I thought was, a close circle of friends. Writing has always been an avenue that I go to, to vent my frustrations with life. Facebook has unfortunately, no longer become a safe space for me.

After a very long deliberation, I have decided to just blog about things in my life; but wouldn’t this be even more public than writing in a (somewhat) more private space on my own Facebook wall; with the option of making the posts private?

Well, yes. While it may seem counterintuitive to write publicly, I feel that the perception of exclusivity is no longer there. Moreover, if it is sensitive enough to be away from the eyes of the public, the posts can be locked; which is what I am alluding.

“You Only Live Once” is a new post category in which I will write about a particular aspect of my life that I am embarking on. I really do enjoy writing and having an audience. However, this has been made less pleasant through the action of others who have absolute disregard for the privacy of others.

I am not sure what outcome this would bring, but, like what the headline says, “You Only Live Once”; and so, I guess there is only one way to find out.