It’s just another manic Monday (oh-woe)
I wish it was Sunday (oh-woe)
‘Cause that’s my Funday (oh-woe)
My I don’t have to runday (oh)
It’s just another manic Monday.

The wind is moving
But I am standing still
A life of pages
Waiting to be filled
A heart that’s hopeful
A head that’s full of dreams
But this becoming
Is harder than it seems
Feels like I’m

Looking for a reason
Roaming through the night to find
My place in this world
My place in this world
Not a lot to lean on
I need Your light to help me find
My place in this world
My place in this world

If there are millions
Down on their knees
Among the many
Can you still hear me
Hear me asking
Where do I belong
Is there a vision
That I can call my own
Show me I’m

I’ve been thinking about what causes people to be the way they are…

Call it armchair psychology. We all know people who are really, really nice and we also all know people who are really, really mean. But what causes it?

Specifically I’ve been thinking about the kids I went to elementary and high school with, many years ago. There were about 400 students in my class. I was not friends with all of them, but after four years together we all kinda got to know each other.

Some kids were NICE. They were the people who were so nice it was almost annoying- laid back, nothing upset them, and how in the world could they stay so calm all the time?

Other kids were MEAN. We all remember those- the class bully who made fun of everyone for everything imaginable.

What’s funny is that there was generally not a huge difference in the backgrounds of the nice kids and the mean kids. Some of them came from upper-middle-class homes, where their parents provided them with everything they ever needed. Some of them came from blue-collar homes where their parents lived paycheck to paycheck. But the nice kids and mean kids were pretty equally spread across that spectrum.

So what is it that causes nice kids to be nice and mean kids to be mean? It wasn’t often but there were a few cases of mean kids with equally mean parents, and nice kids with equally nice parents.  But there were not nearly enough of those to definitively say that “nice parents produce nice kids” or “mean parents produce mean kids”.

That leaves one other possibility. Are kids just born nice or mean? It’s hard to imagine that an innocent newborn will turn into a mean kid. Plus, don’t the kids still have the free will to choose to be nice or mean?

I suspect it is a mix of both. Truthfully, I think that a lot of us would be frightened by what we are capable of. I think all of us are capable of unspeakable acts. But at some point, each of us chooses not to commit those unspeakable acts. That goes even farther though. Not only do we choose to not commit unspeakable acts, we choose how we respond to others, whether we will respond kindly or cruelly.

It’s a little bit sad, really, because that means that all these mean kids and mean adults I’ve known in my life made the choice to be mean. That’s too bad. It’s sad to think of who they could have been if they’d made the choice to be kind. Such a loss.

Don’t you remember
You were happier when you were younger
Things were so simple yeah
‘Til the day he walked out on your mother But now you blame yourself Because you’re by yourself You feel like it’s not gonna change You’re crying on the floor cause you can take no more Looking for a way to escape

And all this time saying you were fine
And everyone still to blame
Well there you are
You and your broken heart
It’s written all over your face

Don’t you know
Don’t you know that you’re beautiful yeah Don’t you know Don’t you know that you’re beautiful

I see you laughing
But I know inside that you’re crying
Just tell me what happened when things went wrong We’ll try to make sense of it all Please don’t blame yourself Cause you’re not by yourself I’ve been right here all along Don’t have to be alone Because you’ve always know Wherever your heart is my home

And all this time
Saying you were fine
And everyone still to blame
Well there you are
You and your broken heart
It’s written all over your face

Don’t you know
Don’t you know that you’re beautiful yeah Don’t you know Don’t you know that you’re beautiful

Can’t you see what you mean to me
Can’t you see what you mean to me

It’s said that love and hate are such powerful emotions, that often you can’t feel the one without the other.

The older I get, the more I understand this.

And I gotta say… I think I agree.