The Princess And The Toad

This is something i vented about in a private writing a good while back, but now it has been a while and it's too good not to share. so everyone my venting...

Growing up I never knew that girls don't really want what they keep saying they want. heck even last week I had hoped that maybe, just maybe it was true that there was at least one princess out there who was still looking for a prince. but i guess i thought wrong. princesses are princesses and not queens for a reason. they would rather try and make a toad into a prince than see the prince standing right there beside them. i never understood this about princess stories, why would the princess kiss the toad, and how many toads did she have to kiss before she found one that was really a prince, and how many princes did she pass up because they were exactly what she was looking for and fate had them together at that moment to be together and she was too blinded to see that. then she kept seeking a toad to make into a prince. I dont understand. 

Speeding

While driving the other day listening to "Focus on the Family" the topic was staying pure before marriage. After listening I turned down the radio and started thinking about what they had been saying and started thinking about society today and how that isn't as big of a priority as it should be and how it's okay to just do whatever whenever. This post will lead into another post I am working on about how Biblical Marriage has lost meaning in our society and that as well is not okay.

Okay now that the intro is done I'll jump right into this. I'm going to admit while I was driving I was going a little over the speed limit, I was thinking to myself it's okay I'm only going 5 mph over the speed limit I won't get pulled over, I'm good. then the next thing I know a song I liked came on and I got lost in the music and looked over and I was going 10 mph over and I was in the process of justifying it when I passed a parked police car. I hit the brakes and thought to myself that was odd to see a cop right here, they usually aren't around right here because I drive on this road quite often and very rarely seen cops there. I kind of linked these two experiences together in my head and now I'm sharing them with you because I didn't see the link right away but God seems to have revealed a link between the two events.

How we as a society (in general) treat the speed limits and how we treat sexual purity are one in the same. I have noticed from talking to people this connection is pretty true. People will push the limits and they will start out by getting as close to the line as possible with out actually crossing it just like beginning drivers take it easy and slowly because they haven't figured out how much they can get away with so they take it slow sometimes not even going the speed limit. The more comfortable we become with a person of interest in a relationship and driving we go a little faster to where we are going a little over the speed limit, we aren't going crazy and we are crossing a line but just barely not enough to really get us in trouble (or so we think) in the relationship this may be some sort of grey area you have established, kind of something that isn't sex but is something that your gut tells you is wrong and you feel guilt from later on when confronted with God. If this isn't checked and stopped it will progress and get worse. Next thing you know you'll look over and be going 10 mph over. At this point you know you shouldn't be going that fast but you try to justify it anyway by saying to yourself 'Everyone knows cops won't pull you over unless you're going at least 15 over.' or 'I'm going with the flow of traffic.' or even 'I've never seen a cop on this road so it will be okay.' but it isn't okay, we have speed limits for a reason. They are there to keep us safe and to outline how fast we are supposed to go. In relationships you know this is wrong but choose to do it anyway as if you think that it won't matter, you have time to ask for forgiveness, no one will know, or it's not that big of a deal. Justifying... If we feel like anything needs justification it's probably wrong and we shouldn't be doing it, simple as that. We will push the line so far without crossing it or we will go somewhere where we think no one is watching to get away with things, and our society promotes this 'As long as you don't get caught it's okay.' but it isn't and there isn't anywhere that is unseen. The only One that matters sees all and is everywhere. He has no blind spots, He never goes on break, and He is never off duty.

The good thing is He is a forgiving God and it's not too late to seek forgiveness. And when we mess up He's already paid our tickets. I may have lost some people in this post but it was something that has been placed into my brain and laid on my heart and when that happens I know it hasn't come from me but it has come from God.

Blank Page (poem)

Looking down
Having this blank page
Stare back.

Struggling to find the words to say
Something, anything
Just to fill this page.

Line after line
Slowly filling up
But what are they saying?

Empty words
Flowing and filling up
Page after page.

Something I Have Always Questioned About My Writing,
Does It Mean Something To Somebody, Or Are They Just Words To Fill Up This Blank Page?

~ T.J. Vaughn

You Can See It In Their Eyes. (poem)

Aged
Rusted leather skin
Fragile cracked smiles
Sitting in the quiet
Passing silent glances
But you can see it in their eyes.

Gazing
Looking past
Watching memories pass
Tears welling up
Laughter breaking through
And you can see it in their eyes.

Two Tattered Tarnished Hearts,
Held Together By An Old Love.

~ T.J. Vaughn

These Two Hands (poem)

This slow drone of ticking
Seems to grow rapid
The closer we get

Seconds to hours
Invaluable time
Slipping through our fingers

Grasping your hands in mine
Hoping to slow down and
Grant us more time

Running out on
Seconds we can never get back
Returning to find them missing.

These Two Hands Have Become My Enemy,
Trying To Keep Our Two Hands Apart.

-T.J.

Just some thoughts.

Okay so first off I've been slacking and i apologize for that. Even if no one reads these it helps me and it's good for me to get my thoughts out of my head, it clears my mind and helps me see things more clearly. So now that's out of the way we can move past the big pink elephant in the room i know it's been a while. Work has been pretty rough switching from part time to full time has been a change and people are starting to show their true colors people i work with i thought were 'friends' aren't and that's kind of upsetting knowing that some people only wanted to be friends with me because they needed something from me but it's getting better and i don't need them i have friends that are true friends and i have people i work with that are amazing people. i have made new friends since my last blog post and some exciting things are to come from some of those new friendships. i'm currently working on a cover to the song 'Healer' ~ Kari Jobe with a friend and a few new friends i've been working on design work with asked me to play drums for them and we are going to Nashville in July to record :) super excited about that and i will def keep y'all updated on that as it draws near. also i have another very special friend she makes me very happy and makes me smile a lot. i'm laughing again. it's been a while. it feels good to laugh again... also i'm writing again, songs and poems. i'll post some very soon. also on the topic on new things i have a new bass guitar it's a 6-string Ibanez G  series. it's pretty. okay i think that's it for now. more posts soon. hopefully.

You don't know me... let me help.

I haven't done one of these since myspace was popular so years back, but all jokes aside there are very few people who really know me cause no one cares to take the time to get to know me, who I am, what I stand for or anything like that. I can literally count them on one hand. 

STATISTICS 
Name? Thomas James (T.J.) Vaughn
Current Location? Travelers Rest, SC
When is your birthday? November 14, 1989
Eye Color? Blue
Hair Color? Dark brown and grey
Height? 6'
Piercings or tattoos? Neither yet.
Single or taken:? Single
Right Handed or Left Handed? Right
Any pets? Dog
Your greatest strength? I'm very creative
Your Weakness? I let people to my heart too quickly

FAVORITES 
Favorite color? Teal
5 favorite movies and one you wouldn't want anyone to find out about? Walk to remember, Yes man, Courageous, Inception, Green Mile... The Notebook.
Favorite holiday? Christmas
Favorite physical feature on yourself? my eyes
Your favorite pizza toppings? Ham & Pineapple 
Favorite guilty pleasure? a capella music
Favorite place to eat a romantic dinner? the place isn't important, it's the person you're with.
Favorite season? Spring
Favorite cartoon character? Patrick from spongebob
Your favorite food? i don't really have a favorite food.
Favorite Ice cream flavor? strawberry
Favorite subject(s) in school? Graphic Design
Favorite person in your life? Matt. He is the brother I never had. 
Favorite place to be? On stage worshiping with my praise band.
Favorite fast food restaurant? Waffle House
What is your favorite part of your life right now? Honestly sleep because it gets me away from reality for a little while.

WHICH DO YOU PREFER 
Chocolate or Vanilla? strawberry
Scary movies or comedies? I like both
Short or long hair? It depends on the person.
Beach or lake? Beach
Single or Group Dates? it depends
Pepsi or Coke: Mtn. Dew
Starbucks or elsewhere? I don't drink coffee
Dogs or cats? Dogs

DO YOU's 
Do you smoke? No
Do you sing? Yes
Do you want to get married? Yes
Do you believe in yourself? Not really
Do you get along with your parents? We don't really talk much. I'm very independent.
Do you want children? I have always wanted kids, I want to be the dad I never had. 
Do you drink? No
Do you like to travel by plane? Never flown
Do you still watch cartoons on Saturday morning? I usually work saturday mornings
Do you have a teddy bear? I have a stuffed gorilla named Bear-Monkey
Do you like thunderstorms? I love thunderstorms. Even better if there is heat lightning.
Do you play an instrument? I play trumpet, guitar, bass guitar, drums, a little piano
Do you consider yourself a party person or more apt to stay at home? I would rather stay home if i want to be alone but i do like going out with friends not a party animal though.

HAVE YOU EVER 
Have you ever fired a gun? Yes
Have you ever loved someone? Yeah
Have you ever been caught doing something you weren't supposed to? yeah
Have you ever cried for no reason? No. it takes a lot for me to cry.
Have you ever cut your own hair? Yes quite frequently actually.
Have you ever skipped school? i have skipped classes in college, either slept in or just didn't feel like going.
Have you ever bungee jumped? No probably never will i'm afraid of heights.
Have you ever punched someone? Yeah

SOMETHING A LITTLE MORE MATURE 
List your top fears: being alone, heights, stairs i can see through, bridges, turning out like my biological dad. 
What bill do you hate paying the most? for some reason i can never remember the internet bill.
What did you want to be when you were growing up? Worship pastor
What errand/chore do you despise? Laundry
How many joints pop when you get out of bed in the morning? none?? my knees pop if i squat down though. every time.
What do you get every time you go into a Wal-Mart? usually nothing, i go into wal-mart to walk around and talk.
What Hollywood star do you think resembles you best? I've been told i look like phillip phillips
What famous person dead or alive would you like to have dinner with? Taylor Swift
What do you want to achieve in life? To get to the end and hear "Well done good and faithful servant."
Your most missed memory? Talking with My Papa
What goal would you like to achieve this year? I want to be happy with who I am again.
What are your regrets? I wrote a whole blog post on regrets, see that.
What do you want when you are sick? not do anything. 
How many pillows do you sleep with? 2, 1 under my head and 1 to hold onto.

tired but it's worth it.

okay so tonight it's going to most likely a short blog entry. I am going to be doing these on the weekdays only, my weekends are kind of hectic. But good news, It's happening. I have started writing my #DoNothing book. it's coming together quite nicely and I think it's going to be big. Also some more things going on since friday All4Him Design (my design company) has a band client. pretty intense i know. it's awesome. but it's still All 4 Him. I am working on designing a logo for them and then it's going to move into marketing but that's cool too. ok i know this is super short but today has been an early long day and tomorrow is going to be one too. but it's okay, me staying busy is keeping me from overthinking my life and that's a good thing. I just need to stay out of God's way right now and let Him do His work on me to prepare me to what He has in store for me. I know it's something big I just don't know what it is.

Single Lifestyle Motto

Okay so now that I've kind of alluded to this multiple times in two days I'm going to go into this and explain it and how I came up with it and how it works.

The Motto is "Do Nothing" 

Seems simple right? If you think yes you're wrong. Doing nothing is actually very hard and requires constant thought and restraint. The 'Do Nothing' concept came up where all good ideas come from, Waffle House around 3 am. My best friend had been married and had gotten a divorce and was being pursued by multiple girls and He was working on his relationship with God and really didn't need the distractions involved with a girl, so he asked me what he should 'do'. I thought about it for a few minutes as some songs passed on the jukebox and finally I said 'I've got it' he asked what and I told him "Do Nothing" then he went on to ask me what I meant by that and I said "do nothing. absolutely nothing. don't act on anything. just let things go how they are going to go naturally and don't do anything." It took a while but eventually it started working.  He is now in a relationship with a great girl. 

Okay so how it works there are a few guidelines to the "Do Nothing" method. 

Guideline 1: Must Be A Relationship

This is simple, it has to be a relationship for you to 'Do Nothing' with.

Guideline 2: Must Be Fully Committed

You can't be wishy washy with this method or it won't work. You can't be pushing the relationship and drop off the next day. That's playing with emotions and that ain't cool.

Guideline 3: Keep Focused On God

The whole point of the 'Do Nothing' method is to work on your relationship with God and let everything else fall into place "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you." ~Matthew 6.33 

Guideline 4: Cut Off Point

There is a point in time where the 'Do Nothing' method will stop working. At that point a decision will have to be made but if you have done everything right it won't be much of a decision to make, you will know for sure one way or the other what to do. So doing nothing will, in the end, help you decide what to do. 

This is the 'Do Nothing' method. So far it is flawless because it keeps you out of it and puts everything in God's hands like it is supposed to be anyway. He is the one in control and we should want His will over our will anyway. I am not going to lie and say that the 'Do Nothing' method is easy because it isn't. It is anything but easy. It is one of the hardest things I've come up with, but it works. Let me know if you plan on trying the  'Do Nothing' Method and tweet me @t_to_tha_j #DoNothing

5 Regrets

Okay so first off I really am going to be talking about 5 regrets I have so if you don't want to read them or don't want to read somethings that are extremely personal to me please click away now.

People keep telling me that I shouldn't regret anything because everything happens for a reason and I agree everything does happen for a reason but regret is a part of life, it's almost impossible to not regret anything. and so yeah i'm not sure if I'll make it to 5 and I'm not so sure I'll be able to stop at 5. We'll see though. Also these are in no particular order just as they come to mind.

Regret #1 Pushing People Away.
I have a huge tendency to push people who care about me or get too close to me away. I shut down, I've always been like this and I don't know how to stop it or even if I can. I regret this cause I know that i could be happy right now but I'm not... I'm miserable and yeah I know in my heart that everything will be fine eventually but that doesn't really help anything right now.

Regret #2 Not Applying Myself
This has plagued me since elementary school. I've always hated school just because I didn't want to be there or do it. The further into school the more I liked it but it wasn't for learning it was because of the people I wanted to be around were there. I got kicked out of NGU because of it among other things and who knows what would have happened had I stayed there and finished. I regret this because of the what could have been's.

Regret #3 1.19.13
That whole day was a huge mistake. I should have stayed home from work and slept cause I knew I was super stressed out and didn't feel good. I should have stayed asleep all day and all night. But I didn't and trust me I regret that. That day just added so much more stress to my life and threw my emotions for a loop for a month. I regret this because I wish so much that I could take back every word I said that day.

Regret #4 Putting Myself Down Constantly
This is another thing I've been dealing with since I was little. I've always convinced myself that I'll never be good enough to be happy and if I am happy I don't deserve to be so I will do something to ruin that so I'll be miserable again. I can't just be happy. I also keep reminding myself of my past and everything I've done to constantly remind myself that I'll never be good enough. I regret this because everything that I've done has been forgiven and I just need to forgive myself.

Regret #5 Ever Not Putting God First
I get in these places where I feel like I've got my life and I can get through it without Him and I can't. I am such a broken person I can't get anywhere without Him and I can't do anything without Him. He is truly my rock and I can't do anything without my God. I regret this because this is exactly what I teach our youth to not do and to always put God first no matter what, in the good and bad and I feel like such a hypocrite because I have lost sight of this in my past numerous times.

I'm sorry if these things effected your opinion of me but honestly it doesn't matter. These are things from my past and present that I regret. I can't get away from my regrets, but I am trying to put them behind me and move on. I don't want to live in the past but that's the thing about being broken, it puts your focus on everything that has happened up to that point and makes you question every choice you made that lead to you becoming broken.

-T

Tomorrow's post is going to be on defining my 'Lifestyle Motto'

Long Time and A Lot Has Changed.

Hey guys, sorry for being away for so long. Honestly other social media took priority. Facebook and now Twitter take up a lot of my time. So yeah guys I am thinking about starting back on here and keeping everyone in the loop on my life, but to do so I'm going to have to cover a lot of ground. since it's been (based on google calculate's calculations)  2 years 3 months and 2 Days since I posted on here last. That's 825 Days. okay so yeah catching up. A lot has changed in my life in the past 2 years and such. first things first I'm no longer at NGU, I was asked to leave for a few undisclosed reasons that I'm not going to get into because it makes me flustered and it's just not worth it. I have wheels now, I drive a 2008 Mini Cooper (love my dream car. don't care if you think it's girly. I get 61.5 miles to the gallon so uh). I noticed reading through the posts I had posted before I stopped talking on here my papa was in the hospital last I said. well he got better for a little while, got released from the hospital got put into a nursing home and passed away while i was at school with no way to go see him. I still remember that moment vividly. I was sitting in the caf at NGU eating lunch with Melody and my phone started ringing and it was my momma, I answered and she was crying and I asked her what was wrong and she said that papa had passed away. I dropped my phone and just bawled. My papa was one of the greatest influences on the man I am today, if it weren't for him there is no telling where I would be. I got engaged. we were engaged on May 15, 2011 at my church. I got a job at Huntin' Camp BBQ last january. and that is pretty much everything up until this year. this year has been one trial after another. On the 10th of January Melody and I broke up after 4 years together and almost 2 years of being engaged. It wasn't a big blow up fight we just started wanting different things in life, and we decided it would be best if we weren't together anymore. that was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Friday I found out that my biological dad passed away last wednesday. I never thought that would effect me the way it did. I had the chance to go see him and tell him everything i always told me i would tell him when i got to see him and tell him how bad he messed me up and how i prayed to God i never turned out to be like him and show him how good i turned out even with him not being in my life. but i couldn't even forgive him enough to bring myself to go tell him that. I wanted to forgive him for all the hell he put me through and how i'll never know what a father's love is supposed to feel and how a real relationship between a man and a woman is supposed to be and how a dad is supposed to be there for his kids cause he never taught me that either. The only thing he taught me is how i don't want to end up. i harbored so much hatred towards him for 18 years and now i won't ever have the chance to see him face to face and tell him that i forgave him for walking out of my life when i was young. All of this has happened since i've been gone. but one thing that hasn't changed only grown is my relationship with God. I have been getting closer to God these two years. God has taught me to stand up for Him and He will stand up for me. To fight for what is right and what is true. to stop living for me and start living for Him. and through all of this that has happened to me I've learnt to trust in Him and I won't ever be disappointed. I may not always like where I am at the time but He is in control and in the end He is the one with the perfect plan and my plans just don't even compare to what He has in store for me. These lessons haven't been easy to learn, I have spent many nights beating my head against a wall trying to get my way and every now and then God let me have my way to show me how stupid my way was. My way got me hurt, quite frequently actually. but everything i've been through has put me where I am now and made me into the person I am. I feel like I'm a better person for going through all of it. 

Honestly I thought about starting this back a while back to just kind of give updates but just never did, and now that i'm going to be starting back up i read through the posts and debated taking down posts or just starting a fresh blog but this is me. the posts from earlier are me too. just me at a different point in my life, everything on this blog has contributed to who I am and some of the posts are vital points in my life and I don't want to lose sight of the things i went through.

The name of the blog is new and the description is really perfect for a blog from me right now cause it will be late night musings or just babbling. it's 12:18am right now and i know that's not really late but considering i worked a double shift today and have to work again in the morning i probably should get to bed. but i did want to let you guys know what's been going on in my life this whole time i've been gone and let you all know i'm coming back, mainly just cause i have a lot that i don't need to hold in and need to get out and off my chest and i'm not so sure they will be under 160 characters long. so that rules out twitter and i don't really post very personal stuff on facebook. so here you have it. mainly cause i don't know who if anybody is reading my blog and that's how it should be. 

okay guys i'm done for tonight.

love y'all

T