My Love it or Shove it Challenge Entry

I was tagged for this challenge by @fitinfun. Created by @snowpea, you have to list five things you love. And five you would prefer to shove. It sounds like fun, so here goes.

Five things I love

1. I love God. It sounds religious but it is not. It just is. I love loving Him and I love being loved by Him. This relationship fills my thoughts and my days. It is a limitless adventure filled with many surprises.

2. I love my family. You may think this is something one is expected to say, but my wife and children are at the centre of my existence. I remember well 31 years of being single. And I remember when she said yes. When she told me she was pregnant, both times. And the first time I held each of my children. I would be less, someone completely different, without them.

3. I love people. I love listening to a person. Figuring out what makes them tick. Just love getting to know someone new. People are awesome. Interesting. Never the same. Always special.

4. I love reading. Reading is like travelling. You can see and experience the whole world and beyond. It is like getting to know someone new and they are willing to share their best thoughts with you right away. I could spend my whole life reading and it will be as if I went everywhere and saw everything.

5. I love laughter. I'm not funny, except by accident. But I love to laugh and to hear people laugh. The most beautiful sound in the whole world is the sound of my children's laughter. If I could be anything, I would choose to be a comedian.

Five things I want to shove

1. Poverty. I work with Africa Food for Thought who helps to provide food security to more than 18 000 children to the west of Johannesburg. We visit orphaned and vulnerable children in the shacks they live in. Poverty is soul destroying and I hate it! It is never an individual's fault or choice. And it is definitely not because of something children did or did not do. It will, however, destroy its victims without prejudice.

2. Alcohol. People defend their right to drink alcohol with religious zeal. However, I encounter people every week whose life, health, marriage, family or career was destroyed by alcohol. And while none of these people ever set out to abuse alcohol, it happened nevertheless. I work with a homeless shelter housing around one hundred people at any given time. Alcohol is part of each of their stories. Often it is the biggest factor in the downward spiral of their lives. But even if not, I have yet to encounter a homeless person where alcohol did not, at the very least, help them to reach their destination.

3. Cats. I love dogs. I'm allergic to cats. And the way I sneeze in response to a cat in the room threatens to eject my brain, severe my spine and get me to reveal secrets that will destroy national security. I do, however, like them on TV or in a picture. The irony is that cats love me and prefer my lap to just about any other spot on earth. Or is that malicious?

4. Chauvinism. Or anything that is condescending towards a female person. The limiting of relationships between male and female to physical attraction. Responding to and valuing a female person purely for her appearance. Creating an environment where men are innocent victims in how they respond to women.

5. Washing dishes. Mowing the lawn. Or any other task that I will just have to do again, just a little later. It is never done! I hate that.

People I nominate

@koevert
@shadowofmywords
@ammyluv
@refirement
@nekoleptic

This was fun. Thank you

@reonlouw