The Best You Can Be in the Moment You're In

 A Creed for Being the Best You Can Be

Speak and you will be heard;

make your words kind

and you will be judged so.

Love kindly and unselfishly

with no wish to possess.

Search for who you are

and for what matters.

Give freely to all,

and you shall receive

so much more.

Listen to the troubles of others,

and your own shall be halved.

Live each day as your last,

treasuring each sight and sound.

Accept what you have 

and all that is freely given.

Strive to be greater than

you were before.

Ask, and even your smallest wish

will be granted.

Dream of what can be -

a world of peace and beauty

for all to share.

-Stephanie Robinson

  Good morning everyone! Just wanted to write up a quick post about being your best self. I say this a lot, and most of the time I take it as a serious challenge that weighs a little bit on my mind, and sometimes causes me to worry that I'm not doing enough. This shouldn't be the case.

  Being the best you can be in the moment you're in, it just means to be open. To be happy. To be yourself, your true self, and let it shine out in the world, sharing your passion and your love with those around you. Enjoy the moments that you have. Focus on the good. Don't let things overwhelm you. Just breathe. Breathe in your inspiration, breathe out your creativity. 

  A really good friend of mine who is beyond talented wrote about one's inspiration and creativity yesterday. She inspired me to start this blog, and that post inspired me to write something this morning. You should scoot over there and check it out.  She talks about seeing what others produce around you, truly seeing it and appreciating it, and allowing it to inspire you.

  Now, I'm just a writer. I get craftsy now and again, but my true gift is with words. You can do anything you like, or nothing at all. What I'm saying to you today is enjoy yourself, enjoy the moment you're in, enjoy others. Appreciate all of it, especially yourself. Because when you truly begin to see yourself minus the social pressure to be some constantly changing definition of  price-tagged perfect, that is when you are the best self you can be. When you take in everything that's going on around you and breathe it in, loving every moment and appreciating the gifts of those you surround yourself with, even if its just a simple conversation, that's when you are truly living in the moment and sharing your soul.

  I know I've already given you a quote up there, but I want to leave you with one more.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. -Marianne Williamson

  Don't be afraid to open yourself up and just be. Don't be afraid to be open with others and allow them to be open with you. Enjoy. Appreciate. Be. Live.

 
Until next time, have an amazing day, may your heart radiate with joy, and may you not fear to be open with others, and may you be encouraged to be the best you can be!  

Real Life Doesn't Have a Spring Break(And You Don't Have To Be Depressed About It!)

Spring Break!

Except, real life doesn't have a spring break, does it? I'm rapidly coming to terms with that, and that since I'm most probably taking an indefinite break from academia I'm probably not going to get another "spring break" any time soon.

But you know what? I'm okay with that.

First of all, in order to give you guys some eye candy to break up the monotony of my words, I googled the term "spring break". If I was pubescent boy I would have been very, very pleased. Eye candy, indeed.

Yay. Softcore porn. Pass the tissues, please.

...*Cough* Not my idea of a good spring break. In fact, today is my last day of my own "spring break". I asked off a handful of days from both my jobs because I originally planned to go to Austin, but instead I took the thrifty way to go and stayed home. I had good friends in from out of town who I don't get to see often. We stayed in and played video games pretty much the whole time. The second evening we tired of lounging around all day and we walked down the street to a friend's apartment...to play Super Smash Bros. [Insert nostalgic feeling here.] We're an easy bunch. Just give us internet connection and we're entertained. But it was a good visit with actual human interaction that wasn't a sales transaction at one of my jobs. I enjoyed it very much. Early mornings, late nights, lots of coffee and good conversation. Many laughs were had, too. These are the days I live for. As the Fifth Doctor said in the Earthshock episode: “For some people, small, beautiful events are what life is all about.”

Here's something you have to know about me. Though I do love going out and roaming the town, having a drink and listening to a local band at Thirsty's or Tequila Rok. I love getting dressed up and going places. But my true idea of a "real good time"? Sharing a cup of coffee or tea outside on the porch or around the coffee table with those I hold dear. Knocking back some cold ones in the evening watching a favorite TV show and playfully discussing if there's a conspiracy theory behind it. A small gathering of tipsy friends playing Cards Against Humanity(Have you played that game? Seriously, look it up right now, I'll wait).

Just a sample, read the black card, and insert the bottom white card of each pair into the first blank, and the top white card into the bottom blank. So it would read: "Honey I have a new role-play I want to try tonight! You can be Hulk Hogan, and I'll be peeing a little bit."

That was one of the rounds played the other night, and those were the top two choices. In that game everyone's politically correct um rude as hell an asshole, and we're a  freaking hilarious bunch of assholes.

Anyways, that's my idea of a good time. Not that my partying days are over. Like I said, give me half an hour's notice that We Were Wolves is in town, and you know I'll be front and center rocking out drunk on Jack&Cokes and partying the night away.  And hold on, this post is supposed to be about spring break and how real life doesn't have one...damn tangents.

Spring break was originally designed to give kids in school a break(obviously). For college kids, it was a chance for them to get wasted every day guilt-free and not worry about a test the next morning. In my experience of college, and especially the one and a half semesters of grad school I've had, its more of a week to study for midterms and get in some extra hours at your dead-end job so you can buy more adderall. Everyone desperately looks forward to it, to each little break one gets from the depressingly heavy course load, whether it be Winter, Spring, Summer, or the measly two days off for Thanksgiving. Two days for a turkey coma to set in, the weekend to study for finals, and back to the grindstone it is, and don't forget to be thankful! 

Surprise! Real-world adults don't get these scheduled breaks, apparently. 9-5 every day, weekends off if you're lucky. Or if you work in retail or the service industry, its more like a day off during the week, two tops, and long, varying shifts on the weekends, because you're there to serve everyone who does have the weekend off. Vacation time is few and far between, if you get vacation time. Sounds depressing doesn't it? 

All the pretty colors! Maybe this will get me through one more day of waiting tables and writing papers...

It doesn't have to be. The whole point of this post boils down to these next two sentences. (Big pressure now) 

Spend your time wisely and, most importantly, by doing what fulfills you and makes you happy. You can control your time and therefore your happiness.

Simple as that. Give yourself a purpose in life if you wish, or just enjoy where you are. If you have to work harder and longer hours to get to a position where you don't have to, do that. But also don't sacrifice your present happiness and well-being for that castle in the sky of more time off to spend doing X later. You can save up and work towards a better position while enjoying your life right now. Like I said in part one of The "Grown-Up Question", later is now. Just because you're working full time, or you're at school full time and working part-time, whatever your lot in life, that does NOT mean you can't enjoy yourself. It does NOT mean you can't cultivate a hobby or your personal life. It does NOT mean you have a free pass to complain about how busy you are or just be tired all the time. I know just as well as the next person how tiring and overworked one can be. That isn't healthy, and everyone needs to slow it down a notch, in my opinion. But the point I'm trying to make is that you can choose your attitude, no matter what you're experiencing. Trust me, working full time and going to school full time the past few months exhausted me. I've been really sick, and for about a year now I've been on the verge of a complete mental break down, if I haven't already experienced it. I began to have anxiety and panic attacks regularly.

But you know what? I had the power to change that. I started going back to therapy regularly(when I had the time). I began to spend more time around others that made me laugh and smile, focusing on the good. I cut out the negative people in my life. I try to remember to smile and focus on the joy, the little things. I am definitely still a work in progress, and will probably always be. But when I realized that I can still make my own decisions about my life, and I can decide to be happy no matter what situation I'm in, it doesn't matter if I get a long break to rest up for the next long stretch of toil and drudgery. I can give myself a break to do whatever I please in the little hours that I do have off. I no longer have to look months ahead of time for a break. I can have one every evening or morning I have off. And I don't have to be negative about all of this either. I am 23 years old, this is my time to be happy and to choose where I'm going in life. I don't want to look back on this and remember being miserable. I'm going to make the most of my life, every hour of every day. Not just during spring break.

I stumbled upon this quote years ago and it's stuck with me since. I feel like it's fitting for today's post.

"Time=Life. Waste your time, waste your life. Master your time, master your life." - Alan Lakein

Enjoy your day, make the most of it doing whatever you wish, and keep your head up. This is your life. It isn't easy, and it won't be easy. But you can make of it whatever you dream to make it, and if you do it with a smile on your face, it'll make it that much more enjoyable.

Until next time, keep smiling!

The "Grown-Up" Question-Part 1

I'll do it later, when I have time. I'll do it later, when I'm older and have found myself. I'll do that after a graduate from college. I'll find time to learn how to be the perfect girlfriend by the time I find my soul-mate. I'll do that later. Later. Later. Later...

All my life I've kept telling myself that one day I'll be more patient. One day I'll be more loving, and gossip less. One day I'll find that happy medium between my parent's life-long religion and my I'm-too-tired-to-figure-this-out/Aslan/Spaghetti Monster in the Sky belief system I've found myself in. One day I'll know how to run a household. One day I'll know how to do my taxes. One day I'll stay caught up with the laundry. One day I'll figure out how to budget correctly and not spend all my money at Gamestop and Half-Price Bookstores. One day I'll find my soul mate and be self-aware enough that I can stand on my own two feet AND be his/her other half. One day I'll have the time to focus on myself and become who I've always wanted to be. One day I'll be a "grown-up".

On a Wednesday, the 7th to be precise, I will be a grown-up.

Well, "one day" is now. I don't have any more time to figure out what I'm going to be, where I'm going to go. I've got to figure it out now. Not right this second, I want to write this blog post after all, but I need to focus on myself now for a little while so I can find exactly what it is I want to do with the rest of my life. Because obviously, the rest of my life approaches faster than you think.

Life is scary as hell. Adult life is even scarier. When I was getting my Bachelor's here at Lamar(shameless plug for my Alma Mater), whenever I would complain that things were getting too hard, many older adults in my life would say to me variants of: "The older you get, the shorter the day becomes, the longer your to-do list, and the less sleep you get." Or my personal favorite "It only gets harder the older you get, sweetheart."

Well thanks for that vote of confidence. I hope you read that last sentence with dripping sarcasm.

I had a heart-to-heart text conversation with a good friend of mine last night. Talking about how scary the future is and taking steps towards it are all giant leaps of faith. He said at one point: "They would be called lands of certainty if they weren't terrifying." And he's exactly right. Anything worth fighting for is going to be difficult, going to be scary. All big moments in one's life are pretty intense. Can't wait for them to happen forever, holding on to mommy's apron strings or daddy's belt loop. To spout a cliché, at one point in your life, hopefully in your late teens to early 20's if you're lucky, you have to spread your wings and fly. On your own.

Going to college in my hometown and not moving out at 18 may have been a mistake. I only put off the inevitable leaving of my parents' fold. I also had to deal with the age-old "you'll always be my baby" babying/keeping me from growing up crap. "I'm 21 years old, mother, I should be allowed to stay out later than 11:30!" was heard frequently at my house. Don't even think about bringing up having a beer, either, because "alcohol is DANGEROUS!" Alright mom, how's that margarita taste?

In my personal opinion, tequila(main staple of a Margarita) is the "most dangerous" alcohol of them all. Jose and I aren't friends.

Back onto the "grown-up" question. Except I have to be at my "grown-up job" (I work at a toy-store) in a little while, so I'll have to get back to you on this.

Just know, if you're 20-something, later is now. Now is the time you have to get your shit together and become who you want to be. Don't let everything pass you by. Your time is now. Don't just sit on your ass and not do anything about it. You don't want to realize one day that you're someone you really don't like. You might not even have "later".



Again, I leave you with a quote to ponder.


“Right now I want a word that describes the feeling that you get--a cold sick feeling, deep down inside--when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don't want it to, but you can't stop it. And you know, for the first time, for the very first time, that there will now be a before and an after, a was and a will be. And that you will never again quite be the same person you were.”

― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light




Have a great day, find the joy in your life, and never let it go, no matter what life throws at you!

Why Am I Blogging, Again?

"Isn't blogging for hipsters?"

"Didn't you want to write fiction?"

"Is this just another project/blog/thing that you're going to fizzle out on?"

"What are you going to write about anyway? You're nothing special and who would want to read about your life?"

My mind has been bombarding me with reasons not to blog. Well, I want to silence that little nagging voice of doubt.

Yeah, so what if hipsters blog? Don't hate.

So what if my main drive is to write fiction and short stories and be a famous writer? Got to start somewhere and get an awareness for myself.

So what if it's just another "project"? If I don't challenge myself, I won't get anywhere. If I fizzle out on this, I'll just catch flack from my other friends who are bloggers, and those who know me well enough to know how dedicated I wish to be to my writing. I'll probably feel guilty about it, too. The lessons of growing up Catholic are still with me, mom!

What am I going to write about? Daily life here in Beaumont, once a small town that discovered oil, that became a boring, dried out(that's a metaphor, it rains all the time) suburb of Houston, and now it's a Boomtown again, growing and reforming itself into something better. I'm also going to write about myself. About important issues in life that everyone thinks about but no one thinks they're important enough to blog about. I'm 23 years old and about to be a Master's Degree Dropout. What in the world will I talk about? Stick around and see!

My upcoming post will be about "The Grown-Up Question" and how a 20-something year old navigates the precarious REAL transition to adult-hood. At a certain point, you have to realize "later" is Now.

I'll leave you with a quote:


Don’t you long for something different to happen, something so exciting and new it carries you along with it like a great tide, something that lets your life blaze and burn so the whole world can see it? Something that touches you with joy or with terror, that lifts you out of your safe little path and onto a great wild road whose ending nobody knows? - Juliet Marillier, Son of the Shadows

Until next time, be at peace and find joy and wonder in your day!