on living: an amalgam of free-spirited ranting and nature metaphors

Here's a question: why do we try so hard?

Here's another: why are we seemingly unable to let go of our grip on our own lives?

I don't know why humans feel a need to control. I have some ideas about it, I don't know if it's just one thing or millions of little things that influence our need to control. Perhaps it's because we want to feel like we have a say in what we are doing; no one wants to be pushed around. Maybe we want to have power over other people.

But I think the biggest reason is that we want to live the best life possible, so we try to make it happen when we should really just be letting life happen. We think that if we do everything we possibly can to control our circumstances that we will be able to get everything we want.

And we also seem to know a lot about what we want in life. Or what we think we want. We've grown up learning our limits, the things we're good at, our personalities, the things and people we like, etc. We have been told by society, our parents, our peers, what we are apt to become. And we've let these things lead us through life. I've known too many people who already knew where they wanted to go to college, what they were going to major in, where they were going to grad school, where they were going to live with their spouse that they would meet at college orientation, falling head-over-heels in love by day two, and exactly how many children they would have. All before freshman year of high school started.

How can you know you want this? Is it really what you want? Or is it what you feel you have to do? If you've wanted to be a seventh grade English teacher since you were in second grade and you simply do not want to explore other options--and you eventually become a seventh grade English teacher--kudos to you, really. It's great if you truly know what you want to do and that's really what you plan to do.

But for the rest of the world--especially those in college--who is less than certain, let me tell you something. 

As you sit here reading this, 

think for a minute about everything you've ever thought you wanted in your life. 

This includes but is not limited to: your college major choice and your career choice, the activities you choose to participate in, the people you plan to meet, the man/woman you imagine spending the rest of your life with, or at least a significant amount of time, the course you imagine your life taking after the fact. 

Got it all?

Now throw it all away. All of it.

Hold your ponies a minute, folks. No, it doesn't mean you ignore everything you've ever liked to do. No, it doesn't mean you screw all your plans to become a doctor if you really wanted to. No, it doesn't mean you become a flower child and go to obscure music festivals and drop out of society altogether. Unless that was your plan.

Think of it like this:

You're life is like a forest. A woody wonderland. 

Think of everything and anything you've already taken off your list of things you'd consider doing. Each of those things is represented by one tree. For me, some of those things include a career in mathematics, economics, physics, or chemistry, getting Lasik surgery to correct my exponentially worsening eyesight, having kids, becoming a helicopter pilot, having a job in a cubicle, and buying chinchillas.

That's 1 tree for math, 1 for economics, 1 for physics, . . . a total of 9 trees. And this is only what I could think of in about 35 seconds, trust me, there are at least 2406 more. So 2415 trees. And yes I did use the calculator on my computer to add it. I said I won't have a math career. One tree I won't be cutting down.

So, most likely you have lots of trees in your forest. All of the things in your life that you like are the open spaces between the trees. And if you are trying to navigate through the forest of life, it will be rather difficult to do so without constantly sandwiching yourself between the trees.

What if you could cut down a lot of those trees?

You could run free like a gazelle. 

Two things prevent this: one, it would be difficult to run through a forest of tree stumps, so theoretically when I say "cutting down", I mean hiring a landscape company to extract the entire root system and stump as well as the tree. Imagine you could be both the ax and the landscape company. And two, we simply don't want to do this.

We are all sort of agoraphobic--we don't know what direction in which to run in an open field because nothing guides us. 

This is the same way in life--we don't necessarily fear open spaces and crowds, but we become overwhelmed with too much and we need--we feel like we need--structure and boundaries. We drown in a sea of endless choices and possibilities.

So how do you not drown? 

By trusting in your ability to swim. 

By letting the water push you in whatever direction it may. Sound a little too bohemian for you? I might be channeling 1960s counterculture, but take it in small doses; let yourself go. Let life lead you instead of leading life.

So you're just supposed to sit there and exist, just a little cellular respiration here and there but no real go-getting, you say? Don't chase after anything, you say? No focus at all in your life, you say?

Well, stop talking for a minute, and let me clarify. Not because I'm corrected or modifying what I said before, but because people think I'm a hippie when I explain this to them. They think I'm an unrealistic dreamer with her head in the clouds. All true statements.

Moral of the story: allow yourself to try new things. Force yourself to try things. Break your mold. You don't have to love everything you try. Just try. I honestly never planned on being the photographer for a bunch of clubs on campus. I never imagined going to a ballroom dance competition after approximately 7 hours of practice. I very well could have stuck with the same things I did in high school, and I thought I would have.

And conversely, don't try to control your circumstances by making things happen before they're supposed to. Here's a grand example: don't go hunting for a boyfriend or girlfriend because (a) you want one right now and (b) you think you know what you want. Don't sit in a chair in a high-traffic area "people watching" while sipping some sort of caffeinated beverage, because we all know about your ulterior motives. Here's why you shouldn't: because people come along when they are meant to, not because you happen to be in convenient locations. And you'll never know when they are meant to--all the fun's in waiting to see when people will appear.

Chances are the person you'll end up with is someone you'd never expect. Someone you almost never would have met if it weren't for that begrudging, last-minute whim decision to go out. Someone you literally bumped into. Someone you met when you weren't in tip-top shape and you were wearing clothes you pulled out of the laundry basket, but at the time it didn't matter. Someone you never would have expected having in your life, or maybe someone who is in your life that you don't even appreciate for their awesomeness. Don't force it, and let it come to you. 

Basically, find a balance between actively chasing after things and letting life take the wheel once in a while. If life is just a dance, let it lead you.

Life will work in ways that are magical and beautiful. Sometimes it works in painful and devastating ways to bring you what you need. Life will never give you what you want--it might give you what you thought you wanted, and you might not want what you thought you did; it might give you what you completely did not want, and you might end up loving it. The things that will disappoint you the most are those which you had unrealistically high expectations for, for whatever reason. And the things that will make you the happiest are those things which you never saw coming.

Who was it that ever thought we as humans could ever know what we want? Because we will never be done charting our path. We will never be done figuring out what it is that we want. We'll never be done figuring ourselves out.

cheers,
m

things i've been obsessed with / don't feel bad if you do this too

Part of college, especially being a freshman, is looking back on your life before college and remembering all the places you used to go with your friends after school, places you thought were super cool, places you went out to dinner every Friday and your waiter basically knew your order since it's usually the same thing, the places you would go day-in and day-out that defined your day. 
Well here are a few of the things I have recently been obsessing over/doing every day/doing multiple times per day/doing an obscene amount of times per day to the point that they deserve to be honored on this blog.

1.  Fiber One 90-Calorie Chocolate Fudge Brownies

Sometimes the hunger pangs come intermittently throughout the day and sometimes I feel as if I am being eaten alive by my stomach.

So I discovered the convenience store sells these and I've been buying some every once in a while when I feel starving. And they are literally so good. I go in hoping the same cashier isn't there so I can buy my Fiber One brownies without anxiety that they will say "Weren't you just here buying these?" Yes, I was.

And I can rationalize these purchases by reminding myself of the fact that I'm getting 20% of my daily fiber each time I have one. So there's really nothing to feel bad about.

2. Back Cracking

I have somewhat of a history of back/shoulder/neck related complications sometimes. This part of my body is basically the one part that was not affected in some way by gymnastics. I've had my series of troubles with gymnastic-related injuries, none of which left me crippled, disabled, or otherwise impaired so I continued with it for a while. When I did quit and I started swimming, I never thought I would get any injuries whatsoever from swimming. The swimming brand prides itself as the sport for everyone--old people can do it, young people, in-between people--and once you learn to swim you don't really forget. It's easy to learn, and you can make it as easy or strenuous as you want. Coming from one of the most physically demanding sports with one of the shortest potential elite careers (not to mention the fear lurking in the back of your mind that, at any moment, if you lose your balance or focus, you could break your neck/back/leg/arm/other appendages or paralyze yourself or accidentally kill yourself), swimming seemed free of risk. It's not often you see the headline "Swimmer Drowns At Meet" or "Swimmer Fractures Back Doing Flip Turn" because honestly those things just don't happen. 

But I was wrong, as I often am. As we all often are. I could go into a discussion/rant about how we are never usually right about anything, but I'll save that installment for a later post. I developed rotator cuff injuries in my shoulders from swimming. Since your shoulder is a ball-and-socket joint, that ball being the end of the humerus (your arm) and the socket being part of the scapula (your back), the ball part can sometimes rub against parts of the socket that it isn't supposed to touch, and this is because it's doing an unnatural motion. It causes sort of an abrasion against the tendons which is super painful, as I have had my hip flexors detach from the bone before and it's so excruciating, it's just terrible.

So I saw a physical therapist for a while and she told me all about the interconnected-ness of our bodies and how technically this was a back problem because my back was tight and the muscles were not strong enough. Swimming can loosen your body up in ways that are good, but when it completely undid my smaller back muscles from gymnastics, it caused my shoulder debacle. 

So I have always had tight neck and back muscles from swimming, and a lot of times they are just so tight they get knots and can't be massaged out. So a few weeks ago, I was talking to my friend about these various complications and so she told me she would crack my back. For some reason I thought this was a terrifying proposition, but I reluctantly got on the floor and she cracked my back.

And it felt so good.

It was nuts, she must be a holistic healer or something because how she did it got all of these knots and tensions out of my back and I felt like I could breathe easier and that I had more flexibility in my back.

Now I'll just lie on the floor and she'll know what to do, and we just have a merry, back-cracking good time.

3. Facebook stalking

I was hesitant to write about this, but honestly, I'm done caring about what's socially acceptable and unacceptable with regards to Facebook. So I'm giving it to you straight.

First of all, if you have a Facebook, there is a 100% chance you have stalked at least one individual. It could just be a friend's pictures, it could be a former teacher, someone you are utterly infatuated with, a celebrity you are awkwardly crushing on, etc. If you tell me you are on Facebook and have never stalked anyone you are simply lying.

Now don't be ashamed to admit it. You're simply taking advantage of your resources to find things out. Met someone new and now you're Facebook friends? Stalk. Day after prom and the pictures are up? Stalk. Celebrities on Facebook? Stalk, stalk, stalk.

This is a surefire way to find out some awesome stuff about people that they probably wouldn't tell you in real life, even if you asked. You can also learn what people are like based on the pages, music, movies, quotes, books, events, people, etc. they like on Facebook. You can get to know people better than ever before without really even knowing them. This takes the guesswork out of figuring out if you and another person will be compatible as friends, roommates, boy/girlfriend, in-laws, lab partners, whatever. Obviously, this is superficial to an extent because people only post their best selves on Facebook. I seem so fantastic and exciting on Facebook because I only show you the things that are fantastic and exciting. In movies, they aren't going to show you the mundane and boring things because who cares? But on the contrary, sometimes it's easy to forget that you're putting yourself on display on Facebook and sometimes people reveal more than they intend to, or more than anyone cares to see. Which is also helpful.

So it's only really a month into college and frankly, everyone--every freshman--has a clean slate. You've come here uninhibited by your past self, and for some people that's a great thing because it allows you to create a new version of yourself. And naturally you are meeting a lot of people. Some people you like, some you don't, some repulse you, some intrigue you. And naturally, we want to know more about these people. We want to creep into their lives and get inside their heads. We want to know what they're thinking. We want to know the type of person they are. We want to become involved in their lives in the most passive and sneaky way possible.

And Facebook answers our call. Once we friend someone new, we literally have a key to discover all sorts of things. And I don't see why people think that's so creepy. You're putting yourself out there in the first place, so expect anyone, especially the people you friend, to look at your profile as little or as much as they choose. 

We just want to know. We're really just curious little animals. It's biological. We follow our curiosity. And in a world where people's lives are online and we can peruse them at our leisure, who wouldn't--and who doesn't--take advantage of that?

So I've been joining lots of clubs and groups on campus, 17 to be exact (I am slowly starting to eliminate things on this list because frankly, I don't want to be involved in 17 activities), and I've been meeting so many people. And sometimes you click with certain people, you learn their names, and you go back to your dorm, open up Facebook, and bam--you're in business. And I've actually become rather good at this, quite like a detective. Which is either commendable or completely pathetic, I haven't decided which. But when you get a club email, and the entire list of people the email was sent to is at your disposal, you've basically got hours upon hours of stalking you could be doing. Just lists of names that you could be finding on Facebook and learning a little bit about. I know I've done this on multiple occasions, and when you can, why not? It's not like I asked for school records and did some serious FBI research analysis. I'm just being resourceful. I have literally spent hours stalking people I don't even know who go to this school, just looking at what music they like, what academic disciplines interest them, what they like to do in their free time, where they go on vacation, where they are from, if they like to play sports, etc. I just like to know.

So don't let anyone tell you you're being a creep on Facebook, because that person has probably creeped just as much as you.

4. Ballroom Dance

I'm simply obsessed. What more can I say? I get to spend hours dancing to songs I have known forever, whose lyrics literally breathe life into the fabric of my soul. And I get to dance with nice, chivalrous, and usually not awkward guys. And for those few hours I don't think about anything else, I just let myself drift into the past; into an era I never had the privilege of living in. 

And I can pretend that I was once a part of it, because sometimes I feel like I belong to a different cultural era. 

But then again, if I was from another time period, I wouldn't be able to Facebook stalk anyone.

cheers,

m

rosemary clooney and feeling classy

I absolutely adore Rosemary Clooney. If you're unfamiliar with her, start familiarizing yourself with her because she's such a gem.

So tonight was my first ballroom dance lesson in our college ballroom which is simply the epitome of class. Since probably my sophomore year in high school I fantasized about doing ballroom dance and here are some reasons why:

1.  There is nothing classier than dancing in a ballroom.

2.  It's a cultural institution that attracts other classy people. So you know everyone who is there is classy to some extent.

3.  It's not a fad that's going to be demode in a few months. It's something our parents did, something their parents did, something their parents did, . . basically it's survived generations because classy never goes out of style. I feel like someone said that once; it should be a new motto. It can be the replacement to "keep calm and carry on" and the other "keep calm and [insert trite phrase here]"s, because quite frankly I'm getting rather tired of hearing that and seeing it plastered on notebooks, wall hangings, shirts, posters, . .

4.  Honestly there is no better way to meet and get to know people--classy, respectable people--than to be seven inches away from their face holding onto their arm and learning to waltz, swing, rumba, foxtrot, you name it. There is really no way to be antisocial when you're dancing with someone else.

5.  It's basically a life skill. Any guy who knows even the basics of ballroom dance automatically wins ten thousand points in my book. That's a lot of points.

So there you have it, five fantastic reasons why I had fantasized about effortlessly twirling and gliding through a ballroom doing these classy dances. 

Now here's where Rosemary Clooney comes into the picture. Her version of "Sway" is basically my idea of ballroom dancing. It's one of my favorite songs and I simply could not get it out of my head all night. Perhaps because it's so playful and fun in a nostalgically vintage way that lets me leave the present and escape into an ethereal world of refined beauty and class. 

So basically it was just a wonderful night and I never expected to love it nearly as much as I did. Half of me was dying to do it, and the other half was dreading that it would be like a middle school dance during the slow songs, when awkward preteen boys would clumsily place their clammy hands on a girl's hips and she would carefully put her hands on his shoulders, and they would stand a safe, comfortable distance from one another as they swayed robotically and stiffly from side to side, pretending to enjoy themselves. I never subjected myself to such painful mortification at such a tender age.

But fortunately, since we're in college and for most the middle school years are far behind us,  it was fun. I wasn't worrying about what I looked like (which in case you were wondering, was completely ridiculous: a Notre Dame sweatshirt, some black leggings I sort of rolled up, a random pair of socks, neon coral colored sport shorts, my hair smashed in a still-damp bun, and my trusty old glasses, as usual), what to say, if I would be awkward about it, if my partner would be--we just had a fantastically fun time.

So here is my challenge to you: go out and do something cool. Or go out and do something uncool, it really doesn't matter. Find some new activity that you've had a burning passion to try, something that you've hesitated to try, something that tickles your little fancy. And then jump right on it and go for it. And don't bring a friend--go by yourself and don't let yourself be limited to your comfort zone.

And remember: classy never goes out of style.

cheers,

m

i'm back, folks

If you're reading this, thank you. I really appreciate every pageview I get; it means someone cared enough to click on it, and if you've gotten this far, you care enough to continue reading. 

The more I blog, the more I realize there isn't a right way to do it, despite what I thought when I first started. And what I'm realizing is that there doesn't need to be a mapped-out plan to a blog. Come to think of it, there doesn't need to be a mapped-out plan to anything. You just let it come out of you. No, it doesn't matter if it's grammatically sound and the syntax is varied. Each post certainly does not need to be proofread with a fine-tooth comb. But as a high school sophomore with no experience in the blogosphere, I wanted my Internet footprint to reflect my perfectly manicured, formulaic writing style.

I thought I had a voice.

But I realized I didn't.

Actually, I had really just been ignoring that voice. I had one; it was latent. I had been trained to write what I thought I was supposed to, and disregarding my own opinions. I started writing my blogs in this way. 

Why?

I didn't know any other way. But day after day, I broke down the barriers and let my voice come through. 

When I decided to do my yearlong blogathon in 2011, I was excited to start blogging again. It had been a year since I had last blogged about traveling. It's one of those things that once you start, and you eventually stop, you miss it. I never thought I would miss blogging when my year was up. Every day that year I posted something on my blog, and it became a huge part of my life. Sometimes it felt like a chore. Probably because it was--I was on a strict, self-imposed blogging regimen. And if I didn't post, well, that just wasn't going to happen. 

I actually learned a lot from that particular project. My original platform for the blog was based off of a new year's resolution to find happiness in little things.

But 2011 was a rough year for a lot of reasons that I won't go into detail about. And on some really impossibly difficult days I found myself crying at the computer, struggling to put a positive spin on that day's post.

That's not really finding happiness, is it? I thought it was what I was supposed to do. After all, it was my original plan. And original plans can't possibly change, 16-year-old me asserted.

How can I write about my happiness when I'm not happy? When things are falling apart? Life isn't about turning every disaster into a laugh-it-off moment. And once I came clean and began writing honestly, I could change the course of my blog to writing about finding meaning in the little things, and appreciating the happiness that came along the way.

I was fairly pleased with the outcome of the whole process, and when I metaphorically closed the book on that project, I was not ready to start a new blog the next day.

I am now.

The other day I was sitting in the college library after my 9am class. I was staring off into space, distracted by some kid who just couldn't get comfortable in his swivel chair and felt the need to let it squeak and screech for a solid 10 minutes. I forced myself back to taking notes on a chapter about the social cognitive theory. Generalized imitation can occur when the observer is reinforced directly by the model of the behavior, or by a third party. 

For whatever reason, third party stuck in my head. Third party, third party, what actually is a third party? It sounded political. Or businesslike. So I looked it up to see the official dictionary definition.

This is what Google seems to think a third party is:
a person or group besides the two primarily involved in a situation, esp. a dispute.

Someone who is not involved, a bystander. Well aren't we all bystanders in some way? We've all been in the middle of something before, but not actively involved. We've all witnessed something or been somewhere as just observers. 

So then the other day I was in the shower when I had a revelation. This revelation had multiple components to it, so needless to say I was up late making it all happen.

The first part: Hey, I haven't blogged in awhile. I miss that. [pause] That's it, I'm starting a new blog. It's gonna be new, fresh, something totally different.

The second part: I'll call it 'third party'. Like someone's outside-looking-in perspective on anything that comes to mind. Basically a stream of consciousness in a blog.

So the more I thought about it the more I hesitated to do it. Do I have time to blog? Do I really want to get back into it again? What if it doesn't take off? I might run out of things to say. It might be totally lame and dumb. I might be wasting my time.

I have a tendency to start projects and never finish them. I've started so many projects that would be worthwhile if I cared enough to finish them. I came close to publishing a novella a few years back, if only I hadn't gotten bored and shoved it in a box under my bed where it still is right now.

Yet at the same time, my hyperactive tendencies need some sort of outlet. A productive outlet that gives me something to do that feels good and is something that I can finish. The answer: a blog. A new blog.

So in my bathrobe I started creating this blog. And I didn't sleep until it was done. 

If you've followed my other blogs there are a few things about them that I will not do with this blog. One of those things is posting every day. I did this for my travel blog and for my other one, and this becomes too much of a chore, and frankly, a bore. So I decided this will not be a daily updated blog. I won't be the blogger who posts 4 times a year; I plan to post often. The idea is that once I have a good idea for a post, I'll write.

Also, this is not a travel blog. I'm not writing about my adventures abroad. It's not a year-long intensive spiritual, introspective-cleansing either. It's just me writing about whatever I want, whenever I want to, and that's extremely liberating for me because I have no boundaries here. I'm allowing myself to free the things that lurk in the recesses of my mind--the things that peeve me, the things that make me happy, the things that make me laugh, the things that make me feel, the people who touch my life, my little bits of advice. 

Life's more interesting when you can remember it. When you can process it. Drifting wearily and passively through life doesn't give you anything to laugh about, cry about, bond over, talk about, and most importantly remember, when you're old and looking back on your life.

So here is my little bit of advice to you: take everything you've ever thought you've wanted and ignore it. Approach everything equally, with an even-tempered attitude to everything. Don't hesitate to try something you've never done--say yes to it before you can think about it. Start living you're life. Because if you're not living, you're just existing.

cheers,
m