will power

Today I was thinking about how almost anything really is possible if you have enough will power. And I'm talking about legit and realistic things, not magical wishes. For example, someone who lives on the street begging for money probably could get somewhere further in life. In fact, it's happened before. Just look at Chris Gardner (Pursuit of Happyness is based on his life struggles to get to where his is today). He had enough will power to keep trying even though he got knocked down so many times. I'm sure that is extremely difficult and I could never imagine, but I know for sure that I would NEVER sit around asking people for money on a corner somewhere in the city. Do something about it. It's possible, so have the will power!

This might seem random, but another example is ADD/ADHD and the over diagnosis of this "disorder". You know what? Everyone is a little bit spacy at times; everyone has those moments where they can't concentrate on anything. Does that make he/she ADD/ADHD? Nope! Everyone has the ability to lose focus and to have focus, but it's whether or not you have the self control to pick the focused path. Obviously if you take a medication that is supposed to help you focus, then you should probably be focused. But then you're relying on something and that's a weakness in all honesty. If ANYONE took that medication it probably should help them focus because that's the sole purpose of that medication. If we all wanted to get everything done without any distractions or loss of concentration, we would all just stay on medication so we would never face those concentration issues. It's the same thing for a head ache. Just because someone has a head ache and a pain killer such as Advil or Tylenol might help, it doesn't mean it should be taken all the time.

What I'm trying to get at is bigger than this whole medication ordeal. I just wanted to make a comparison. People rely on and depend upon certain crutches too much in life. People get so dependent on certain things that it makes them so weak. People have no will power to just try to make it through something or force themself to have self control. I can never understand people who say "I have to have my caffeine or I can't function" or "I know I should exercise and eat healthier, but I don't feel like it". Well then, since you lack will power, you will get the results that come from those behaviors. Those are just stubborn mindsets in my opinion.Then people also feel that they can blame any of their issues on those "weak" traits. This one is really bothersome, "Fast food resturants should be sued for making me fat"!
That's pure ignorance. The majority of us have the ability to make decisions by a certain point in our life. We have the ability to seek knowledge, to question (even question authority), and to decide on our own what we will and will not do.

So the question isn't "Can you do it?", it's "Are you WILLING to do it?"

"You cannot change what's over. But only where you go...

...one way leads to diamonds."

This quote comes from Enya's song "Pilgrim". It is one of the most inspiring songs. I really relate to Enya's songs and use them for inspiration even though they sound a bit sad. Anyway,  I particularly relate to this one because she talks about "your journey" in life. She's right when she says "you cannot change what's over, but only where you go" and although that's true, it's somewhat sad. I get all teary-eyed just hearing these lyrics because I feel like it describes how I feel exactly. Just like a pilgrim, I just want to know answers. I just want to find a path that will lead me to diamonds (metaphorically).
I know where I'm going in some aspects of my life, but it really scares me to be unsure about other journies in my life. It's weird how you can go from never worrying about something particular in the future and now that's you're main worry once things fall apart. It's like having your legs going out from underneath you, losing your strength and support. That strong foundation you once felt has now shattered to pieces. It's just very weird to go from two very different extremes, just as it would be a shock for your body to jump into freezing water just after getting out of hot tub.
It's so hard to let go of the past especially when you connected so much of that past to your future. I'm just in this limbo space of "the present". So I'm trying to take Enya's words to heart since I can't magically go back in time. I just have to keep going from here...on my journey. 


Pilgrim, how you journey
On the road you chose
To find out why the winds die
And where the stories go.
All days come from one day
That much you must know,
You cannot change what's over
But only where you go.
One way leads to diamonds,
One way leads to gold,
Another leads you only
To everything you're told.
In your heart you wonder
Which of these is true;
The road that leads to nowhere,
The road that leads to you.
Will you find the answer
In all you say and do?
Will you find the answer
In you?
Each heart is a pilgrim,
Each one wants to know
The reason why the winds die
And where the stories go.
Pilgrim, in your journey
You may travel far,
For pilgrim it's a long way
To find out who you are...
Pilgrim, it's a long way
To find out who you are...
Pilgrim, it's a long way
To find out who you are...

Do you listen to Jiminy Cricket?

Remember Jiminy Cricket from "Pinocchio"? He served as a personified version of  Pinocchio's conscience. Now I know some people have a little Jiminy Cricket in their mind or on their shoulder telling them what is right and wrong, but I feel as if a LOT of people seem to have lost Jiminy Cricket in their life or maybe they never even had him to begin with. I don't see how people can go on living knowing that they did wrong things and be okay with it. Maybe they just push it so far out of their mind to the point that it magically doesn't exist if they don't face what they did. 
And what's even worse is that some people want others to make it easy on them so that they don't feel guilty when they are the one who did the bad thing. Like don't tell me to avoid or ignore something that you clearly did just so you don't feel guilty. Not quite sure how you can live with yourself because I know I wouldn't be able to. Maybe I'm too nice. In fact I probably am too nice for people in this world, but since when did being nice become a weakness? Why do people want to take advantage of someone so giving & always willing to be there UNCONDITIONALLY?????

Sometimes I think it would just be an easier life if I was just mean & acted like everyone else not caring if I hurt someone or not. It just hurts to always care so much, but get let down so many times. Obviously I'm not going to be like that toward people because that's not who I am, but don't be surprised if I surround myself with 50 foot thick steel walls because of all you people who have made me so calloused. So blame the ruiner, NOT the ruined please!
Good luck with pushing things aside & avoiding the truth because you're too weak to actually listen for Jiminy Cricket's voice. 

Doubt.

It's really difficult to constantly tell myself on a daily basis "you're okay", "it'll be okay", "just stay strong", "stop thinking about it". The struggle I go through in my mind is so draining. The hardest part of trying to console myself in my own mind is that bit of doubt that creeps in. Well let me be honest, it's not a bit, it's a LOT of doubt. I feel like I'm just telling myself that "everything will be okay" because I just want to cope. I'm afraid for one year from now or 10 years from now. I used to have an idea of most of where my life was going and now I can only partially see that. That really scares me. Sometimes this doubt tells me that I'm just going to have to accept this fate that I don't particularly deserve. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't deserve that fate that I'm so afraid of, but I'm not necessarily in control of what is to come.
Some days it's so hard to be strong, especially lately and I don't know why.


Sometimes I wish I could go back to being 5 years old and cry over stupid stuff and play with my dolls again.
Life was so simple. What's happened?

One Path.

I have been thinking lately about how there are basically infinite options and pathways in life, but we personally will only know the one we chose to go on. I seem to find myself saying, "what if I had done this differently" or "what if this didn't happen, where would I be?", etc. It seems like a lot of people go through points in their life where they question "what if?" and the thing is we will probably never know the answer to those "what if?" questions because they are just hypothetical. I have been trying to avoid thinking like that because there is really nothing I can do to change the past (to my knowledge at least). It's just very mind boggling to think that one small detail in our life could have a ripple effect and change our path in life completely. Maybe that's why I am so indecisive in most situations. I almost always have to weigh out the pros and cons and make sure I'm set on a decision before I make it. This holds true for things on a small scale to a much larger scale. I don't want to regret my decisions, so I take a long time to decide upon things.
I'll never know what could have been if I went to a different college or if I had said something differently or if I decided to turn left instead of right while driving lost. It bugs me that I'll never know, but I just have to live with it and always think about my actions & decisions.

I also notice how so many people take the path most traveled and then have to learn from big mistakes (whcih turn into regrets) that they made while traveling that path. They could have looked at the people who made mistakes before them: friends, family, etc. If you see the mistakes of those people and know that you don't want to end up the way they ended up, then why would you follow them? Why would you take the same path to basically the same fate?
I guess I just have a much different mindset than most my age. I always am thinking, if/when I were to have kids, would I want to tell them "don't make the mistakes I made" or would I want to tell them "do what I did"? I'm not saying I would tell them to follow my every move, but I mean "do what I did" as in stay true to yourself, stay out of trouble, do good in school, do your best, be a good person in various aspects of life, and so on. If you don't want to tell your kids, "don't do what I did", then why are you doing that stuff now? It's sad because some people will never learn until they face the consequences of their actions and sometimes that's still not enough. I don't need to make the mistake to learn from it, I've seen many others make the mistakes and I've learned by saying I DON'T want to be where they are.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

You Reap What You Sow.

"You reap what you sow."

This seems to be like a popular "karma" type quote, but I didn't really know about it until a few months ago. I was looking for "karma" type quotes like "what goes around comes around", but something a little different and deeper. I came across this one on a random site, had to look up the meaning of reap and I just loved it. Reap is bascially a farming term synonmous to "harvest" when talking about crops. So now I seem to hear this quote all the time, especially in songs. I also think of this quote all the time and say it to myself quite a bit. Although it does have some of the "karma" aspect to it (like you get what you give), I see it in another way too.
Like my previous post, this doesn't apply to everything especially aspects of life you can't control (i.e. other people). I still think it can apply in a lot of areas of life. In literal terms, you harvest or collect crops that you sow/plant. If you planted tomatoes, you wouldn't expect to harvest cucumbers from that plant.
So, in the metaphorical sense, if you put in no effort or dedication into something, then you can't expect extreme success as an outcome. I have noticed a lot of people (especially my age range) wanting to put in little effort, but get the achievement level that actually requires effort. One main example is school. Sure I guess "school isn't for some people", but I also feel like that's just an excuse. Excuse after excuse doesn't really get you far in life. At the end of the day, you can't expect to have wonderful grades if all you do is party and play around in college. These are the people that plant tomatoes and a few months later come back confused because they wanted cucumbers!

This is exactly why I put my all into things that are important to me in life. I follow this way in school, work, relationships with people I care about, etc. 
What is the point of doing something halfway if you want the end result to be success instead of partial success or even failure?
If you want cucumbers, then you have to plant cucumbers! :)

Newton's 3rd Law

So I was watching So You Think You Can Dance on Hulu the other night and a Delta Airlines commercial came on and it was about loyalty. It automatically got my attention because of the fact that it mentioned loyalty and that word means a lot to me. In the past few months (with the help of a few others) I've realized how loyal of a person I am, so this commercial struck a chord.

"Loyalty is a two way street. And when one side gives, the other has to give back. So every action has a reaction."

It then reminded me of Newton's 3rd Law of Motion.

"For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction."

It made me think of how not only is that law applied in the subject matter of physics, but it should be applied throughout life in general. For every effort put out on one side, the opposite side should give the equal amount of effort. If someone puts his/her all into whatever he/she is dedicated to, then perhaps the opposite side will give the equivilent result or reaction. One example of this could be school work and grades or even relationships. The thing about relationships though, is you can't control the other end. You can control your end and hold up your part of the deal, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the opposite end will give an equal reaction. BUT, it should work that way.