It's About Accepting the Little Things

You know, I used to really hate my thick eyebrows, but recently I've come to love them.  I can't fathom why they were ever aesthetically displeasing to me.

I think in the search for self confidence, people tend to try and tackle everything at once.  Accepting every single thing that you've ever disliked about yourself at one time is tricky, difficult, and it usually doesn't work.  If you take it one thing at a time, one tiny detail after the other, eventually you'll have changed the way you look at yourself completely.

So yes, I love my thick eyebrows because they're sexy as hell when I do this:

'ey gurl, whatchoo doin?

**********************************************************************************

Question For You:

What's one thing that you used to dislike about yourself but you've come to love?

The truth of the matter

What are my goals in life? Well, to be quite honest, I don't have many. I only have one, and that's to

be happy. 

People assume that achieving things will make you happier, and while it does, it only lasts for a short time until you're forced to search for something else to achieve, and thus it's a vicious cycle. If I can't find the inner peace and happiness I long for without all the bells and whistles, well, I'm not entirely sure it's the real thing. 

If the only thing that makes me happy is accomplishing things, then it's not the happiness I want. 

I want a happiness that comes from inside. Something that's constant despite external things.

Yet, consistently, I'm made to feel like a failure because I simply do not wish to do anything.  Because I'm OKAY with my meager existence, and I don't want for anymore than I already have.  I can provide for myself on the money I earn. I can even have luxuries with the money I earn, and buy frivolous things.  I can save up for a vacation.  It might take a little longer than it could, but it will happen.  I'm okay with this.


Yet, I feel like a failure because I AM okay with this.  I feel like I should be motivated to achieve something greater. I feel like I should want a higher paying job, and that I should want other things.  I feel like I should want a job that works only five days a week. I feel like I should want a job that pays more than 8.50 an hour.  I feel like I should want so much more, and the only thing it's doing is making me miserable because the truth of the matter is: I don't.

Beauty is Only Skin Deep [It Starts Somewhere on the Inside]

I typically have a hard time calling myself pretty.  I will always try to find some way around it.  I really have never said that I'm beautiful.  That's a no~no word.

At the same time, I'm moderately vain.  I constantly check in the mirror to make sure that my hair is right, or my make up is correct; making sure that what I feel coincides with what I see.  It seems to be a bit backwards with me.  I feel much prettier when I don't look in the mirror. When I finally see myself, my confidence instantly deflates.  So, while I am always trying to catch my visage in any reflective surfaces, I avidly try and avoid it at all costs.  It's like playing the wheel of fortune, and you never know if you're gonna like it or hate it.
It's mostly because I tend to focus on the negative things over the positive, choosing to focus on the ONE zit that appeared over night, as apposed to the good qualities I have.

Another issue is, I assume that the minute I start saying I'm pretty, or I start pointing out my good traits, someone will call me vain and state that I have no reason to be so.  meh

I'm assuming everyone has a similar problem, because we're all human. We don't always like what we see, sometimes we wish to change something.  I'm tired of it to be honest.  It takes a lot of energy to feel concerned and worried all the time, and it's generally very frustrating.  I've been trying to do a lot of inner work, in hopes of coming to grips with the reality of the situation.  I don't know if I'm any closer than I used to be to finally realizing my own beauty, but at least it's a start.

I always find it hilarious that I have such low self esteem, because I can't ever find anything wrong with my face.  I would say the problem is my weight, but that's a vicious lie.  I weighed 124 pounds in the 9th grade and I still felt ugly all the time.  I know it's all in my head.  It's just a matter of dealing with it.

So, I am going to list the things about myself that I like, and completely disregard the things that I dislike.  I hope that eventually, I can do this all the time without even having to think much on it.  Hopefully, someday, I can internalize this list and believe it all the time, no matter what.

• I absolutely love my eyes.  The shape of them, the color, my lashes.  
• My nose has a good shape to it.  It's small from the front, and it's got a nice slant from the side.
• My lips are nice and full, and they're generally very soft.
• My skin is strikingly clear, and free of blemishes.  It turns a lovely shade of brown when I tan.
• My eyebrows accentuate my features nicely.
• I have dimples in my cheeks when I smile that are cute.
• I have a small dimple in my chin that I think makes me look distinguished.
• My hair is very shiny and soft.
• My hair has very faint strands of red that show up in the sun, which I've always loved.

So:

I challenge everyone to list at least 5 things [physical] about themselves that they love.  Try to avoid words like "mostly", "generally", "sort of", etc. because those are wishy washy words and it means that you don't exactly agree with yourself.  Only list things you feel for sure.

Sharing Love: A Foreign Concept

Every since I was little I've had a few problems with the concept of love.

Originally, it was merely my inability to ascertain what it could mean, or how it pertained to myself.  Over the years I've loved and I have been loved.  I've come to appreciate it much more than I used to, and thus it has taken up a large portion of my heart.

While it has become an easier subject to understand, there are still some issues I can't seem to sort out properly.

For some reason, in my head love seemed to be one giant mass.  Every time you loved someone else, you gave a portion of the mass out.  This applies to friends, family, pets, whoever.  Eventually, you'd get to a point where you don't have enough of the mass left over, so you'd have to take it from certain people and give it to the new people you met.  You'd also have the ability to take away love at will.  If someone has pissed you off royally, or hurt you deeply, you could completely devoid them of the love you once harbored for them.

So when I fought with anyone, I would feel lost and completely inconsolable because I felt as if they'd take their love away from me.  Or if I hadn't seen someone in a long time, I'd be afraid that they'd taken my love and given it to someone else.  If a friend chose to hang out with someone else over me, it was because they'd given them my love, or loved the more than me.  If a bunch of my friends hung out without me, it was because they didn't enjoy my company as much, thus they didn't love me as much.

I'm sure you can see why this thinking is flawed and illogical.  It's also extremely tiring to keep up and makes for jealous tendencies which I hate about myself.

I'm happy to say that I no longer hold the same beliefs of love that I once did, and that's due to many tiring conversations with close friends and family.  I now understand that love is not one singular thing.  It's more like a million different things.  Every time you love someone, you love them a little differently than you love someone else, and thus there are limitless "masses".  So trying to compare your love for you best friend to the love for your mother is impossible.  They're two separate things (thank you Lance for pointing this out).

You also can not remove your love from someone easily, so getting into an argument, not seeing a particular person, etc., will not make your love for them go away.  It may change the dynamic slightly, depending on the severity, but I think that once you love someone it's hard to truly rid yourself of that love completely.  And if you really love someone, you're not going to completely give up on them just because you argue with them.  Parents will yell, friends will be hurt, it's just a part of life.  People are people, and you're not always going to get along with each other, but that doesn't change anything.  At the end of the day, your mother still loves you even if you didn't meet her expectations, no matter how much you argued.

And if a friend is spending time with someone else it doesn't mean they love you any less in lieu of loving them more.  Their love for you is completely separate from their love for their other friends.  And if you feel as if you've been "replaced" you shouldn't because every one is extremely different.  It's not possible for someone to ever "replace" anyone else for the two reasons previously stated:  Because the love for the two individuals is different, and the two individuals are intrinsically different beings to begin with.

Having said that it is possible to become closer to someone else as apposed to old friends, but that's just the nature of things.  If you spend time with someone enough you're going to get to know them more.  It's how it works.

I'm rambling.  I'm sure I left some things out, but I can't think of them right now.

Thoughts?

Baby Steps

There is so much about myself that I have yet to learn, and I've basically stopped my process of soul searching; content with all the progress I've made thus far.  I now have a reason behind the things I do and say, but that means nothing unless I can change the way I think about them.

I have done a lot of work and made a lot of progress, but that was primarily due to Robert and Trina.  It's my turn now.  It's time for the hardest part of this wacky journey.  It's time for me to face up to my demons and accept responsibility.  It's time for me to be happy, to flourish, to be me.  It's time for me to try my hardest to /live/.

As I lay in bead and contemplated this, I tried to think of one major thing I needed to change.  It came rather easy.  There are certain things in this world that, for one reason or another, make all of us involuntarily angry, sad, etc.  The first step is to figure out what those things are.  What are your triggers.  The second step is to figure out /why/ they are your triggers.  What happened in your life, what did someone say to you once upon a time, etc., until you get a good picture as to why these things set you off.

That's where I stopped.  After I unearthed the reasoning behind my actions.  I hit the eject button and went on my merry way, but something happened in my head last night that was... miraculous.  I realized that simply knowing why was not the ultimate goal.  Simply knowing "why" would allow me to use it as an excuse, pardon my unacceptable behaviors, or fuel my negative thoughts when I'm sad.  No, that's not the goal at all.

You have to figure it out, and then you have to let it go.  

I can tell myself "I'm scared to say what I feel because of x reason and y thoughts", but /how/ does that have any bearing on my life now aside from producing these triggers in the first place?  They don't.  So what someone laughed at me for saying how I felt at one point.  Why do I now have to live my life in fear based off of what happened I don't even KNOW how many years ago?  It's kind of stupid if you ask me.

I can't do anything about what happened in the past.  I don't own a time machine and I don't have magical powers.  Nothing I ever say will make it fare.  What I /can/ do is change the way I think about things.  Stop using the faulty logic of a misunderstood five year old, and start thinking like an adult.  Instead of being content with the why's and hows, I need to replace them with truth.  I need to change my schemas, and that's exactly what I intend to do.  One little baby step at a time.

Plenty of Walking and Tons of Bug Bites

I've been trudging along under the swealtering sun for hours now and yet I don't even have a sun burn, but somehow I managed to aquire about a million bug bites, most of which are on my legs.  How is that even possible?  I'm wearing denim PANTS!  Did they buzz up my legs just to mess with me?   I don't even.  It is kind of funny though.  Actually, correction, I /did/ get burned.  It's just underneath my shirt... which didn't even come in contact with the sun.  UV rays, you confuse me.

As of nine am this morning I was officiall signed up for classes.  I didn't get to take Spanish because it was full (well, all except the 7pm class which I can't take if I want to work /anywhere/).  So here it is, my schedumal:

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday:

English 201 [Brittish Literature to 1800] --- 11:00 am - 11:50 am
History 116 [History of Asia since 1600] --- 12:00 pm - 12:50 pm
History 115 [Serpents, Demons, and Divas in Western Civilization] --- 1:00 pm - 1:50 pm

Tuesday and Thursday:

English 207 [Survey of American Literature to the Present] --- 10:50 am - 12:05 am

I ended up taking two histories because the Biology would have been in a weird spot and I need to take the math placement test in order to take any of those. I could still change it to a math, which I might end up doing that (changing Eng. 207 to it), but we'll see.

Also, I figured it all out on a sheet of paper, and if I take 15 credit hours for 3 semesters, and take one math class next summer, I can graduate in 2013 like I was originally supposed to (only 44 of my credits transfered so I'm technically a "sophmore" this semester).  That also means that I can't get in enough Spanish to fulfill a minor, but I can always either do that over the summer as well, or go back for an extra semester.  It wasn't in the original plan, but I really would like it, so I'll have to see how everything plays out. 

ALSO ALSO!  This is the best news of the day!  I went to Financial Aid to discuss why I hadn't been awarded anything if my account said I'd satisfied all the cirteria.  The guy said it didn't make any sense, and he was confused as to why I hadn't been awarded anything, so he went to go ask someone.  About 10 minutes later, he returns and tells me I've been awarded everything I was supposed to be, and that I could now accept it. I ran to a computer lab and accepted all the grants, looking forlornly at the loans.  I REALLY didn't want to accept any of those.  BUT!  After everything was said and done, the grants total up to be enough!  They pay for a full year's tuition with enough left over to buy some used books! 

That is a huge weight off my chest. I've been worried recently about it, and I was scared that if I didn't get awarded anything soon I just wouldn't be going to college this semester, but thank the lord, I am.  I'm so excited now!

Only thing left to do is get my ID (which I was going to get earlier, but the line was way to long, so I'm waiting in the library for a bit), and my books, which I can't pick up till around August 15. 

Everything's working out fine.

What I've learned from this is there's no need to worry. If you keep a straight face and you check into things, they usually tend to sort theirselves out, and if everything's going to be okay regardless, why worry?  I'm going to try my best to remain positive.  It's going to make me feel better.

Also, also, aslo, I've been talking to an old friend of mine.  It's nice.  There's always this edge of not knowing if things are really alright or not though, so it's a bit weird for me. 

But yeah, so that's how today went, and now I'm off to obtain that card. 

~chiao

I'm Trying

That's all anyone can ask of me.

That's all I can ask of myself.

I can.
I will.

Life's pretty good.

:3