50 Words

I just read one of the most inspiring blog posts I've seen in a long time. It was written by someone I worked with in Fiji and have never ceased to be amazed by. The part that really caught my attention is the video below:

I have been looking for a motivation in my life, some kind of structure.

And I think this is part of my answer.

I am going to spend a week on each word starting today--

discovering what the word really means and embodying it and exercising it in my own life

after which I will write a post on what I have learned.

Join me in this adventure?

Guns and Butterflies

This post has absolutely no point. I simply want to write.

Meet Olga-- a 22 rifle with a butterfly named Chloe. Yes, for a summer I shot guns named after girls and had a pet butterfly. I was actually quite good at shooting.. I once duct taped a plastic bat to a target and shot it straight through the heart. I'm sure its still floating around somewhere because I'm kind of a hoarder when it comes to those kinds of memories. I spent hours upon hours in December scrapbooking my life from the past year. To the point where it was almost an obsession. Now that I'm done, I don't even know who would look at the books. But it kept me busy. It kept my thoughts quiet for a couple hours each night. I've discovered over the past couple months that I can find a lot more truth in my subconscious than my conscious state of mind. Consciously I have mostly come to accept the reality of my life. I force myself to act the way I know is probably best and keep my mouth shut when needed but it is my dreams that show me that I'm still not entirely well. I sleep to escape only to find my escape to be even more honest. Honesty is such an interesting thing.. as much as I want to spill out so many questions and comments and thoughts I have and be as honest as possible, I am still trying to figure out how to be honest with myself. After all, isn't that what I have control over? Myself. While I can't change circumstances, I can always change myself. And that's what I'm living on right now-- that as I figure out who I want to become and take on the courage to be that person, that circumstances will change. I fight my flight reaction every single day because I have just enough left tethering me down here that I'm afraid of ripping it away. Plus, flight will not change my circumstances or hand me a step by step guide to perfection-- it will only put more distance and a few layers of dust. Better to take things head on, right? I agree. I love the idea of big black trash bags. They absolutely terrify me, yet I find so much release in them. Let me explain-- just as my room is cluttered with junk, so is my life and my thoughts. I'm uneasy about the idea of tossing so many things in a black hole, but for the most part, they're rubbish. As uncomfortable as the process may be, how wonderful is that feeling when your room is suddenly neat and free? And that's what I want for my life. I want to take a trash bag to it so that after I get rid of all the cluttered waste that I have been holding onto purely for security, I will be able to see my focuses. And at that point I will slam my foot on the accelerator and be internally free-- eliminating the strain caused by my desire to flee.

Life According to Scrabble

I absolutely love playing games.

You could even say I'm quite addicted. 

My latest favorite is playing Words With Friends. It takes the pressure off of someone waiting for you for 5 minutes to make a move. Basically the same idea as text messaging-- the option is available at your convenience and the delayed response gives you time to think of something a little more witty to say than you normally would in a typical conversation or game.

The objective of WWF/Scrabble is to score more points through your words than your opponent.

So naturally you would think that your entire focus should be on YOU scoring points and making sure the other person doesn't..

Is there anything worse in the game than watching someone score 50+ points on a TW that you set them up for?

But that focus doesn't really work. Yes, your objective is still winning, but no one wants to play a crappy round of WWF when their every move is blocked and they spend the entire game playing defense rather than offense. When that happens-- no one gets to play.

I'd much rather play a game where there's a little sacrifice and setting up on both players parts than trying to destroy their every move.

Isn't that how life works? If we're constantly focused on getting our own perfect score, the joy of the game is gone. Sure, you technically won the game point-wise, but is that truly the objective of the game? To win through points?

Taking this idea of game playing up another notch, what about game playing in general?

How much can you read into a person's personality by the way they play games?

I'm here to argue-- a lot!

I realized last night that I'm not addicted to games to win. 

It's still nice and I'm not going to claim it doesn't mean anything to me..

But that's not what I look to get out of games.

I love playing games because of the people I play with.

How much can you learn from someone's answer to Things or Loaded Questions or What's Yours Like?

How much can you learn from their strategy in playing Monopoly Deal?

Do they even have a strategy at all?

Are they more interested in talking than playing the game?

Have they come to realize that once you have a set down you want to make sure you have enough cash built up to protect it and that the easiest way to win is to target those without cash so they pay in property?

Are they patient towards other players or do they make snide remarks that while stated jokingly, have a great deal of truth behind them?

Do they take charge as the center of attention in the game or are they the quiet ones concentrating on their hand?

Do they let a mistake go or push the issue until a rule book is pulled out?

Are they satisfied to lose or does it become an ordeal of "that wasn't fair."?

There are traits I've found in people through playing games that I now know to be more patient towards.

There's also traits in some people's game playing that I've been seriously impressed by and it makes me want to spend more time with them to learn more.

If you thought game night was all fun and games..

maybe there's a little more?

How Do You Know

Wednesday night ended up being a lovely night at home watching movies with my roommates while eating waaaay too much food because I'm sick of cooking for just myself so I have compromised with making a lovely meal for two and eating it all by my lonesome. 

One of the movie choices of the night was How Do You Know.

I've already gone over my thoughts on how you know you love someone so here's what I found interesting instead:

I loved the theme of being someone. Figuring out who you are and who you want to be and then making those adjustments.

This quote is when Lisa talks to a shrink-

Lisa: "So I was just wondering if there was one general thing that you've found over the years to be generally true in a general way that would help anyone in any situation? 

Shrink: "That's a great question, yes, I would say figure out what you want and learn how to ask for it."

Isn't that truly one of the most difficult quests we travel on in our lives? Beneath all the superficial temporary packaging material, what do we really want? And once we figure that out, how do we go about earning it?

We love putting off those questions. It's so much easier to fill our time with packaging material activities (like spending an evening gorging ourselves on movies and food). 

Personally, I love keeping myself so busy that I only have time to feel like I'm constantly accomplishing rather than totally lost in a long-term vision of my life.

"I don't know that I can do great but I know that I can do better."

We get this idea in our minds that we must be all or nothing. Well, at least I do.

Why is my thesis not done? Oh, because I constantly feel overwhelmed at all I still have to do, yet I would have been done a long time ago if only I had paced myself with one assignment a week. 

The same occurs with our desires to achieve the person we've always wanted to be.

Yes, I want to be this fantastically gorgeous girl who has great grades, is really good at singing & playing the piano, can make you laugh at any moment, never once complains, steps up as a leader, has resolved all her family issues. .  . . . . I can't be all of those things now.

No one can simply change overnight.

Great is achieved through a lot of betters.

We can be better if we split our lives up one better at a time.

"When you're in something, you've gotta give it all you have. Or else what are you doing?"

How often are we lukewarm? Floating somewhere in between because we simply don't care enough to make a solid decision.

Or we're lazy. Which also means we just don't care.

When I find things I care about, I try to be all in. And I fail miserably. I think most people do.

But how wonderful is it to see the results of giving something our all?

Even if what we're working at doesn't work out we will be able to look back without regrets because we have the affirmation that we did our very best and if that wasn't enough, then there's nothing more we can complain about.

"We're all just one small adjustment away from making our lives work."

It seems that far too often we become frustrated and walk away from a task. Ya know-- I just can't figure this problem out in my homework, my relationship with someone I care about just don't have that special something I'm looking for, no matter how much I budget my finances I never come out with extra cash... so screw it!

I hate the term "screw it" but I feel that it properly emphasizes my point.

How often are we SO close? We've put so much work into the things we care about and they're just not working out as we had hoped but we can't see that we are one slight adjustment away from working it out. 

Yes, there's a point when you've simply reached a dead end and need to walk away for at least a little while, but I think more often than we realize, we are almost there but we're so caught up with the irrelevant that we can't see the real problem or solution.

"Never drink to feel better. Only drink to feel even better."

I don't really think this fits into the general thought I took out of the movie, but I love it anyways.

When I heard this quote here's where my thoughts went-

That is genius! I don't drink alcohol so what is my replacement? Ben & Jerry's. When I eat B&J to feel better I just end up still moody with 1000 extra fat calories in my body and $4 less in my bank account. But when I eat B&Js when I'm happy it just makes me even happier.

I don't know if this is enough for me to give up that tradition though. I truly think that is one of the most brilliant lines I have ever heard.

And all those little lines are the reasons I can sit through a dumb chick flick and still love it.

A Blind Mind

I love this picture. Not just because I'm in it, ;) but because it is a perfect candid shot. 

I don't remember it being taken. I don't remember seeing the camera.

It was by mere happenstance that I came into possession of this picture.

I love the commotion-- it's NYC-- energy, people, traffic, noise... and then just me. Standing there. Silent in that mass of crazy.

Isn't that how our lives are sometimes? Full of total chaos and every once in a while, we notice someone who has filled the background of our lives, because for a split second, something happened to make us notice.

That's probably my favorite question to ask people-- "At what point did you notice me?"

At what point did I become a still figure in a teeming crowd of chaos?

Today while I was intermediately working on my thesis and Facebook stalking, I had a thought.

This thought began with the reception of a simple "hello" partnered with a compliment.

Which then turned into a "hmmmm" on my part.

Which then led to a moment of stalking the person.

Which then led to research stalking on Facebook.

Which then developed into the statement, "why weren't you ever this awesome before?"

I recently finished reading a book called Blink. Its main focus is pointing out how much information we take in during a split second first impression.. information we can't really put words to.

For most people, our split second first impressions of them are relatively unimportant.

We forget about them ten seconds later.

Every so often someone makes a special impression on us but for the most part.. we simply don't care.

It's not something we can really change.. we meet thousands of people in our lifetime and boring unattached first impressions are bound to happen.

But my thought today is on what I'll call a second, first impression.

Sometimes, months after we've been subconsciously ignoring someone, they do something that catches our attention and we can, in a way, have a new first impression of them.

Whether this is expressed as a mental "Oh!" "Aha!" "Hmmmm" or "Whaaaaaat???",

it sometimes happens.

And I am grateful for second, first impressions. 

They give me a chance to discover something beautiful in someone who has always been beautiful (which I can see now as I look back) but I had already dismissed them from my attention.

Cheers.

Big Fish

I have discovered a fascination for Tim Burton films. I don't think they're necessarily all that spectacular, but they're practically guaranteed to be every last bit of interesting.

My last encounter with a Tim Burton film was Big Fish. I don't even know where to start in sketching it out..

It is a myriad of stories all interconnected. There are so many different story lines you could focus on-- 

a dying man

a lost son

a love story

a million different deeper meanings

I think each person is drawn to different aspects of the movie.

They see their own life in the lives of the characters.

Here's what I saw:

Some of these quotes I'll be taking out of their context and twisting them to fit my thoughts a little bit but I hope that it will come out mostly making sense.

If it doesn't, well, just pretend I'm teaming up with Tim Burton.

"They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true. What they don't tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up."

There are moments in life when we get caught up in the moment. When for a period of time, everything is perfect and your greatest dreams are standing right in front of you. Looking back on it, it is that bright sunny moment when you remember not being able to stop smiling. 

But time can't stand still forever. 

When that bright flashing moment ends, there is often a period of time when you're still so dazzled by that bright sunshine that you have to wait for your eyes to readjust. And usually when that finally happens, you're scrambling to catch up as time has been rapidly passing you by without your acknowledgement.

"There's a time when a man needs to fight, and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny is lost... the ship has sailed and only a fool would continue. Truth is... I've always been a fool."

Every once in a while you get set on a single idea. You'd give anything for that idea to work. Anything at all. But hey, reality check.. its not gonna. Then comes the planning-- time, change, patience. Fight fight fight for it! And you know you're a fool. But.... you're set on that idea.

"You were a big fish in a small pond, but this here is the ocean and your drownin'. Take my advice, go back to Puddleville; you'll be happy there."

Sometimes we get so engulfed in EVERYTHING that we get lost. We forget our focuses. We are dog paddling for life because we're too frantic to remember how to swim. We lose the things we care about-- not because we don't still care, but because we're so consumed with the irrelevant that we can't see the clear picture of what we really want. It's good to go back to the basics and practice swimming again. 

"It occurred to me then, that perhaps the reason for my growth was I was intended for larger things. After all, a giant man can't have an ordinary-sized life."

We're bestowed with tremendous lessons of learning. We grow and understand often only to return to what we had been doing all along. But that growth... it is a window of opportunity to be so much more. We limit ourselves to who we've always been because sometimes we can't comprehend all we can be.

"Have you ever heard a joke so many times you've forgotten why it's funny? And then you hear it again and suddenly it's new. You remember why you loved it in the first place."

We start going through the motions. Suddenly we realize that we do the exact same thing over and over and over again not because we care.. but simply because its the rhythm we've paced ourselves to. Wake up! Go through your life and rediscover who you are. Rediscover why you do the things you do and find that passion and love again.

I suppose in the film I saw the invitation to be more-- to not only get caught up in the moment but to be the moment. 

Get a grip on who you are and what you live for and make sure those things are what you want to be.

If you're going to be a fool-- realize it and add it as a chapter in your fairytale.

Laugh and swim.

Running Away From Home

There's a place that I go when I feel far far away from living 

When my world explodes into an intangible cloud of dust

I go there in search for some kind of yearning 

Even though all I have left is an empty heart of hope

There are few who I have taken to that place where I drift

Between life, between caring while I stand there alone

While the wind is as empty as my life has been feeling

I pray for that one to keep me away from my harm

That prayer has silenced-- its barely a whisper

How can I live when my life is all gone?

Its only a matter of time 'til I fall

From wind to stairs to the valley below

The chapter has ended with tears shed aplenty 

A story of dreams drug from bold to a thread

A thread from which I'm so dangerously hanging

Unready to cut loose and wake from the fall

So here I am waiting for miracles many

When what I should do is just run away from home