100 Days (and beyond) of Happiness Project: Day 1

I am constantly reminded of things in my past, present and future.  The biggest thing I have come to realize is that a lot of situation are so far beyond my control.  What I am in control of is my reaction to those things. I am in control of my happiness, my decisions, how I say things, what I do with my day, and the people I keep in my life. 

It is time for me to start being happy, nice, and myself again.  Lately, I have been in a very negative, scary space.  No longer will I be influenced by things that make me feel less, I am not that person nor will I let myself be.  

I am in graduate school, with a GA, great people around me in a lovely city and it is time I start taking advantage of that.  I thought I had to figure myself out and really I know a lot about myself.  More than I realized.  I am tall, blonde, smart, funny, naïve, awkward, a nerd, a student of life, a child of the modern world, addicted to fiction, a day dreamer, emotional, loving, kind, harsh at times but genuine, too hard on myself, a bad joke teller, I like to sing even though I do not think I am good at it, I have a hard time taking compliments or recognizing my own achievements, I am a hard worker, dedicated, special, unique and even weird.  I drink too much caffeine, love fruit more than any other food group, I like the word crustacean, I question the spelling of words when they are correct, water is my sanctuary and I miss swimming, I want to be a better runner, I want to own/learn to drive/dock/trailer a boat, the open ocean scares me, I secretly love when people are taller than me, I love cupcakes, staying up late, chatting in the dark, camping, kissing, hugging (even though I do not do this often), I love my hair, my smile and my eyes, I miss writing, I love to laugh, listen to retro things and have deep conversations without being judged, I love how my thoughts connect even if others cannot see the connections my mind makes. I love flowers, spring time, summer at the beach, volleyball, the smell of good cologne, freshly showered skin, and even toothpaste.  I love Italian food, traveling, trying new things even though I sometimes need encouragement, culture and learning new things.  I want to learn a new language, see Greece and Spain, travel to every continent by the time I am 50 years old and I have a lot of goals. I want a PhD in Social Justice Education, to make educational policy change, even be president of a well-run or soon to be well run ;) university. I want to change the world.  In so many ways by the smallest of things. I struggle with how and am learning every day. I continue to challenge my own way of thinking and how I can grow as a person. I am daring, bold, cautious and calculated with a sense for pushing the boundaries. I ramble, mumble sometimes, talk a lot and really quickly, I hide my emotions, trust easily and am very guarded at times. I am really bad at keeping secrets unless they are really important, I do not like lying and I am very bad at it. I am forgetful, spread myself thin and wear myself out.  I love tattoos and art, museums and learning, books and the smell of new carpet.  Watermelons and fresh cut grass smell the same to me. I love bubble gum and playgrounds, swings and flying kites, bubbles and puns. Pens that write well, cursive and handwritten letters, photography and light. The stars, campfires and the sounds of nature. I love not always knowing the answer, teaching people, building forts and acting like a child. Strawberries covered in chocolate, raspberries in cream, and homemade jam. I like to bake, am bad at cooking great meals haha, I love to laugh at myself and doodle whatever random images lie in my mind. I love how soft my skin and hair are. 

I love my humor, the ability to make others happy, changing my style and knowing how many people in my life care about me. I love so much it hurts at times. I love Disney and believe in true love.  I know prince charming is out there, I also know that I can be someone’s prince charming too. I know that I should not be afraid of love and holding myself back is not good.  

I love a lot about myself and need to be reminded of it here and there.  This is the challenge of 100 days (and beyond) of happiness.  

Goals- 

I want to unpack one more box by the end of the week.

Go for a long run at least once.

Cook one real meal.

Make one person laugh really hard.

Stop making history worse

We are taught to fear what we do not know.  We out group and other people until we are comfortable and content in our spaces and at what cost? As change agents, we are expected to walk into a world on fire armed with an arsenal of knowledge.  There comes a point when people experience some kind of conflict and have to address the conflict head on or brush it off and let it slide.  When do we decide these moments are most pertinent? Do they shape the rest of our lives, personality, character?

Fear is a very debilitating emotion, it paralyzes and causes doubt.  Living without fear is impossible.  Learning to control our fears and emotions is in fact possible.  We can take steps to see things rationally and in control without losing tempers, becoming upset and emotionally compromised.  There should be a healthy balance of emotion and logic when dealing with fears.  Once that balance is reached, fears are not powerful.  They are real, and very real to some, with emotional baggage and consequence.  

I think in a lot of ways the generation of parents who raised my generation wanted to lessen the blow of reality and how terrible the world is.  There are so many students with anxiety, depression, body image issues, drug and alcohol dependency in alarming numbers. Why? Is there an easy answer?  We were taught to fear everything. Matt Shepard was murdered when I was seven years old, 9/11 was at age 10 beginning the War on Terror, I moved from a small town in Wyoming to Houston, Texas at age 13, attempted suicide at 14, was outed as gay at 16 and those are just some of the major events that shaped who I am today.  I have learned invaluable lessons from all and cherish those experiences as my history. One thing people do not realize is that the media has hyped so many of these issues in so many aspects that millennials are programmed to fear.  Fear not being “cool”, have the newest technology, clothes, best body, best education, job, car, house, watch, hair, looks, Twitter feed, Facebook profile and the list runs on forever.  Older generations may have done things the hard way and they learned hard lessons.  My generation is taught to find the easy way and exploit it.  I am even guilty of this because it is in my nature to look for these.  I work hard, I have put in a lot of effort into my education, my life and the people around me.  A lot of that is due to the fact that I am afraid.  Not of failure, I am afraid of disappointing people, missing an opportunity, a pivotal moment, a chance on love, the new hip buzz word.  I am tired and frustrated with how the system of modern culture creates heuristics in my mind so I will not question society and the structure in place.  As a culture, we are being told to be complacent in what is handed to us and I, for one, am tired.  The government is raising little capitalist-bots to follow suit and fill the mold when we should be breaking the mold into indistinguishable features. Obviously the old ways aren’t working, society is not getting better. We have kids being shot for no reason, public beatings with people video taping it and not doing anything to step in, a government manipulating and exploiting its people while we stand by.  

Change starts with ourselves. One person deciding to stand up.  It also means that others need to lean on one another as well.  This nation needs to stop being divided and start helping each other. Not hand outs, hands up.  The opportunity to bring society together again through little actions that ripple into tidal waves.  There are a lot of post-apocalyptic films, television shows and pop culture references but the situation is not that impossible. One war, one bomb, one cataclysmic natural disaster and are we fit as a country or world to handle it? Australian wildfires in the early 2000’s, Hurricane Katrina, earthquakes in the Middle East that the news played for a day, Haiti, the Indonesian Tsunami, the nuclear meltdown in Japan.  You think this is the worst the world has? We are far from that.  Climate Change brings about unforeseen consequences to nature, we are on the brink of another cold war or  World War III, Israel and Palestine, continuing acts of terrorism and President Obama stating we are going to take action against islamic regimes.  People are naive to think there is not something wrong, and more wrong that they are powerless to do something. What is it going to take? What will make people ready to see what they need to see? Or will it be too late?

I sure hope not, through education, change and a lot of hard work I believe we can tip the scales back. I cannot say how long that will take or what that looks like yet but people really need to start seeing things differently.  The American Dream is gone and disappearing every day that we allow the wealthy class to take and take from us without giving back to the United States economy by outsourcing and offshore bank accounts. We rationalize it as good business when it will be the downfall of the greatest economy the world had ever seen.  Public education needs to be improved and students need to realize this is not a punishment and education is a way of survival. Implementing steps to make healthy change in how our children think critically is more important now than ever.  All ages should take responsibility for what they have control over and then make a difference how they can.  It is time to make history, not watch it happen.

wake up

There are a lot of thoughts that I've run through over and over again.  It took something from my past to break the glass wall surrounding my mind.  See, it's not my heart I was protecting this time.  My heart has been sealed away, locked into a box waiting for something else.  My mind is what I value most about myself.  My knowledge, ability to see what others can't and have the dreams that I have.  I guess protecting my mind means that letting new things in isn't part of the deal.  I was doing what I always do by hiding and running from myself that I forgot that maybe there is no end in sight.  Or at least not a good one.  I've moved and changed so much that I don't know is stable or not stable, where I'll be or what I'll be doing.
I lost what gives me life.  The light that sparks up in the morning and makes me excited to go and do something.  The people that used to give me life are so far away that it stretches the light so thin I can barely see it.  I know it's there and every now and then I can feel it on my face.  Like feeling the sunlight through a window in winter.  It's there, but stepping out into the cold hits you like a tidal wave in monsoon season.  The elements of nature can't be run from, so we prepare for them.  Warm clothes, an umbrella, even a bottle of sunscreen.
I'm basically a simple mess. I know I'm a mess and I don't know how to fix it but all I do know is that I'm figuring it out.  It took a guy who I thought was a friend, yelling at me and treating me like crap, to remind me of exactly what I don't want in life.  Doesn't matter what I do want or even what happens tomorrow because all I know is what happens today.
Today, I went to brunch with some friends and reminded me that I do have great people around me.  They're incredible and insightful, we have meaningful conversations and I feel a little less broken, a little less cracked at the seam.
A place is only as good as the people we keep in it.  So it's time to start making this place great.