The journey

Everyday is a new day.

Or so they say.

It's not about the destination, it's about the journey.

Or so they say.

They say all sorts of things and I don't know who they are or why we should listen to them.

Each of us is different and each of us is similar.

We all want a few things in life and yet we are all stumbling down our own paths towards whatever it is that we are hoping to obtain or attain.

Is it about what we need or what we want? How do we know what it is that is going to be our life's passion? How do we know if we are doing the right thing? How do we truly know anything?

What is it that we are supposed to be doing anyway? Why is it that Americans are so incredibly depressed all the time? Why is it that young people are so miserable?

We compare ourselves to the rest of the world based on the things that we see about them on social media. Most people don't put their bad pictures out there for the world to see. So you're comparing your normal life to their highlight reel. But it is not fair to ourselves to compare our life to someone else's life.

We have to understand that we are on our own journey. We are only supposed to be better today than we were yesterday. We can't expect to be perfect. We aren't perfect and we don't live in a perfect world.

We can't expect to be what someone else is because we are not them. I am me and you are you. I am never going to be you and you are never going to be me. I am not as pretty as my two younger sisters and I don't try to be. I don't compare myself to them in that way.

I am not ever going to have the kind of life where I can say, "yeah, we have been married for 70 years." I already know that because I have never been married and I recently turned 37 years old. Lol. That's okay though. Because I can say that I have never been  divorced. I can say that I have never made the ultimate commitment that I couldn't keep. I can say that I am smarter than that. I can say that I would rather have never married than to be divorced 7 times. I can say that I believe that my God would rather me be sure before I make such a commitment that to be unsure and waste the time of myself and someone I care about.

It is not easy being me. It has been a struggle. It is a constant daily struggle. Everyday I try to be better than I was yesterday, and that is all I can really do.

And that's all that you can do too.

What makes your soul happy?

In the past six months, I have been on a true spiritual journey where I have been  trying to find myself - what I am and who I want to be. I have been trying to find what it is that I want to do with my life.

Sometimes I do not feel like I have grown at all until I spend time with people who say they see such a tremendous change in me, in my attitude, in my outlook, in my positive mindset. People who don't spend alot of time with me on a daily basis are probably more likely to see the changes in me than those I am around everyday.

I have become more confident, happier and healthier. People want to know what changed me, as if it is a pill that they can take and be changed overnight and it is not.

It has taken me a lot of time and effort and work to make the changes in my life that others see. But perhaps I can give others an inspiration or an insight into how they can go on their own journey and find more about themselves.

So perhaps that is where my passion lies. Perhaps helping other people is my calling. I have an affinity for working with people, for making conversation with perfect strangers, for making others feel at ease and comfortable.

Maybe in discussing my own journey and what I have experienced will help others to have some experiences of their own.

So that's where I shall begin. I have been a writer since I could first pick up a pen. I know that I can find a way to discuss my own life in an entertaining and rewarding way. I am sure that I will be able to make a difference, perhaps using only the power of my words. That would make my soul happy.

Negativity is contagious

Somehow I have found that people seem to enjoy my company. They find me positive and uplifting. My aunt recently told me that she loves being around me and that when I leave her she still feels good and motivated. 

In our family, we have alot of Negative Nellys. The people who complain about everything and who make you feel worse when they're gone. They sit around telling you what you need to be doing and what you're not doing that's good enough. They complain about everything in their life and everything in your life too.

Judgmental and hypocritical, it can be difficult to stay positive when surrounded by the negativity. The reason being that negativity is contagious. We are programmed to think negatively anyway. 

The best way that I found to decrease the negative thoughts in my mind has been through meditation and hypnosis recordings. I know that it sounds silly but when I had nothing else, I turned to God and to self help books.

Learning to be mindful right now and enjoy your life right now at this moment in time is very important to live a balanced life. No matter what is going on in your life right now, there is something that you can be grateful for. There is something that you can be glad of. And if there is nothing else then you can be glad that you woke up.

Life is what we make it. It is not a guarantee that you will be successful at every thing that you try to do. But it is a guarantee that you will not be if you don't even try.

Still working on my masterpiece

Recently I took a test to see what my calling is in life. The results showed me that I am supposed to be an inspiration to others. That's my calling in life.

I took another test to see what my vocation should be. The results showed that I should be a writer, which is what I have always wanted to be anyway.

I thought as a child that I would be a teacher, and as I grew up I thought that I wanted to be a lawyer. Then I thought somewhere around the 7th grade that I wanted to be a writer. In the 8th grade, I had to write a book for the talented and gifted program. The TAG teacher, along with my accelerated English teacher, said that I was a talented writer and they wouldn't be surprised if they found my books in a bookstore one day.

From then on I wrote ferociously. I had always been an avid reader since I was a small child. My grandmother says that before I had to take the test to see if I needed to go to kindergarten, I was already smarter than a second grader. (She also says that I was a beautiful child like Elizabeth Taylor, so I am not sure how much of that is true vs her bias.)

I made so high on the test that I didn't have to go to kindergarten. It wasn't required at that time. By second grade they were testing my IQ to see if I qualified for the talented and gifted program, which I got into without a problem. I remained in the accelerated and gifted programs until I graduated which I was able to do a year early due to having enough credits to graduate.

Even graduating a year early I was selected as one of the salutatorians of our class. I was surprised, thinking that surely the fact that I was graduating from the 11th grade would make me ineligible. I wasn't sure, but I had hoped. I didn't want to speak in front of a bunch of people at graduation.

But I did. And it wasn't that bad. I don't think that anyone even remembers my speech. I certainly don't.

I should have done more with my life because of those things but I did not do all that I wanted to do. I made mistakes along the way. But I survived and I am still working on my masterpiece.