Inspiring Thought

     Today I searched "inspiration" into the search bar on Pinterest just to see what popped up. I was scanning pictures of "love yourself", "happiness comes from within", and "life is what you make it" quotes until I came across this one. It resonated with me. Lately I have been letting myself become insanely stressed with school, love life (or lack there of if we are being honest), friends, the news, and my future. I have allowed anxiety to overrun my life and rule my thoughts and every second of my day. I am afraid I can't achieve my goals or live a successful life.
     This quote/paraphrased bible verse brought me back to the realization that I will always be worried and stressed if I keep trying to control my life and figure everything out right this second. Instead, I need to give it to God. I need to remember that He promises in Romans 8:28 that we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose. This means that yes, I will probably fail a test, lose friends, lose a family member, go through a breakup, experience terrible heartache, and not end up exactly where I wanted to land sometimes but I that I can have absolute assurance that God did not let me go through those things with out having a divine purpose to bring good, peace, and mercy from that situation. I don't understand every situation I have lived through or how there could possibly be good that came from them. But I don't have to because I know that there is Someone who has it all figured out. Bad things happen to us and those we love but it doesn't mean that God isn't with us and there to help us when we call on Him.
     This picture also brings to my mind the idea that maybe we just need to have faith in ourselves as well. We need to have faith that we can achieve our goals. If we let our self deprecating thoughts determine what chances we take then we will never go anywhere. Don't live in fear that you won't be pretty enough, smart enough, strong enough, talented enough ect. to reach your goals. That is not how a life should be spent. Life takes hard work and grit. Worrying and doubting gets us nowhere, but risks and taking those blind leaps of faith do. Failure is obsolete. Failure only represents that we were brave enough to try even if it didn't turn out how we wanted. I was told my freshman year of high school that I would regret every chance I didn't take. That is the only direct quote I can remember distinctly from those whole four years. It is hard to get the guts to chase your dreams or just put yourself out there, but it is insanely worth it. Because of that quote I challenged myself to start a blog last year and I am so grateful I did. It may not be the most popular thing, but I put myself out there on the internet and I will continue to do so until I have achieved what I hope to with this site. I constantly consider how my friends will interpret my posts, if I will be judged, or laughed at. But who cares? I am doing what I love to do and that is all that is important. What do you want to do that you just can't seem to muster up the courage to do quite yet? It can be the most insignificant thing or the biggest most impossible dream ever. But whatever it is, live by faith and not by fear.
     

Feeling Blessed



 

     Right now I am at home visiting my family on a long weekend and it has been amazingly refreshing. At this moment I am contemplating life while enjoying this beautiful view and sipping cinnamon apple spice tea out of a mug my sister hand painted years ago for my dad. 

     Life has been a little hectic for me these last couple of weeks and I have found it far easier to wallow in my own personal despair than to acknowledge all of the good around me. But there is so much good to be seen. I have a loving family, who is still in tact and whole which is more than many people can say now adays. I have the opportunity to get an amazing education at a university not everyone has the option to attend. I have made some of the most crazy and wonderful friendships in the last 8 weeks that I know I will treasure forever. The people I have met are truly the best. I have allowed myself to frequently get in over my head with trivial situations and thoughts and let myself completely miss all of the joy around me. But there are so many things I have been blessed with and I from now on I will work on being grateful for each one of them.

10 Things That Become Important Right When You Start Homework

     

The struggle is so real.

1. Check Instagram. I always find it extremely important that I keep updated on what that one girl is doing that I don't really know but only followed cause she is friends with this other girl I spoke to like twice my sophomore year.

2. Fill my water bottle up even though it's only half empty. I think I read on the internet one time that staying hydrated helps people focus.

3. Clean my room. How can I study if my bed isn't made and the floor isn't vacuumed?

4. Get a chai latte with espresso. Honestly, procrastination is tiring and I find myself often needing to go find caffeine in order to get me through another few hours of avoiding my Biology assignment.

5. Snapchat everyone in my contacts list. I wouldn't want anyone to think I had forgotten about them in the last ten minutes since my last snap cause that's just a rude thing to do.

6. Get a snack. Ya know, I think I read somewhere else that you can't study on an empty stomach.

7. Check in on how my friends homework is going. I just wanna make sure they don't need any help, obviously.

8. Go to the bathroom. again. I always have to pee so much when I start studying. Weird....

9. Go to the gym. It is really important that I go to the gym right this second because I wouldn't wanna miss out on that yoga class that didn't sound interesting till right this second.

10. Sleep. It's hard to focus when I'm tired anyways.

A Letter to the Ones I've Lost

    

I saw this post on an awesome blog called Serendipity and Creativity  that was a letter to some friends that she has grown apart from and after I read it I felt like it was something I wanted to do too. There are a few people that came to mind while reading hers and I thought I might try it as a way to let go. We have all had best friends, boyfriends, girlfriends or just people that we shared a piece of our lives with that are no longer ones we can count on or feel close and loved by. It's hard when you go about your life day by day and then one day just realize that you don't think of them as often as you used to and that they don't think of you either. It's heartbreaking and something that is never easy.

Dear Someone That I Used To Know,

      I miss you so much. I think about you often and I don't understand how this happened. I imagined you to be in my life forever and never saw the day coming that you wouldn't be. I respect you so much and respect your thoughts and see so much light in you. Even still. I don't think you realized how much I valued you and our friendship. I would have done anything for you, you only need ask.
     It is difficult to explain the amount you meant to me. I depended on you for the support and love that I would have given you as well. But it seems to me I was mistaken at the level of which you valued me. I feel a fool that I would ever put that much trust into a person because it is an easy way to break yourself. I am broken. You have hurt me in a way that I don't know can be repaired.
     I realize my mistakes as well with you. I could have made more efforts to accept you for who you were and not try to change you into the person I wanted you to be. I see now that I needed to just accept you for you and leave it at that instead of battling with you over who I thought you should be versus who you were. That is a struggle of mine. I think that I see what I perceive to be the best version of someone, and then disappoint myself when they don't live up to my preset standards. I should have learned to accept you for you, not for who I hoped you would become.
    It is hard for me, and maybe this is my own one sided mind speaking, but I can't see the point in trying to put new life into the scrap of a friendship that remains because I have felt more pain thinking about you then I want to admit. Maybe I am cowardly, but I know my limits. I wish I could push through that limit and forge ahead to make amends, but I just don't have the ability to. I feel as if I always put the first foot forward and now I am empty. My trust and reliance in you is broken. There is nothing else I can do. My one sided perspective is trying to convince me that I should just let go and forget because it keeps reminding me that if you really cared about me, you would show it. Wouldn't you?
     For right now, I am going to leave it be. Sometimes people change, I know I have. And though I guess I wouldn't know, I can guess you probably have too. I wanted to share my exciting parts of life with you, to call you and tell you about everything. I pictured telling new friends about you and how much I would love for them to meet you. How you were a friend that would make me laugh when I was sad and accept me for me. But the only version of you that they hear of is the one that I used to be familiar with because even I don't know the newest model of you. I wish I did but I don't. I want my new friends to love my old friend just as much as I did. But they never will.
     It goes both ways though. These recent friends know the newest and shiniest version of who I am but you only know the old one. I wanted you to be the person who knew the outdated me and the current me. I wanted you to know the me who I will become in a year. And the me that will develop ten years after that. But you won't. Even the friends I've just made can see my newest self is tainted by the memory of you and the hurt that comes with remembering our friendship.
     They tell me to forget about it and move on because "that's life". I am moving on but every little thing drags me right back to you and what you meant to me. You were my companion and supported me and let me be crazy and myself. You recognized qualities in me that I didn't even notice, and that in turn encouraged me to grow. You were amazing at being understanding when I needed you to and silly when you knew I needed that instead. And you are still wonderful and intelligent and I hope for the best in everything you do. Know that I miss you and haven't forgotten about you. But know that though I miss you, I can't hang on to you and keep ignoring the chasm that has developed between us. I can't hurt myself dwelling over why you don't want me in your life anymore, nor can I dwell on wondering if you ever really wanted my friendship at all. I've started to fear that I was the ignorant and naïve one who assumed we were on the same page with our friendship, and maybe I was. No more can I overanalyze what I must have done wrong to turn you away, because I think I understand my part in our loss of friendship and I am truly sorry. I hope that one day we can forget about this lapse of time where we didn't speak, but until then I will continue to try and move on and not think about the dwelling sadness covered up in the back of my mind trying to escape and flood over me again.

Sincerely,
Your old friend

What You Should Look For in a Significant Other

  

 

 

 I think that the most fulfilling feeling in the world is to know that you are loved deeply and unconditionally, by someone besides God and his unconditional love for you. And people spend endless amounts of time looking for that treasure shared between them and another person. The problem though is that sometimes we spend so much time concentrating and searching for that person to share our life with that we actually may be missing the opportunity to find them when we just relax. Instead of focusing on becoming who we are supposed to be and who we are meant to become, we focus on finding the right person. But I think that many times we don't find the right person until God or the universe or just fate decides we are ready. And if we don't focus on our own person and spend time developing who we are becoming then we will never be "ready" to meet that soul mate.
     It shouldn't be a rush to find the love of your life. It happens naturally and can't be forced. I am looking forward to so greatly to the man that I fall in love, and the exciting part is the wait. Who knows what will happen? Right now these are a list of the things I think are important when considering any guy as more than a friend:

1. Someone who challenges you. Nothing is more exciting than meeting a person who makes you think in new ways or excites you to attempt to adventures. Never go after someone who is stagnant and doesn't encourage personal growth.

2. Common values. For me, a shared passion for God is what I find important simply because my faith is in the forefront of my life and I want someone who can relate to me in that. But it can just be as simple sharing the same morals.

3. Common interests. I like to hike and explore or try new restaurants or activities and a guy who shares those interests is attractive to me. It ties in with the challenging aspect. I don't want someone who isn't interested in doing active and exciting things. It varies though, maybe having someone who absolutely loves reading is important, or cooking. Whatever excites you.

4. No one upping. Competition in relationships are fun but when it comes down to just trying to one up the other, that's when it gets bad. It isn't fun getting belittled in relationships instead of encouraged. Which leads us to...

5. Encouragement. One of the best feelings is the world when someone truly believes in you and hopes for you to succeed.

6. Being "ready". Lastly, it is definitely important that whoever you are talking to is on the same page as you with what is going on. Don't pursue something that the other person isn't looking for because believe me, it never works out. Ever. If they aren't ready then take that for face value.

Know that you don't need a relationship to define you, but when you do find yourself considering someone that they truly meet what you are looking for because it is better to wait than to settle.