14 Signs Your Best Friend Is Basically The Best Thing To Ever Happen To You
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Hello Holiday Season
Hello everyone,
So Christmas just passed and New Years eve is just around the corner. Everywhere people are posting about what a great year they have had and what they hope for in the coming year. It’s very human of us to behave this way.
It is so easy to look back on this past year and pinpoint moments of elation and happiness and base my judgment of the year on that because most of us are programmed “Bright Side-rs”. We look back and at the very least we can be grateful that we survived and lived to see the end of the year. We forget the hard learned lessons very easily sometimes in our efforts to be able to look back on our lives and see a series of happy memories and accomplishments to be proud of.
Who wants to look back and see all the bad? I know I don’t, and I’m sure a lot of others don’t either. It would be thoroughly depressing. This Bright Side approach is aided by the fact that we are constantly being reminded to be grateful, that things could be a lot worse. Which is undoubtedly true, things could be a lot worse.
What my problem right now is that this Bright Side approach sets me up year after year to repeat the same mistakes. Not identical ones, mind you. When i say “same mistakes”, I mean mistakes that are caused in essence by resilient character flaws in me that I just don’t deal with much less correct because at the end of each year, I want to look back and be happy about the good things and not dwell too much on the bad.
I make bad decisions about people I choose to trust and count as friends and each year I tell myself I will be smarter and yet, at the end of the year I look back and see all the party moments, all the laughs and all the good cheer and think “awww man, these people aren’t so bad”. And the same shit happens again…and again… and again… It might not be the same people but its the same pattern. I am stupid about how not to let people control me, how to not let them be able to hurt me.
I am also a terrible planner. As much as I suffer from OCD and want to be super organized, sometimes my anxiety gets the best of me and I overwhelm myself, which in turn leads to me getting nothing done, rushing last minute, or missing out on opportunities entirely.
These are the two main reasons that I am being consciously very critical of this past year 2014. I had a great holiday earlier this month and I think this holiday is part of why I have come to this realization. I learnt many things on this trip, about the world and about myself, and one of the lessons I am taking to heart is that good things happen when you stop relying on and waiting for others and just DO stuff you need to get done or want to get done. Another lesson is that I really need to get smart already as I approach my quarter-of-century mark and need to finally take some serious control of my life.
So here I am, saying that, I am flawed. I have some serious faults. But I am also realizing that I can control them, maybe even fix them. The first step was to realize that I am the architect of my own misery. For instance, it is my character flaw to be naive and trust the wrong people, because people are just who they are and what they do is what they do, so if their actions hurt me then in a way its my own fault for making the wrong decisions about said people.
This realization has brought with it a strange peace. You would think that by essentially taking away the crutch of blame throwing, I am being forced to really take a good long hard look in the mirror (which is not easy) and this should not equate to peace. But it does, and I am clearer in my mind and in my vision than I have been for years. I am at peace with people. It isn’t their fault. It’s my own, and because it is my own fault: I CAN FIX IT.
That’s where the peace is, knowing that finally there is an answer. If not an actual answer then at least an inkling as to what I need to do, some guidance in what has been a series of years marked by my stupidity. I have a project that inspires me and drives me: MYSELF.
And that is my main resolution for 2015….I will take care of myself, I will enrich myself, I will protect myself and I will better myself. Its about bloody time too.
17 Ugly Life Truths You Learn To Finally Accept In Your Mid 20s
Brilliant. Im about to turn 25 and I need all the guidance I can get. SIgh, QUARTERLIFE CRISES
A lesson in useful non-English vocab….
Words that don’t exist in the english language:
L’esprit d’escalier: (French) The feeling you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of all the things you should have said. Translated it means “the spirit of the staircase.”
Waldeinsamkeit: (German) The feeling of being alone in the woods.
Meraki: (Greek) Doing something with soul, creativity, or love.
Forelsket: (Norwegian) The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love.
Gigil: (Filipino) The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute.
Pochemuchka: (Russian) A person who asks a lot of questions.
Pena ajena: (Mexican Spanish) The embarrassment you feel watching someone else’s humiliation.
Cualacino: (Italian) The mark left on a table by a cold glass.
Ilunga: (Tshiluba, Congo) A person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.
So sure I’ve suffered my share of GIGIL as an adorable child, but after many instances of PENA AJENA as I was growing up, I finally realize that being aPOCHEMUCHKA, though increasing your own knowledge, tends to piss others off. So I broke the habit, and it became like a CUALACINO, a mere fragment of something that used to be there, except I then started to suffer from an accute case of L’esprit d’escalier.
My life is complicated >_<
13 Things Homebodies Say And What They Actually Mean
classic me in the winter
Mad spoof ‘shows North Korea media telling fans team has reached World Cup final’
political spoofs? funny or too much? Opinion?
create with me
This is a beautiful blog and she has fantastic ideas 🙂
My husband’s CEO was reading the Sunday paper when he found a generous article written about my happiness projects. The CEO sent the article around the office as a kind gesture to my husband.
A couple days later, the Director of Marketing asked me to speak to her team about community involvement. The leap between my silly projects and marketing seemed vast, but I agreed to chat when she promised coffee and donuts.
Y’all, I was nervous. The nerves started pop-pop-popping up when I realized I didn’t own business attire or understand how I could help push a corporate agenda forward. Would I waste their time entirely? Should I cancel? I silenced my worries, grabbed a flowery top, and followed my husband to work.
The meeting felt like a conversation between friends: I talked about my background in art and social work, and then they asked for tips on connecting…
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The Penguin and The Machine 