Passions...

Growing up I was a very active child. I never wanted to sit still, actually it felt like I never had the ability to sit still. I was tested for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, which is a facet off of Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D.). Turns out I have it, meaning that I get distracted easily, and people would always tell me just focus. However that was never even in my options, I couldn't, so early on in life I was put on Medication to help manage my A.D.D. because it's not a disease or something to be cured it's a learning disability. As I got older and learned what A.D.D.  meant it all started making sense. I could have five different things going on all at once and not have a problem, it wasn't that I wasn't able to focus it was that doing just one thing bored me. I was bored, I wasn't lazy I wasn't confused. I wasn't being taught right, I wasn't being stimulated enough.

Anyways, growing up I would play outside a lot because I had to keep moving, I really had no other choice. My brother is five years older than me, he taught me so much about sports and he taught me a lot about life as well through sports however I don't think he knows he ever did. When you grow up playing sports even if it's just recreational, you learn a lot of life lessons. And so many of those lessons are very valuable to building good character. First when you fall, get back up, try it again, you will never succeed if you don't get back up. There have been many times when we were playing basketball that I would fall and I remember him telling me get back up. Every time I did, every time I fell I got right back up and I still do today. He taught me how to hit a baseball, he would say slice the ham, don't chop it (up and down) and nobody wants a triangle shaped ham, right down the middle. My brother was my hero, he still is, yeah there were a couple of bad times, but what I admire most about him was that even through those hard times he kept getting back up and kept trying.

Life is hard, your going to get knocked down, knocked out of bounds. The point of life is to remember those moments, let those moments drive you, let them push you harder. I adopted a motto not two long ago about 3 years ago, I don't scare easily, and I don't give up. My passion, is working hard, because at the end of the day i'm going to give it everything I've got because that's what I was taught. Give it 110 nothing less.

High School

Growing up is not easy, in fact it is quite scary. I will confess something, I love Disney Channel. I am not ashamed to say it, some of their recent shows teach really good messages to children. I am currently obsessed with Girl Meets World, why? Well each episode has a message to the children and people watching it. They are currently on their third season (ish) and Riley the daughter of Cory and Topanga Mathews from Boy Meets World, and her best friends Maya, Lucas, Farkle, Zay, and Smackle are starting High School. Now onto high school, it's scary when you are coming from middle school, but when it's time to leave it's sad. What happens in those four years, why is it that you go from scared to sad (happy). Well those four years of high school prepare you for something greater, the real world.

In the eighth grade you are at the top of the food chain, your the kings of middle school, (yeah that's from Disney). However in the ninth grade you're not the kings anymore, you have made it back to the bottom of the food chain. It's been seven years since I was a senior in high school. It took me seven years to see how crucial those four years were, ok maybe not seven years. When your in middle school it's like looking through rose colored glasses, everything is peachy your still a kid. High School is the transition between being a kid and being a young adult. Elementary School is put in place to prepare you for Middle School, Middle School prepares you for High School. High School prepares you for everything else that the real world is going to throw at you, whether your ready or not.

Here are some truth's about High School, nobody understands what is going on with them. Everybody is growing up, they are all just as confused as you are. All of your peers are in the same boat as you are, they are all scared confused and lost. However, you may say well they look like they have it all figured out. Here is a little secret, they don't, but they put on a brave face. I look back on my high school years and think about all the people that I looked at and thought wow they really have it all together, and now that we are all older I learned they were in the same boat I was.

Here is the catch if you have friends that have been with you from the very first day of high school, you will look back at those moments and think, wow we stuck together through the biggest storm yet. Friendship is the key to a lot of things in life, if you have friends you have someone to lean on when your scared.

What i'm trying to get at is that High School is not scary it's challenging. It is made to be that way because life is not only challenging it's complex. When you start high school or maybe feel lost in the crowd remember that the "crowd" is just as confused as you are. Remember your growing up, people change, at every age of their life, you change you evolve. Life is a series of decisions to be made it's not how you made/make the decisions it's how you deal with the results. And remember that learning is a never ending process, even if you are no longer in school of any kind you still learn, you learn about people, learn how to do new things. Knowledge is power!!

One last thing, if anyone has any questions of thought provoking comments please share them. I love hearing what other people have to say, and I genuinely just want to help people. I want people to be at peace with growing up, because it's an adventure.

Someone had to Say It!!

Women's rights!! Women all around the world have never been seen as equal. In the fifties women stayed at home and did all the housework and raising the children. Then there was a women's movement, where women started entering the workforce. We as women worked mainly for the big man, something that hasn't changed. It is 2016 people, women work just as hard as men, sometimes even harder, because they get up in the morning with the kids, get them ready for school and get them off to school with breakfast in there stomach's and lunch in their backpacks. Then we get ready and we head into work, we work just as long as men do, sometimes our kids are put into after school programs. We give them rides to their after school activities, come home with dinner magically on the table. We help the children do their homework and get them ready for bed, after the children are in bed we clean up the kitchen and then, FINALLY we get our free time, but guess what now WE ARE TOO TIRED!!!

Here is where things must change, guess what, we do all this without being asked, why? Well someone has to do it... and I can't say that no man is willing to do this. There are some men in this world that understand this because there are single fathers in this world.

Those people that don't give a crap how women are treated are the one's I am speaking to. Let me just say when you don't notice all the hard work we do it makes us mad. Then you go and say wow she is a sassy piece of meat. I just recently got out of a situation where I felt like I was being treated differently because I was a female. I was doing a lot of work and nobody was listening to me when I had good ideas however when MY ideas came out of a male's mouth all of the sudden they were put into play. I'm getting fed up with being treated like a piece of meat with no real good ideas. As a lady we don't get acknowledged as smart or someone with worthwhile ideas.

Let's just talk about the music video's out there, i'm all about looking sexy and feeling pretty. However I have to draw a line when it comes to being treated as just another booty to chase. Hello, I have feelings I have a soul and a brain, i'm not just long legs, I really don't have a booty or boobs. But the teenage, young adult girls who are practically wearing swimsuits EVERYWHERE showing off their everything is not helping the situation.

Yeah I know this post was kind of all over the place but, I recommend next time when someone starts treating you as if you are just another piece of meat with nothing else but body features, challenge the standard. Show them that you are more than just boobs, butt's, legs, whatever else. I dare you, and when they return with some degrading comment just look them in the eye and tell is that what you would say to your momma!!!

Fight for Love!!

Yesterday I was listening to music on YouTube and I came across this new song by an artist I was familiar with, so I listened to the song. As I was listening to the song, the song became very interesting to me. See I am one those people who listen for the lyrics that are catchy and a good melody and a good beat. The song is called Rock Bottom by Hailee Steinfeld featuring DNCE, it's an amazing song, with a good message behind it. It's about a relationship where they are constantly fighting and making up, she is getting frustrated because she feels as if that is all they do. One of the lyrics is, what are we fighting for? In this post I want to talk about relationships and the truth behind the concept.

Relationships, the concept of falling for the one person who "complete's you". When first finding someone the could be your potential one in a million, it's a head over heels moment. The rush of falling in love, after about six months that "high" has faded and all that is left is reality. Normally once the high has left, differences arise and fights become more and more common. This is where the relationship get's tested, the test is to see if the two of you can figure out how to solve the issue together and work as a team. I may not be an expert on relationships because the longest relationship I've been in was about three weeks. Although I am very observant and I have learned from many others. Also I know a fairly good amount about working with people, being a psychology major you learn a lot about the human brain.

How do you know when you have found the one and only for you? Well my advice is to stick with it, if the fights are intense but no matter how intense those fights are the two of you always seem to keep coming back to each other, that's when you know that things are real. You know it's got to be real because no matter how mad and angry you get at them, they are still the only person you would rather be with. After every fight the best thing to do is to wait, breathe, think, and go back, fight for love don't fight them. Fighting is a lot like stress, it's supposed to build you up, especially as a couple. Fighting makes the bond between the both of you stronger, because it makes you realize what you are really fighting for. Your fighting for each other, fighting to stay together.

Stress No More...we don't need to be afraid be aware!!!

Recently I started watching Ted Talks, I watched this video of a lady who was talking about stress and how to make it your friend. It dawned on me, I need to write a blog about stress, here is why. I suffer from reacting horribly to stress, usually when I am stressed out, I either explode into a fury of anger and rage or I turn into a ball of sadness. This lady, was saying that it's not bad for us to be stressed, it can be good. When stress come a person's heart rate speeds up, breathing starts getting faster. These are all natural reactions from the body, but when this happens many begin to panic, not anymore.

Let's begin with what happens when I get stressed. When I get stressed my brain perceives it as oh no I am going to explode. I feel as though too much weight has been put on my shoulders and nobody is willing to take some of the weight off. Many would think what do you  have to be stressed out about, you work at a Café. That is very true, I work at a café, it's coming up on summer where I live. Our customer traffic is picking up, and we don't have a large staff. Since I started working at this café last year in August, about 85% of the staff went away to school leaving a staff of at least six people on staff and we are open seven days a week. Out of the six people on staff four of us attend school at a local college or university full time. So the days that we are not at school we are at work, even on the weekends when we tend to be the busiest even during the fall and winter. During our Saturdays there would be all but one person working, and it was the same people for about five months. So after about five months of roughly the same people working, as you can imagine, we all became burnt out. Yeah of course we had days off but those days off we were at school, and it didn't make it easier on the people that were at work. The days that I was not at school, I would be working with the same crew of two to three other people. Unfortunately that made things really chaotic, for the amount of work that had to be completed to get the café ready for business and the customers waited on, we clearly all had our hands full. Now when I first started working there my boss/ neighbor had every intention on grooming me to be a leader (manager). Nine months later, i'm exactly where my boss/neighbor wants me to be, I would attend school two days a week and then work four days from open until closing. I feel as though I do a lot for the café, however I have noticed I have an issue with letting my emotions take over when I have had enough. When the boss man or chef has an idea of how to make the café a better café they start implementing this, some of the crew jumps right on board and some take a little longer. As a leader when one person tends to slow down or get lazy as a leader there is an added pressure from the owner to step up and help this person out. Getting calls from the owner is no fun, unless it's good news. There have been times when the owner has called me and I would end in tears.

Now after nine months a couple of factors have to be pointed out, i'm one of the oldest in age crew members. I have had a little more experience working, just because i'm older, I've also had a little more time to develop a work ethic. Now I have to be careful because some of my co-workers may be reading this, the roughly six of us that have worked for the past six months have each had good days and bad days. I'm glad of where we have come from, we've all become really close in the past six months.

Let's get to how to make stress your friend, stress isn't supposed to make you explode it's not supposed to turn you into a monster or a freak. Stress is supposed to prepare you for battle, it's supposed to prepare you to step up and take action in a good way. When you get stressed out trying imagining yourself in your happy place, the one place that no matter what happens your happiness is at it's peak. Remember, "Stress is not what happens to us. It is our response to what happens. And response is something we can choose."- Maureen Killoran. So for me instead of choosing to explode in to a ball of fury and rage or a ball of emotions. I'm going to choose to channel the stress into working harder and changing what needs to be changed in order to do better.

I'm Back With a Plan

I'm back, it's been about a year since I last posted a blog. Life got a little busy and priorities started shifting, it's just a part of living. So let's begin with a kind of re-introduction to me and the purpose of this blog. Let's skip past my name and all that jazz. In the past year I went from going to a Community College working on my general education requirements (gen-eds), graduating from thus college and getting two associates degree's one in Liberal Arts and one in General Education (that was a bonus). I transferred to a local University and started working towards my Bachelor's in Psychology, which I should be completed with in about two years. I went from working at Brooks Brothers to Talbots and now I am working at a Juice Bar/ Café that my neighbor owns. A lot has changed in the past year, and a lot of growing up occurred.

When I first started this blog it was a way for me to get my opinions out without people criticizing me for them. Now it's going to be more of a motivational/ inspirational/ thought provoking blog. I'm hoping that with this blog people will learn that it's ok to be yourself and it's even ok not to know who that is yet. It wasn't until about mid twenty-four that I became ok with who I am and now instead of trying to figure out who I am, it is more about fine tuning my insecurities. I hope with this blog people find confidence and security in themselves. The purpose of this blog is for you readers to know that your not alone and to know that everybody goes through difficult times.

I don't even know if people will want to read this blog, and that's ok if they don't maybe it will help me for the future when I am feeling insecure and I just need something that will help me get back to feeling like myself. I really do hope that this blog helps someone with their struggles, it would be amazing if it did. My purpose is to help, it's never to hurt. So when reading this blog remember everyone is different I may see things and communicate in a different way than others, but that is how I communicate, I will try my very best to communicate in a way many can relate to.

Enjoy Everyone! Please if you like my blog tell your friends, maybe it can help them!

Good vs. Evil

When a little baby is born, fairies and princess' start appearing in that home as well as prince's and superhero's and villain and bad guys. The questions to be asked are, Will good always win? Does Evil have to live? Teaching our children that good will always win is an important message, but we never teach our children the full message.

 

Yes, Good will always prevail, but if you have ever watched any fairytale story ever good never prevailed with out a little evil getting in the way. Here is the one message that we seem to be forgetting to teach our children. Evil will always try and win, that is just what evil knows how to do. Good will win in the end, but it will never win without some extremely hard work, dedication, and some sacrifices. Nobody wants to give up something, but sometimes it just might be for the better.

 

Of course as a child everything is a grey area until told otherwise by their parents. In today's society what is good and what is evil can be put in a constant grey area. Now with all the different religions and beliefs and different ways of life, what could be good to one family could be evil(bad) to another.

 

One thing that is a constant good is Love. Love is love, it's warm it's cozy, it's never ending. We preach this happily ever after to our little girls and little boys but we jump to the end where they all live happily ever after. Therefore skipping the hard work and sacrifice's that it took to get to the happily ever after.

 

People sacrificed their lives so that every race would be considered equal. Many brave men and women gave up their lives so that we as a nation could be free. "Real leaders must be ready to sacrifice all for the freedom of their people." Nelson Mandela.

 

So when we teach our children fairytale's and the battle of good vs. evil. Please let's tell them the entire story. That good will prevail, that they may have to sacrifice the things they love the most. We need to teach our children that it good may prevail right away or it may take years and years for good to prevail. Teach them that no matter what their happily ever after may be that it's not magic that got them there. It's through their own hard work and determination and sacrificing that their happily ever after occurred.

 

Here are some quotes that we should teach our children,

 

"Man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished". Nelson Mandela

 

"Inside each of us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It's a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other". Eric Burdon

 

"Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two". John Cheever