I’m a halfway believer in the power of optimism. Thinking positively can change your outlook on life and help you be a happier person. However, I’ve met people who have taken this positive outlook stuff to another level. As someone who works with depressed people almost daily, I know what a difference having a positive perspective can have on one’s mental state. However, as someone who is more of a realist, one thing that I’ve noticed is how often life doesn’t go the way we want it to. We live in a world where we are told that if we do something specific we’ll get specific results. If you go to college, you’ll get a decent job. If you study hard, you’ll make good grades. If you help enough people get what they want, one day you’ll get what you want. If you act like you have some sense, you’ll marry well. But none of these things are necessarily guaranteed. I’m often reminded of how often life doesn’t always go my way. There’s a saying that says we should hope for the best while planning for the worst. I like this perspective because it’s balanced. I think that optimism can be a source of false hope for some people and while that can be very comforting, I prefer a more straightforward approach that may not be as rosy, but depicts reality. I would rather experience a harsh truth than a comforting lie because at the end of the day, I want to be able to be prepared. Hope can be such a powerful emotion but I’d rather focus my energies on whats going on in the here and now instead of being disappointed at the outcome of my hope. I love optimists; they make the best friends.
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It’s been HOW long?
I’m going to keep this pretty short and sweet but this song has been running through my head a lot in the past few hours. I was exposed to all types of music growing up but quality R&B is something of a lost art form. This is why I like Brian McKnight’s music. Granted, I may have more of a vested interest than most people because I’ve seen him numerous times and he went to my alma mater. But that’s neither here nor there. I’ve always admired artists who can convey a message of such deep human emotion through an equally moving set of chords and progressions that just fit. Brian has that gift. Recently I had the opportunity to see him perform live and it was an incredible experience. “6,8, 12” is one of my favorite songs ( I have many) because Brian does such an amazing job (as always) of capturing an experience that many people have felt at one point or another in their lives. The song talks about the process of letting go after being close to an individual but realizing that it won’t work out in the long run. Logic and experience both say that this situation should have been resolved a long time ago, but emotions and feelings say the opposite. So as a result, you’re stuck in a place of missing this person for an indefinite period of time. Or rather, 6 months, 8 days, and 12 hours. That place of limbo between being over someone and actually being with them. Definitely not the most comfortable place to be, but sometimes that’s just where we end up…
Crushing Hard
Recently one of my college colleagues posted something on a social media site that caught my attention. She said that having a crush on someone and liking them are two different things. I totally and complete agree with her assertion because it just makes sense to me. The idea of having a crush on someone usually brings of memories of elementary or middle school where you liked someone and you were convinced that the two of y’all were meant to be. I think that as we grow up, many times our crushes morph into some sort of attraction toward different celebrities. The actors, entertainers, and musicians that you know you’ll never meet in person but are convinced that they would immediately propose on the spot if they ever had the good fortune to spend time in your presence. Crushes are unattainable. They’re based in fantasy but yet the romantic side of us is ever optimistic that they’ll come to fruition. Liking someone, on the other hand, is similar yet different. I honestly think that in order to actually like someone you have to be in their physical presence. Unlike a crush, where you feel a connection through a TV screen. Liking someone involves having interactions with them. I honestly do not understand people who talk about how much they like someone but yet the person doesn’t even know that they exist. While I understand the concept of pining from afar, I just don’t think that it makes a lot of sense. You waste so much time and energy you can never get back because you haven’t even taken the first step of introducing yourself. It’s hard to like someone you don’t know but it’s easy to have a crush on them.
Traveling Thoughts
Here I am, sitting at one something in the morning. I’m sleep deprived, exhausted, and worn out but yet I’m actually pretty darn happy. The reason for this is that I’m not in Colorado and the icing on the cake is the fact that I’m enjoying weather in the 80’s. I grew up traveling with my family and now as an adult, I still travel as much as possible. I’ve gotten the chance to come to one of my favorite places in the world, Miami Beach, Florida. While I can’t really exactly say why I like it, I just do. Traveling gives me the chance to get away from it all. This is especially true as I have so many things to do but I’m ignoring them because I’m out of town. My homework is looming but will not be done tonight. I have calls to make but they will have to wait till Monday. It’s been a great trip and while I absolutely positively do not want to go back to the snow and cold of Colorado, I understand that it’s necessary for what I want to do in my life long term. A necessary evil. We all need a chance to escape and take a break once in a while and I’m glad that I had a chance to do it. It’s raining cats and dogs, I have a twelve hour drive to catch my flight and a total of over 2000 miles to travel until I’m back in Colorado, but coming here was so worth it. Miami has some sort of appeal for me and I love coming here year after year. For some reason, traveling is an indication of normalcy for me and it’s something that I love. If I could get a job just traveling, I’d probably take it.Right now I remember that all good things have to come to an end at some point so it’s back to life and back to reality for now.
School Woes
Recently I have come to the conclusion that I really really really hate school. At least the regular kind. This epiphany comes on the wake of realizing that I have total of over 29 pages to write in the next week or so. While I prefer these 12 week quarters to the 10 weeks that I had in graduate school, I still don’t want to do the work. One of the challenges of distance learning is that you have to be so disciplined because you don’t attend class every week. I think that my irritation with school comes from the fact that this is only my 5th consecutive year of traditional education. Being homeschooled, I had the freedom to learn what I wanted to learn without any restrictions or guidelines on how it should be done. My high school education was done through a correspondence course that included many of the typical subjects but all the tests were open book. No big deal. It was only in college that I actually had to learn to study in order to learn the information required to pass tests. However, after a certain point, tests were obsolete and all methods of examination were by essay. I remember a final exam that was six blank pages with one question per page and it was the expectation of the teacher that each page be full with writing as you answered the questions. I’m sure that my annoyance with school is partially due to the fact that I have a slight problem with procrastination. I say slight because although I don’t usually wait to the last minute, I still put it off more than I should. I have a lot of respect for people who have completed a doctorate and now I understand why so many people insist on being called by their title of “doctor.” That being said, I’m taking a break from school after this doctorate. A very long, and a very much needed break. That being said, let me return to this very large, endless, and pretty much pointless pile of papers to write.
3 Things I’ve Learned This Year
1. You can’t save everyone
I’ve learned the importance of doing my best and being ok with the results. It’s so easy to get caught up in the specifics while losing focus of the bigger picture and it’s equally important to think of both. People make their own choices at the end of the day and sometimes they aren’t the best.
2. When choosing between going on a trip and buying furniture, always pick the trip. Memories are more important than stuff and furniture isn’t an absolute necessity. Going to the beach easily trumps having a sofa any day.
3. Some battles just aren’t worth fighting. Pick them wisely and have a strategy in place. Weigh the pros and cons and know the possible long term ramifications of your decision. Prepare as much as possible and have a Plan B in place at all times.
Small Stuff
In the past few weeks, I’ve had conversations with women in which they talk about a man’s good traits and bad traits but then say that something that he does or believes in is an automatic deal breaker for them and thus, he is no longer under consideration for anything other than a distant friend. I believe in standards. I have them and for the most part, I stick to them. But the common theme that has been the deal breaker in conversations with numerous women is that the man does not have a college degree or above. The reasons given for this blatant disregard for anyone who doesn’t meet this standard is that there will be nothing to talk about if the man isn’t educated. In today’s society, so much weight is placed on where you went to school, what your grades were, what your degree was in, if you finished college. This has happened to the extent that there are people who honestly think that going to college is an indication of intelligence. Maybe it’s the homeschooler in me, but I honestly think that having an education is not an indication of intelligence at all. At all. These days you don’t even have to be smart to make good grades. I’m definitely a witness to that. You just have to know the system and how to find the right resources to get the information that you need. While I don’t necessarily consider myself “educated,” I probably somewhat fit the criteria for that particular term. I can honestly say that the many of the smartest and most intelligent people I know do not have college degrees. People who think outside the box tend to make more money and are more successful than those who don’t. Education is a box. My point in saying all this is that you miss out on a lot when you immediately disregard someone because they don’t meet a particular educational requirement. College is honestly not for everyone and there are plenty of people who have made millions without stepping foot inside a college classroom. It’s about the desire to learn and the ability to find the resources you need to get where you want to go. These days, almost everything you would get in a college classroom is accessible on some level through the internet at a much lower price. There are so many better things you can use to screen potential significant others but I don’t think that highest education level should be one of them.
Minding your Business
This picture caught my eye because it’s definitely something that I’ve been learning to do. Growing up my mom used to always tell me that if you help someone without their permission they’ll turn around and persecute you. As an adult, I’ve experienced this firsthand. I’ve always been someone who has been willing to go above and beyond the call of duty in order to help someone. Recently I’ve learned the importance of being cautious as help people. One of the things that my therapist education has taught me is to rarely if ever give advice. Four words I will probably never use, or very rarely use “In my professional opinion.” The reason for this is because people will rarely tell you the full story. They’ll tell you a side that makes them look like the person that is being wronged when in reality, either they’re the culprit or they share the blame. I’ve learned that most people don’t want help. They just say that they do. Saying that you want to change and actually CHANGING are totally different things entirely. Good intentions don’t equal good actions. One of the problems with giving advice is that you rarely ever know the full story. If the person follows your advice and it turns out to be wrong, 9 times out of 10 they’ll blame you. I’ve gotten out of the “I’m a therapist so tell me all your problems” syndrome. I don’t counsel family or friends and I don’t say what I think unless it’s asked. And even then, I do it pretty sparingly. Most people don’t want counsel. They just want a listening an empathetic ear. I find it much easier to just let people know that I’m here if they need me and just leave it there.
In your feelings
One thing that I’ve noticed recently is how many of my fellow Twitter peeps (and myself included) have been all up in our feelings. Now this could definitely be either a good or bad thing. I think a lot of it is situational in nature and is largely dependent on some unexpected stressor that has crossed our path. Or, in my case, it just comes from the wonderful but also very uncomfortable mix of being emotional, analytical, logical, and a hopeless romantic all blended together. There’s nothing wrong with having feelings but one thing that I’ve realized is that we can’t allow them to rule our lives. While life is no fun being predictable and dry, there’s a need for balance between being realistic and emotional. Let’s face it, emotions aren’t always logical. Just because you “feel” a certain way does not mean that it’s realistic or even makes sense. Feelings can change as easily as the direction of the wind and while they may seem trustworthy, usually they’re not. At some point, good old common sense and responsibility have to trump how you feel. I read somewhere this week that one sign of a well disciplined person is that they wake up in the morning and just like they decide what clothes to wear, they decide how to feel during the day. That way, they can remind themselves if they ever deviate away from the decided on feeling and can change their thinking to come back into alignment with the day’s goal. While I can see the logic in doing that, I’m don’t know if I could ever do that. What’s life if you don’t feel various emotions through the day? We need some daily reminder that we’re human and having feelings definitely provides that much needed dose of reality.
Attitude Excuses
I thought that this picture was somewhat thought provoking because it implies a lot. However, I think that there’s definitely a difference between being strong and having an attitude. Just because you’re confident and can do things by yourself doesn’t mean that you have an attitude. I know women who honestly have a nasty attitude and say that they are merely “strong willed.” Not true. This picture implies that one of the characteristics of a weak man is that he mistakes being a strong person with having an attitude. While this may be true, it’s important to remember that having a perpetual attitude is never cute or attractive. It’s just annoying and draining to the people around you. Whenever I see that I’m reminded of the real-ness of personality disorders. But I digress. My point is that being strong and having an attitude are truly two separate things that should not be confused.
Alisha's Angle 