Tag Archives: Direction

Celebrating 6 Months: The Story of The Monkey Bars

5 Apr

When I was a little girl I broke my first bone. How? I was at a friend’s house playing in her backyard trying to see how many bars I could skip while making my way across the monkey bars. Instead of starting with one and making my way up. I went straight to trying to skip every three bars…and BAM…landed on my arm the wrong way.

I used to be the kind of person who pushed myself to the limit. I’m not just talking about as a little girl either. I’m talking about recently…maybe only a year ago, if that. This was good until it became dangerous to my well being. I wanted results, and fast. I wanted to make more progress than I had to work for. I didn’t consider what was realistic. I didn’t believe that I had to actually cross through B to get to C. I thought I could just hop around from A to G to K to X because that’s how things used to be for me in high school and basically all of my life until I started college, got my first lowest grades, took time off, got rejected from a bunch of things and then realized that I was just too stubborn and needed to slow down.

So, here I am. I am still learning but I have definitely changed the way I think and the way I take action. I started this blog from scratch, with some unresolved pain and a passion, 6 months ago as a way for me to remind myself of some things. Now 6 months later, I get email after email with love and support and people (some I know, some I don’t) telling me they can relate and they are inspired by what I write. It’s incredible to me. Yesterday, I was invited to guest appear on a small radio show at the end of the month to talk about the blog and the quarter life crisis. It’s not my big break but it’s a small step in the right direction. A year ago? I would have been discouraged that nothing greater is coming from my hard work.

Now? I know that it’s absolutely necessary to take the small steps. You have to optimize opportunities, no matter how small. They say you have to climb the ladder to success but now I am learning that sometimes there isn’t even a ladder. You have to take your small opportunities (sometimes really, really tiny ones) and stack them up and build them into bigger opportunities. It’s a sequential process. If you take the small steps, with time, you’ll look back and be astounded at how far you’ve come. This way, you gain more experience and knowledge. Yes, it’s hard work and will sometimes end up in failure but that’s how you get emotionally and mentally stronger. I don’t blame the little girl me for aspiring to skip three monkey bars. I blame her for not trying one bar or two bars first. I blame her for not building the strength and muscle (in this case, physically) to fulfill the dream. 

With that said, I want to say thank you to all of you. My friends and family who from the beginning never made me feel silly for having to publicly share my struggles and doubts in myself. My loyal followers. My new followers. And the strangers and acquaintances who came across this blog, and have stayed. This blog is officially 6 months old and it’s only getting better from here.  

S.K.

P.S. If you have issues or crises you’d like me to blog about, go to the contact page and share them with me! If you want to share your own perspective and stories then please submit your own guest post! Finally, if you want to help be a part of a book in the making, fill out the questionnaire! Thank you!

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Despite the Wrong, You’re Still Headed Right

2 Apr

I really can’t express how much the past year has taken a toll on me. I am still recovering from a traumatic incident, coming to terms with a few deaths, adjusting to some new health issues, and accepting that I am not an ordinary 4 year college student and instead will finish a lot later than I expected. 

Instead of feeling better, I feel as though I am only sinking lower and lower as time progresses. Recently, something shifted. I’m not quite sure how to explain it. It wasn’t purposeful, or maybe subconsciously it was and I just don’t know it.

I was trying to feel focused and positive. I was hoping that all my pretending would somehow lead to me actually believing. That’s pretty much how things have been for months now. However, a few weeks ago, I was feeling particularly low while I was driving home from an awful and emotionally taxing meeting with a potential school. I realized that I just passed a temple and decided to pull over. Now, I’m not a particularly religious person but I like to think I used to believe in something. But, after all the bad things that happened to me and all the wrong moves I’ve made, I was losing faith…in everything and anything. I was hit really hard with this realization and decided to choose something different. Everything in my control, including my perspective and attitude, is a choice. Since a few weeks ago something undeniably shifted in my heart and mind. I even feel physically different, stronger.

I know now that just because I’ve made mistakes, would go back in time and probably do a lot of things differently, and have had really, really, bad, out-of-my-control things happen to me in a short period of time doesn’t mean that everything has to be messed up.

I am more sure now than I have ever been that I am exactly where I need, want and should be. It might not be parallel with where society thinks I should be, or where my college Facebook friends (who aren’t really my friends but I can’t muster the courage to actually delete them) think I should be, or where I thought I would be. No matter what though, I am grateful for where I am. 

Despite the wrong, bad and awful, things always work out. I didn’t believe this four days ago. I have faith now that even through my past wrong circumstances and choices, I am still headed in the right direction. The past does not define who I am and who I can/will be. The past may set me back but it won’t hold me back from getting where I want to go.

I choose to persevere. I won’t beat myself up about what’s been done. Instead, I will learn from it, grow from it, and choose to differentiate myself from it. I am exactly where I should be right now.

S.K.

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1/3 Active Process + 2/3 Mental Process

28 Mar

Life gets rough. Things get out of hand. The unexpected usually happens. Bad things happen all at once. Your path gets unclear. Your mind gets messy. Your heart gets messier. 

So, really, when will things change for you?

News flash.

Things will only change when you are actually ready for change. We all want things to be different, things to get better, easier, happier. I’m guilty of this. We inactively wait for things to change. Or, worse, we try to change things without being prepared for it. 

“New possibilities emerge for those who are prepared, for those who are ready. You have to believe!” – Garth Stein

You have to mentally prepare yourself for change and new possibilities. You can’t just tell yourself things will get better or be different, you have to believe your affirmations. You can’t just look for open doors, cracked windows, or holes in the wall so you can move in a new direction (or just move forward at all) but actually see them. 

1/3 action + 2/3 mental = CHANGE

Plan for change then prepare for change by believing and percieving. Only after your mindset has changed will you start to come across new possibilities. Then you can actively change your situation.

S.K.

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Dream Catching Part 2/3 “The Long Road”

14 Nov

In this day and age, we are more likely to have more than one dream. We learn to stretch our wing span over an array of passions and learn to be a “jack of all trades”. Some of us can enjoy more than one thing but be a master at none. Others can be great at more than one thing and then just not be able to decide on one. The desirable thing to do is to be able to incorporate all you love in your everyday life, but even then, how do you isolate one or two dreams when there’s a million things that make your heart skip? How can you “catch” the right dreams when there are so many distractions and things in the way? How do you even know which dreams you should be catching?

     As I mentioned in Part One, sometimes we get distracted and veer off from our dreams only to be brought right back to them. In this post I am going to discuss dreams being taken from us, no matter how hard we wish for them and how hard we work for them.

     Sometimes, you without a doubt know what you need to be doing and are meant to do, and it just doesn’t work out for you no matter how hard you try or with what combination you play your cards. If you tried your absolute best to follow a dream and it didn’t work out, then you need to remind yourself that it just was not meant to be. If it’s not something you can recover from (in most cases it shouldn’t be that easy to let go of it if it was a true dream), then you need to remind yourself that it just was not meant to be…right now. Easier said than done, eh? Let me provide some perspective for you.

     Just because you’re not doing what you think you want to be doing right now, doesn’t mean you aren’t falling into one of your dreams. You just haven’t dreamt it yet.  Some dreams don’t fester for long periods of time. Some dreams come to you instantaneously, almost while you are already pursuing it without even knowing it. When you focus on one thing, you fail to see everything else that may be falling in place for you. 

     As I mentioned in the last post, I have spent the last few years exploring a variety of potential dreams. Somewhere along the way I became a writer. I started using poetry as an outlet, I started my first personal blog which turned into a creative writing blog, I started this blog two months ago, I have brainstorm after brainstorm for a novel I hope to write, and all of this happened within the last 11 months.  Being a writer wasn’t something I was reaching for, it was something that happened while I was failing to catch other dreams. Now, after starting this blog, I have been led back home, to my very first dream of becoming a psychologist. If I didn’t veer away from my first dream, struggle catching the next couple of dreams, then I wouldn’t have realized writing was a passion and I wouldn’t have started a blog that in two months has had incredible feedback from people all over the world, and then I wouldn’t realize I want to be a psychologist again.

     If you’ve exhausted all of your options and can’t catch your dream, learn to let it go for a while. If it’s meant to be, or more importantly, if you were meant for it then you will be taken back to whatever it was you dreamed for.  The next time around you’ll be stronger, more capable, and more ready. Maybe you weren’t meant to have that dream just yet because you weren’t meant to fail, but right now you just aren’t ready to succeed. Or, maybe you weren’t meant to have that dream because there is something out there that can’t even be created in your imagination yet. Maybe you were taken away from that dream to pursue something bigger and better, only to realize that you’ve outgrown your initial dream because it just won’t be enough anymore.

     If one thing falls apart despite your efforts, another thing will most certainly be falling together. Find the other door that’s been opened for you, or the window, or the hole in the wall, and go exploring.

Have faith.
S.K.

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Dream Catching Part 1/3 “When You Weren’t Looking”

12 Nov

In this day and age, we are more likely to have more than one dream. We learn to stretch our wing span over an array of passions and learn to be “jack of all trades”. Some of us can enjoy more than one thing but be a master at none. Others can be great at more than one thing and then just not be able to decide on one. The desirable thing to do is to be able to incorporate all you love in your everyday life, but even then, how do you isolate one or two dreams when there’s a million things that make your heart skip? How can you “catch” the right dreams when there are so many distractions and things in the way? How do you even know which dreams you should be catching?

From a young age we learn to have aspirations. We learn to become a part of groups, teams, and ideas. We learn to have dreams for our future. “I want to be an architect when I grow up”.  Sometimes as you keep getting older, you accumulate more and more passions and dreams. THEN, one day you might realize you are older, and “all grown up” yet you are still wishing on a star. Sometimes you realize that you dream hopped and have no idea where to land anymore, and other times you realize that you got distracted and are just completely, utterly lost. (Sidenote- some of you are just lucky, and know what you want and are out to get it).

Right now, it is the journey that provides the lessons and the growth rather than the destination. Sometimes, you veer off a path because of your wandering heart/mind in order to end up on the same exact path you started on. As I started high school, I wanted to be a child psychologist. Later, I veered away from this and followed a dream of being a surgeon with full force and face planted about 5 times before I was left without knowing what I wanted anymore. Then, I experimented with physical therapy, exercise science, and sports journalism. All of which I found stimulating in thought, but in practice, none of which made me jump at the idea of my future the way they should have. Now? I am planning to go back to school for psychology. But let me tell you this, all the veering away, the uncertainty and the struggles created a writer inside of me AND helped me scratch off my “Dreams?” list which in turn helped me narrow down to what I really want. I wouldn’t call any of my time spent away from my real dream, a waste of time.

The process of being taken away from one dream and falling into another leads you to learn more about yourself and your life. It’s the idea of things that are better than the reality, and the only way to find out is to experiment the way I did. Dream hopping can help you eliminate what you don’t want so you can finally find what you do want, even if it was always there in the first place. It’s the journey, not the destination that makes finding, discovering, losing and re-discovering dreams so incredible.

Stay dreaming,
S.K.

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A State of Mind

8 Oct

     Happiness seems to be the ultimate goal for people. You want to find a job that makes you happy. You want to find the significant other that makes you happy. You want to study something that makes you happy. You want to live happily. I think it’s fair to want these things….But I don’t think it’s accurate to think that’s how you will be happy. I feel as though we are naturally programmed to think that happiness is a state of becoming.

     Whether it’s becoming smarter with more education or wealthier with a higher paying job or ultimately satisfied with your significant other; do you need to become to attain happiness? If you are happy, doesn’t that naturally supplement to your satisfaction of becoming more or better? 

    If kids in third world countries who live in orphanages can find joy in their lives and smile consistently and be “happy”, then why can’t you? Money can’t buy happiness but it’s true that it takes a certain amount of wealth to be happy- that is to be rich in character and have quality perspective. After all, happiness is a perspective, not a destination. You can be happy. Make the most of your present situation, have a positive outlook, accept what you can’t control, and smile. Let everything else that you achieve or try to achieve enhance your happiness but not define it. Don’t miss out on the journey because you are too occupied with the future.

S.K.

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In Honor of Steve Jobs

5 Oct
Steve Jobs made a commencement speech back in 2005. Here are three quotes that I think should resonate with you for the rest of your life. I know everyone has their own opinion on Steve Jobs and Apple, but there’s no denying that he was a very persistent, hardworking, persevering, strong willed man. We could all learn from him. Sometimes the best lessons you learn come from witnessing other people’s lives. Steve Jobs was an ordinary man with an ordinary life, and if you met someone now who made his mistakes or lived the way he did, you would probably think he was average and maybe even incapable. That because you stayed in school, or didn’t get your high school girlfriend pregnant that you might even be better than him. Everyone has their own paths. Steve Jobs is a true testament of that. Follow yours and don’t have any regrets.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. “

“You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

If you would like to read the rest of his speech, you can find it here- http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

S.K

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Pick Yourself Up

24 Sep

   Ever since I entered my twenties I have felt like things are just falling apart more then they are coming together. It feels like I’m constantly moving, but only in a circular motion. I have found some of my narrow paths where I am excited and adventurous and passionate but very quickly do they disappear and are lost. It’s frustrating, disappointing and stressful…Then I realize, I need to snap out of it, make sure I am still adequately breathing, and step back.  

     What you are meant for now or what you are even doing now, may not be what you are meant for later. The people you are friends with now may not be in your life in a year. The relationships you’ve held to the highest power and importance may disintegrate tomorrow. So what’s the coping mechanism?

     If something falls through, you feel rejected, or you have just lost any sense of direction because either there are too many options and it’s all jumbled up or you just don’t know where to look, then embrace it. Embrace the breakdown. That’s prime time for recreation.

     What is recreation? Recreation is defined as an activity of leisure. The need to do something for recreation is an essential element of human biology or psychology. It is also defined as the refreshment of health or spirits. What is re-creation? The state or instance of creating again or anew. 

     In other words, when you feel rejected, purposeless, lost, lonely, and confused you need to take a breath, step back and recreate your dreams, your life, and your perspectives. This will take place several times in your life, but every time around you readjust, redefine, refresh, reset and RECREATE with more force and a fierce sense of determination. One time, it really will all fall into place. Until then, let yourself fail, fall, and break apart- because that’s when you are in the perfect position to piece yourself back together into a better and stronger person.

     Nothing is perfect the first time around but you have to try in order to understand what needs to be different or more importantly to learn more about yourself and your mind and heart.

I believe in you.
S.K.

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