If Work Permits

when you’re feeling particularly stressed or lost or moody, per suggestion of a mental health counselor, try compiling a list of random thoughts that cross your mind in the span of 20 minutes to de-compress it, then sift through the list and see what thoughts and ideas repeat themselves. mine goes as follows:

1. i cannot wait to work in a nepalian village and climb mt. everest!

2. i need to use my aerial silks and trapeze groupon. what if i fall during trapeze and break through the safety net and permanently injure myself and end up like stephen hawking without the scientific genius to make a name for myself? 

3. if batman and robin were gay, would they spend all day doing superhero tricks or would they go on dinner/movie dates?

4. i miss my friends

5. there should be a carb-less, calorie-less form of alcohol. as in, one that doesn’t make you fat. because, let’s face it, “light” versions will still make you fat.

6. i can’t believe someone is going to trust me to fly a plane.

7. speaking of planes, i’m finally going to europe this year!

8. i need to book hostels asap.

9. i lack the motivation and discipline to get a six pack. i almost wish i didnt love rice so much. and alcohol.

10. i am extremely unprepared to go back to school. but working with abuse victims will be well worth it. and applying was my choice so i just need to nut up and shut up.

11. why do so many old ladies’ hairs turn into afros? if mine does, i will definitely pimp that shit out. like an old ass harajuku girl. or rudy huxtable.

12. rebel bingo is tomorrow! and i will still go even though i have work the next day -_- this may be my last chance to wear a tutu and get away with it.

13. i have only successfully been able to tune 2/4 strings on this ukelele and i’ve been at it for an hour.

14.  a lot of people seem to break up before the summer. i wonder if this phenomenon still occurs in your thirties. hopefully not.

15. usually, your gut is right on the money. i need to trust myself more often.

16. if people had stayed naked, would peoples’ nipples get tanned too? i have recently become very okay with nudity. if there’s a nude beach in europe we stumble upon, be prepared to see the moon fellow travellers. and by moon, i mean my ass.

17. my favorite blue moon is winter abbey.

18. i cant wait to go to abbey road.

19. sometimes i just want to be settled down with a significant other and children and my own home and not constantly wishing to roam and gallivant.

20. but then i dont think i will ever want to not gallivant. hahah. life is too short to not have fun.

21. im over this. lol

with this list, i have realized:

1. i am impatient and lazy. i couldn’t even wait the 20 minutes to stop writing the list out lol. i made it to 10 minutes.

2. i am a busy gal. and that is by choice. but maybe that’s why i feel a little bit stressed. i have all these hobbies i’m trying to do, and career goals, and people i want to see, and places i want to go, while working and trying to lose weight. (i am one of those people locked in a constant battle between my love for food/alcoholic fun and my desire to be healthy and fit lol). but i am well aware of how fortunate i am to be able to do all these things for myself and have all these experiences. it’s very fulfilling. but maybe i really need to de-compress and de-clutter my life haha. 

speaking of simplifying,

i’ve recently stopped a majority of texting on my phone. partially because my phone is so slow it’s more irritating to try and wait for the screen to load than to just make a phone call and have a conversation, and partially because i actually enjoy not using my phone. well and because my phone often dies midday. lol. i know some people feel naked without their phones. i actually feel pretty liberated haha. i only get nervous when i get lost while driving and i don’t have a map or a way of knowing where i’m going. how people before us got around to far off places without the internet is beyond me. god, especially cowboys and people on pilgrimages. i mean, i know how to read a map and have a decent sense of direction, but seriously. lol. anyway, that was a tangent, but i think disconnecting from technology once in a while is something people should try too. 

so i guess for now what i’m sayin is, sayonara. i’m going to be off grid for a little while, and generally,” just doin mah thangggg”. haha i will post pictures every once in a while, probably flying a plane or hanging off a trapeze or being drunk somewhere in another country, but know that i am fine. and if you are my friend, either currently or in the past, whether i see you often or rarely, you probably cross my mind at least once a day, so i hope you are doing well.

this was yet another long and rambly post. hahahah more crap to add to the bag that is the internet! have a rainbow day!

As some of you may know, a few weeks ago I decided to go to Thailand by myself. Not really any plans except I knew I wanted to see some temples, volunteer, swim, get drunk atleast once, and be immersed in another world for a bit. It was a bit like Eat, Pray, Love meets Bridget Jones meets a hot mess. 

lol. First of all, a lot of Thai people don’t speak English. So I picked up a few key phrases, and because I look ambiguously Asian, got away with being Thai many times, leading to many wonderful discounts and more respect hahah. 

Second of all, I highly recommend going on a trip on your own just so you can go balls out with everything. I saw a fucking ping pong show. If you don’t know what that is, look it up. My best advice is this: Always be down for anything, be genuinely friendly, and be highly adaptable. I employ this tactic for pretty much everything I do. So, for part of the trip I joined a random tour group where I didn’t know anyone and it turned out to be fucking fantastic. I was able to see a lot of really beautiful places in a safe way, learn a lot about Thai culture, and I became close to two fabulous gays, two country gals, a NorCal couple with an affinity for wine and beer, and a random old dude whose sole purpose to go to Thailand was to score with a hooker. (And that he did). We all got along swimmingly. People are seriously happy when they’re on vacation and they’re super polite. It’s awesome.

Another reason why it’s pretty awesome travelling solo is because you can do pretty much whatever you want, whenever you want. Hedonism at its finest. When some new friends would ask me if I wanted to join them in eating mystery meat and drinking Thai whiskey by the dirty bucket on a street corner until 3 AM, I say yes! Let’s grab the closet Sky Train! When another new friend asked me to join on an excursion to the King’s palace and ancient ruins, I said of course, let me pull on my boots! When a random British man handed me a cold beer after a couple hours of night swimming on a secluded beach, I said hell yes! Let’s get unforgivably inebriated in this foreign place! Submerge your feet in this fish tank to let them eat your dead skin? Sure! Hop on the seat of this rickety motorcycle without a helmet and drive?  Fuck yeah! Etc etc. Saying yes and being open to adventures and people have allowed me to experience a lot of really great things that I probably wouldn’t have been able to, had there been another person with me going by a different beat. Someone else saying they’re tired, they don’t feel like doing that, they hate drinking, etc. YOU can decide what you want to do and just do it! 

Here is a quick list of things I did on my trip for friends that I have yet to catch up with (also for those curious about my whereabouts… I have become too lazy to recap everything and thus, this will have to do):

1. Cruised Bangkok’s river on a ship and a James Bond speed boat. There’s something really sexy about boats and the wind in your hair. You feel like a model until you realize you just look like an asshole with nappy hair. 

2. Hung out in Bangkok’s red light district. All the stories are real. Lady boys, prostitutes, corrupted cops, bomb ass street food, typical foreigners partying hard and scoping out hookers with the feeling of desperation in the air like a sad, sexual cloud. 

3. Rode a motorcycle and didn’t kill anyone

4. Saw traditional Thai dancing.

5. Then saw real live lady boys Thai dancing. could not tell the difference.

6. Walked on train tracks hundreds of feet mid air built by soldiers over half a century ago. The guy in the group who was there for the hookers nearly shit himself. Not gonna lie, I felt triumphant and like a straight A student in bad assery. 

7. Rode an elephant and hugged the shit out of it. Also fed a baby tiger. Hugged the shit out of that too. 

8. Made other animals friends. Apparently, they can sense awesome.

9. Made real friends. People usually can sense awesome, too.

10. Ate. A lot. Well in the beginning. Until I got hardcore food poisoning. Lost about 10 pounds. And kept eating anyway. Me thinks it could be the dirty noodle soup from the Floating Market. (They serve you noodles in a bowl, then when you’re finished, dip that same bowl into the dirty river, and re-use it for someone else). Could be. Who knows. 

11. Skinny dipped in the ocean with girls I barely know. 

12. Also, got drunk in said ocean. Funny enough, the skinny dipping happened before the drinking.

13. Saw an elephant play basketball. Also realized I do not like seeing animals doing tricks. It makes me sad they’re not free to be whatever they wanna be. Unless they wanna be a basketball playin elephant. Then consider that dream fulfilled, my wrinkly friend.

14. Freed birds at a temple for good luck. Temples are beautiful and monks are too.

15. Helped a new friend get tattooed by a Buddhist monk. Tried not to think about sanitation. 

16. Learned a lot about Buddhism. Contemplated converting to Buddhism. Realized I am not all that religious to begin with. But pretty cool there is a religion out there that echoes some of my innermost thoughts.

17. Learned a few Thai phrases. Became excellent with my bartering skills and ended up bringing home way too many souvenirs.

18. Walked through slums where withered and starving men and women were literally lying in the streets covered in plastic bag and miscellaneous cardboard, to get to a swanky building where we rode up 50 floors and people, well nourished and lavishly dressed, were having ritzy cocktails and $300 dinners. The tragedy was not lost on me. 

19. Had little access to internet most of my time there and quickly realized how much I rely on that bitch everyday. Also, toilet paper and working toileting systems. See: #10. Thank you, ‘Murica, for spoiling us all.

20. And last, but not least, I volunteered some of my frivolous energy to teaching different styles of dance to orphan children and runaway teenagers living in a shelter located in the “Sin City” of Thailand in hopes to turn them off of a life of drugs or prostitution for something tamer and safer such as art or dance. These kids grow up surrounded by circumstances that most of us will never have to face. A life of poverty, drug lords, prostitution, scraping to get by… real shit. Hope for something more is probably the best way I could describe their faces. A very humbling experience. 

 In the age where Facebooking, emailing, texting, and technology basically consumes much of our daily lives, there is still importance in human connection. If I have learned anything from this experience, it’s that we are all the same. We are all human beings, going through shit at one point or another, and we are all capable of connecting and understanding one another. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t speak the same language or you’re not from the same place. A smile begets a smile. Frantic gestures and snippets of new language learned and intonations and body language can help you accomplish a lot of things in a place where no one speaks your language. There’s an encyclopedia full of other ways to communicate. And we all have the capacity and intelligence to try and understand another person. I have found that this can make a world of difference in your life experience. I’ve also come to believe that a few things everyone should really learn and know how to say goes as follows: Hello, How are you?, I’m sorry, I love you, please, and thank you.

Especially “Thank you”. 

So, of course when I have assignments and reading piling up I decide I want to poop some rainbows.  I miss J.  She has left and gone to Thailand, but not before leaving us with some of her truths.  She is the hero of her own story, just like we all should be.  As much as I believe we should advocate for our loved ones, for our community, and for strangers, we really need to advocate for ourselves too.

The realization I came to (just recently), was the importance of health and taking care of yourself in the face of disappointments, stress, sadness, (home)sickness, anger..and anything else that gets in the way of you doing you.  

I have this need to give back.  The more I’ve lived, the more I’ve felt the impact of where my luck in life has gotten me.  I have a loving family and wonderful friends and I don’t know what I did to deserve this.  As a reaction to this, I really feel the responsibility to live up to my potential (whatever that may be) and be a substantial member of my communities and to help whoever I can help and to bring happiness to those around me.  How?  Not sure yet, but what started with a great love for my closest people has now translated to great love for the world around me.

Which brings me to my core thought of last week.  I should probably take care of myself first.  Yes, I have gladly lost sleep to talk to a friend, especially a friend in need..or have invested myself so much in someone else’s struggles that it’s affected me, or have wasted brain space thinking about things I cannot change and probably wouldn’t change even if I could.  I honestly don’t think any of those things are truly bad, but I think in the long-run, and without balance, they can be harmful.  I risk my emotions, because that’s how I know how to live.  

I’m not good at doing things half-assed -even when it’s not appropriate for me to throw caution out the door and run with whatever new life mantra I have going for me at the moment. But, I think this is about realizing what I can handle, and what I shouldn’t let myself handle -definitely not about loving people less or not taking risks.  And, letting you be your best self without self imposed obstacles.

I know, it’s not that impressive.  I was given 25 years on E-arth, just to come to the conclusion that…I need to take care of myself.  (It’s just that I never thought that my issue would be emotional health!  I promise I am almost 50% of the time, sane.)

Even so, I needed this.  And needed to realize that I need to be my better self to be the best for those around me.

-Endofyetanotherpostaboutlife-

S

What is it about number patterns in calendar dates that give people such hard ons? They say there will never be another time like that, etc. But can’t you apply that to everyday?

Anyway.

Thought of the day:
It is hard to look back on the person you were before and acknowledge that it was a true and real part of you, as ugly or horrifying or repulsive as it was. But people really are always changing, and its never too late to be who you want to be.

The past is finished. Anything that happened was meant to teach you something.

The past also does not determine the future. I am tempted to say the contrary: our present recasts our past, and, in so doing, reorients our future. And as the events of our present are always changing, necessarily, then our narratives are always changing. It’s like a network of threads - a web- and how I toss it, cast it, gesture with it now reshapes the entire thing, backwards and forwards.

This reshaping- this reorienting- is relentless. We are constantly recasting ourselves and its gorgeous.

Happy holidays all. I still have a peculiarly high enthusiasm for all things concerning the holidays and intend on spending it happy as fuck and probably somewhat inebriated with my loved ones. Although things are not perfect, or exactly as I would wish them to be, when is it ever anyway? It keeps life exciting and its what keeps us human.

lol. gotta do you, bro.

let us be thankful for the people in our lives who don’t try to change us. and for those moments in life, when being exactly who you are has resulted in some pretty amazing things :)

this isn’t entirely about pizza, but i do love pizza.

FUCKING love it.

thoughts:

1. you keep in touch with people you want to keep in touch with. and that means making the effort and setting aside the time to do that. it’s really that simple. 

2. people come in and out of your lives for a reason. but i don’t think anyone ever really leaves. no matter how long you have been in someone’s life, whether it be 20 years or 20 seconds, you have made some sort of impact. so hope that it will always be a good one.

3. continuous growth is key. in the words of albert einstein, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. if you’re unhappy with the person you are or a situation you’re in, be brave enough to make necessary changes until you’re satisfied with the product. knowing what the right thing to do is to enable your own growth is hard in itself, but actually taking those steps feels really damn good and will propel you the rest of the way.

4. pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. you can choose to wallow and mope and dwell on shit that you cannot change, or you can get out of your head and keep moving forward. heartaches and worries you have today will be just a vague wisp of memory years, or even months, from now. recognize what it is that is causing you pain, accept the things you can’t change, realize what you can do, learn and move on.

5. something else that saves me everyday is knowing that i have so much to be grateful for. i have had my fair share of tumultuous times, from elementary days to now, but without those experiences i would be a completely different person. i’m proud of myself. and there is so much more to life than everyday worries. i feel really fucking fortunate. i’m young and able-bodied, independent and living in a cute apartment in a great city with one of my best friends, i have a good career where i make ample amounts of money to support myself, and i’m constantly surrounded by opportunities and really, truly good people. it’s fucking amazing. people always think about what’s the next thing, what else do i need to make me happy, and while that is a good way to think because you’ll always have goals, it’s also great to just stop and enjoy what you’ve got right at that moment. relish in it. 

6. knowing what is worth your time is seriously one of the best things you can learn to do. we don’t have unlimited time here. so don’t waste it on anything that makes you feel like shit. waste. of. time!

7. beauty is in the eye of the beholder. i am not a size 0, 1, 2, or even 3. and after years of struggle, i am just fine with that. i wasn’t born with those skinny asian genes. i really wasn’t. i’m healthy, i workout, and i can rock a pair of ghetto jeans like nobody’s business because i have the ass to fill it out. and that’s okay with me. there are a lot of different kinds of beautiful, and maybe mine is not conventional, but that’s fine with me. i have legs that take me where i need to go, arms that can help me pull patients up in bed and wave around when i’m dancing, and a brain that functions quite terrifically. besides, i think when people are awesome, it radiates from inside and sort of just spurts out and overflows to their external appearance. and i am awesome.

8. if you are honest in all matters when it comes to yourself and conduct with others, you have nothing to hide, no apologies to make, and generally, can live a lot more freely. there’s no guilt, there’s no embarrassment or shame. it’s just you doin what you do and saying what you really think, and not being afraid to say it. and that feels damn good too.

9. compromise is key in any relationship. but compromising yourself and your beliefs and who you are for someone else is not going to do anyone any good. i’ve spent a long time caring what other people think and doing things for others and people pleasing. and i mean a LONG ASS TIME. and honestly, who cares? be yourself, and the right people will come to you. in my case, i’m a little nuts and pretty fucking weird, and that’s me. it works for some people, and it doesn’t for others. the point is, i can stay a little crazy and a lotta weird, and people who dig that will stick around and i don’t have to change a thing. and i dig that. 

10. lastly, you can’t take care of other people or love other people properly if you can’t do it for yourself. get your mind right, get your duck’s in a row, do all the things you need to do to get yourself at your tip top state, and then go ahead and get down with whoever you want. hahah. 

thoughts:

1. you keep in touch with people you want to keep in touch with. and that means making the effort and setting aside the time to do that. it’s really that simple. 

2. people come in and out of your lives for a reason. but i don’t think anyone ever really leaves. no matter how long you have been in someone’s life, whether it be 20 years or 20 seconds, you have made some sort of impact. so hope that it will always be a good one.

3. continuous growth is key. in the words of albert einstein, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. if you’re unhappy with the person you are or a situation you’re in, be brave enough to make necessary changes until you’re satisfied with the product. knowing what the right thing to do is to enable your own growth is hard in itself, but actually taking those steps feels really damn good and will propel you the rest of the way.

4. pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. you can choose to wallow and mope and dwell on shit that you cannot change, or you can get out of your head and keep moving forward. heartaches and worries you have today will be just a vague wisp of memory years, or even months, from now. recognize what it is that is causing you pain, accept the things you can’t change, realize what you can do, learn and move on.

5. something else that saves me everyday is knowing that i have so much to be grateful for. i have had my fair share of tumultuous times, from elementary days to now, but without those experiences i would be a completely different person. i’m proud of myself. and there is so much more to life than everyday worries. i feel really fucking fortunate. i’m young and able-bodied, independent and living in a cute apartment in a great city with one of my best friends, i have a good career where i make ample amounts of money to support myself, and i’m constantly surrounded by opportunities and really, truly good people. it’s fucking amazing. people always think about what’s the next thing, what else do i need to make me happy, and while that is a good way to think because you’ll always have goals, it’s also great to just stop and enjoy what you’ve got right at that moment. relish in it. 

6. knowing what is worth your time is seriously one of the best things you can learn to do. we don’t have unlimited time here. so don’t waste it on anything that makes you feel like shit. waste. of. time!

7. beauty is in the eye of the beholder. i am not a size 0, 1, 2, or even 3. and after years of struggle, i am just fine with that. i wasn’t born with those skinny asian genes. i really wasn’t. i’m healthy, i workout, and i can rock a pair of ghetto jeans like nobody’s business because i have the ass to fill it out. and that’s okay with me. there are a lot of different kinds of beautiful, and maybe mine is not conventional, but that’s fine with me. i have legs that take me where i need to go, arms that can help me pull patients up in bed and wave around when i’m dancing, and a brain that functions quite terrifically. besides, i think when people are awesome, it radiates from inside and sort of just spurts out and overflows to their external appearance. and i am awesome.

8. if you are honest in all matters when it comes to yourself and conduct with others, you have nothing to hide, no apologies to make, and generally, can live a lot more freely. there’s no guilt, there’s no embarrassment or shame. it’s just you doin what you do and saying what you really think, and not being afraid to say it. and that feels damn good too.

9. compromise is key in any relationship. but compromising yourself and your beliefs and who you are for someone else is not going to do anyone any good. i’ve spent a long time caring what other people think and doing things for others and people pleasing. and i mean a LONG ASS TIME. and honestly, who cares? be yourself, and the right people will come to you. in my case, i’m a little nuts and pretty fucking weird, and that’s me. it works for some people, and it doesn’t for others. the point is, i can stay a little crazy and a lotta weird, and people who dig that will stick around and i don’t have to change a thing. and i dig that. 

10. lastly, you can’t take care of other people or love other people properly if you can’t do it for yourself. get your mind right, get your duck’s in a row, do all the things you need to do to get yourself at your tip top state, and then go ahead and get down with whoever you want. hahah. 

It has been a long while since I’ve posted.  The woman behind the TYOTD has inspired me!  

To follow an earlier post of this link by one of the other three personalities: http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/a-thank-you-to-real-friends/

This is basically how I feel about friendships!!! and I’ve been trying to communicate this for a long time.  I struggled to explain why the daily communication was so important to me and that no, I did not see “life getting in the way” as a valid reason for why you don’t put in as much effort to send random pictures of trees, walls, failed cooking experiments, new furniture you may have acquired or texting random anecdotes on your day or calling them up!! or sending an email, list goes on…whether a blessing or curse, the 21st century has certainly equipped us with massive modes of communication which we should use wisely.

This is not to say that everyone needs to feel the way that I do or navigate their relationships the way I have.  I know I’m stubborn and I hold fast to my absolute truths, and this is one of them.  To me, my life is about my relationships, I’m sure I would be something without them, but..I’m not sure what that would really look like?  Maybe a shriveled up raisin version of myself…

I believe I was born with a soul and then people I met or people I love or who love me have slowly made imprints on me through words, gestures, hugs, kisses, laughter, sadness, etc etc, and made me who I am at this present moment.  A little tangential as my thoughts always go…but I guess what I wanted to state/ask is how can you reconcile busy lives with keeping in touch with those who may not be driving distance?  How do you make time when you’re worried about surviving in school and statistics and econ are like these HUGE ASS CLOUDS over your head at all times (until the end of this semester whoooo!!!) and it’s so freaking cold outside that you can’t even text or call people without your fingers going numb (Sorry Pittsburgh, but I’m a California girl and I know I’m a complete weather wimp, but this isn’t okay).

My answer has been: lose sleep to stay up on the phone, vidchat study dates (best when on mute so you are not tempted to talk), stopping on the way to school to take a random picture of autumn leaves to send to friends, and a host of other things

It’s truly difficult sometimes especially because I chose this.  I chose to make this move and to live my life here for the next two years.  And sure, there are always going to be acquaintances in my life, but I feel that I’ve made genuine connections to people I have just met less than three months ago and I don’t regret this decision at all.  And I do think that you can still experience daily life (in some shape) with those you love who are far away and still maintain a healthy and engaged relationship with those around you and with your environment.

The post from thought catalog talks about meaningless interactions… but you know what? that’s usually from a person’s unwillingness to open themselves up to people, and a person’s decision that their work, school, family is their priority and everything around it just fills in space.  

I think the moment when we start to appreciate and accept every single component of your life as something meaningful and something that informs your perspectives and will change you, these relationships are far less common, and you will not find yourself spending three months only hanging out with people you don’t really care for, or would not miss if you never saw or spoke to them again.  

So if I were a concise person, I would say, yes! recognize your real friends, the people who you feel comfort with and can sit in silence with, but don’t take this as a sign that the people you will meet will not become one of these real friends one day. (and of course, even my concise statement was not concise)

S

i have come to believe that everyone undergoes what i would like to call, “the year of the douche”, aka TYOTD.

TYOTD is where you act as selfishly as possible, destroy pretty much everything and everyone in your path like a drunkass bitch tornado, consume a shit ton of alcohol and drugs and food that makes your jeans fucking tight, you ruin a lot of potentially amazing things, give yourself a lot of excuses for being a douche, do a lot of self destructive things, etc etc. this usually happens in your early to late twenties, and sucks to your assmar.

now, i won’t say that this is a mandatory ordeal. but i will say that almost everyone i know has gone through a phase just like this.

mine happened to be 2012. 

i won’t go into detail, but i will make a laundry list of things that i have learned from my uttermost horrid bitch of a year:

1. do not try to pro rollerblade if you were never that great in the first place. this is how i got my first concussion ever.  

2. the right person at the wrong time is still the wrong person. think about it. if it was meant to be, you’ll meet again, at the right time. but if it’s the wrong time, no matter what you do, that shit will not work.

3. dont. lie. im serious. because it will always catch up to you, and even if you thought you were saving yourself some trouble, in reality, you’ve just opened up pandoras box of shitstorm. *this seems like an elementary rule, but seriously, everyone does it to some extent. it takes a lot of cajones to ALWAYS tell the truth.

4. hold yourself accountable for your actions. this is a very grown up thing to do and i highly recommend it for anyone who seems to have a hard time seeing why their behavior is not working for them. take this however you want.

5. if something isn’t going well for you, fix it. speak up to your boss, your boyfriend, your friend, whoever, or to yourself, if it’s something internal that needs to change. it’s hard to hone in on whatever is causing you strife, and when you can identify it, all you need to do is take the next steps to just eliminate that factor. there is no prep, you just need to force yourself to make change, however uncomfortable it may be for you.

6. friends with benefits never work. period. unless you are able to maintain only a light level of interest with a person you end up spending a lot of intimate time with, this type of relationship is extremely difficult to maintain and ends badly most of the time if expectations are not clear from the get go.

7. never try to consume copious amounts of alcohol on an empty stomach to save yourself “time and calories”. FALSE. you will only find yourself waking up to a mouthful of cheetos and shame.

8. back to basics. its always best to be honest, make the most of what you have, enjoy simple pleasures, and have courage when things go wrong. 

9. you need to know what you want and who you are vs who you want to be, otherwise you wont get to the place you want to be in your life and you will be unhappy. 

10. do not beat yourself up once you realize you have just had your TYOTD. we all get lost sometimes and good people can do bad things. just recognize it, try to fix what you can, and move on. dwelling on how much you have sucked that year (this is not an innuendo lol), really takes a toll on that self esteem ticker. so just skip that shit.

sidenote: it’s almost comical to me how much shit you can fuck up in one year. 

i write this post coming from a peaceful place. ive pretty much tazmanian devil’ed my way through 2012, and have felt reckless and insane for a whole year. 

today marks the beginning of the rest of my life. 

hopefully, for future readers, you can take something from this advice, and remember that you are still awesome. this just happened to be your YOTD, and try your best to be better and fix what you can. 

I have been blessed with an abundance of great people and experiences and gifts and abilities.

Being strapped to one of my bffs while soaring over the ocean is just one of many. 

Thank you universe for giving me so much awesome on my 25th year of life. :) 

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/a-thank-you-to-real-friends/

The things you struggle with today are things you choose to struggle with. 
Because you believe that what you want to accomplish, is worth struggling for.

i have become more selfish in the past few years. but i don’t view it as a bad thing. 

when you’re too nice and willing to give up things for other people, you compromise yourself in ways you might not think are a big deal, but really are. 

so don’t give in to pressure. don’t just go along with something because it’s easier. don’t compromise your plans and goals just to appease someone else’s. 

it is your life. do what you want. even if it means changing relationships, going against what people’s expectations of you always were, or leaving your environment. 

this is the best time to go through with whatever scary thing you’ve always wanted to do but never had the balls or means to for some reason or the other. we don’t have kids, we’re not married, we’re all starting our careers, and we are beginning a life outside of the one our parents had set out for us. 

so move cross country for grad school to a whole new city. learn to deep sea dive in a foreign country. meet random boys. move out. learn to be a little more selfish. break up with shitty boyfriends. try drugs. and indian food. challenge yourself, change, step outside of your comfort zone more often than not, learn about yourself. leave all those one sided relationships and people who bring you down behind. it is not your job to fix other people’s lives or be the one always trying. fuck those people. because you’ve got your own life to live.

and because there’s a big old awesome world out there and it’s ours for the taking. 

happy friday,

J

just a little sneaky peek :)

how to find bliss:

1) go to the philippines

2) never leave

remembering that life is about love and family and adventure and good people and loud music and siestas and home cooking and white butterflies and new worlds and always ALWAYS feeling blessed :D