perspective

Most experiences in life are described using 1-perspective. But what if that perspective changed. What if every time you had the opportunity to make a decision, you had the ability to get a new seat in the audience of your life and see it from a different perspective. Imagine if you will...sitting in a crowded audience, and you are sitting center stage in the middle. Well from this view, one would imagine that they could see anything. However, if this person were to sit stage left, then they would see something entirely different. Maybe from this perspective an entirely different view can be seen, perhaps it's the same. Well most people live their lives with the burning feeling that they could be seeing something from a different perspective. Sometimes when we are so wrapped up in something and really want it to work, it seems like only positive things could come from it. Sometimes what we need to do is to find a seat in the audience of our life, and constantly change positions in our seat, because if we don't we'll only get half the show.

what a difference a year can make.

Wow, what a year that it has been. A year ago today, I was struggling with a decision that has placed me in the situation I am in today. Fall of 2009 was a time of failure, and a time of learning. For the first time, I truly felt as though I was failing at something. Which is ironic in retrospect, given that I was on the downhill of successfully graduating from a very prestigious university in 4 years, almost unheard of. But I did it. And so did all of my friends. We were at a fork in the road, we had limitless options and any path we wanted to take, was awaiting us. We were in control. But unfortunately, it was 2009, and the country was in turmoil. Every time I applied for a job, I could just hear the HR department laughing at my resume, because unlike the poor souls who are about 5 years my senior, who had been laid off, they had actual paid experience. I was a gamble to them. Although I had held an impressive amount of intern experience, and my work experience prepared me to work well with others, I was passed on. If I were more brave, I would go back through emails from June to November of last year, read through the countless applications, interviews, and second and third interviews I went to. Ultimately to find out that they had, "found someone else" and that they were "going to keep my resume for 6-months in case something comes up." All of this irritated me. I could not understand why this was happening to ME.

It is not until now, a year later, and arguably wiser that I begin to understand that it wasn't happening to me, it was just another chapter of my life that I was living through, it wasn't really the outcome that mattered, what mattered was that I learned something from it, and made it out with my dignity. My pride was left behind, but who needs that, it's one of the 7 deadly sins after-all :).

So I packed myself up, quit my minimum-wage job, and became a statistic. I was now a post-grad who had moved home to my childhood bedroom, stuffed animals and all, to "figure out that next step" This was a little but humiliating, because I so long thought that my identity was contingent on my independence. I was wrong. I could still be independent from home, it would just come with more rules.

Currently I am in a graduate program, and I am half-way done. Most importantly, I am realizing what I want in my life, how to get it, and how to not take it for granted. I'm learning that living in the moment is exciting, but preparing for the future while learning from the past, and having faith is the best we can do.

The importance of voting

In honor of this weeks primary election in California, I decided to take a few minutes to talk about civic responsibility. I think voting and exercising your democratic responsibility is so important, that a month and a half ago when my sister turned 18, I even brought home a voter registration card for her.

Perhaps you think I'm here to grand stand for my political party? Not the case. I don't care if we are ideologically polar opposites, it is so important that you express yourself by voting. I am a firm believer in that you can't complain if you don't vote, because you missed your chance to do that when you decided not to vote. More importantly, if a candidate who is begging you to vote for them hasn't had a good voting record then how do you know they will represent you?

So this is a really short entry, basically I just wanted to remind you to take time to visit the polls I don't care how you vote, if you write your best friend in for governor or if you don't even know what the propositions are before researching them. It's your civic responsibility so just do it!

What is your biggest fear?

My biggest fear is to become an innerchangeable, cog in the machine of life. I fear that I will be so innerchangeable, that my individuality will be reduced to nothing. Although I have been afraid recently that I am becoming less of an idealist and more of a realist, this one thing has not changed. I want to be able to do something, that few others can do. No, I don't want to be that weird kid who creeps people out. I want to be able to change peoples lives in a way that others cannot. I want to help people reach their life goals, acheive success, and appreciate life everyday.

Recently, it has become more apparent to me just how important and fragile our time here is. I have experienced a few people dying recently, these deaths were of the worst variety, suddenly and too young. I feel for the families of these promising lives cut short. My heart aches for those that loved them, and my mind recongnizes the need to live everyday with purpose.

I have a task for you bloggers, pick a day, any day, preferably a sunny day because the task will be easier, and here is your mission. I challenge you to go an entire day without complaining or saying anyting negative. In college, my roommate, friend, and I tried this and we actually were quite successful. Here are a few tips to make this a more successful task for you. Firstly, don't just wake up out of bed, jump up, and immediately think of something positive to thing about. I hear about this self-help book once where the author claimed that if you wake up everyday and just start laughing, then you're day will go accordingly. Throughout your day smile at strangers, sing along to happy music in your car, and let all the seemingly terrible things in your life fall by the wayside. You will surprise yourself how satisfied you feel at the end of the day once you accomplish this task.

I hope everyone has a beautiful week because you never know when the best day of your life will be!

You have to live through it.

Hello bloggers, I know I have been a little MIA as of recently, but I've been busy, I bought my first car, I went to New York for a week, I am enrolled in graduate school, and I have been working everyday. My absence has got the creative writing juices a flowin' :)

Something my mom said to me the other day really got me thinking. She turned 50 this week, which if you saw her you would not believe not only does she not look her age, but she doesn't act like an old woman. So as we were talking about life on that broader level that is always a nice change from focusing so much on the present, she said something that really got me thinking. We were talking about regrets in life, and she said, "I had to live through it." It's very true, there are so many things that seem like they will end the world as we know it, when in reality, it is an experience that will make us a better person.

I got to thinking about this, everyone of us has either had a terribly difficult class, totally unreasonable boss, or a significant other that didn't respect us the way that we deserved. When times were bad in all these scenarios we so desperately wanted someone to come in, pull us out of the situation, and make it instantly better. But we will relive these experiences until we learn from them, until we live through them.

The only thing we can do is have faith in our abilities to conquer anything, and hopfully see the light at the end of the tunnel. Even if things don't work out it will all be for the better because, like they say, "experience is what you get when you don't get what you want."

It's the small things in life...

You wake up late and have to put your hair in a bun and eat on the road, your day is shaping up to be a terrible day.

Scenario 1: But when you get to your local coffee shop to get your extra foam lattee an old man who doesn't have to rush to get anywhere sees you getting out of your car and waits the extra minute for you to get there with the door open. As you frantically rush through the door, he stops and says, "Goodmorning beautiful" the rest of your day is suddenly bliss.

Scenario 2: You fell asleep while pulling an allnighter and have to go to your midterm having only studied half of the material you needed to. Since you skipped breakfast, you decide to get the breakfast of champions, soda and a snickers. You go to press your selection and not only do you get snickers, but the machine drops some cheetto puffs as well, score. You suddenly have the confidence to ace your midterm.

Scenario 3: You wake up and decide that you are going to head to the library and write your paper. Unfortuantely it is beautiful outside and all you really want to do is play frisbee on the quad with your friends. You get to the library and cannot find an open outlet, awesome, but suddenly someone realizes that you are looking for an oulet and kindly removes their cord and lets you use their outlet. This paper isn't going to be as bad as you thought.

Why did I mention these 3 scenarios? It's a fairly basic concept. We worry and stress about these big problems, often times that we have no control over, and when the slightest positive thing happens to us we are suddenly at ease. Although we don't have the power to change the big overarching problems in someones life, we can open the door, share a smile, and buy a stranger coffee. These very small gestures can really have an impact on someones day. Not only does this cheer someone up, but it really goes to show the sense of community tht still exists in our technologically and consumer driven lives/

select the best answer....

We were taught to select the best answer, and there was only one way to bubble in that tiny bubble. We all used the same number pencil, why it was called number 2 is still arbitrary to me. We were all suppossed to be the same, perform the same, know the same things. Then one day when we're 22, they want us to be different.

Oh how society has lead us astray.

We've been told, if you do everything the right way, insinuating that there is only one way, that everything will work out.

Once I walked across that stage last June this all changed.

Every future employer wanted me to tell them why I was different from every other applicant, my gut reaction? YOU, society, made us all the SAME. We had standards, norms, and socially acceptable extracurricular's we were encouraged to participate in. Now all of a sudden, being different will get you somewhere?

Recently, I have realized that we teach our children from a young age that creativity is over-rated. Recently, I met a group of 5-year olds that didn't enjoy coloring. They wanted to scribble the picture to get it done as fast as they could. Essentially we have made our kids lazy, and are teaching them that creativity will get them no where in life. In actuality, we should be showing them that these things that make them different are not only the very things that make them special, but marketable.

After 10 interviews of giving the same canned answers, I realized that I needed to say something that completely wowed them. After a brainstorming session, I realized that the guy that stands on the Santa Monica Boardwalk in a suit with his resume on a posterboard is the guy that probably enjoyed coloring as a kindergartener. This entire epiphany made me realize how I will change the world. I realized that making policies isn't as lifechanging as being the one behind the scenes who must implement them.

We need better evaluation techniques, instead of seeing how well our kids can bubble in, we need something that measures how fast someone can learn a new skill and reteach it to others. Because in the real world we need to do things others do, but keep it our own. We need to keep our creativity. We need to be careful as a society that we don't turn the next generation into data packed zombies. I am a glass half full kinda gal, and I only hope that one day before it is too late, our kids are given a new outlet for their creativity, in hopes that one day when they are 22 they will be able to tell anyone that will listen, why they are special.

The Insider's guide to the real world...

Okay, so maybe I'm no expert at the real world. But at 22 with a college degree and 6 months of real world under my belt, I know what they aren't telling you in college. Don't look so grim over there with your head down, I was an idealist once too, back in 2008(eon's ago, I know) when I thought everything was possible. I was merely embrassing the notions that society had eluded me into believing. From as early as I can remember I was told by parents, educators, and mentors that "knowledge is power". The classrooms of my formative years were even decorated with posters emphasizing this idea; usually some uplifting poster from the 80's, complete with a rainbow with this very slogan written so largely in block letter's it couldn't be missed. I thought this meant that society had in fact done what my history classes said, destroyed social status, and with the right determination to succeed that anything I could dream up was possible. Maybe I have often wondered if perhaps, I took this too literally.



How could this not be true.



I graduated from college with a decent GPA from arguably the greatest public institution in California, if not the nation. But, suddenly my internships were getting me no where. Instead of packing up my car and driving cross country, or jet-setting to Europe to "find myself" in college, I spent my summers either working or interning. Networking if you will. I was gaining knowledge yes? or was I.



Suddenly I began to realize that the correct mantra is, "It's not what you know, it's who you know" completely flabbergasted by this realization I began to spread my name and develop my professional contact base like wildfire, if they knew me, they'd hire me and give me a job.



But no, that didn't work either.



Today, however, on a beautiful sunny drive through California I figured it out. "Knowledge is in fact power". However, like many things we learn in school this mantra should not be taken so literally. I realized that there are several interpretations of knowledge, it's realizing what yours is capable of and what your potential is that is the most difficult.



It isn't our fault that we so literally interpret these mantra's that are instilled upon us at early ages, it's only natural. Cinderella gets her prince at the end of the movie and they live happily ever after right? Wrong. Today I realized that this is a metaphor for something even greater, getting my degree was getting my prince, and my graduation was the cheesy credits at the end of the movie. It's the rest of my life that didn't come with a mantra, a manual, or a disney movie to reference.



Use that knowledge to figure the next part out, and remember what I talked about in my last blog don't be afraid to learn from your shortcomings. Life is all about the unknown, the people you will meet, the places you will go, and the lives you will change for the better.



Here's to you, here's to me, and here's to 2010. May this year bring you many great things.