Youthful Life: X

Truth - Looking back is critical to helping us look forward. 2016. What a year. Let's let that statement marinate just a little bit. Who would have thought a year that brought us a flurry of amazing musical achievements in album form would pretty much be garbage in every other way possible. I kid, I kid. Perspective really is everything, and hyperbolizing about an abstract concept doesn't do anything to change it. It's when we stop, take a look around, and learn from our surroundings, with a little bit of review, that we know what to do next or at the very least what not to do.   "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." Barack Obama Can we please have a small discussion about the ways in which this year, namely 2016 aka the year the of our Lord's departure from this Earthly purgatory, has taken on its own persona and been anthropomorphized ...

Truth - Each and ever person experiences life differently. No two people's lives are the same. What we want out of life also varies and yet - it doesn't. We all define happiness in different ways but the commonality what we strive for can be broken down. Life is about passions, talents, gifts, love, laughter, hope, and growth. We want to live a life that has meaning. We want to change the world and to be remembered for it. We want to matter to others. Life is an existential crisis of epic proportions. Somehow we figure it out, and then again ... we really don't. We're whole and fractured. We're surviving and dying. We progress and we're lost. We are broken but not shattered. "Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain... To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices - today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it." Kevyn Aucoin  ...

Truth - Sometimes we have to forgive ourselves to set ourselves free. It takes absolving ourselves of some of the things we carry with us and those things we do not have control us that happen to us to exonerate us. We can create our imprisonment and subsequently can be the only ones to free ourselves from our self-induced bondage. We can be so critical and unrelenting of ourselves but may be causing our own demise. Cut yourself some slack, express your emotions, and be forgiven. "We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. They who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies." MLK Jr. What we mean when we say we have to forgive ourselves? For me personally, that is a notion I came to understand in college. Some of the past trauma I had never let go and carried with became too heavy to continue on with. I ...

Truth - Each day we write our life stories. I want my story to always be one of those truly breathtaking epics of old. I want to live a life of navigation, adventure, and exploration always. I want to be challenged, pushed, and moved out of my comfort zone constantly. I want life to be exhilarating, terrifying, and shocking. I want amusement, gut-busting laughter, and surprise. I want randomness, inquiry, and mystery. I want passion, fervor, and zeal. I want it all. I want to be fulfilled and to know that I lived my life to the best of my ability. I wan to be pleased with who I am, what I did, and what I did for others. I want to be a whole person who embraces the plot twists of life. This is my story. This is my truth. This is my narrative. "Narrative identity takes part in the story's movement, in the dialectic between order and disorder." Paul Ricoeur Words cannot describe how amazed I am that this blog, this written representation of who I am as a person in my ...

Truth - The world we live in is different than it has ever been at any other point in history. The people who live now are existing in a unique time and space. Our beliefs, practices, and cultural rituals have changed over time as well. Things that used to be the norm have now fallen by the wayside. Even the ways that we talk about some phenomena has changed. In this day and age what does it mean to be single, and what does that status say about you? "My alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude" Warsan Shire There's nothing like succumbing to a trend and getting on board with what seems to be a majority of your peers. Dating apps and the medium of social media as matchmakers - what a world to live in. What are you looking for? It seems like such a simple question, complete with pre-made responses for you to select but maybe it's not that easy. Am I on this romanticized twenties/thirties long journey to find my soul-mate, my p...