Youthful Life: X

" Little by little we human beings are confronted with situations that give us more and more clues that we are not perfect. " Fred Rogers Some days we're overwhelmed, while others we are underwhelmed. When are we just well ... whelmed? I think of how often I hear from others that they are overwhelmed, and that feeling leads them to paralysis. It's that moment of having too much, excess, or more than we can bear that scares us into submission. We shut down. We break down. We stop moving. The irony is what we really need to is to keep moving but do so strategically, in ways that give us back control. We just need to do or handle one thing, and one thing only before moving on to the next thing. I think about what happens when my laundry piles up. I've done one load and need to fold it, but then here comes another, and another, and suddenly I have a mountain of clean clothes that seems so insurmountable that I cannot even begin to imagine tackling it. So I do...

" In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing." Theodore Roosevelt Making decisions becomes more prominent the further along we go in life. Day by day we are tasked with choosing what is best, or right for us. Try as we may, ultimately, much of the choices we face are left to us within our own capacities. To some, that can seem daunting, whereas others welcome the opportunity to make decisions. Decision making can be a nuanced process that utilizes elements from both ends fear/eagerness spectrum. Careful consideration means evaluating, forecasting possible outcomes, and calculating impacts in the near, and foreseeable future. Taking time to make decisions helps us feel confident in our process to get to a point of clarity, better understand complex emotions, and unearth the root cause of our potential indecisiveness. We must be vigilant to ensure our painst...

" Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."  Ralph Waldo Emerson I don't know. It's almost become a reflexive habit to utter those words. It's an indecisive cop out. It's a passing off onto someone else. It's a deflection to avoid sharing our thoughts or opinions. It's okay to say I don't know, AND in most contexts we actually do know. We need to reserve "I don't know" for rare occasions. Sometimes we're afraid to say what we want to say because we worry how other people will react, or we're scared that if we utter our real words aloud that it bring them to life. We need to stop saying we don't know. We need to start listening to our bodies. We know what we want. We know what we believe. We know what we think. The only thing stopping us from sharing what we know to be true (at least for ourselves) is ourselves. Why do we hesitate? Stop short? Stumble over ourselves? What are we afraid of...

Truth - Life is a series of choices. We are constantly tasked with making choices whether we are conscious of them or not. In some instances there seems to be much a myriad of options and at other times we feel limited but nonetheless we are made to choose. Regardless of our preparedness we have to choose, and even deciding not to choose is a paradoxical choice in and of itself. We learn what we need to choose in our lifelong of practice of choosing. This is choice.   "There are three constants in life... change, choice and principles." Stephen Covey One of the many dilemmas my generation faces is the abundance of choice. Now, more than any other time in history, we are given more choices. We have options, opportunities, and less boundaries. From what we eat to where we live, to what we do and how we do it - choice after choice is presented to us. Our challenge is to manage the smaller choices while tackling the gargantuan ones as well. Even that dichotomy though pla...

The 20s are all about embracing uncertainty. Society grooms us to always be planning our next steps. We're supposed to be preparing for the future, prepping our next move and crouching to be ready to pounce. If you don't know what you're going to be doing five or ten years life, your life is apparently a mess. I'm here to tell you that I don't know what I want to do tomorrow much less next week or next year even. That's too damn real. It's okay to not know. Stop and read that again - I'll wait. It's time to change mapmakers. It's time to chart your own path, in your own time. It's time to become your own cartographer.   The first time I ever heard the word cartographer was in the context of this infamous level of the smash hit first-person shooter Halo: Combat Evolved that came out in 2001 (right in the childhood). I never really processed fully what it meant to be a map-maker. Maps have always just seemed to be there. Remember the days w...

Being a teenager is all about dealing with everything, that includes yourself and others. You have to be on it or face the consequences. The slightest differentiation from your "normal" self (the one that everyone sees) means there must be something terribly wrong. If you're not being you must be pissed, depressed, or "in a bad mood." Nope, that's not it - I'm just tired. I have the right to let it all hang out every once in a while, to show a different of myself, and to not be judged for it. Sometimes you have to show all 50 shades of gray, and other times you just fade to gray. Fading to gray is all about dealing with things as they come. Whether it be good or bad news, you either show out or retreat back into yourself. You fade, you cringe, you rescind inwards and protect yourself. You shy away from others, lose a little bit of your pep and you might be a little down in the dumps. Express how you feel and do you - fade to gray.   One of my f...