Youthful Life: X

" No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth." Robert Southey I am useful. I constantly worry about being useful. I wonder if people only keep me around because I am specifically useful to them. I think about all the messages I received over the years about what makes me worthwhile and what others have seemingly responded most positively to is my utility. It's an odd thing to say but the more I mull it over that's how I feel. I'm a tool to be used to solve issues. I'm a fixer. I make things better. I improve other people's lives. I say what needs to be said. I am the cure. I am a remedy. I am the mirror to reflect on. I am the prompter to ask the questions that create substantive change. I am the secret weapon. I am the one that brings you out a funk. I am the one that you turn to first. I am the one that is dependable. I am the one that drops everything to prior...

" You have to figure out how you can step forward and affect your own life. I think that sense of empowerment is actually really positive, specifically for the young generation because they've been bystanders in their own lives for a while." Jennifer Yuh Nelson The bystander effect is the social phenomenon that people are less likely to intervene when other people are around because they assume someone else will intervene, ergo no one intercedes. Oftentimes it's applied to proximate social settings but I believe it applies to a wider swath of social interaction a la social media, among other things. How many times do we see someone we're connected to post or share something odd, strange, alarming, heartbreaking, or even joyous, and think so many other people are witnessing this. Someone else will reach out, someone who knows them better will do it, or someone who is closer to them will say something. Maybe we feel awkward, embarrassed, or helpless to actuall...

"A friend is one who knows you and love you just the same." Elbert Hubbard Our ability to recall some version of our most devastating life moments is one of the hallmarks of the human experience. The speed with which I can be transported back to all the awkwardness, embarrassment, and rejection is uncanny. I always feel like I have moved past things that have long happened, and yet all it takes is a reminder from someone in the present. I have come to realize that much of my life has been dictated by this incessant need to be perfect, to show up perfectly, to be perfect for other people. Even in my friendships perfectionism has reared its ugly head. I feel like I have to win. I have to be the best - friend who ever did live. I have to be amazing - to go above and beyond. I have to be everything, and good at it all. Why do I still feel like I am constantly trying to prove my worth to my friends? Why do I see myself still as the awkward social outcast that didn't qui...

"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 I am striving to feel, speak about, and share joy more often . In a world shrouded in darkness, doused in melancholy, and bludgeoned by critique, where is my joy? I have found myself giving voice to the gray when in reality most of my day are spent either mundane, or somewhere just north of contentment. I'm in homeostasis, an equilibrium if you will. I'm existing, and doing quite alright if not pretty well. I've become so used to articulating the moments that feel like less than without giving due process to their relational foils of happiness, joy, and peace. What's the impact? It creates a skewed perspective that is unrealistically monotone instead of bright, warm, and vibrant. I h...

"My alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude” Warsan Shire Find someone, meet someone, be with someone - we live in a society that deems us incomplete lest we have someone else. I don't subscribe to that ideology. I believe in wholeness. I believe in additions not completions. I believe in co-creation not achievement. Togetherness is not the opposite of singledom. People are often "together" but distanced and isolated nonetheless. The more I move through life I have come to realize that what people want, need, and desire in others varies - drastically. For some, the quest for their one true love, their perfect match, soul mate, if you will occupies them. It seems effortless.  For others, it's people that may not "fit" together but put in the effort to make it work. For others still it's a sort of crowd-sourcing, so that their "someone" is not their everything - it's sharing different kinds of...

" Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend."  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.  I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I'm spent. I have spent the entirety of my life being "amazing." My modus operandi has long been going above and beyond, being awe-inspiring, doing the most, etc. So long as I can remember I have been performing. Maybe it's a caricature. Maybe it's a program. Maybe it's a life stoked in expectations, real, perceived, projected, and internalized that has run rampant. I have been putting on a show. I have been entertaining. I have been portraying the character that has been expected of me, or rather who I have thought I'm supposed to be. I am a person simultaneously whole and categorically broken. I am a soul betwixt and between worlds warped by social pressures, entrenched in a constant battle to be worthy, emboldened by a yearn to be enough. This strive to prove my brilliance, my value, my...

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one." C.S. Lewis Adulthood is an adventure that no one really  knows how to navigate. In talking to my friends scattered all over the country and around the world, one of the consistent sentiments shared is having trouble making new friends. Making friends in adulthood is difficult but not impossible. That distinction is key. Adults are lonely. People are yearning for others who get them. Folks crave connection. No matter how closed off they might seem - it is a universal experience. A few or a lot of failed attempts does not mean we should give up where we are or on making friends in general. We have to keep trying, and try smart!  Quite honestly, the things we learned as kids to build our friendships still applies to striving the do the same thing in adulthood. Find something you have in common and build on it. Even more so, the principles from our col...

“Life is just a slide. Back and forth between loving and leaving, remembering and forgetting, holding on and letting go."  Nicole Lyons I dislike the notio n of always being expected to be accessible. I don't believe people should always have access to us as a people. It feels intrusive, demanding, and invasive. We get to grant and more importantly, revoke access to us as we please. That's our prerogative. Both in a proximal sense, and digitally through social media, we get to decide who gets to be near us, contact us, and engage with us. All too often we shy away from rescinding access once it has been given. I am of the camp that we can, and should be constantly reevaluating who we allow into our lives. Much like Marie Kondo's tidying up method, if people do not bring us joy, contribute to our peace, or more practically add to our lives beneficially, then what is the purpose in keeping them around. That is not to say that everyone should serve a purpose, bu...

" A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer's decision to choose one product or service over another."  Seth Godin Every single person we connect with experiences us differently. They engage with our "brand." Like the onslaught of obnoxiously intrusive ads (our phones are definitely entrenched in subliminal espionage) sprawled across social media, we are constantly "marketing" ourselves to others - ideally in less rapacious ways. What happens when we treat ourselves like a personal brand? How does that change the ways that we carry ourselves, who we portray ourselves as, and the story we seek to tell about who and how we are? Branding is about storytelling. Each and every one of us has a story worth sharing/experiencing. If we don't tell our story, we cannot expect others to know, inquire about, or honor it. Knowing our brand means taking stock of what we've ...