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Day One Hundred Two:  Positivity

In all of the natural aspects such as towards actually making a living eventually, about confirming that marks aren’t everything in life, and that life gets better despite what we always think.  Why is it that negativity takes over so many people?  Just…let it go.  Things will get better.  Even if you are unhappy, be positive that things will be happy again.  I have experienced so many situations in my life worthy of shutting down and being negative towards myself, and I have found that lately especially I need to just remind myself of a more positive outlook in order to truly get by.

For a long time I thought that I wasn’t cut out for university, and after a long time of fine-tuning the skills I thought were non-existent I have found that maybe analytic, long, academic essays aren’t really what I enjoy/are good at doing.  I think (and know, confidently) that I am meant to be practically applying myself in a team setting, but finding my niche is taking a little longer than I had hoped.  Less of a struggle and more of a mental motivation at the moment, like in intensive training after your body hits the limit you finish your set by pure mental capacity, less stress on the body.  The only thing keeping me going right now is my attitude: challenging myself to do the next steps, to do better, to increase knowledge to get going to finish.  Graduate.

And then what?  Frig, it’s taking all my willpower not to just…try to take the easy way out and do something that I may not love but will get me by.  I want to do something I love intensely though, but that will benefit someone.  It is so hard to struggle with this right now, and to struggle with the fact that I am not amazingly smart at some of the assignments I’m given, and it’s hard to struggle with relationships and friendships and things, and it’s hard to struggle with the things that life has thrown at me…  And yet I still have this shining light inside of me… I like to share it, I like to keep strong, and despite all of the hard things I deal with I just..keep going.

So what I am trying to get through today is just…I’ve always taken university and this degree thus far with a grain of salt.  If a professor didn’t really like my paper I tried my best, took my notes, and moved on.  I went into these final papers confidently and I am still confident I did my best work, but what has come from my first feedback is I know now basically that I don’t want to devote my life and potential graduate school and career to academic writing.  I can analyze, don’t get me wrong, but I think… I think my thoughts, opinions, and best of all my idea’s are best received when you meet me.  When we sit down (or let me stand because I move around a lot) and we jive and talk and get things out in front of us.  I learn and express myself best.  This is where I need to be.

The best part about this is that in my English and Theatre degree I find myself on my feet escribing what I know In theatre, and writing analytically with English, and combine the two and bam we’ve got magic.  But it’s the discouraging bits, it’s the bits that scare me and challenge me most and make me not want to go on with this that bother me.  I am positive I am doing my best, positivity runs my motivation to keep going, but so does that drive that I can feel what I want to do and potentially what I am meant to do just beyond my reach. IT’s on the tip of my tongue but I can’t remember the words.  It’s aound the corner but I’m chained two feet before the turn.  I know it is there, and it is great, I just haven’t arrived there yet.

I just turned to my Audrey Hepburn poster and asked “How did you decide you wanted to be fabulous for the rest of your life?”  The funny thing is, she didn’t decide, she just was.  I would like to think that I just am…whatever I am, and that finding out what that is is what life’s all about.  Why am I here?  I was asked what I wanted to be when I grow up and I answered “Happy.”  I guess that’s what I’m looking for, with a dash of substance thrown in there for good measure.  But even that is unsatisfying, because in the mean time of my journey for happiness I have to make money and live and travel and help people, and finding what I can do to make those things happen is proving to be silly.

I did not expect this to turn out to be only about my school work but I suppose that’s all that is on my mind right now.  I just would like everyone to look at the things and people in their life and think about the way they treat them.  Are you exuding positive light?  Or is that light shadowed by preconceptions of yourself, others, and the world around you?  Be positive, for pete’s sake.

One last thing.  It’s been bothering me lately and I’ve been trying to figure out how to properly express it.  In order to really get my point across, to drive home what I want to say, if you remember nothing about this post and only the next paragraph I would wish nothing more for you.  I have thought this over and over again in the term’s recent events, with Paul and Brad’s passing, and find it helps me, truly, to understand the importance of positivity to myself and everyone around me.  Here it goes.

If you (God forbid) or someone you know or who is loved and close to you died tomorrow, would you regret the last thing you said to them?  The last moment you exchanged?  And if so, is that how you really want to live your life?  Leaving a lasting impression of negativity?  Or would you rather leave others with a sense of peace and love, and that you care?  I am not saying I am perfect or that perfection is attainable or necessary, even, but I just would hope that the answer to these thoughts would always be you would want to leave a positive memory and inspire in others the positivity you share.  Exude love, not hate.  And live everyday (how cliche) like it is your last, with positivity and hope that you are someone's shining light.  

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