38 Days Strong

This is day Number 38.

38 Days straight of work.
     Not one single day off.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to my weekend off.
I have many things to share with you and I keep hoping soon I will be able to so more blogging.

But until then, and even amidst 38 days straight, this song rings truer than I have ever known before...

This could really be a good life.

Life is what you make it, my friends. 

Emotional Pep Talk

Considering the last two posts have consisted of my inner self,

I thought I would lighten the mood and post a little pep talk.

If your life is anything like mine,

it's not perfect.

BUT I am continuously blessed in so many ways.

I might have to work four jobs and sell my plasma to pay all my bills,

but I have friends and family who love me,

two cats that make me smile,

a running car,

a city that has many free exploration opportunities,

and a bright future.

Come this May,

I am hoping to make the BIG move to California.

I am looking to go back to undergrad for a Psych degree and then onto grad school for Clinical Psychology.

I don't have any family out there and just one friend,

BUT

Life is all about taking chances, taking risks, and pushing forward.

and despite how much I am in love with my [now] home,

I know that in order to continue to grow,

this is a step I must take.

Life is grand and Life is beautiful.

It is full of unknowns, devastations, celebrations, tears, laughter, and joy.

A quote I have always held dear to my heart:


 "He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must of felt what it is to die, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life. Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope.” - Alexandre Dumas

Visitor Alert

My Mother.

My Best Friend.

I couldn't have asked for a better mother. Seriously. She is the most incredible woman I know. If someday I find myself with children, I can only hope that I will sacrifice as much as she did for me. I know it wasn't always easy, but she did a phenomenal job.

Everything I am today, I owe to her.

She taught me to love. to show patience. to understand people. to know yourself. to show forgiveness. to give grace, even when it's undeserved. 

And how to get a little crazy from time to time.

She's not just a great mother,

she's an astounding human being.

I'm just so lucky to call her mom.

And my best friend.

AND SHE'S COMING TO VISIT TOMORROW.

I'm a very happy girl.

And my apartment is the cleanest it's been in quite a while :)

3 Generations.
Love these two women.

Our 2ND time skydiving.
This time was for my 21st birthday.

 Our semi-matching tattoos.

Her's says "Mother" in Hebrew

Mine says "Daughter" in Hebrew

Best College Grad Present EVER.

All my love

and then some. 

Me Time

Precious, precious Me Time.

How I take thee for granted all too often.

My life is...busy.
I have four jobs and a relationship.
I still struggle to make ends meet and I'm pretty sure I'm currently behind on at least 3 bills.

So Me Time gets pushed aside. A LOT.


So night's like these, where I come home from one job, light my holiday scented candles,
turn on a steady flow of artists like: Florence + the machine, Elle Goulding, Mumford&Sons, Jessica Lee Mayfield, Adele, The Avett Brothers, etc.
are beautiful gifts of serenity.

As I said, my life is busy
and I struggle to pay all my bills.
Did I mention, I struggle to pay my bills?

That being the case,
I often feel stressed out.
Much more than I would like.
I mean, let's be honest,
by nature, I'm wound up pretty tight.
I can be a perfectionist, a control freak, an overachiever (the list goes on)
but I try to keep myself from stressing.
Stress is like a poison that seeps through your veins and into your attitude.
It affects the ones we care about most,
as we often take it out on our loved ones.

I'm a big believer/fan of loving on people,
so the last thing I want to to is to burden another person
by saying something harsh or uncalled for.

Moral of the Story?

When life leaves me stressing,

it's normally because I've been neglecting Me Time.

I wish I was one of those "always peaceful/centered" people

BUT I'm one of those "continuously remind myself to chill out" people.

And all in all,

I like who I am.

And I adore the people around me.

BUT

I can't always be around them.

I need my space, my thoughts, my journal, and my candles

to remind me of my center

my balance

my life.

Me Time is crucial to my survival.

And whenever I start to become annoyed by those around me,

I am aware that it is not the others that have the problem,

but myself,

and (most likely) my lack of Me Time.

So here's a cheer to Me Time.

EXACTLY what I needed this week.

Without knowing what I am and Why I am here,

Life is impossible

-Leo Tolstoy

P.S. Missing California and the Ocean today...

Be Where You Are.

My entire life has revolved around school. Seriously. I was one of those crazy kids who couldn't wait to get on the bus for school and hated missing a single day, even in kindergarten. I was an annoyingly highstrung high schooler who wouldn't let myself do anything fun until my homework was completed- perfectly (my parents really lucked out on that one!). And I finished college as a worn down, burnt out, confused graduate in Urban Planning. Just one little thing, I had always been so obsessed about school, the grades, the papers, the tests, that I had forgotten to figure out exactly what it was I wanted to do with my life. I may have graduated with a stellar GPA, but I started to realize that I didn't want the life it had set me up for. I didn't want to pursue a career in the subject I had spent 4 years studying. Somewhere in those 4 years, I had forgotten that school is meant to be a means to an end, not the other way around.
So here I sit, with a Bachelor of Science in Urban Planning (a predominately male saturated field, mind you) and not a damn idea what to do with it. Instead, I'm working 4 jobs two of which involve changing dirty diapers and one which consists of being degraded while getting my customers another round of diet cokes and cheesy biscuits. I can't help thinking where I went wrong. Except.

 I don't feel that way.
 At all.

Sure, it would be great to not have to discipline other people's children or to not be spoken to like I am a stupid servant, but honestly, I enjoy my 3 days a week where I get to sleep in until 10am instead of waking up at 6am to put on a business suit and conquer the world. I am more than content to work, and work hard, at my 4 jobs and try to save a little of cash money while I prepare to go (yup, you guessed it) back to school.

This time, I'm hoping my perfectionism won't get the best of me and I will stay focused on the fact that school is temporary, but what I am preparing for is long term. The moral of the story, for all you that are wondering where this rambling is going (lest you forget that the title is Worth and Wisdom, with a little wackiness and laughter thrown in) is that you don't have to have a set plan. That you really don't answer to anyone besides yourself in terms of your happiness. And that if you wake up every morning with a smile on your face and joy in your heart, that is really half the battle.

Take it from a crazy, driven, perfectionist. People will always tell you what you should be doing with your time, how much money you should be making, and what you should be doing to prepare for your future. But they don't hold your answers. Only you do. And perhaps if I had stopped being concerned with "fulfilling my potential" by relentlessly chasing after my academic goals, I would have taken some time to realize that I didn't even like what I was learning. So don't forget to breathe, to know that you have your whole life to "achieve your potential", and take some time to see that your potential is really the way you handle your life each and every day you wake up. If you wake up happy, willing to help and love on others, than I think you have accomplished more than any doctorate recipient. It's a lesson that cost me $33 thousand dollars in student loans to learn. But considering that many people die without ever learning that lesson, I would say it was worth every single penny.

Ubuntu

"If I diminish you, I diminish myself"

In my culture and tradition the highest praise that can be given to someone is, "Yu, u nobuntu," an acknowledgment that he or she has this wonderful quality: ubuntu. it is a reference to their actions toward their fellow human beings, it has to do with how they regard people and how they see themselves within their intimate relationships, their familial relationships, and within the broader community.Ubuntu addresses a central tenet of African philosophy: the essence of what it is to be human.The definition of this concept has two parts. The first is that the person is friendly, hospitable, generous, gentle, caring, and compassionate. In other words, someone who will use their strengths on behalf of others- the weak and the poor and the ill- and not take advantage of anyone. This person treats others as he or she would be treated. And because of this they express the second part of the concept, which concerns openness, large-heartedness. They share their worth. In doing so my humanity is recognized and becomes inextricably bound to theirs.

People with ubuntu are approachable and welcoming; their attitude is kindly and well-disposed; they are not threatened by the goodness in others because their own self-esteem and self-worth is generated by knowing they belong to a greater whole. To recast the Cartesian proposition "I think, therefore I am,"ubuntu would phrase it, "I am human because I belong." Put another way, "A person is a person through other people," a concept perfectly captured by the phrase "me we." No one comes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think or walk or speak or behave unless we learned it from our fellow human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. The solitary, isolated human being is a contradiction in terms. 

Because we need one another, our natural tendency is to be cooperative and helpful. If this were not true we would have died out as a species long ago, consumed by our violence and hate. But we haven't. We have kept on despite the evil and the wars that have brought so much suffering and misery down the centuries. We have kept on because we strive for harmony and community, a community not only of the living but also one that honors our forebears. This link to the past gives us a sense of continuity, a sense that we have created, and create societies that are meant to be for the greater good and try to overcome anything that subverts our purpose. Our wars end; we seek to heal.

But anger, resentment, a lust for revenge, greed, even the aggressive competitiveness that rules so much of our contemporary world, corrodes and jeopardizes our harmony. Ubuntu points out that those who seek to destroy and dehumanize are ALSO VICTIMS- victims usually, of a pervading ethos, be it a political ideology, an economic system, or a distorted religious conviction. Consequently, they are as much dehumanized as those on whom they trample.

Never was this more obvious than during the apartheid years in South Africa. All humanity is interlinked. Thus, the humanity of the perpetrators of apartheid was inexorably bound to that of their victims. When they dehumanized another by inflicting suffering and harm, they dehumanized themselves. In fact I said at the time that the oppressor was dehumanized as much as, if not more than, those oppressed. How else could you interpret the words of the minister of police, Jimmy Kruger, on hearing the death of Black Consciousness leader, Steve Biko, in prison. Of his tortured and painful killing, Kruger said, it "leaves me cold." You have to ask what has happened to the humanity- the ubuntu- of someone who could speak so callously about the suffering and death of a fellow human being.

It was equally clear that recovering from this situation would require a magnanimousness on the part of the victims if there as to be a future. The end of apartheid, I knew, would put ubuntu to the test. Yet I never doubted its power of reconciliation. In fact I often recalled the words of a man called, Malusi Mpumlwana, an associate of Biko's, who, even while he was being tortured by the security police, looked at his torturers and realized that these were human beings too and that they needed him "to help them recover the humanity they [were] losing."

This is the essence of ubuntu, or "me we," and it is expressed so poignantly in the life and actions of Mahatma Gandhi. His ubuntu showed that the ONLY way we can ever be human is together. The only way we can ever be free is together. 

-Desmond M. Tutu
[Taken from the book Peace]  

: If only we could all read this, believe it, live it. What a glorious world it could be.