Axioms of Life

The other day, I was talking with my friend about life. He's been going through a tough time lately and needed some perspective punched into his brain; I got nominated for the job because I apparently give good advice. Who knew?

Anyway, over the course of this discussion, it became apparent that my friend was beating himself up for past actions. He admitted to staying up late, wondering what he did wrong and trying to figure out how to fix things.

Life, however, isn't about living in the past. Yes, you should learn from your past mistakes so that you don't repeat them, but that isn't the same thing as LIVING there, constantly reliving or regretting things until you're driven crazy. You have to let go eventually and live in the present.

This is something that I personally have struggled with a lot. It's really easy to get wrapped up in what was and ignore what is. To this end, I've created some axioms by which to live my life with the goal of making it as uncomplicated as possible. That's not to say it's easy, but following these guidelines has generally made me a better person and drastically increased my happiness quotient.

My axioms may be different from yours; you may have things that you consider important or don't consider one of mine to be valid. That's fine; it's a personal list. Regardless, I encourage you to find your axioms and then orient your actions around fulfilling them. That way, you have your own handy dandy moral compass in list form that you can carry around in your back pocket!! :)

~~~~~

Beccah's Axioms of Life:
1) Know who you are and what you believe.
2) Be honest with everyone.
3) Clear communication can never go wrong.
4) Treat everyone with respect, regardless of who they are, what they look like, or what they believe.

Fear

A racing heart. Twitchy, sweaty palms. A bouncing leg that must be stilled. A deep breath which does nothing to still the scream creeping its way up your throat that you have to choke down or draw stares from everyone around you. The desperate, tense shoulders, ready to run and nowhere to run to.

Fear. There's nothing quite like it.

It's a part of life, like it or not. One could even make the argument that it is beneficial, a physical manifestation of self preservation deeply embedded in our psyches with the "flight or fight" instinct. Others choose to see its more pragmatic effect: it stops people from reaching for their dreams.

I know people who are scared of failure, of hardship. People who are unhappy with their lives yet are unwilling to try and do what makes them happy because they don't know if it will work. "It's important to have a job and support myself," said one of these people, ignoring the fact that starting a restaurant consulting business wouldn't necessarily cut into his day job at first. People who let fear rule them always have that excuse ready, that "Get Out of Jail Free" card sitting in their back pockets, ready to pull out whenever anyone challenges them so they will not have to face their fears.

It's sad that this is how society works. A society ruled by fear isn't a society I want to be a part of. I don't want to let fear rule me, my friends, or my family. I was all of us, myself included, to pursue our dreams without fear of falling because we all know that there is someone to catch us if and when we do indeed fail.

It's funny how the more you gain in life, whether it be success or friends or physical possessions, the more scared you are to lose them. After all, what does it matter if you amount to anything if life just takes all that you've worked for away?

I haven't much in the way of physical possessions or success; I'm still in school and have a lot of life to live before I can claim those. My friends are people whom I love and yeah, I'm a little scared that something will happen to cause me to lose them one day, but losing something else scares me even more, something more precious to me than money or success or even my friends: my happiness. It took me so long to achieve that I don't want to do anything to break myself out of this protective bubble that keeps me in suspended animation, in a place where I like who I am and am happy with simply being me.

I know I still have issues from my past that I need to work on, anxiety to calm and self-deprecating words to eliminate from my vocabulary. Yet, to do so involves doing something very, very scary to me: talking about myself, who I was, and why I am who I am today. It's a long and convoluted story, and the people who I have talked with about it have been very understanding and supportive, much more than myself. I don't like thinking about it or talking about it because it brings me back to that time when I was spiraling out of control. Yet, if I want to work on these issues that remain, the things that keep me from reaching even higher heights, I have to talk about it.

Logically knowing this and being brave enough to act on it are two different things.

~~

I feel joy, I feel love
Life's a priceless gift from up above
When I see your smiling face
It's like the stars in outer space
Shine a little brighter to show me the way
Through this dark path that I pave
Laden with my hope and tears
Simply because I feel fear.

What is this MADNESS?!?!

In the past few months, free time has been few and far between. Thus, writing and keeping up this blog simply has not happened. Oh well, life goes on, yada yada yada. I'm sure none of you were simply dying waiting for an update. If you were, well, you should have emailed me or something. Or talked to me, because we all know I don't shut up most of the time.

Anyway, even though my blog has stood still, I sure as heck haven't. Looking back even a year ago, I barely recognize myself. I made some decisions that I'm not proud of, hurt people that I cared about, and was generally a person that I did not want to be. I was scared - scared of who I was, who I was becoming. Scared of what I could do.

Note the past tense of all of these feelings.  

I'm such a different person now. I actually like who I am. Better yet, I actually know who I am.

For a long time, I thought I was supposed to be the person that everyone thought I was:  a bright, bouncy student. Far too innocent, far too energetic. I was a little crazy, a little fun; I was destined for great things. After all, if everyone thinks it, it must be true, yeah?

Inside, though, I knew I was different: depressed, mean, full of venom and spite. I was an ugly person, inside and out. I despised who I was, thinking that who everyone thought I was supposed to be was indeed what I was born to be. I acted the part as best as I could - hiding my misery behind a mask of perky, energetic bubbliness.

In reality, no one, not even me, has that extreme of a personality. Everyone has a mix of good and bad qualities. I saw who I was in comparison to who I thought I should be, not who I was in reality. Taking a step back and doing some soul searching was a big part of last year. When I took myself out of the context of perceived expectations, I found that I wasn't half as bad as I thought I was. I'm actually pretty cool, sometimes. A total dork, but a cool one :)

Realizing that the only expectations I had to live up to were ultimately my own and God's was so HUGE that it basically spawned every other change in me. I have heaps more self confidence. I'm much more likely to do something that's good for me instead of something for someone else that also hurts me. My smiles are genuine rather than forced, my peppiness actual joy as opposed to covering up my sorrow.

It's okay that I'm not perfect. It's okay that people generally annoy me and that I want alone time every now and then.  It's okay if I spend my Friday nights curled up with my cat and a movie instead of partying. It's okay if I can't make everyone happy; that's not my job. My job is to be me.

With all of this self discovery came something else: a realization about everything I don't know. Religion, politics, how people work... all these things that just don't make sense to me a lot of the time. 

This caused me to consciously observe everything, to ask questions if I don't understand something. I'm not stupid because I don't understand; I just need a little more information to process things fully. Truth is subjective, so if I collect enough people's truths, maybe I'll have a better picture of what reality is.

I feel like this is something that has greatly benefited me and is something that everyone could learn from. Everyone has a different perspective on almost every issue. Regardless of how convinced you are that your perspective is correct, go out and figure out what other people believe. You may gain some new insight or strengthen your own beliefs, who knows? The only thing more detrimental than blindly following someone else's opinion is blindly following your own. If you don't consider any other view, how are you doing anything other than encouraging intolerance?

So that's my challenge for you, readers. Surround yourself with people who hold different beliefs than you. Not bad ones (i.e. don't go and start talking to gangsters or anything), just different:  religions, political views, etc. Challenge your beliefs and learn about others. Resist the urge to name call or insult people. Instead, just try to understand where they are coming from and really think about what they are saying. 

It just might change your world, like it did for me.

Stressful School Terms

It's 4th Friday here at Kettering and stress is starting to take hold. I had my first midterm today (and did less than spectacular on it) and my first minor breakdown last night. The amount of work that I had to complete seemed far too immense, which, compounded with some stressful issues in my personal life, overwhelmed me completely. Making it even worse was the fact that I couldn't find my friend who gives really good hugs that always make me feel better.

(Seriously, even when everything seems to be falling apart, Alex always makes me smile. He's just awesome like that and the world should totally know this.)

Having a breakdown wasn't that enjoyable, both because I feel like a complete and total girl when I cry and because it reminded me far too much of last Fall, when I was a complete wreck all the time. That helpless feeling that just takes you by the shoulders and shakes you into oblivion, to the point where all you can do is curl up into a ball and wait for sleep to take over and blissfully deliver you into numbness: that's what scares me beyond everything. What I felt last night was the stress that always lead into the helplessness that I'm trying so hard to avoid.

I'm about 153 days (give or take) strong, and I refuse to give in now.

So what do I do? I find a friend to get a hug. I write about my feelings. I organize my notes and my time so that I can manage my workload better. I clean my room (which somehow calms me down... no one knows why, least of all me).

You know, I'm an orientation student instructor this semester. For one hour a week, I'm talking to a group of 28 freshmen who are looking at me as an experienced upperclassman, someone with enough time under her belt to give good advice and guidance in the many troubles and tumultuous times that they will soon face. More and more, though, I'm realizing that the advice that I'm giving these freshmen isn't actually applicable to me.

• Advice: If you're having trouble with a class, go find a tutor or someone who has previously taken the class to help. 
• My reality: The class that's giving me the most trouble is one that's never been offered before, so there are no tutors or upperclassmen who have taken it, much less that can help me.
  
• Advice: Schedule your time. You'll find enough time for everything that you want to do, especially if you use small time blocks (i.e. an hour between class).
• My reality: I feel like I don't have enough time to learn the material I'm being given, even utilizing a schedule and small time blocks.
  
• Advice: Find a support system: friends, family, anyone who can support you through the ups and downs.
• My reality: Most of my friends live off campus. My best friend here isn't anymore. I don't really have that person here that I can just tell anything to and get a hug. I mean, I have friends, but I either don't know them well enough to tell them everything or to not feel bad about interrupting their studying with my own petty problems. 

The sad thing is, these strategies always worked up until last Fall. These and others like it were all I needed to get through school; they were what I needed to keep myself together. 

It's different now.

Last night, I felt like different meant impossible. Now, though, with the perspective of the next day, I realized something. Nothing is impossible. I just need to get some new guidelines, some new advice for a new era in my life.

• Minimize out of class commitments as much as possible. It may seem like you can't cut back, but trust me: you can.
• Find a hugging buddy. Seriously, hugs make everything better.
• Find time to exercise and eat healthy. Life is so much easier if you are physically healthy and in a better mindset to deal with the mental challenges.
• Live the motto.: I can do anything that I set my mind to.

I am not perfect. I won't be able to perfectly get through school. I'm going to face stress, challenges. The thing is, there's no way in hell that I'm going to let that stop me.

I have a dream, a mission. I will be the best mathematician that's ever come out of Massachusetts, out of Kettering, out of the world. I will be a mathematical badass, no matter what's thrown in my way.

I'm not going to give up. I just have to find a way to make it happen.

Take that, stress. Take that.

One of Those Big Questions

First off, I would like to apologize for taking so long to update this blog. I have a tendency to get distracted easily, causing things to slip under the radar. This happens a lot, especially with my blogging efforts. I think this is the third (fourth? maybe? somewhere around there) blog I've had; I ended up abandoning the other ones when there was more than a year gap between the posts. I will attempt to be better, I swear.

Anyway, now that that is out of the way, on to business!

There are some big questions that everyone tries to seek the answer to in this world. What happens after death? What is the meaning of life? Do soul mates exist? How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop? I'm going to now ramble about one of those big questions that I've been thinking about lately: religion.

I've been on the fence about this for the majority of my life. I was baptized when I was a baby into some form of Protestantism; however, growing up, I only went to church when my Grandparents took me and my brother, usually about once a year. Even then, I saw going to church as a chance to hear some pretty music, not as a chance to learn about and develop a relationship with some form of higher power. You see, my parents aren't very into organized religion, so it's just not something that was a major part of my life as I was growing up.

And you know what? I was okay with that for a very long time. Religion and God just weren't a part of my life, never had been, so I never noticed that something was missing. I mean, I knew a lot of the new friends I made at school were religious and very involved with the church community. That was their choice, though; it just wasn't something that affected me. I got invited along often, but I declined in as polite of a way as possible.

Then, this past Fall term at school, I hit a bit of a rough patch. I felt alone and hopeless, and nothing that I did was helping. I just wanted to curl up in a ball under the covers all of the time. My friends didn't really understand, not that I told the majority of them; I didn't want to burden anyone with my issues. Instead, I threw myself into school and activities to distract myself. When I finally worked up the courage to go to the Wellness Center to ask to see a counselor (which is a LOT harder than it sounds), they simply asked if it was an emergency, and when I said no, handed me a pamphlet with a number to call to find a therapist in the area. Apparently, our school no longer offers counselling to people who need someone to talk to unless they're either medically diagnosed with insert chosen mental disorder here or are willing to admit that they are on the verge of committing suicide. I never worked up the courage to call that number.

Then, one day at Dance Club, my friend Owen asked me if I wanted to come to Bible Study the next day. I was about to give him the "no thanks" line I had perfected over the years when I reconsidered. I was willing to try something new to help, even if it involved getting up at a ridiculously early hour of the morning. When I went, one of the girls there gave me her Bible to read (since I didn't have one) and then spent the time talking with me about Christianity and God and Jesus and why I was there. I admit it - I cried a little that morning when I was telling her the Cliff notes version of my issues, just because it felt good to finally be doing something about it.

I kept going to Bible study (when I woke up early enough) and to group meetings for the rest of that term. The thing I loved the most about those meetings was the music and the camaraderie - when singing hymns, I just felt this... fullness rising up in me. I felt like I wasn't alone anymore. It gave me hope, however fleeting it was. Going to Cru probably stopped me from going insane that term, and I am forever thankful for that.

And yet, I still wasn't sure about what I believed. I almost felt like a fraud there, singing praises to the Lord, when I wasn't even sure he existed. It was part of the reason why I never ended up going to church with them - I always felt like I would be defiling the place with my lack of conviction, especially since my friends were so passionate about their faith.

It's just... there are some things that I just don't understand about Christianity. For example, why is it only people who accept Jesus Christ in their lives that get to go to heaven? Should intrinsically good people (say, for example, Gandhi) be denied a lifetime in paradise just because they believe something different while people who may not be as good of people get entrance because they accept Him? Furthermore, how does Jesus dying absolve people of their sins? That doesn't make sense. 

I probably should add a disclaimer here that I totally and completely respect a person's right to believe in whatever they want in whatever manner he/she wants to. This is not meant to be a judgement on anyone's personal beliefs; this is solely just what I have been thinking based on my extremely limit research and experience into the field.

Now that I'm not in a place where I'm desperately clinging to any hope that I might actually be happy again (yay for introspective work terms making me sane again!), I've started to readdress the concept of religion again, this time from a more broad perspective than simply Christianity. I will blatantly state that I have absolutely no idea whether or not God exists, much less which religion has the right version.

Recently, though, I've been wondering if it really matters. I've been reading a book I got for Christmas: The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions by Karen Armstrong. It's about the history of religion; specifically, the section I've read so far deals with the people of the Axial Age (i.e. Confucius  Buddha, Socrates, and Jeremiah) who had a far different outlook on religion than we do as a society today. In fact, these sages didn't really hold with the concept of a religion. Theology was completely unimportant and a matter of one's personal beliefs. Instead, their teachings were about living a compassionate life, and how living such a life would lead to the fulfillment that one sought. There one passage that really exemplifies their opinions.

The only way you could encounter what they called "God", "Nirvana", "Brahman," or the "Way" was to live a compassionate life. Indeed, religion was compassion.

Their goal wasn't to make people feel good and make a connection with a higher power; instead, they wanted to mold people into spiritual beings full of empathy and compassion, and that is how one lives a fulfilling life.

I'm very taken with this concept. Nonviolence, compassion, love - these are all traits I try to embrace in my life. I don't always succeed, but no one is perfect. Nonetheless, living this idealized life of compassion is the life I want to live.

It doesn't matter if I do this while worshiping a specific God or concept; indeed, parts of this mantra are encompassed in many religions. What matters most is that I'm compassionate towards people. What matters is that I try to do no harm. What matters is that I try to be a good person.

That's a fulfilling enough of a life for me.

Song for my Dad

My best friend always used to tell me that I was kind of slow. Except, she said it nicely:  "Beccah, you live in a hole, under a rock that's soundproofed, but you have an oatmeal raisin cookie, so it's okay." In fact, she was so enamored of this description of me that she drew it on my Spanish book in our senior year of high school.

The point of this is not to tell you about the wonderful, special relationship I have with the insane girl I call my best friend; that's for another post. The point is to tell you just how ignorant I can be of things, even when they are staring me in the face. The latest example of this is that, until today (when I looked at a calendar), I was completely convinced that Father's Day was this weekend, not last weekend.

Yes, I know. I have perception issues.

When I discovered this, I felt absolutely and totally horrible. Not just because I missed the day that basically everyone is obligated to tell their father that they love them, but because my dad absolutely deserves to be told every day how wonderful he is, and I don't do it nearly enough.

I get much of my quirky personality from my mom, but basically everything else comes from my dad. My eyes, my bushy eyebrows, my horribly crooked smile that got corrected by braces in middle school, my need to take care of everyone that I love when they're down or ill, my passion for cooking random and exotic things, much of my love of eating... I could keep going on, telling you how we're both non-confrontational and have a love of books beyond most anything, but you get the idea.

When my brother left for college, I got really close to my dad. My parents divorced when I was in grade school, and I live with my mom. As any sixteen year old can attest, that's about the age where you start fighting with your mom about nearly everything. My mom and I rarely had any big blowouts, but things were stressed, to be frank.

That's when I turned to my dad. I didn't live with him, so he was a welcome respite to the tension in my house. We'd chill out in his apartment, making three bean enchiladas together and watching Criminal Minds or a movie until late at night. We'd talk about anything and everything, take turns kicking ass at gin rummy and Clue, trade books - it was a great time.

I loved those weekends we spent together. They were my lifeline into my family, my reminder that things will one day get better between me and my mom. My dad and I had a rough patch when I was younger, but the fact that we got through it and were now baking and laughing together again filled me with hope. *

When my family was dropping me off at college, there was a moment. My dad had been completely stoic all throughout the day - helping me get my room set up, taking a tour of my school (he hadn't seen it before move in day), going through all the workshops they had set up. Then came the time to say goodbye. His flight was in a couple hours, and he and Jo had to leave in order to make their flight. He gave me a giant hug, and said, "Be good, kiddo," like always.

I don't remember seeing my dad cry before then.

Saying goodbye in the Kettering parking lot

Since then, we've had a different relationship, but still are wicked close. I only see him a few times a year, but the times I do I treasure beyond measure and we usually stay up half the night talking. I eagerly await his care packages (he still is the only person to have sent me newly picked apples!) and emails. Since he's gotten a Facebook, he now knows far more about my life (I'm a bit of a social networking junkie) and isn't surprised by what color my hair is when I come home.

I love him more than anything in this world (excepting other family members that I love just as much).

The sad part is that I've never really told him all of this. I've teased him for driving like a turtle (another thing we have in common!) and told him how much I love his cooking. I've congratulated him on his new job and thanked him for all the things he's given me over the years. Whenever we talk, I sign off with an "I love you," but I never really expressed to exactly what means to me.

My brother, Dad, and I at Christmas 2011

That's what makes missing Father's Day this year so deplorable to me. How could I not realize that it was the one day of the year to tell someone who means so much to me how much I love him?

So, that's why I decided that this year, my dad gets his very own Father's Day. It may be a week later than everyone else's, but hey, good things come to those who wait, right? Delayed gratification or whatnot.

My dad isn't perfect. We've had our issues, our disagreements, our bad times. But I am so, so incredibly lucky to have him in my life - he's the best dad that any girl could ask for.

So Pops, this is for you. For all of the games of badminton we played, for all of the tennis games you watched me lose at, for the loaves of zucchini bread you've sent me, for all the good times and bad.

Happy Father's Day!

Note: replace all "son"s in the song with "daughter", please. <3
Note 2: Sorry it's just a giant picture of Keith Urban; I couldn't find a better video.


*For all those interested, my mom and I are on much better terms now. We even have a mini vacation planned in less than a month together for my 21st birthday, just after a mini vacation with my dad to New Hampshire with a bunch of relatives!

Don't Be Stupid-Stand Up for Yourself!

When I was in high school, I was on the Girl's Tennis Team. We weren't very good; in fact, we lost much, much more than we won in our matches. I wasn't a spectacular player, either. My coach always told me that I needed to be more vicious, to try and actually beast win a point as opposed to waiting for the other player to make a mistake. And yet, my Junior year of high school, I was unanimously voted as co-captain of the team.

Well, not unanimously, technically. When my coach gave me the news that I was made captain, he told me that everyone except one person voted for me. When I told him that I hadn't voted for myself, he said something that stuck with me for years afterwards:

"Well, that was stupid. If you don't promote yourself, then who will?"

In the years since then, I've realized exactly how true that statement is.

People in this world are selfish. They look out for themselves and for those who they are obligated to, whether they be family or friends. They aren't going to be worried about anyone they don't have to. Why are they going to take the time out of their day to help you? Realistically, they won't. Unless you promote yourself and tell everyone how wonderful you are, why you deserve a promotion or a pay raise, then you're not going to get it. Instead, you're going to be passed over for someone who's willing to stand up for themselves.

So stand up for yourself. Put yourself in the best position to succeed and do well. Don't brag, but don't be a wallflower. Vote for yourself, if you want a position. But most importantly, be yourself and be out there.