Beautifully broken.

It's that place of brokenness that we all dread. 
When you hit the dead end. 
When you fall to the cold ground. 
When you wake up someone unfamiliar.
When your whole world falls apart. 

But brokenness is beautiful. Because how can we be healed if we're not broken?
How can we be found if we're not lost?

Brokenness is beautiful, because that's when God puts you back together. 
He will allow us to be broken, so He can show His almighty love by picking up the pieces. 
He will pick up the pieces and put us back together as a new creation. 


We should want to be broken. We should want to be weak. We should want to be anything other than unbreakable. 
Because in our brokenness and weakness, God's healing and strength is radiantly revealed. 

He will not waste the pain. He will remedy and heal until you know that it's only because of His great love, only by His abundant grace, and all for His glory. 



Blessed are the lost, for they will be found. 
And blessed are the broken, for they will be healed. Matthew 5 (paraphrased by Morgan).


Brokenness is beautiful, because it leads to surrender.
Surrender is beautiful because it leads to healing. 
And healing, because it leads to praise. 

The innards of my being.

The innocence of a child.
The wisdom in wrinkles of old age.
The joy in the song of the birds. The sorrow in a voice.
Someone's unspoken pain.
The courage and strength in a victory.
Injustice.
The beauty seeping out of a person's heart.
Mistakes made by loved ones.
The passion in my soul.
When I want to help, but I just can't.
Grace.
My undeserved salvation.
And the adventure of this dynamic life
make me cry.
And I love it.

The Power of Imperfection

I don't know why we feel like we have to be perfect.

We're all aware of just how imperfect we are, so why do we feel like we have to put on that facade and pretend like we're more perfect than everyone else?


Maybe because we think if we act like it enough, we'll become it, or at least believe it ourselves.
Cause no one likes looking in the mirror and seeing all their flaws. It's overwhelming.
And we think it's our responsibility as humans to fix, fix, fix everything we find wrong with us.




As Jefferson Bethke said in Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus,

"If grace is water, then the church should be an ocean
It's not a museum for good people, it's a hospital for the broken.
Which means I don't have to hide my failure, I don't have to hide my sin
Because it doesn't depend on me it depends on him."

Church is not a museum for the healthy, it's a hospital for the sick.

And if we could all just admit to each other that we're sick, how much more could we be healed?

If we could stop nervously glancing around the room during a convicting sermon, hoping that no one can tell what we're thinking, then maybe we could really look inside ourselves and let ourselves be healed. 

Maybe if we could all admit to being sick, our sickness wouldn't be so shameful knowing that countless people have the same disease, and countless people who have overcome it, can help us overcome. 

But, this doesn't only apply to churches. It applies to all humanity in general.

We know all the right words to say. 

We know how to make it look like we're perfect. 

And we do this because everyone else knows how to make it look like they're perfect too.

It's a vicious cycle.

We look around at all the people who supposedly have it together, and think we need to hide the mess inside ourselves. 

We stuff the dirty laundry under our beds without realizing that they're doing the same thing. 

But from where we stand, everyone else's rooms look clean and tidy. 

Everyone else looks healthy because we don't see the viruses attacking them on the inside.  

We all want to be more perfect than everyone else, for no other reason than pride. 

And we succeed at seeming more perfect, so everyone else around us feels like they need to reach the same standard. The standard that doesn't exist. The standard that was oppressed on us to by someone else. And someone else on them. And someone else on them. 

And the vicious cycle continues. 

Genuinity is a lost virtue. 

Transparency.

Honesty.

Our desire to look perfect is only more symptomatic of our imperfection.

And we're all guilty. We're all sick. 

We all put on masks to gain respect, power, praise, etc., all for the sake of pride--built on the foundation of a lie.

But transparency is beautiful.

The ability to be vulnerable is beautiful.

The humility to open ourselves up for criticism, mockery, judgement, or shame, is beautiful.

Because while we open ourselves up to those, we open ourselves up to healing and love also.

And then we give someone else the opportunity to be transparent, knowing that they're not alone. 

This is not a vicious cycle, but a renewing cycle. 

The more we are willing to be open and honest about our imperfections, the more we allow others to be. 

The moment we all decide to stop pretending we're perfect, is the moment we can truly love each other. 

And the cycle of renewal will continue, giving us the power to change the world. 

But it all starts within ourselves. 

2 Corinthians 12:9-10
 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Mark 2:17
Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Death and Taxes

"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." 

-C.S. Lewis

Never has death seemed so real to me.
And still, it doesn't seem that real. 


I think it's so crazy that life can just stop.
Just cease.


Where heart beats, brain waves, and muscle movements once existed, now is a cold and lifeless corpse.


Where there once was a human being with a soul, now is just an uninhabited body.


Our bodies are amazing enough, but add life to them and they're completely incomprehensible. 
God takes our bodies and give them thoughts, and memories, and a spirit, and all these things that science can't explain. 

And we live. We're alive. We spend years and years trapped in this body when all at once 20, 40, 65, 87, 100 years are gone and the life in that body is no more. 


How can it be that a body so full of life, can cease to have life in it at all?


How can it be that a simple heart beat pumping blood to our organs is the determining factor for where our souls are living? 
Where our being, our soul, our self is, is determined by oxygen and brain activity. And heart beats. 


In a moment, every bit of unexplainable life can be gone and all that's left is the body that held it to this earth. 


We are not our bodies, and life is not only what we can see. 
We are the spirit and the soul that inhabits these bodies for the time being.




It's easy to kill a body. All that has to be done is stopping a heart. But can you kill the soul that makes the body alive? Can you diminish from existence the spirit that makes the body a person?


No.


So when all that's left is the body, abandoned and deserted, we can only conclude that the soul goes somewhere. 


And when you know where it's going, death doesn't seem so scary. 

Cells, rocks, and sinking sand.

"Remember who you are and what you stand for"

My dad

He would say this almost every time I left the house in high school. And still does on occasion. 

He says it as a joke, of course, and I remember rolling my eyes the first time he said it thinking "of course I'm not gonna forget who I am or where I stand." 

Though he says it as a joke, I know he really means it, and I never really gave it a second thought. 

Well, what if don't know who I am or what I stand for? What if I think I do but both are so easily swayed like a blade of grass in the wind?

Back when he would say it to me the most, I definitely didn't know. 

I would leave the house one person and come home another. 

And I still do. 

I've recently been challenged, by I don't really know what, to look at myself and decide who I am, who I want to be, and what unfaltering things I stand for. 

Because if you don't know who you are, you'll become anything. And if you don't know where you stand, you'll fall.

So, I wrote down a list of who I know I am. 

And a list of who I want to be. (Which I know is boring, so if you want to see, go here: Sincerely.) 

And then I wrote down a list of what I stand for. The things I know without a doubt that I want to fight for. 

The things that keep me grounded.

The solid rocks that I build my life around, or strive to build my life around. (Which are less boring, so they'll probably have a post of their own someday.)

And it helped me so much to make the things I've been taught my whole life tangible and visible. To be able to pick and choose the things to discard and the things to keep. To have a reference of these things so I never forget again. 

I think we so easily forget. 

It's sad. We forget

who we are, 

our purpose,

and the things that keep our feet from slipping.

I forget so often. I let myself be swayed by the standards of society, or the standards of other people, and forget that I have standards of my own. Standards that I shouldn't be willing to compromise. 

I forget that each cell of my body is there for a purpose, along with each thought and emotion. I forget that my feet belong on these solid rocks and everywhere else is sinking sand. 

Remember 

who you are and what you stand for.

Because if you don't know who you are, you'll become anything. And if you don't know where you stand, you'll fall. 

love, love, love

I see what I want to see. 

I hear what I want to hear. 

This is naivety. 

I see people for who they are, but ignore all the bad parts.
Because I don't like how it feels to dislike someone.
I don't like how it feels to want to make them see their flaws as if I don't have any of my own.
I don't like thinking that people can be anything but good and pure in heart and motive. 
I choose to ignore their flaws because it's easier to love them that way.
And I love to love people.


But that's not love at all.


God's love, the ultimate love, was shown in that Christ died for us when we were still sinners (Romans 5:8). 
He knew every disgusting crevice of our wandering hearts and still chose to hang on the cross, with the weight of every person's sin that has ever and will live on his shoulders. 




Love doesn't mean-- "pretend they're perfect". Love is not dependent on perfection. True love has no bounds and true love perseveres through every fault. Love is definitely not ignoring someone's flaws because that makes them easier to love. 


Love wasn't meant to be easy, because nothing that is worthwhile is ever easy. 
Love wasn't meant to be easy, because how else would we know that the kind of love that is so impossibly hard for us, is so amazingly easy for the One and only One that it comes easy for? 
How else would we be able to grasp how small and imperfect our love is in comparison to how wide and long and high and deep the love of our creator is?






Love is knowing someone's not perfect, but sacrificing yourself for them anyway. Love is knowing that people are mean, and selfish, and impure, and deciding to treat them as if they aren't.
Love is seeing someone's many flaws, but knowing your own flaws are just as great or greater in number. 




You can't know someone unless you know all their flaws too. 
You can love anyone. But you can't truly love someone until you know them, flaws and all, and decide to love them anyway. That's all anyone wants: to be completely known and loved anyway. 




It's hard to love someone that isn't perfect. 
It's hard to love someone that doesn't love you.


But love is always the answer. 


  

Morse Code

You know that feeling... 
when your heart rate increases, and you start breathing heavier.


Each beat of your heart feels like it's trying to break out of your chest. 


It hurts because it's longing for something. It's crying for something it can't have, but at the same time it feels content. 
It's craving something, but you don't know what.
  
Like something is tugging at it, urging it to leap out of your body but all you feel is the painful fact that it's stuck there.

Imprisoned, containing only the ability to do human things like pump blood through your veins and deliver oxygen to your organs. 
It's defined by boundaries instead of doing what it wants to do--beat freely. 


It's like you're grasping for air that you can't quite reach. 
Your lungs are collapsing and no matter how deep your breaths, your heart is not satisfied with the shallowness of the flesh that detains it.


It can't beat through electric impulses alone. 
Often it forgets it's true desire and just sustains the life it was given responsibility of. But it needs more. It needs to be fed. It needs to love. 
It needs to somehow tell the body that it wasn't only made for these menial tasks. 


So it beats faster. 
It requires more oxygen. 
It tries to jump out of the rib cage that hides it from the world just to get your attention; to make you listen to the message hidden like Morse Code in the beats that you ignore daily. 






Your heart is telling you something. Listen. 

Wow

Life is beautiful.
Humanity is beautiful.
Struggle is beautiful.


Because God's love, 
                                grace,
                                           passion,
                                                           power,
                                                                       and purpose

radiates fantastically through it all.

Parental Discretion Advised

"My son, keep your father’s command 

   and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. 

Bind them always on your heart; 

   fasten them around your neck. 

When you walk, they will guide you; 

   when you sleep, they will watch over you; 

   when you awake, they will speak to you"

Proverbs 6:20-22

From the second we're born we start learning. 

And, unlike college, we don't get to choose our teachers. They're chosen for us.

They are our parents.  

They teach us almost everything. Things that we'll use for the rest of our lives. 

Like using the toilet, brushing our teeth twice a day, bathing, eating our vegetables, not burping in public, not to pick our nose, saying "please" and "thank you", etc. 

These are very valuable lessons. We would never function in society without them. We would be lost trying to figure it out ourselves.

Tonight, as I was brushing my teeth, my dad walked by the bathroom, smiled and said "good night, I love you." 

And I, with my mouth full of toothpaste, said, "nght, bluwv eyew doo."

And for the first time I wondered if he was proud of me for brushing my teeth. Because as a child, I hated brushing my teeth. I did it, of course, (I've never had a cavity :)) but I didn't like it. So after years and years of telling me to brush my teeth, and counting almost to 3 when I rebelled, I learned that it's just something you do when you wake up and before you go to bed. Is he proud that he taught me a valuable life lesson?

Is my mom proud when I choose to eat a banana for breakfast instead of a pop tart? Or when I scoop as much broccoli onto my plate as possible?

Are my parents proud when I tell them "thank you", and say "may I?" instead of "can I?"? Are they proud when I wash my dish and put it away? 

They taught me all of this. Of course, there are things I had to learn by myself just from living on my own, but for the most part, they laid the foundation for the rest of my life.

That's a lot of pressure as parents. 

And then there's the difficult stuff. 

The morals. The beliefs. The mistakes. 

Have I bound my parents teachings on my heart and fastened them on my neck?

Have I become the person they intended me to be? 

Are they proud of the choices I'm making independently as I transition into adulthood?

Do they think "I taught you better than that", or "did she not listen to a word I said?"? 

Are they proud of me?

The potty training mattered, a lot. But it's these bigger things that will make you or break you in the end.

And in the end... we're mostly broken. 

Most often, we forsake our parents teachings and go our own way, because what do they know?

We end up making the same mistakes they warned us about because we were too stubborn to admit they were real.

We disappoint them, break their hearts, and make them question their parenting.  

We end up having to learn the lessons all over again ultimately leading to one big lesson: parents know best.

That has to be the hardest part about parenting: 

Teaching your children everything you possibly can about life, love, relationships, society, etc., and knowing that it's ultimately their decision in the end. 

They pick and choose what they're taught, and decide which ones to follow and which ones to disregard.

And when they choose to disregard, wondering if there was something you could have done better. 

But sometimes lessons are best taught in I-told-you-so's. 

Nobody ever learned everything through watching other people's mistakes. You have to make them on your own sometimes. Sometimes you don't even know it's a mistake until you make it. 

As Lily said in "How I Met Your Mother":

There are certain things in life where you know it's a mistake but you don't really know it's a mistake because the only way to know that it really is a mistake is to make that mistake and go, "Yup, that was a mistake". So really, the bigger mistake would be to not make the mistake because then you'll go about your whole life not knowing whether it was a mistake or not.

 Anyways, our parents are vital to the rest of our lives. They spend 18 years trying their best to teach us everything they know before booting us out of the nest. 

And sometimes we don't fly; we just fall. We fail to follow their teachings and have to learn the hard way. 

But when we succeed, think of how proud they must be. 

I've got a pocket, got a pocket full of emotions...

I'm sitting on the counter in my apartment complex's community laundry room, not even doing laundry, because, for some reason, the sound of the roaring washers and dryers soothes me. 
Probably because when I was a baby I had colic, and my mom would put me on top of the washing machine to make me stop crying. 
I guess it worked back then, and to this day it helps me to sort through the crying thoughts and emotions inside me. I can think in here. I can focus. I can feel one emotion at a time, rather than a wave of so many that I don't know what to do with. 


My roommate and I were talking the other day about how emotionally overwhelming being busy is. Not just draining because you're constantly going, but because on your downtime, every single emotion that you didn't have time to feel and deal with at the time it came, hits you all at once like a hurricane. And there are so many! And each one feels different so you don't know what to feel and you have no idea where to even start in dealing with them. It's like this one HUGE crazy emotion that you've never felt before. 


It feels like when you're a little kid, (or older, I may or may not still do this) and you're at a restaurant, and you're done eating, so you and your siblings or cousins or friends are bored and you decide to make a "masterpiece" of all the leftover food on your plates and beverages in your cups. If this emotion were to be compared to something, it would be that finished product of ketchup, ice cream, french fries, pasta, root beer, salt and pepper, and whatever else was left over from the meal. 


And every time that emotion is different, because it's a different recipe of different emotions in each situation. A.K.A., a recipe for disaster. 


This is how it works:
Imagine you're having a busy day. 
Each task you put yourself to requires your full concentration. 
So as you're focusing on each of these tasks, something may remind you of something else and your mind may wander for a moment, causing you to briefly feel something. 
You notice that you're feeling and no longer concentrating so you disregard that emotion completely before you have the chance to even identify what it was or where it came from.
 This happens throughout the day as you invest yourself into each different task. 
And in each task you place the one or many emotions in your pocket because you just can't deal with it right then.
So by the end of the day, your pockets are full of all the different emotions that didn't have time to be felt. 
Therefore, when it comes time to finally relax and reflect on the day, you empty your pockets, involuntarily, and are completely overwhelmed with all the junk that piled up in there. 
By that time they've all melted together from the friction of the fast moving day, into one, big, gooey, and poop-colored emotion. 
And how can you possibly deal with that?  


Busy and emotional are not a good combination.
Man, it's tough being a girl.  

Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.

The heart is such a strange organ. 
It beats. It feels. It attaches. It breaks. It heals. It gives life. 
It's so valuable, and we flaunt it with our chest wide open for the world to see. Hearts change. Hearts harden. Hearts are meant to be guarded, they weren't made to be broken. 


I think there comes a time in everyone's life when you decide to stop letting people hurt you. You decide that you don't deserve to be lied to, manipulated, used, and betrayed. You realize that sometimes you have the right to be selfish in relationships.
And you realize that love shouldn't hurt. 


People come and go. People leave marks on your heart, and sometimes just take the whole thing right out of you. People influence people. People hurt people. 


The heart can be a very dangerous weapon, or it can be the most effective tool.  


Our hearts were made to love... if only we knew how. 

I read her like an open book

"You cannot open a book without learning something." -Confucius


People are like books. Or, books are like people.


We all have covers. Some hard, some soft, some transparent, and some non-existent. 


Some easy to open, some hard to open.


Some full of pictures and easy-to-read pages, and some full of complex vocabulary, and not-so-easy-to-read pages.


Some are short, and to the point. Some take longer to read.


Some are used, torn, and neglected. Some are new, innocent, and crisp. 


And we all have a story.




I could go on and on with this analogy, but you get the point.

The point is: people are fascinating! And so amazingly deep and complex! 


Think about it, you will never know someone completely inside and out. They will always surprise you. There will always be something to learn because they are constantly learning. Every. Single. One of us has our own unique story, that molds and shapes us into who we are. The content of our inner pages determines the cover. Some people are incredibly hard to get to know, it takes a while for them to open up and be comfortable. I, being one of those people. Some people are incredibly easy to get to know, with what seems to be a transparent cover or no cover at all. 


A book, from the story being thought up, to the many drafts it goes through, to the publisher, to the printing press, then to the shelves, to the hands of the reader, has a journey. 


We have a journey. A story with conflict, resolution, climax, characters, dialogue. A front cover, a back cover. Highlighted lines. Torn pages. Readers. 


Me, I'm a soft cover book that's hard to open. I'm packaged in that plastic stuff that's secretly made of bullet-proof vest. But once I'm open, I'm open. Definitely an easy read. And my story is far from being finished.




People are beautiful, complex novels. I wish I put more effort and time into reading.

And I saw, without really seeing, that people are beautiful.

I love people watching. 
And I recently noticed that I look at people, but I don't see them.


I love smiling at strangers. 
I'll walk around campus or Walmart, and smile at everyone I walk by because I like the temporary joy I may give them; I like that I make them feel special, like they've been seen, even if it's for just a moment... but I never really see at them. 


Yes, I make eye contact and notice what they're wearing, how they walk, facial features, etc, but am I going to remember them the next time I smile at them on campus? Probably not. 


The other night, all 5 of my roommates and I were sitting around joking and talking. As we were laughing I looked at one of them, seeing her for the first time. I was so surprised that I hadn't before, I mean, I've been living with her for 3 months. But there she was, the same person as every other time I'd looked at her, and I was seeing her for the first time. And I realized there was so much to see. So much that I had been too busy to notice, or too careless to make the effort to take in. 


I love people. And I'm disappointed that this has become a habit for me. 


Mostly, I hate airports because they stress me out, but the people in airports fascinate me. I want to know where they're going and why, where they're coming from and why, and who they're traveling with and why. 
Even driving around town, I see cars and wonder the same thing. Is their reason as simple as mine? Or is it much more interesting?




Everyone has a story. 
Everyone has something weighing on their mind. 
Everyone loves someone, hates someone, loves something, hates something. 
Everyone is so much more than what you look at on the outside. 
But if you really see someone, you'll see that they're just like you.
When you see someone, you see that you're really not alone in this world. 
You see that they're made up of cells and atoms, and wonderfully complex parts just like you. 
You see that they have a beating heart, broken maybe, or maybe perfectly content. 
You see that they have a mind with synapses, memories, emotions, etc, all different from anyone else in the universe. 
You see that they have opinions, beliefs, reasons, and motives. 
You see that they have a countless number of hairs on their body, a pigment that can never be exactly matched or recreated. 
You see that they have wrinkles, on their brow or on their cheek that hold stories of every frown they've ever frowned, and every smile they've ever smiled. 
You see that they're walking, going somewhere, toward a goal, toward a destination. 
You see that they have dreams, and wishes, and hopes, and prayers. 
You see that their feet and hands are calloused from years of hard, or not so hard, work.
You see that they have eyes that observe, scan, blink, cry, perceive, and speculate. Eyes nonidentical to any other. Eyes hard or soft, with stories. Eyes that are the window to their soul, the deepest part of their being. 
You see that they have senses. They look at scenes, they hear sounds, they touch textures, they smell scents, they taste flavors, and their perception of each of those things may be completely different than your own. 
You see that they're breathing. Their body requires oxygen to survive just like yours does.
You see that there are so many things unseen. Their struggles, their pain, their guilt. It's all there beneath the layers of clothing. 


You see that they walk, make eye contact, flash a simple smile, felt or fake, and they don't see you either. 




Wow, I feel small. All this time I foolishly thought without really thinking that I was the only one. But I'm just one in a sea of faces longing to be seen.

?

I love people that ask a lot of questions. 


Because you don't always know the answer until the question is asked. Even the simplest of questions can reveal your deepest desires, needs, and values. 



Even if the answer is "I don't know", you're on your way to knowing. 

And then you learn something about yourself. 

Undefined

I like definitions. Because definitions are concrete, they solidify the meaning of something, they settle the score, they can't be changed by anyone that feels the need to change them. 


m-w.com is one of my favorite websites. 
^^^link

DEFINITION

1

: an act of determining

2  : a statement expressing the essential nature of something
3  : the action of the power of describing, explaining, or making definite and clear


Defining yourself is not much different than defining a word. 
Your definition is your essential nature, and it can't be changed by anyone.


Defining yourself is the act of determining. 


There are a few different ways of defining yourself:
Through the eyes of other people
Through the eyes of yourself
Through the eyes of a Higher Power


Like everything, whichever route you choose, each has with it it's pros and cons.


Through the eyes of other people:
Pros:
-If people generally like you, you've got a good self-image
-Sometimes other people see things in you that you don't see, good or bad
Cons:
-You become dependent on others' opinions
-If it's a single person you're being defined by, you're completely lost when that person is gone
-You stop trying to know yourself when all that matters is how other people know you
-Everything becomes about pleasing people, and upholding to their standards


Through the eyes of yourself:
Pros:
-You don't let anyone tell you who to be or who you are
-You can be whoever you want to be
Cons:
-You will never be exactly who you want to be
-You see all the flaws that no one else sees
-You rarely let people in deep enough to see who you truly are


Through the eyes of a Higher Power:
Pros: 
-If this Higher Power is unconditionally loving, you know that no matter who your are, no matter your worst flaw, and no matter what mistakes you make, It sees you as perfect
-If this Higher Power is all-knowing, It knows you down to every cell in your body, and loves you anyway
-If this Higher Power is all-powerful, It can give you the strength to overcome whatever it is that weighs you down the most.
Cons:
-I can't think of any cons...


Also like everything else, finding your definition is a process.


I'm in the process of finding my definition. For so long I let myself be defined by people, which prevented me from truly knowing who I am, and truly seeing my worth for what it is. 


Depending on what you choose to be defined by, the steps are different. I've decided that I cannot be defined by people. So i tried to define myself. And after I did that, I realized my only true definition can be found in God, or my "Higher Power".


For me, this was/is the process:
Step one:
Realizing my definition/value is not in a person or people. 
Understanding how that is destructive.


Step two:
Trying to define myself/learning about myself in a different light.


Step three:
Hating myself because of what I see. Judging myself based on who I am and who I'm not.


Step four:
Seeing how God defines me based on His unconditional love, all-knowingness, and all-powerfulness. 


Step five:
Being defined by God's love and in turn loving myself, and letting that love grow and change me. 




I'm not quite to step five, but I'm making progress. Every once in a while I let my emotions take me back to step negative one. But the beauty of it is that it's much easier to get back to step four knowing what I know now. 


The definition I find in people and in myself puts me in a box. No room for change or adaptation. It's concrete. It's unsatisfying. 
The definition I find in God puts me in a place with infinite space. It gives me value and hope. There's room for improvement and room for the satisfaction of knowing I'm loved no matter what I am or what I do. 




There's only moving forward from here.

Judge not, lest you shall be judged.

What makes us do the things we do?
What makes us say the things we say?
What makes us believe the things we believe?




A person's character is made up of so much more than could possibly meet our shallow eyes. 




I despise judgement.

Vertigo

In dance, the one thing I struggle with the most is balance. 

In relationships, it's one of the things I struggle with the most as well. 

I'm a people-pleaser to the core. 

All I want is to like everyone and for everyone to like me. 

It's a good thing that I like everyone, but not a good thing when my need for everyone to like me is the reason I like everyone. That's not the case all the time, I genuinely love people. And I generally look for the good in people naturally. Unless I have someone else's opinion as my predisposition. Which is another thing about me: my opinion is so easily altered, but that's beside the point. 

I can't handle when someone is mad or unhappy with me, so I try as hard as I can to prevent that from happening. 

But, I always seem to underestimate the number of people I want to keep happy. 

I'm really bad at prioritizing. I'm really bad at balancing my relationships. When I'm focusing on someone, they get all my attention, and I forget my other priorities. 

But I don't know how to fix this. 

Prioritize and balance, of course. But those words are so foreign to me. I see the details, not the bigger picture. Priority and balance both require seeing the bigger picture. 

I envy people that have the ability to focus on the bigger picture and make decisions accordingly. 

Don't get me wrong, there are benefits to being detail-oriented for sure. But, as my good friend the wannabe philosopher always says, "it's all about the balance". 

When you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.