It’s true, I’m supernaturally regenerated.
I know a lot of you are quite puzzled, wondering, “Are you back in Houston (permanently)? What happened to Paris?! She was only there for two months!” So rather than repeat the reasons why a million times, I’ll attempt to delineate them here. I know I…
This video strikes at the heart of why I can’t settle for just any job. I have to go after my Personal Legend. I cannot, repeat, cannot do what my parents would do, what my friends want me to do, what the world thinks I should do, what looks good on a resume… I’m not going to fall in line so I won’t look weird or crazy. Please, those of you who are my close friends, knew (for the most part) what you were getting yourselves into when you became my close friend… I AM crazy (the good kine crazy, mind you)! It is what it is, and I’m comfortable enough with myself to not live in denial.
It’s no secret that most people hate their jobs, so why would I do what other people are doing?!??! Even if I’m lost right now, I’m searching for what I want to do, and when I find it — I think it’s starting a clothing company / brand — I’m not going to let excuses get in the way (it’s too hard, I’m scared being 25 and “lost”, I don’t have money etc.)
Tant mieux (“all the better” in French - been practicing!) Success doesn’t taste as good without failure along the way. I accept these challenges as opportunities to think creatively and outside the box. It can be done. It’s been done before. LGI, let’s go!
(Thanks Hua Jing Li for sharing!!!!)
I know. I’m just 25. And most of my close girl friends are in the same boat. Around my age, accomplished, working professionals, some with boyfriends, some without, but none are married nor have children. I don’t anticipate any of us having kids in the very near future (ie a year or so from now).
But lately, my mommy gene is off the charts. And I want a kid. No, not a real kid, not quite yet. I have to find the right guy first…! I’m talking about a faux kid - like a dog.
I tried the whole mommy dearest thing with a beagle pup four years ago, and I failed miserably. (Don’t ask.) However, I think in a few years I’ll be (financially) stable, mature, and responsible enough to have my very own baby (pup).
I am super excited about playing with my girl, training my doll face to do cool tricks, giving her the best care possible (food, exercise, loving, dog friend company), running errands with her etc. IMHO, having a dog is a good way to ease into real motherhood, and I’m so excited!
Oh, what dog do I want? A BOSTON TERRIER! Why? It seems like the PERFECT dog for me. It’s a small to medium-sized dog weighing no more than about 25 lbs., so I can pick her up and carry her if need be. BTs personalities are AMAZING! They’re so friendly and affectionate. They get along with other animals and kids. They’re smart and highly trainable. They don’t bark, although they do snore. And look at how cute they are!
And for names? Either some French, Hawaiian, or Texan name! (Like Sophie, Kona, or Austin symbolizing places I’ve been and experiences I’ve had.) I’ll probably get my girl a male friend one day, too.
How could you not want to wake up to that face???
Lew
With Valentine’s Day, or Happy Singles’ Awareness Day, fast approaching, I felt compelled to address some “love” related issue in this week’s post. I wrestled between writing about this and sex, and I decided this topic would be the better option. Because with the latter, people would read my prudish arguments, and probably want to burn me at the stake or at least send me hate (e-)mail. So rather than incur ridicule - save it for another day, people! - lets have a mature, frank, and introspective conversation, and I’ll spare you the birds and bees speech. Ca-peesh?
With the departure of my friend to Shanghai, where she teaches English - I told you my friends were bad-asses - I picked up her gift, “Girls in Trucks,” which she saved from the Half Price book bin just in the nick of time. Reading through the book, I felt immense pity for the protagonist. IMHO, she’s confused, insecure, and self-destructive. She lets one of her boyfriends physically and mentally abuse her - huh?!??! - until she feels numb, used, empty, and all washed-up from her long list of crazed escapades. Her older sister who used to protect her from guys, remarks, “No offense, but what’s left to protect?” Ouch.
I’m not judging this fictional character or her decisions. (She kind of gets her fairytale ending…? Although she goes through A LOT of heartache in 35 years.) However, I am exercising judgment, which is defined as: “the ability to come to sensible conclusions.” I think any rational person would agree that self-destructive behavior is not beneficial to the individual (“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”). I also think it’s fair to say that everyone wants to be in a happy and healthy relationship.
What’s the key to a happy and healthy relationship? The answer is simpler than you think: It’s a happy and healthy YOU.
Now I’m not telling you anything you haven’t heard before - I’m just the white figure standing on your left shoulder, pleading with you to do the right thing: to love yourself. And if that’s not working, here’s some tough love, which, I, btw, told myself: “Get your sh*t together because ain’t nobody gonna love and respect you if you don’t love and respect yourself first!”
“But, Christine, I don’t really know what else to do other than what I’m doing now.” I think the answer lies in knowing what you want, then living your life with passion and purpose (coupled with good-decision making / making your own luck).
If you’re 1) insecure and jealous, 2) have no life direction / interests / hobbies, or 3) relying on someone to complete you and make you whole, you are setting yourself up for disaster. However, if you’ve got goals, love life, accept / love / respect yourself, if you’re learning, growing, bettering yourself, and adding to this world, not only are you (blossoming into) a healthy individual, but you’re EXTREMELY ATTRACTIVE. Everyone will be lining up to date you. That’s a guarantee.
Still not convinced? Another side effect of loving and respecting yourself, besides gaining self-confidence and positive self-image, is that you won’t accept anything less than what you think you deserve. In turn, this attitude will cue others / your significant other to treat you equally well.
By no means am I a relationship expert - I have yet to have one serious / long-term relationship - however, I am smart enough to learn from my mistakes in my “faux” relationships as well as from my friends’ mistakes. It’s taken me almost 25 years - AHH! I’ll be in my mid-20s in two and a half months! - to amass some “wisdom.”
Whether you’re single, in a relationship, or married, it is time for redemption and reclaiming your dignity. A healthy person + another healthy person = a possibility of a healthy relationship. Anything else before the equal sign will most likely be detrimental to you (and your significant other) and end in grief.
Your job? Get out there and start doing what you love and believe that someone will come along. Being the person you want to be will attract the kind of person you want to be with. Or, if you’re already in a relationship, working on yourself will only strengthen the relationship - your relationship will flourish, just like those pretty flowers you’re set to receive in two days.
Lew
So I realize that my prior post was ree-diculously lengthy, so I’m going to K.I.S.S. y’all: Keep it simple, stupid! (insert kissy face emoticon here, lol)
Rather than type out how to goal set, or tell you how I goal set, I’m going to redirect you HERE. It’s not that I’m too lazy to write an extensive post, but this website is already an excellent guide. No need reinvent the wheel, yah? (Like my pidgin??!)
Here are my two cents:
1) Use the SMART mnemonic: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-specific.
Example of my one year goal: “I will save $20-25K by mid-March 2013, so I can attend FIDM in April 2013.”
2) Break down your goals into repeatable, habit-forming actions, so that [insert goal here] eventually materializes naturally.
Example of a few of my 2011 New Year’s resolutions:
(If you notice, all of these habit-forming actions follow the SMART mnemonic.)
3) WRITE DOWN YOUR GOALS! (And tell a close friend about them. Why? Because he or she can help keep you accountable when your willpower wanes.)
4) Make an action plan, and when its complete, DO IT ASAP!
5) Post your goals and action plan in a place you will see them every day (planner, bulletin board, desktop background, smart phone — yuck! Sorry, personally biased…), so you won’t forget what you should be doing.
6) Regularly review your progress / goals.
As part of a job application for lululemon, I used their template to backwards goal set from 10, 5, to 1 year(s). I took about 30 minutes to fill in the page (once I found out how to type on the dang pdf file, ha!). It was quick and easy only because I already have my extensive 12, 13, err, 15 year-ish plan (that gets updated about once a year — yes, I be crazy) written down.
Now its YOUR turn - go get your goal setting on!
Lew
PS—Check out some of the other links on the main goal-setting page, as they, too, offer a lot of great advice.
“My heart is a traitor,” the boy said to the alchemist, when they had paused to rest the horses. “It doesn’t want me to go on.”
“That makes sense,” the alchemist answered. “Naturally it’s afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you’ve won.”
“Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?”
“Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you’re thinking about life and about the world.”
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One afternoon, his heart told him that it was happy. “Even though I complain sometimes, it’s because I’m the heart of a person, and people’s hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren’t, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sand. Because when these things happen, we suffer terribly.”
“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
“Every second of the search is an encounter with God,” the boy told his heart. “When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I’ve known that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve.”
So his heart was quiet for an entire afternoon. That night, the boy slept deeply, and, when he awoke, his heart began to tell him things that came from the Soul of the World. It said that all people who are happy have God within them. … “Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him,” his heart said.
“We, people’s hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, toward its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them—the path to their Personal Legends, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place. So, we, their hearts, speak more and more softly. We never stop speaking out, but we begin to hope that our words won’t be heard: we don’t want people to suffer because they don’t follow their hearts.”
“Why don’t people’s hearts tell them to continue to follow their dreams?” the boy asked the alchemist.
“Because that’s what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don’t like to suffer.”
From then on, the boy understood his heart. He asked it, please, never to stop speaking to him. He asked that, when he wandered far from his dreams, his heart press him and sound the alarm. The boy swore that, every time he heard the alarm, he would heed its message.
— The Alchemist, Paul Coelho
She taught me a lot. I mean, other than math (she was my Algebra 2 teacher my sophomore year at Kapolei High) haha. Check out her blog. She has a good head on her shoulders. She’s been all over the world. She graduated from UT (she was in their Business Honors Program, one of the top in the country). She taught math in Hawaii for two years. And now she’s going to FiDM to pursue a career in fashion! (Did I mention that’s where Lauren Conrad went? Yeah!)
Anyway, I could go on about her for a while. But she’s amazing! Check out her blog! You’ll learn a thing or two, trust me…
(I mean, after all, she was a teacher haha!)
This made my day! :) Of note: I’m not actually much bigger than Carli - I am the ‘big sister’ that stands maybe TWO inches taller than her, lololol! (What… we’re Asian! And a lot of people in Hawai’i are short, for obvious reasons!)
