A More Serious Post

"I love you too. Keep me posted on grandma."
"I just want to make sure its really ok before I put in thousands of dollars into culinary school."
"My parents just declared bankruptcy. We won't have our store anymore. I don't know what we're going to do."

Today in my geography class, we talked about women in Afghanistan. We talked about little girls who want to go to school, and on their way they get acid thrown in their faces, deforming them. Do they keep going to school? Yes. Even more and more now little girls are getting their hair chopped and are given boy names to parade as boys just to get an education.
Today walking in the library and other places on campus, I heard some of the above phrases in the beginning of this post.

People have problems. People have worries and concerns. Just listening and seeing it immediately around me testifies of that. The world is a very scary place, as all who live here can attest to. What can I change? Sure I can look into a geography major and want to go around the world and see and meet people and places. But really, I can't change the world. I can only change me.
While my problems may seem so hard at the present, it's only because, 1) yes, everyone has their own trials and 2) I may not always see correctly. Focusing on the present gets us nowhere. Focusing on just ourselves limits us.

This morning, my mind was on something someone very wise has said:
"When stress levels rise, when distress appears, when tragedy strikes, too often we attempt to keep up the same frantic pace or even accelerate, thinking somehow that the more rushed our pace, the better off we will be.

One of the characteristics of modern life seems to be that we are moving at an ever-increasing rate, regardless of turbulence or obstacles.

Let’s be honest; it’s rather easy to be busy. We all can think up a list of tasks that will overwhelm our schedules. Some might even think that their self-worth depends on the length of their to-do list. They flood the open spaces in their time with lists of meetings and minutia—even during times of stress and fatigue. Because they unnecessarily complicate their lives, they often feel increased frustration, diminished joy, and too little sense of meaning in their lives...

We would do well to slow down a little, proceed at the optimum speed for our circumstances, focus on the significant, lift up our eyes, and truly see the things that matter most."

I sometimes feel the need to compete with my ever-perfect roommate who seems to get a lot more attention that I do no matter how hard I keep trying. I'm still working on it, but today, I feel okay. Okay that I do not have the same life she does. I have my purpose and she has hers. The best I can do is to be her friend. Because that's who I am. I am a friend. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am an aunt. I am a lot of things to a lot of people, and only I can be there for it. Do I want to be that friend that always has issues? Do I want to be so repulsive in my behavior that people dread talking to me?

So I am here to say my relationships with everyone in my life are definitely things that matter most to me. I might think my life is hard with job interview after job interview, and no job; a rejection to my major I was so set on; some girl bragging about how many dates she has that weekend, etc. My home wasn't just destroyed in a 9.0 earthquake. I'm not getting acid thrown in my face for coming to school.
I know I can choose my attitude in how I react to things that happen to me. Because in the long run, am I going to regret me festering my grief until I explode at my roommate and ruin things? You bet. Am I glad that we talked it out and understood each other's point of views? You bet. Is it still hard sometimes? You better believe it. But it's helping me grow and realize that stressing about things that will have smaller meaning in the long run isn't worth it. People are worth it.