Friday Thoughts: Parks and Open Words
70 degree weather, with New Indie Mix created by Spotify playing inside my ears
to the open sights of water. Ducks swimming through as I begin to contemplate my surroundings and accept the peace I feel today. It's Friday, everyone's favorite day signaling the end of the work week for some and the end of the school week for others.
Not every Friday replicates itself, each one has it's own unique qualities that distances one from the other. More than anything, Friday's strive to be relief givers. A chance for you to breathe, reflect and enjoy peace. Of course, not everybody's Friday's are bright and filled with good things but instead of focusing on what could go wrong on those days, I like to focus on the happier Friday's.
Friday's have always mattered to me ever since I was a little kid. Friday's always signified going out to eat, seeing my friends, the start of road trips or sometimes all of the above. I just associated Friday's with more happiness than anything. Everybody has that day or time of the week where they feel the most peaceful or even the best version of themselves. Friday is that day for me. Especially Friday afternoons, where the Sun is sitting at a bright point and the weather reaches it's highest level of warmth. That's where the positivity shines and flows the best. Friday's are days I choose to fill up with the largest consumption of deep thoughts. When I put my thinking cap on to determine what I'm really feeling inside my life and how I'm really doing. What's the truth?
The truth is I'm particularly enjoying life at this moment in time. During this period I'm living where I want, going to school for what I'm interested in and discovering a healthy balance between loving who I am and loving who I'm going to be in the future. Reaching on the edge and verge of spring time brings excitement to others but even more to myself. Spring signifies increased positivity for myself and a time where people just seem happier. Spring is the prelude to the summer which becomes the climax of the year. Now I know some people may be reading this somewhere consisting of cold weather and cloudy skies but for others, times may replicated warmer weather and better views. Everyone has their own definitions of their own reality.
Regardless, I'm feeling good and I wanna share some thoughts about the new year and things I've already observed.
People still don't talk to each other:
Plain and simple. Don't get me wrong, I didn't come into 2018 with a strong expectation that people would increase their personal interactions with each other. What I'm saying is that it's still sad. People still don't feel the closeness with each other that used to be of strong values in decades before. Understanding the world is growing towards a darker place but even more so there's still need for people to actually reach out and encourage one another. Whether you know it or not, your friends still need you, your family still needs you, strangers still need you. We are the most prideful civilization in human history, everybody wants to hurt and nobody wants to heal. Bound by a belief that we're the only ones that can help ourselves we stubbornly cling to a fad of loneliness. Don't give into that norm, you can be the exception to that standard through three different ways:
1. Find your uncomfort zone and learn to embrace that
Place yourself in situations that are going to force you to learn more about yourself and who you are as a person through the interactions with other people i.e helping others. Not always in actions but in words, sometimes having to become the bigger individual in reaching out. Everyone's silent until it becomes personal, how about speaking up and out when it's personal to other people. Help be someone else's voice until they can find their own. This could be done through taking your sad or depressed friend out to a nice lunch and just letting them vent until they put a smile on their face or asking someone you just met to hangout for a day. Small steps yielding potentially larger results.
2.Not knowing people is okay, but don't let that change you.
At one point or another each individual can experience some feelings of being alone. It may even become prolonged over a period of time. When this happens, learn not to feel you have to change yourself to become adjusted and shaped into the mold of people who you really don't care to know but instead embracing the qualities you find enjoyment in because sooner or later the right people will want to get to know you, instead of you questioning yourself getting to know the wrong people.
3.Don't fear, always do enough.
Modern society puts clings or stigmas on increased effort above the norm in friendships and relationships using the term of clingy. We've been so far removed from having strong and long bonding friendships that we no longer can understand the concept in putting effort into someone if you want the bond to grow. I'll be honest, I used to fall victim to this belief and norm. For the longest time, I would keep an invisible guard up to individuals I felt were getting too close for my comfort. Not understanding that, people's way of love extends not just into relationships but also friendships and love takes effort. Love is shown always through actions and not just words. Thus, I became more devoted to increasing my efforts with the people I called my friends. Yes, It hasn't always yielded into the results I wanted but instead allowed me to shape myself to become the friend to others I've wanted to be
Why are we still so afraid to try new things?
Time and convenience will crush us all if we want it to. The excuses that we bear for ourselves only hold us back from discovering truths about ourselves that will remain hidden until unlocked. This is something I personally still struggle with from time to time as I see myself making progress in experiencing new things and places then finding myself recusing myself into the norm that is standard. Time consisting of the excuse of not wanting to go somewhere due to the constraint it would put in terms of the day and the inconvenience it would occur is usually outweighed by the experience of just doing it. We all need to live more and start doing more instead of questioning, because when we're old and dying nobody ever questions the question instead we question the reasons why we didn't do something.
In conclusion, let's all:
Talk more. Do more. Be more.
Happy Friday,
JG
