Cabin Fever...

In my wise, old age, I'm discovering something new about me.
I get stir crazy.
It's getting worse as I get older!
Truly though, in my head I'm never just ok with everything being standard and comfortable, I am always looking for something new and exciting to be doing! If things get to the point where they're mundane I'm not happy. Even in my music selection, the same old sound bores me after a while. I'm beginning to think that this condition is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I always have something to work for, a curse because I am never content. Because this is something that I'm only just getting to know about myself, I haven't really decided how I feel about it yet.
I loved St. George, and then I loved moving home, and then the feeling of things getting normal started settling in and now I'm loving the idea of hitting the road and being out in the world a little bit. But, I'm also putting feelers out there for what I'm going to do when I grow weary of the road. I think that this is my fear of commitment in any way, shape or form taking over another aspect of my life.
In the meantime I guess I'll just sit back and try and enjoy the ride :)
Aroha

Moments...

The past couple of days I have been thinking a lot about moments.
One moment can change your life.
One minuscule second in the grand scheme of things, and just like that, every thing's different.
I think moments are powerful partly because that's all that it takes to get an idea, and ideas are where actions and course corrections really come from.
Moments are what we live for. When we're old and grey (God willing) and we're looking back at our lives, it's going to be moments that we see.
Moments when our minds were opened to new ideas/concepts and our whole lives shifted to accommodate that new viewpoint, sometimes changing the entire direction we were traveling. How we got to the point that we're at, will be because of enlightening moments. Whether this was from deep personal searching, or someone else teaching you something valuable, or making a mistake and learning a major lesson from it.
 Moments when you realize you love someone. This is a big one, because there are many different types and levels of love, but either way, whatever the circumstance, love is something that stays with you forever one way or another. Whether it's realizing that the love you felt for someone was unhealthy and getting out of the situation, or realizing that the ache you feel inside once someone leaves was because you loved them. Realizing when it's too late that you loved someone in return, and not being able to do anything about it. Coming to see just how much you love your family, even though it's all so complicated. Love is what this life is made for.
Moments where you risk it all and go with your gut. When you go against all reason and what everyone around you is telling you, and go with your heart. Big loss, big return. It goes one of two ways. There really is no way to feel more alive than to put it all on the line, that's what I always say.
Moments where you live out a piece of your dream, when you feel that real sense of accomplishment. Those times when you literally can feel yourself alive. Or moments where you can't see the light and don't know where you're supposed to go, you either make a move and shake things up and live, or you stay put and become stagnant waiting for the world to turn your way. Those are the moments that you either treasure or you regret.
I don't want to live with regret, and so far that's the way that I've lived my life. I have made my choices, both in how I act and how I react, and I have come to peace with them all. I've learned some lessons that I never thought I would. You know what though? I wouldn't change a minute of it. Every moment in my life is one that I treasure, the good the bad and the ugly. All of them. The moments that I've laughed, and the moments that I've cried. The moments that I never wanted to end and the moments that the gravity of the situation has sunk in and it couldn't pass quickly enough. When I recall those events, they let me know that I'm ALIVE. I haven't just been going through the motions of a life, but I've been an active participant in the creation of my life.
I love my moments. All of them.
And I love you guys for helping, on so many occasions, to create those moments with me :)
Aroha

My Unconventional Year 2011...

As I've been thinking of New Years resolutions lately I was making lists in my mind of things that I could improve on/experience/give up. Then I started recalling previous resolutions and I saw a trend, my resolutions last all of 4 days and then that's it, they're done and I give up. Well, I've decided that this is NOT how it is going to go this time. So, I'm taking a new approach, one I've never tried before...I'm just taking on a theme word for 2011 and the word I've chosen?
UNCONVENTIONAL
That's right, I'm going to make this entire year a celebration of the unique, untried, untested and unexplored. How am I making this happen? Well, I'm quitting my job in January and doing something that I've always wanted to do but found a million reasons not to. I'm getting my CDL. Yep, I'm hitting the road. I don't even know how to really explain how excited I am. So you're going to have to take my word for it. I'm SUPER excited!
I've also decided that this year I am not going to buy any clothes BUT I'm putting a stipulation on that statement, if in the course of 365 days I find that I actually am in need (not want, but actual need) then I have to purchase clothing that gives back. I think that's a fair compromise. I better get to the store, because I'm down to 8 days to shop.

Part of this year is going to be about finding me again. The real me. The one deep inside that I sometimes lose track of in all of the craziness of this world. Meditation is the way that I find leads to the connection with the inner me. I also want to find other ways to get in touch with myself. There's so many possibilities!

I'm also going to strive to keep using my voice. I like this one a lot, because I've been practicing lately. Take last week for example, I heard about the deer shootings in Bountiful (something that I didn't really like at all) so some friends and I staged a "guerrilla protest." We went under the cover of darkness and posted over 100 fliers in Bountiful. It was pretty epic.
Next up? An undercover operation to find out about factory farming...more to come on that one...

To say that I'm stoked for this year would probably be an understatement, I literally cannot wait!

Bring on 2011, the year of the Unconventional Pixie Stix

Aroha XOXO

The Evolution of Relationships...

Growing up, I was under the misconception that certain relationships never changed, those relationships being with God and your family. I think I lived with that mentality because I created some sort of stability as I was trying to figure out the world. But now, being slightly more grown up than I ever have before, I'm beginning to see that no relationship is ever the same for any amount of time.
As unsettling as I still seem to find this truth, I think I'm seeing it now because I'm getting to the point where I'm secure enough with myself and my ability to digest facts and information and be able to balance it with what I as an individual being feel, and then form an opinion.
There have been times in my life where I went along with a thought pattern because that's what everyone else was doing. Then there have been times where I went against everyone else because I was trying to be an individual.
The relationship between men and God is ridiculously complex. I have never really wanted to think about it before. But lately it's something that I've thought about quite a bit. My idea of God and my relationship with him is, for the first time in my life, evolving. Up until now, it was something that I thought couldn't change. God was what he was and that was that. In my mind religion inhibited men from having any semblance of a normal relationship with the creator. I'm coming to the conclusion that I was off on my thoughts a little there. It's a terrifying reality to see that relationship changing. But it's also insanely refreshing.
The relationships in families are the only relationships that can give the previous relationship a run for its money in complexity. Family had always been my foundation, even over religion. The past couple months have crumbled that foundation and I've had to stand on my own foundation.
I didn't even know that I HAD my own foundation.
It's been a rude awakening to say the least.
Who am I? What do I stand for? What do I believe in? When everything else in the world changes, what do I still KNOW to be true?
These are some big questions, and they're not ones that can be figured out on a timetable.
As I look back on the last 5 years of my life, I've been in the middle of one B I G learning curve. It's been insane. Everything that I thought I knew about myself has not just been shaken, but it's been tossed, crushed, gathered together and then blown away again.
And I have been growing every single second of it.
Growing is one of those hard things to appreciate when you're going through it. But when you look back on it, you know that you wouldn't change that experience for anything in the world.
Getting older, and having experiences behind you that you can look to is nice, because now when even more difficult situations hit me, I can see that all of this turmoil and confusion will lead to greater enlightenment and growth than any other circumstances ever could.
Granted, it is unsettling that the situations keep getting harder. I don't like that much and I don't let myself think about all of the other things that are coming my way. But knowing that I'm capable of evolution and rising to the occasion is what gets me up in the morning.
Even as relationships are twisted, and mutilated, there is hope.
I really like hope.

Some Of My Favorite Things...

Sea Slugs

Chameleons

And now, news from up north...

Where Is My Happiness....?

I had a nice chat with a very wise man today.
We talked about my life.
Not something I really enjoy discussing these days. But he wanted to know. So I told him. I thought that would teach him to be nice and thoughtful.
He asked me a question and there was such a lead up to it that I thought he was going to ask me the meaning of life or something.
It was worse.
He asked me what made me really, truly happy and how I was going to make the rest of my life completely happy.
Ugh.
I do not know.
I honestly have no idea.
I know what makes me happy right now; longboarding, painting, reading, going to movies with my family and roadtrips.
But how I thought my life was going to go has been shaken so drastically that I don't even know where I want to be in 6 months, let alone later in life!!
He asked what I wanted out of life.
No clue.
I don't want to get married. I don't want a conventional life. But being a member of the church if you don't get married then you're missing out on a big part of this life experience (a partner and kids) and that's not something that I know if I'm willing to sacrifice.
I don't want to be a worldly person. That means that Idon't want to be a doctor, lawyer or accountant. But how am I supposed to make a life for myself without focusing on worldly things?
I don't know what's going to make me happy down the road. I don't even know what's going to make me happy tomorrow.
But this very wise man did make me realize that wherever I find my happiness, I'm going to need to work to make it happen. My life plan was to see where the winds took me, but I'm starting to see how I can't completely rely on the winds, I'm going to have to do a little rowing of my own...

Soul Pancake...

I know that I mentioned this great book by Rainn Wilson, SoulPancake, in my last post, but I'm going to go ahead and mention it again. (And honestly, probably again a couple other times after this.)
I've been trying to find an appropriate way to describe this book to someone who has never seen it before, and I don't really have a good way to do it yet.
One word?

AMAZING!
"Soulpancake is a movement to chew on life's big questions. It's a space to tackle art, philosophy, creativity and spirituality, and ulitmately, soulpancake is about you-the thinkers, artists, poets, and misfits who seek to stamp out stigmas, shake up truths, and redefine what it means to be human." -Soulpancake intro-
Ok, so in this book each page is devoted to one of life's big questions and it includes
-questions that tackle what it means to be human
-mind blowing art from around the world
-odd facts and quirky stats
-quotes from a bunch of smart people (dead and alive)
-a handful of related questions
= your brain brewing
Haha I also took that from the book's description.
I know that it doesn't sound all that interesting, but I swear it's amazing! My sister is reading the book too (which, if you know her, tells you something...).
There are pages devoted to

Why do we hate?
What's one lie you're glad you told?

What emotion do you wish you could better control?

What drains your sould? What recharges it?
How has your sense of right and wrong evolved?

How literally should we interprerate religious texts?
There's so many great things in this book!!

Honestly, just read it.

Or at least check out the website.
There was this suggestion about keeping your creativity alive called Blackout Poetry and it essentially says that you get a page of text from somewhere, anywhere and create poetry by blacking out all of the words that you dont' want to use...I don't know if that really makes sense, so I included a picture :)
I will just finish this post by saying that as I read this book and made my brain really work today I was super happy. I liked it.

...thoughts, thoughts, thoughts...

New things are scary.
But they're also super exciting.
I think that's why people do them.
The adrenaline rush. The thrill of doing something that you have no idea how it will turn out.
I think that's probably why I love art so much.
When you start with a blank canvas, there's the possibility of it turning out as a masterpiece.
Then there's also the possibility of it turning out not at all how you imagined.
What are you supposed to do then?
I tend to favor scratching the original idea and just going with it, and seeing where that takes you!
It's splendid really.

Like this? Yeah, it was until this evening holding books on the shelf next to my bed. I decided it needed a little something extra. I think it's heading in a good direction.
The feeling of being in the middle of creating something that no one else has ever created before is what keeps me coming back time and time again.
I kind of feel like my life is this shelf recently.
I've been stuck in this huge rut, focusing on all of the things in life that I have no control over, and I was forgetting about my life.
I was waiting for this situation to pass so that my life could begin again.
How dumb is that??
This IS my life!
Right now.
This very minute.
So, I took a leap of faith at work, I called in and cancelled my requested availability for school, I dropped all of my classes that I was registered for and I picked up my CDL handbook.
I can see the country and get paid to do it.
I don't know what took me so long either.

It's essentially everything that I want in my life at this moment.
I asked my dad to ask his bosses if I could drive and they were all for the idea.
That had been my excuse for not actually going for it "It might not work out with the company."
I didn't have an excuse anymore.
So, I (spur of the moment) called and told them I could work anytime so that I can save and get things squared away to live this little dream of mine.
And you know what?
I may hate it.
BUT I will never have to look back and wonder what if...
If that's all that I get out of this life, I think I will be happy, I don't want to have "What if's" or regrets.
I may not be at the same place as others my age, or at a place that is socially acceptable, but you know what? I'm enjoying the ride :)
I was channel surfing and I saw an interview with Rainn Wilson and it literally blew my mind.
He started this website called Soul Pancake and also has a book that just came out.
It's amazing.
He suggests "Reverse Pick-Pocketing" which is where you write an uplifting message on a bill of your choice and slip it into someones pocket.
Wow.
I had never ever thought about giving someone a dollar bill with something nice written on it.
How great is that?
Oh man.
Seriously, check out the website and buy the book. (No I'm not getting any kickbacks for advertising haha)

That's what's been on my mind tonight :)
Aroha

Life Is Beautiful...

My favorite quote ever is flashing on the right hand side of the screen, it says
"Life is not about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself."
I can't even put into words how much that line just gets me, it quite literally touches my heart!
Life sometimes deals us really crappy hands, and you can search and search and search for the silver lining or you can get out there and FIND YOUR OWN lining!!
When I think of people that inspire me, the people who come to my mind very first are people who have firmly grasped their lives and are literally living every single moment of it.
My question is, how did they get so good at living their life??
It is so hard sometimes to see past the present moment and strive for something more than the crummy thing right there in front of you. There are so many promises of greater things waiting if you're just patient and persevere. That's really great to think about and dream about, but if you're anything like me, you don't like thinking about a life after this, or eternity. It's too much and I think it detracts from living in the moment....but that's just me.
I am a big believer in catering this life to you individually. We're all different, therefore, it makes sense that we all live our lives differently, and that we all get something different out of the same or similar circumstances. Even in the exact same situation, every single person involved will think/feel/learn something different. So why do we try so hard to conform to what everyone else is doing? Why do we try to live our life the same way as everyone around us is doing?
I believe in creating my own bliss, my own happiness, my own reason for getting back up and moving on.
I believe that the only way to be really, truly happy is to listen to yourself and what YOU really want out of this life. And once you've done that, work like hell to make it happen!
But, what if you're like I am at this moment in my life and you don't really know what you want or where you want to go? I know, I'm stumped just like you are.
I think I'm starting to get it. I'm trying new things every single chance that I get. I'm taking deep breaths and not letting the little things get to me. I'm getting rid of the people that cause stress in my life. I'm de-cluttering my life, I read a quote once that said "Don't keep anything in your home that isn't useful or that you don't find beautiful." I really have taken that to heart. I am being creative with art. I am reading the news every day, but spending more time on the things that interest me. I'm taking classes. I'm accepting offers to do things more and spending less time sitting around. It's called living. It's actually really, really cool.
I'm CREATING my own happiness and a life that is a perfect fit for ME.

Life truly is beautiful.

New Favorite Princess...?

Oh man, so I saw the movie Tangled yesterday (and my family may or may not be going to see it all together tomorrow) and it was so SO good!!! I truly am in love with it. It is possibly my favorite Disney movie ever!!!

I just want to go ahead and recommend that everyone go and see it. I love it. And not just because I have long blonde hair and big green eyes. It's just a great movie.

Where Is My Voice...?

I love tigers, polar bears, pandas and whales.
I love forests, beaches, mountains and open space.
I love people, meeting them, talking to them, and learning from them.

So what?

Having a feeling of love towards those things gets me...where exactly?
I am beginning to believe more and more that love is a verb.
It's an action more than just a warm feeling you get in your heart.

Don't get me wrong, that feeling is good. But I really, truly believe that it's just the tip of the love iceberg.

I had a day off today, and I actually got some things done. I registered for school for one. I cleaned a little. You know, the usual.
That's what worries me.
The usual for me helps absolutely NO ONE.
I didn't do one good thing for someone else today.
I didn't champion for a cause.
I didn't even read the news to see what is going on in the world.
Yeah, I took a nap with my dog and that felt super great at the time.
But there was no fulfilment.

I refuse to believe that we were put here purely for our own pleasure.
I believe that we were put here to help others. To make their loads lighter. To make their journey here a little more pleasant.
I sure do a lot of preaching about love for little to no action on that note.
I have been so blessed with health and with a sharp, strong mind...I do not believe that those blessings were given to me because I deserve them or because I did something right in some other life. I am beginning to believe that it's because I have a responsibility to help others.

Let's be honest, I like talking. Probably a little more than I should at times.
I can talk to anyone. Really, I could become friends with a brick if I had to. I know it's one of those gifts that I was given.
What GOOD am I using that voice for though?
Yeah, those who are close to me may know what my opinions are about certain subjects that I'm passionate about.
But I don't take a stand for those things.
I have never really liked taking a stand on anything. I don't like the confrontation.
Wasn't it Alexander Hamilton who said "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything?"
I have been given the gift of a voice for a purpose and, so far, I'm squandering it.

This means that it's time for a change. I'm starting small, because shooting too high rarely turns out with a change of character.

So, here is the challenge. When someone asks about my opinions about ANYTHING I'm going to have an opinion. I'm going to say what I honestly think/feel/believe at the time. Whether it's my views on dinner or pro life, they'll hear what I really think. I'm not going to be super harsh or pompous about this though, just because I'm taking stands doesn't mean that I like people who push their views on others. My hope here is that if I get comfortable enough using my voice on the little things, that will translate into action on the things that really matter, you know?

That list of things that I mentioned I loved at the beginning of the post? They all need champions in one way or another. I think I have such a big heart for critters all over the world is because they can't stand up for themselves. They need people on their side to do it for them. People are that way sometimes as well, sometimes they can't stand up for themselves, so they need others to do it for them. My actions will be what last longer than words in the long run and I want people to remember what I loved in my life.