Where I Need to Be

The song that best sums up life at the moment (now THAT's a bold statement). Listen and love it.

Home for the Holidays

Christmastime and the holidays are the best time of year to write. There’s something about the combination of cold weather, family and those cheesy Christmas commercials that feeds directly into my urge to blog, har har. After what has been one of the most stressful, ridiculous semesters of college thus far, I’m savoring home-cooked meals, hours-long catchup sessions, and best of all, sleeping in. It saddens me to know, however, that break is going by so quickly – it’s already been a week since I’ve been home. Time really needs to slow the heck down, because this is pretty much the last “official” winter break of uh…life. Fo serious.

Winter breaks have changed so much from what they used to be back in the day. I still remember celebrating the holiday season in elementary school – performing dances, songs and other shenanigans with the rest of the class for the school’s annual Christmas concert. Even high school had its winter band and choir concerts. It was embarrassing then, and would probably be embarrassing now, but having those traditions really got everyone into the holiday spirit, and I do miss having solid benchmark events like that throughout the year.

I think I even miss ugly Christmas sweaters, not gonna lie.

The family and I used to be big on the multi-family holiday get-togethers – you know, the ones with lots of food (read: rice), fruit (read: sliced Asian pears) and frenzy (read: a chance for the parents to gossip and reminisce, also an excuse for them to throw their kids together and learn to deal with awkward social situations). There were potlucks in San Marino, karaoke nights at relatives’ houses, gift exchanges and Christmas feasts at an ever-changing array of homes.

Christmas music, lighted tree, TV blaring.

Kids’ tables, apple cider, intense Nintendo and board game sessions.

It was a great way to grow up, and over the years, these family friends became part of the holiday routine. Since we only saw each other once a year, there was always something to catch up on, some new news to share, a random story to tell. It was comforting to see these families parallel my own, and in a lot of ways, act as projected representations of what was to come.

I remember when the first of the “kids” stopped showing up to our holiday dinners – he went away to college, then graduated, then started his first job. It was jarring to know that such huge life changes were happening to people we had grown up with. We had all gone from sharing toys and candy to talking about boys and the latest video games to swapping college and career advice. Parents started to move away after their kids moved out. The gatherings became more infrequent as each family got more wrapped up in their own holiday plans.

It was surreal and we almost didn’t see it coming, but apparently, we were all growing up.

Then, someone got married. It wasn’t just my imagination then. Life really was speeding by, and the days of careless candy wrappers and shoes piled high in the foyer were over.

Just.

Like.

That.

Nowadays, the holidays are spent with our own immediate families, and I kind of like it that way, though it took a while to embrace this new holiday tradition. It’s a lot quieter without hoards of children running up and down stairs and parents yakking away around a half-cleared dinner table, and the lack of Christmas chaos feels a bit empty sometimes.

But at the same time, even though I miss the kind of winter break we shared growing up, I couldn’t ask for a better one than the one I’ve been having so far this year. It’s rare for the four of us in our immediate family to be in the same place at the same time anymore, and that’s what makes this holiday season so much more poignant.

My parents are always going between the States and Taiwan to visit my grandparents and take care of family business there. My brother’s starting a new job in January. I’ll be graduating in May, and moving to New York (fingers crossed). Who knows how the family dynamic will shift again then?

Kind of makes me think of one of my favourite quotes, however cheesy it might be:

“You'll see when you move out, it just sort of happens one day. One day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.”

…except I know what I miss is real.

This holiday season, I’m savoring break for what it’s worth because seriously, for the first time in the four years since I first moved out, I feel like I’m home again.

LOVE.

I think my friends are some of the most amazing people I have ever met. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Must elaborate later.

Home stretch

"The fact is, that to do anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can."

- Robert Cushing

Inspiration for this very last part of the semester - three stories to revise and you can stick a fork in me because I'll be DONE.

...diving right back in...

Had to write a final paper on happiness for a science of happiness class this semester. This is the result, honestly the worst piece of BS I have ever had the horror of presenting to a professor. Thought I'd post it here, though, because it's a lesson to be learned - don't write papers while half cracked-out or on serious deadline. Yikes.

"The truth about happiness is that there is nothing to pursue. The pursuit of happiness is often seen as something that stems from monetary gain or material wealth - external factors. However, this misperception about reaching a certain level of happiness exists because people believe that attaining both those things will automatically bring about true happiness because of the value of the tangible things themselves. The truth is that securing one or both of those elements, if even in the most basic of ways, brings happiness because it ensures a type of stable foundation upon which happiness can be built. Money and possessions as external factors do not affect the type of happiness that we as a society strive to achieve - this has been proven time and time again by the poor body, rich-souled individual ad the unhappy, extravagantly rich socialite. Intangible elements of life - love, compassion, gratitude - that come from within are the things that define and make up the actual "happiness" that everyone seeks. Happiness is an intrinsic element o the human condition, and can be defined as the point at which internal satisfaction meets external social awareness. It is linked to knowing ourselves, being able to envision our place within a societal structure, and seeing just how we can contribute to the bigger picture.

True happiness, then, the kind that sticks around longer than simple transient positive feelings, can be defined as a judgment, an internal decision made by an individual regarding his or her attitude in a given situation. As stated in William Shakespeare's famous play Hamlet, and as quoted in Dr. Monterosso's lecture, "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Happiness is founded largely on attitude. It is not a certain set o circumstances that determines happiness, but a certain set o attitudes that makes it possible for some people to take their inherent happiness set point and fluctuate on the positive end of it as opposed to the negative end of it. Given that a large part of a person's innate happiness is determined by genetics, as proven in the Minnesota Twins study, the only way to truly reach a level of happiness that is long-lasting, genetics aside, is to adopt a certain attitude toward the circumstances he or she is presented with.

Whether imagined or not, a person's ability to have control over their lives - including the choice to stress or not in a given situation - plays a large role in determining his or her overall happiness level, and this is perhaps best illustrated by the nursing home study. In this study, Adam Galinsky, a professor at Northwestern University, gave a group of senior citizens in a nursing home a plant to care for, and a control group nothing to care for. It was found that the group that had the plants to care for tended to live longer, happier lives than those who didn't, mostly because they felt that they had an element of control over their plants. They therefore felt more purpose in their lives and the psychological state of control - of being able to choose their attitudes - translated into a physical ability to live a longer, richer life.

A person's attributional style is perhaps the biggest determining factor in how happy a person can be said to be - someone who blames himself when things go awry and assumes that the negative circumstances are permanent rather than temporary is more likely to spiral into a pattern o unhappiness than someone who is able to see the situation in the big picture and acknowledge how realistically temporary and negative circumstances are. In a study by Seligman and Maier, two groups of do were left in harnesses for a period of time and then given electric shocks at different intervals. One groups was given a lever to press that would stop the shocks, and another group had levers that did nothing to stop the electric shocks. Dogs from the second group developed something known as "learned helplessness" - that is, that nothing they could do would change the situation that they were in. As a result, these dogs would refuse to try anything to stop their pain, showing signs of what can best be described as an equivalent to human clinical depression. Translated into human-relatable terms, this shows that people who adopt the attitude of learned helplessness do not bother to venture to either know themselves or establish relationships with other people and therefore are a cause of their own unhappiness.

In order to structure a life wherein happiness is a constant, then, it is necessary for individuals to build upon their own internal satisfaction and extend that into interpersonal relations with others. It is without a doubt that social connectivity contributes largely to the happiness level of individuals. Studies have proven that the greater the number of social networks a person has, the more likely he or she is to have a higher life satisfaction rating. Being with other people, whether in a companionship or romantic sense, helps to establish a person's sense of self and gives him or her a bigger opportunity to take on social responsibility that might impact his or her own happiness in addition to helping the other party, and this is how happiness is nurtured and sustained. Intangible life assets, such as forgiveness, generosity and gratitude all tie into individuals' overall happiness.

The difference between animals and human beings is their capacity to have a multi-layered happiness that is independent of external factors. For dogs or pigs, as John Stuart Mills pointed out, happiness is contingent on ignorance, and the general consensus is that it is better to be a dissatisfied human being than to be a satisfied animal. Our ability to think about our actions and e a player in our own lives is what sets us apart and what makes our lives richer and happier."

Giving Thanks, Thanksgiving

This year, I am thankful for (in no particular order):

1. waking up to the sound of rain in the morning
2. late night Denny's runs
3. tabasco
4. people who wipe off the bathroom sink
5. neatly folded or rolled-up workout t-shirts
6. the Great American Music Exchange
7. finding money (and lots of it) in the pockets of old jeans
8. pepper
9. people who say "whatevs" and "cool beans"
10. random texts in the middle of the day
11. paddling in the San Francisco rain and wind
12. post-its
13. fat puppies
14. actually laughing out loud in the middle of an online conversation
15. honest people
16. milk green tea with boba from Cup o' Joy
17. the sound of my keyboard when I'm typing at a rapid rate
18. people who reply to emails on a timely basis (bc I need to learn how)
19. reverse smileys (:
20. comfortable silences
21. big, genuine heartfelt hugs (no awkward side-hugs please)
22. pizza bagels and the conversations that come with them
23. people who take risks
24. perfectly fluffed pillows
25. gchat
26. chatty people at the checkout counter at Ralphs
27. dried mangos
28. pedestrians who trot across the street and give you an awkward smile because they know you're waiting for them
29. a full tank of gas
30. voicemails that start with "hey, it's me"
31. brunch
32. the smell of sunscreen
33. grape tomatoes and brownie bites (but not together)
34. people who hold doors open
35. homeless people who are not picky about the food I give them
36. parking structures that make sense and do not spiral for 6 stories
37. quiet movie-watchers
38. captions
39. pinky rings
40. ANTM and Top Chef marathons
41. people who enjoy using the word "epic"
42. old artists reemerging to try and restart their careers (see: brandy, hanson, spice girls)
43. mints at the end of a meal
44. facebook albums that consist of old OLD photos from elementary school and high school
45. airports
46. Def Poetry Jam
47. people who are humble and inspire me to be a better person
48. dental floss
49. friends
50. family

Beauty in the Breakdown

Things haven’t been the same ever since my car was broken into nearly three weeks ago. It took someone breaking in for me to break down and slowly build myself back up. In the last few weeks, I’ve gone from desperation to reflection to hope to pure bliss. It’s been a roller-coaster of events and emotions, but I’m so grateful for having circumstances be what they have been – in a weird way, losing so much really made me open my eyes to see not only what I already had, but also what I had already been lacking even before my material things were stolen.

And there was so much I hadn’t even noticed.

So much of this semester has been a test – of my patience, of my time-management abilities, of my own solid sense of self in the midst of so many moving, shifting pieces. If the Nike 10K was any indication, I jumped into this semester with all the hope and ambition in the world – I thought myself prepared for the long road ahead of me; stretched, prepped and charged. I had trained vigorously over the summer for what I saw as a warm-up for the main event: the LA Marathon in March (now moved to May!), and approached the night run as just another practice, an extended version of a familiar route.

“Don’t keel over, please,” I remember saying to my friend as we jumped up and down in the crowd prior to the official start of the race. He gave me a look, a silent “Child, please” before continuing to jump to keep warm. We joked about who would finish first, and how, if one of us did end up collapsing, it would selfishly cost the other his or her final time on account of having to step over the fallen runner.

Ominous words.

I was going into the race with hardly any sleep in the last week, having been on deadline for both my newsmagazine publication and my internship, moving out of my brother’s apartment and into my own, and acting as host to a friend from out of state. Looking back, a marathon – even a 6-mile marathon – was probably the last thing I should’ve been doing given my situation.

But still, I fought on.

Even when, during the middle of the race, I felt myself growing tired and my vision beginning to blur, I pushed on because I was convinced my fatigue was just a momentary phase for me to power through. My only real goal for the race was to never stop running – it became clear, though, that if I continued on at the rate I was going, I wouldn’t even get to the finish line.

So I walked.

But the power and the surge of the people around me motivated me to keep on – so after several steps of power walking, I would increase my pace to a trot and then a jog. There was conviction in my gait, or so I’d like to think. Then, as I rounded the corner for the final stretch down Figueroa toward the entrance of the Coliseum, I felt something click within me. I sprinted. The finish line was so close I could see the ribbon stretched taut across the street, the crowds of volunteers leaning from the sidewalk to congratulate runners, the lights from beyond the gate glaring into the faces of exhausted participants. I could feel the beat of the music from the Coliseum, moving in and out of sync with the rapid thumping in my chest. I felt a burst of energy.

And then everything went black.

Waking up sprawled on the ground with paramedics surrounding you is a pretty dang horrifying feeling. I couldn’t wrap my head around the situation for the longest time, and the words that kept spewing from my mouth weren’t mine. I couldn’t control the way my hands kept gesturing, or how I would wince and twist away from human touch. I didn’t know how to get the paramedics to understand that, and I didn’t have any feeling in my legs. Those moments – and I had no real idea how long I had been drifting in and out of consciousness – were some of the most terrifying of my life.

I was convinced I was going to die.

My logic was shot to pieces and I felt what can most closely be described as an out-of-body experience. It was as though I were already drifting away from the physical world and I was helpless to do anything to stop my mind from escaping from the situation completely. I just remember wishing I could wake up from the horrendous dream, and I squeezed my eyes tightly to make sure my wish came true. My mind began to drift.

But then something grounded me.

One of the paramedics began to ask me questions. Who are you? What’s your name? Where are you from? What did you eat today? What are you studying? Anything and everything to keep me awake, to keep my mind functioning as they lifted me onto a gurney and then into the ambulance. I caught blips of his questions and began to respond in half-hearted jest, trying to make light of the situation.

The sirens only registered half the time.

After spending the night at the hospital and seeing my parents wander timidly through the curtains into the room (separately, only one visitor at a time), I felt myself grow impatient. Not with the situation, the fact that I had to be bed-ridden for another 24 hours and constantly drink fluids (they claimed I had collapsed from extreme dehydration and exhaustion), but with myself, at having let myself get into such a situation as to make my parents worry after my health and well-being. In the dark, I lay awake and chided myself for putting myself in a position of helplessness and causing others worry. This isn’t how I had expected to start off my senior year.

Flash forward to three weeks ago, when I first opened my drivers’ side door to discover what I first assumed to be hail strewn across my seat, and it makes more sense why that break-in led to a mental breakdown later on that week. My first reaction when I glanced up to see my entire passenger-side window smashed in wasn’t panic, but a slowly creeping feeling of déjà vu. It was around 5 p.m., just after the awards ceremony for the dragon boat tournament at Lake Merced up in San Francisco. I had put the speeding ticket I got on the drive up out of my mind, and this just minimized the incident that much more.

In the moment, I felt helpless. It was as though a string of rather unpleasant (to put it lightly) events were following me. Throughout the course of the semester, I felt as though I had been working hard but had lost sight of the reasons why.

I had been focusing so much on establishing something with Bamboo Offshoot, but felt as though I were the only one putting in any effort. Apathy was eating away at my staff, and production had been going poorly despite my efforts to save it.

I hadn’t been able to maintain relationships and keep up with those near and dear to me because I’d been so busy with extracurriculars and school.

I was stuck in the middle of family drama that involved a close cousin being disowned from the family.

I hadn’t been starting up the blogs or freelancing I had aimed to do at the beginning of the semester.

I didn’t have a job secured.

I was behind in all of my class work, and was literally failing a course.

I’d let my parents down by getting myself into this situation and would have to find a way to pay them back for these damages. They would worry.

I had been lacking the purpose I initially began the semester with, and as much as I wanted to trivialize the fact that my window had been smashed and my things stolen, I just couldn’t. It was the last straw in a string of unfortunate events, and I wanted to just curl up in a ball and give up. All I saw were the negatives and the lack-ofs. It was hard to see the situation any other way.

But then I saw how everyone else was responding to the situation, and I knew I could only let myself be down and out for those few brief minutes. A friend’s wallet, phone, purse, ID, credit cards – had all been stolen from my backseat. I felt guilty, whether or not I had reason to feel that way, and I shifted my attention to that rather than focus on my own issues. What I had stolen was replaceable. Take a step back. No one was hurt, no reason to stress. Everything would work itself out. It might not seem like it in the moment, but the situation really wasn’t as bad as it seemed, in the grand scheme of things. I decided not to let myself get to emotionally invested. Everything would be okay.

Everything will be okay.

And everything was fine for those first few days after driving back from San Francisco. I was overwhelmed with the outpouring of concern from my teammates, friends and family, and I truly felt like I had needed something like this to happen to help ground me and put me back on the right track. I had been looking too much at the negatives to see their counterpart positives. The only problem was, I hadn’t let myself get all those emotions out of my head. There hadn’t been any catharsis, and my frustrations had simply been compartmentalized.

The Tuesday night following the Sunday break-in marked my first real emotional breakdown in a long time. In talking to a friend about the incident, I began to tear up, and my emotions and fears began to pour forth. I don’t think I ever expelled all those pent-up feelings, a whole semester’s worth, and it felt like such a huge relief to say everything that had been on my mind for far too long. I’ve always credited myself as being capable of taking on situations and being the comforter in times of distress – I shy away from being vulnerable, and that has translated into a lack of outward emotional reaction to anything big that had happened in the past semester, good or bad. It took a lot for me to admit that I wasn’t okay.

Everything’s a big deal, he said. Everything is a huge freaking deal.

Someone breaking into your car? Huge deal. React to it.

Getting accepted into Teach For America? Huge deal. React to it.

People not meeting deadlines and not respecting the publication? Huge deal. React to it.

Worried about how you’re failing one of your classes? Huge deal. React to it.

Having your parents tell you that your actions are selfish? Huge deal. React to it.

Too much of the semester had been spent convincing myself that things were fine, when really they probably could have been better. I had been running on empty for so long but had had too much pride or had been too buried under layers of denial to see it. I don’t cry enough. Or get angry enough. I downplay successes and gloss over disappointments. It’s not a healthy way to live.

But now, post-reflection and post-breakdown, things have started looking up in a very big way. I’ve taken on the editor-in-chief position for the Daily Trojan next semester, and I’m at once terrified and excited about the opportunity. It took a lot of thinking and reassessing to finally conclude that this was and is the right choice, but now that I’ve committed, there’s no turning back.

I heard back from Teach For America. My final interview is in just two weeks’ time and I’m anxiously preparing for the day-long process.

I met and spoke with Jeannie Kim, the executive editor over at Time Inc. just last Friday. I think I may have an internship for the summer.

So many things, so many circumstances. It’s been quite a trip and this is just the tip of the iceberg, really. I’ve never felt so blessed to have so many amazing people in my life – were it not for them, I doubt these past three weeks would have turned out quite the way they have.

Sometimes, you need to see the pieces of your life for what they are before you can fit a new window in their place. Break in, break down. Fill out, fill up.

It’s looking a lot clearer today.

The Perfect Time of Day

I write best when I really shouldn't be. At present, I'm mulling over what to write about for the light feature I have due in my journalism feature writing class tomorrow afternoon. With all the things that have been going on in life, you'd think that I'd be able to pull something together to write a semi-decent piece, but I can't focus because of the nagging deadlines inching toward the forefront of my thoughts.

There's the Bamboo Offshoot issue that needs to go to print within the next few hours, but which likely won't be put to bed until later on this week. Procrastination is a bizzle and I find myself really frustrated at my own inability to finish the task at hand. The problem was a breakdown in communication, the failure on my part to keep my writers, photographers and editors in check. I have a problem with delegating work, this much I admit, but this is ridiculous - our first issue of the school year, late to print. The quality of the product might be better, but at the cost of timeliness - eeps.

It's frustrating because I know that the publication has so much potential - the momentum of getting the ball rolling just keeps getting stopped with one road block after another and it worries me that the same issues keep coming up for each...issue. I told myself at the beginning of the year that this would be one of my priorities for the upcoming school year, but as it stands, I think I've put so much effort into this venture that it's affected everything else.

We're in a transitioning phase wherein we're moving out from under the protection of the Asian Pacific American Student Services and into becoming our own student organization. As a result, we need to fund ourselves through ad sales and grants and USG funding. Our funding proposal was rejected about a month ago on the grounds that the board didn't see how Bamboo would "contribute to the betterment of the USC campus."

They didn't see how USC's ONLY Asian Pacific American publication would benefit the campus.

They didn't understand that, with 25% of the campus being APA, it might be necessary to have a sounding board and resource for students who have no voice otherwise.

They didn't feel that issues unique to APAs are worth funding, but parties and concerts that have little real benefit to the campus are.

Seriously?

One of my friends told me to write about passion. What it means to be truly passionate about something and sacrifice sleep, time and money for something that might not initially seem worth it. This just might be it, because - not gonna lie - at this time of day, with deadline encroaching upon my other schoolwork and job applications, it's hard to be focused on that end goal of spreading APA awareness.

Right now, all I want to do is sleep. Is that so much to ask?

...sooooo emo. haha.

Old Peace

Running through my old writings and I came across this, from over a year ago. I miss this, whatever "this" is.

"Pulse.

The water laps at our feet, rushing over and between our toes, retreating slowly. Wistfully. It's night, and save for the glow of the shops behind us, the only glimmer of light flickers several hundred yards away to our right, lampposts lining a winding road. In the darkness, a kind of muted calm envelops us both and we face the roar of the blackened ocean.

The waves beckon, the moon almost apologetic as it edges into the surrounding darkness. On a night like this, even the stars are shy.

I feel the sand beneath my feet, the way the grains sink away from me with each gurgling wave, the way they pour over my toes anew with each onslaught of water. My feet sink deeper into the fine sand. The ground I stand on is giving way. When my feet have finally disappeared underneath layers of rock, I turn in the darkness and stare intently at the vacuous void where I assume his face might be.

"You know, last summer I was on a beach around this time of year. It wasn't at night though. It was during a typhoon."

I wait for him to respond, look at his silhouette for a hint of a nod. I think he turns to look at me.

"What was it like?" he asks, a voice forming from an invisible mouth. Even in the darkness, I know he's keeping himself in check, careful to sound disinterested though he wants to know more. I know this because as he says it, he draws his right foot through the water, allowing the edge of the waves to brush his toes three times before taking a step backward on the sand. He's curious.

"It was amazing, something that's hard to describe. There were just a few of us out there, right against the water, and the waves meshed with the rain. You couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. I wish you could've been there."

I notice that as I recount the adventures of last year, I have to almost shout to be heard above the sound of water. I've never told anyone much about that day nearly one year ago, and how much the sheer power of those crashing waves had meant to me. And yet, in the pitch black night, I say these things aloud.

It's freeing.

I can almost feel him grin in the darkness.

"And this? How does this compare to that day?"

I blink back tears and a choking sensation in my throat as I quickly glance at the faded lights to my right. I turn my head away from where he stands, just a few feet from my left, lest he see me cry.

And I smile.

For an hour we shout to one another, pretending that we are calling out back and forth across a gorge rather than the few feet of sand we have between us. We bring up pointless things, a stream of consciousness conversation. Under the cloak of night, we learn more about one another than we ever could sitting down to dinner under offensive yellow lights, though we've known each other for a lifetime. A small family of three treads softly behind us, their feet sinking down quickly into the cool sand, their voices a background murmur. Time to go.

We stand in the darkness, in the water, ankle deep in memories and understanding.

The water continues to pulse against the sand, reuniting and departing all in one motion.

But we're already gone."

Price Check

I wish I were taller. Not in a literal sense, really, but just in the context of my newfound metaphor for goals and ambitions. And grocery stores.

But let me back up for a moment and explain that last bit, because I realize it’s pretty dang random. It’s just that I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking (more like overthinking, as per usual, har har), and it didn’t really hit me until recently why it is that I’ve been so perturbed and unable to focus so much of this year. It’s not because I lack motivation. It’s not that I have too much on my plate. It’s because I just really haven’t sat down and thought about the concrete possibilities of my future until now – avoiding stress has become my new favourite pastime, and as a result, I’ve also put off some serious self-reflection and writing that might just bring me back on track.

I've spent the last four years of my life shopping. Shopping for purpose, direction, inspiration, knowledge. Brain food and stimulating conversations in aisle two. Wasted afternoons, aisle eight. Relationships and hurt feelings, aisle five.

My fellow shoppers peruse row upon row of goods, canned emotions and life-altering bags of fluff. Prepackaged boxes of collegiate life - sororities, fraternities, culture clubs, team sports - line the most popular aisles, and everyone wrestles to get the cleanest, least beat-up of the bunch. Name brands are pretty key here - you get what you pay for, after all.

In the quieter aisles are the ingredients, the put-me-together pieces of the college experience. It’ll take more effort to create a dish from scratch, and though there’s no guarantee that the final concoction will be anything worth devouring, venturing into these aisles at least means that the shopper is taking some form of risk. It takes confidence and a little bit of naivety to believe that what he or she can come up with will be worth the effort.

Cooking is love, and love is cooking.

And to cook without passion is worse than not cooking at all.

We pick up pieces of familiarity and pair it with something daring and new. Pasta and chili. Chicken and homemade pesto. Eggs and vegetables and salsa so hot your mouth will burn. New recipes and spontaneous creations. We hope that one of the strange concoctions we come up with will stick, will be a success that we can recreate and tweak and foster into something greater later on down the line.

But what about those hard-to-reach items at the tops of the shelves? The ingredients and the pieces that just might be what our recipes need for that extra pop of flavor?

What if we just don’t know they’re there?

I wish I were taller because sometimes I feel as though what I’m looking for is hidden in the back of the very top shelf – behind the stale box of donuts and the dust-ridden can of soup. What I’m hoping will make or break my latest venture is tucked away on a wayward shelf, but it’s just not visible to me because I don’t know to look there.

So I settle for less, making the best I know how from what items I see available to me. I can improvise and make something truly unique, a signature dish that’ll stand on its own delicious merit at potlucks. But eventually, even that becomes safe.

It’s just that now, I’m curious.

I want to see what’s at the top and how I can use those forgotten items in my ultimate recipe for success. The reason why these pieces are at the top is because they’ve been there the longest; they’ve had the longest shelf life. How can I tap into those resources and use them to create something better? Bolder?

All my interests from days long gone are starting to reappear the closer I get to graduation, to that checkout line. I want to write. I want to listen. I want to learn. I want to see what I’ve tossed out of my life that just might have been the one thing that makes the entire mixture work.

What am I missing?

Somewhere in my four years of shopping I’ve come up with a grocery list of items that work for me, but now it’s time to try something new.

I’m peering back into my past to see how I can create a better future. I need a ladder.

Circle of Life

It's amazing how so many things have really come full circle in these first few weeks of senior year. I just got back from a Jason Mraz concert out in Cabazon, and as I was standing there in the crowd, swaying and sifting to the addictive rhythm and flow of the Dynamo of Volition, I thought back to my first Mraz concert at the beginning of senior year in high school, and how much things and life and circumstances have changed since then.

More than that, though, I thought about what hasn't changed, what parts of me are still intact after four grueling, eye-opening years of college.

Four years ago, I was sprinting through my last leg of high school, nervous about college applications and the prospect of leaving the bubble of comfort I had grown up in. I remember having a whole jumble of emotions as I started the year - excited about being top-dog (assuming power over yearbook and Chinese Club seemed to be such a big deal back then), hesitant about figuring out my plans post-graduation, reflective about friendships made within the cardboard walls of Whitney. There was a sense of urgency to the whole year, trying to cram in as much as possible before ending that ever-so-significant phase of life.

It took a lot of introspection and reevaluation to strike a happy balance between work and play, holding on and letting go, and I had to flounder a bit at the beginning of the year before I could upright myself and structure my life in such a way that I wasn’t burning out or always running to catch up.

Now, four years later, I find myself in the same situation. These past three weeks have been hellishly busy, but I really have no one but myself to blame for making it so. I was overextending myself and living from day to day, doing everything just in the nick of time, not really planning ahead or really even taking the time to breathe. Even after my stint in the hospital following the marathon, my mind refused to rest, racing forward to what I had to do the next day following my release. I told everyone that physically collapsing was a wake-up call for me to really slow down in life, but in my head I told myself that I just needed to make myself stronger and even scolded myself for letting myself falter.

I’ve grown up with a need to be busy, to make every moment of my day count. As a consequence, I’ve been filling any empty spaces in my schedule with lunch dates, office hours, catch-up coffees, dinners, meetings…saying “yes” to everyone because I’d rather spend my time focused on them and their problems than on my own. Only problem is that in these past few weeks, I’ve found myself burning out because I’m making myself so available to everything and convincing myself that I can make time for things that I really can’t.

One of the many good things that came out of all those coffees and lunches and dinners and meetings, though, is that I got a better sense of my own skewed sense of priorities. Even though I “knew” that I should slow down and stop attracting unnecessary stress, it took hearing it from multiple people to really set in.

There are only 24 hours in a day.

I am not superwoman.

If I don’t take care of myself, I can’t fully take care of anyone or anything else.

Slow down.

Enjoy it.

Breathe.

There are a million things that still need to be done this weekend, but after really taking the time to stop and take my own advice, I’m realizing that I’m not only happier, but a whole lot more functional. I’m making lists and prioritizing, cutting out the fluff and getting down to what really matters to me.

Putting myself first feels a bit strange, but I’m telling myself that I need to get used to it. Help myself before I can completely help others, and learn to say “no” to commitments.

I won’t worry my life away.

There’s a rhyme and reason to why I love Mr. Mraz’s music so much. True, there’s something soothing about his voice, the way he makes it an art to sing and scat, but beyond that, his music reminds me of senior year and anticipating the next step. Of new beginnings and turnarounds and reassessing. Hearing his songs is a reminder of what has been and what is to come. It sounds dramatic, I know, but music is my life, and each clip of sound is a segment of my soul, pieced together into the person I am now.

Going to the concert really brought home the reality that I’m now in my senior year of college. No more adjustment period. I’ve found my groove and I intend to ride this out till I can’t ride no more. This is it and I’m going to make it the best year yet. I’ve decided.

“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the guy who'll decide where to go.”

Up and Out

I'm going to really miss eating alone. The loneliness that I felt at the beginning of summer in the my first few days of moving to Westwood have come around full circle, and now I find myself really longing for more of the solitude and familiar routine that has reigned over these past few months.

One of my worst, more irrational, fears when I was younger was of eating alone. There are too many negative stereotypes about people who dine in public alone - either they are social outcasts or they are somehow incapable of carrying out normal tableside conversation. Or they have some sort of gross deformity that repels even the most understanding of dining buddies.

None of these are really true, though, because people who are able to venture out and eat on their own in public have to be pretty dang comfortable in their own skin to do so.

Either that, or they have to quickly become comfortable.

Over the summer, every lunch break would be a mental and physical break from hours upon hours of talking, listening, writing, planning – exercising my journalistic prowess, if you will. I’d grab a pen and paper and just write – freeform, stream-of-conscience poems, blurbs, thoughts, stories, as I munched on a wrap or stabbed at some salad.

The first day I did this as a form of security, because I didn’t want to attract sympathy for my dining alone even if I had done it by choice. I wanted to get over this irrational fear of mine. But over the weeks, turning down lunch invitations didn’t feel so bad anymore – I rather looked forward to having a meal by myself and being able to gather my thoughts in an hour away from work, home, or obligations. I felt at ease in my solitude.

Friday was my last day at the Daily News, and I'm really going to miss working there. The features department has become my journalism family, and they've adopted me as one of their own, which is flattering. I'll miss Sandra's advice, Rob's sarcastic quips, Sharyn's blunt observations, even Simone's long, drawn-out stories about interviewing John Cusack and Dave Matthews.

I think that it was honestly very rare and lucky for me to stumble into such a nurturing work environment. My editors came off as cold and calculated in the beginning, but I've since learned that just because they aren't overly, fakely happy to see me all the time doesn't mean that they dislike me. In fact, I really appreciate the way they treat me like a real human being, as opposed to a golden intern spouting hope and naivety. They’re realistic and down-to-earth and so much what I needed to get my head back in the journalistic game.

Their quiet approval and support throughout the summer really helped me to move out of my comfort zone and learn to be more proactive in my quest for the story. If I wanted to cover an event or issue, I had to speak up. If I was unsure of what to do in a given situation, I had to speak up. Nothing came easy, and they intended it to be that way. You get what you give, and sometimes more if you’re lucky.

I got lucky.

I learned as I wrote, and really discovered what I was capable of doing as a journalist and as a writer. Simply being genuinely interested in a person and having good follow-through opened doors in ways that being pushy and condescending probably could not. Understanding and empathy made reporting a joy rather than a burden. Telling stories in intricate new ways was a challenge I loved to meet.

This is what I’m meant to do with the rest of my life, I’m pretty certain.

Well, maybe.

Don’t know how long this certainty will last, though, but I can say this: even in the face of a dying journalism industry, I think there’s still a place at the table for me. I hope there is.

Even if it means dining alone out in the real world, because at least I’ll have my thoughts to keep me company.

Greedy Much?

I think I'm being greedy. It's only the third day of class and already I can feel that I just might burn out this semester with all the activities and commitments and jobs I'm trying to juggle. The horrible part of the whole situation isn't the being busy, though. In actuality, the real harsh realization is that I might be overly busy for all the wrong reasons.

My friend brought up a really good point the other day. When I was trying to justify to him my taking on so many different responsibilities, he looked me straight in the eye and asked me if it might just be that I'm being selfish.

I was taken aback and it must have shown on my face because he quickly explained that he didn't mean it in a good or bad way, just as a statement of fact. Greediness is tied to "want" and "need," and in my case, I "want" to do too much and I "need" to stay busy, two facts that will probably lead to much unavoidable stress later on down the line. I think maybe I'm too caught up in the idea that I need to cram all of these things into my senior year, when really, I need to take a step back (maybe two) and drop a few commitments.

The only thing is, all of the things I decided to get involved in this year are so important to me...so is that being selfish? I'm grabbing for too much and maybe that's just wrong because I'll turn up with nothing. If these first three days have been any indication, I'm not going to have much time for myself - and is that in itself being selfish?

At this year's APASS student welcome, a lot of the incoming freshmen were asking for advice about time management and I almost wanted to laugh. I told them it was okay to say "no" to organizations and "no" to commitments and to make sure that their own sanity came first. To take care of themselves before helping others, just so that they would be able to contribute themselves 100% to the project at hand. I told them to prioritize and eliminate unnecessary stressors.

I need to take my own advice. Badly.

It's such a strange line to walk upon, balancing my needs with what I perceive to be other people's needs. When you know your loved ones and friends are depending on you, it's hard to turn your back just because you need to take care of YOU.

Ridiculous, self-inflicted busyness

Have you ever been so busy that you literally didn't even know where to begin to tackle your enormous pile of THINGS TO DO?

I'm at that point right now, and am obviously not helping myself by posting instead of working. But I'll consider this stress relief of sorts, har har.

Am in the midst of packing up to move-in for my senior year, and I just can't seem to finish. Am thinking about everything I'll need to do within the next 24 hours - start and finish the layout for an entire issue of a student publication, finish a story for my internship, show my friend around LA, interview several people, and settle into a new apartment.

Haven't had time to breathe in a while, but this busyness IS self induced, so don't feel as though I can really complain. Oy soy.

...this is so ridiculous that all I can do is sit here and eat mochi ice cream by the box. This can't be healthy.

Change Change Change

Constant change.

It’s a term I’ve heard countless times before, but it’s also one that I never really deemed relevant to my own life – up until now. It’s not so much the actual concept of continuous change that’s foreign to me. Rather, it’s the juxtaposition of the two words – seemingly opposites – that didn’t really make sense to me until recently.

I’ve been busy these past few weeks with balancing work and my personal life – it’s amazing (and disheartening) to see just how easily the bolstering of one so often comes at the cost of the other. Not to say that having both is impossible, just that it’s a lot harder now more than ever to find a happy medium between the two. Being on the brink of the “real world” means having to distinguish between possible and impossible aspirations.

It means having to choose which goals to pursue, and which to abandon as pipe dreams.

It means having to keep up with the constantly shifting dynamics of life and rolling with the punches.

It means, in short, sacrifice.

Constant.

“So she’s an organic farmer now,” she says between mouthfuls of sandwich. She grabs at a napkin on the wooden desk between us, absent-mindedly brushing a few wayward crumbs from the side of her mouth. She’s having a PB&J sandwich on rye, same as yesterday and the day before that. Not because it’s her favourite, but because it’s quicker to make the same sandwich for her and Sophie each morning than to pick and choose ingredients when she’s rushing out the door. When you have a four-year-old, convenience always outweighs taste.

“Who?”

I turn from the computer screen, finally pulling my eyes away from the blinking text cursor that had been taunting me for the past 20 minutes. My writer’s block isn’t going anywhere, and neither, apparently, is my story. I can afford to spare five minutes away from assignment, and maybe even keep my sanity while I’m at it.

“My friend Becky,” she says patiently. “She’s always loved farming, so when she found out they were downsizing at the Times, she beat them to the punch and quit. To become an organic farmer.”

She repeats this last part because it’s just that important. She takes another bite of sandwich before continuing. It’s almost as though she thinks clearer when she talks around her food.

“She says she was floating. She didn’t know where journalism was going to take her, so she decided to pursue the one passion she’s always had in her life – farming.”

“And she’s happy?”

It seems like a silly question, because if her friend had given up a degree, a semi-stable career and the modest income that came with it, she must be happy. She had sacrificed what appeared on the surface to be certainty for what was, in actuality, more definite than anything else in her life – her first love: farming.

“Yep, she’s more than happy. She figured that working day in and day out at a job that only semi-fulfilled her just wasn’t going to cut it. Life is too short. You look for the things that really get you and grab all your attention and you go toward them. Think about what you always find yourself drawn to, your constants, and you’ll find a way to make it work.”

Being a journalist means sacrificing sleep, family time, personal time, and perhaps most importantly, a bit of your sanity. No two days are ever the same, but in the whirlwind of responsibility and reporting that is journalism, there is always that one constant: passion. Or at least, this is what I hope.

Change.

“The market’s horrible right now,” he says, leaning back in his tall leather chair, stretching his arms up and out in feign relaxation. I don’t envy him these days. What used to be a pretty steady, reliable career has now become little more than a waiting game – play with numbers and hope that your company makes it out on top to see another day. Each day is another round of Russian roulette, and the stress of it all is obviously taking its toll.

His health is waning, the bags under his eyes more pronounced, his entire demeanor more ragged. Nothing is certain except that nothing is certain. The stocks do their daily dance and bankers everywhere can only watch helplessly.

“So you should switch out, try your hand at something different if it’s so stressful,” I offer.

“Nah, it’s not that horrible…yet,” he laughs. “For now, the unpredictability’s kind of exhilarating, it makes work exciting. I mean, it used to be that every day was exactly the same – no risks, just plugging away at numbers. Now….now there’s something at stake. My job. Everything I do counts.”

Constant change.

So if this is the case, then maybe it isn’t consistency or change that fuels people who are stuck in otherwise chaotic or stagnant jobs, respectively. Maybe it’s just knowing that, at the end of the day, you can count on tomorrow being as unpredictable as today. Maybe knowing that you need to be on edge all the time is the key to happiness in a career.

Maybe.

At the risk of sounding cliché (who am I kidding – I only write in clichés…), change is inevitable. But now I know that trying to establish a healthy balancing act between past and present, personal and public, is actually not only inevitable, but healthy as well. Life is all about change and adjustment and advancement, and the moment you stop learning is really the moment you stop living.

Constant. Change.

Food for Thought

Came across this post on the New York Times "The Graduates" blog and really liked it, just thought I would share. It's well-written and brings up a really good point. I'm inspired.

*****

April 19, 2007, 5:39 pm
Good for Goodness’ Sake

By Missy Kurzweil

Most details of my high school graduation are hazy in my memory, but I distinctly remember one speech given by a member of the school board. He turned his back to us seniors onstage and faced our parents in the audience.

“If you had to send your kids off to college with only one of the following nuggets of wisdom,” he asked them, “which would you choose: Be successful? Be happy? Or be good?”
I can’t recall his purpose for raising the question, but I vividly remember my mother’s response. On the car ride home from the ceremony, I asked her which tidbit she would impart to me as I left for college. She paused for a moment and then said confidently, “I’d tell you to be good.”

Her choice was curious to me at the time. Happiness and success are the stuff of life, I thought – the things that every parent wants for his or her child. I didn’t understand how she could so easily subordinate those two to being “good.”

Then Mom explained her reasoning. Happiness and success are important, she said, but she knew I’d strive for those things without being reminded to. Being good, on the other hand, wouldn’t always come as naturally.She was right. In college, I pursued success and happiness of my own accord. I pushed for competitive internships and worked hard in my classes to succeed. I sought satisfying friendships and hit up the best parties to ensure I’d have the happiest college experience possible. Being good, however, was not always as instinctive and rarely proved to be the easiest thing to pursue. Making time to give back to the community was difficult. Searching for recycling bins was infinitely more annoying than throwing away my bottles. Telling my professor the truth about my tardy paper was much scarier than claiming to be sick.

As my mother predicted, morality has been the only one of those nuggets of wisdom that required a constant reminder.

Four years later, we graduate again. The question is the same, but this time it applies to us, not our parents. Be successful? Be happy? Or be good?

It’s clear that today’s graduates are fixated on achieving their own definitions of happiness and success. We want to thrive in the workplace and find careers that we love. And why shouldn’t we? But being good while we pursue those endeavors deserves – perhaps requires – a special reminder.

Even if the nature of our jobs isn’t selfless – if we’re bankers, lawyers, writers or advertisers – we all will face opportunities to be good, or to create good, at some point. We just need to embrace those moments.

My friend Harris always wanted to become a businessman. He received his M.B.A. right after college and pursued a finance job at a large corporate firm. After five years of building his resume and networking, he founded Giftback.com, a gift-ordering Web site that donates 10 percent of every purchase to a charity of the consumer’s choice. The business is thriving, and Harris says he has never been happier.

Another example comes from my friend’s dad, Fred, who graduated from college without much direction. He thought about becoming a teacher, but feared that the salary could not support a family in New York. He eventually decided to go to law school and practice corporate law. At the age of 50, once his practice was established, Fred developed a mentoring program called Lawyers Involved in Kids’ Education (LIKE), which pairs lawyers in his firm with children at a local public school. Fred enjoys his work as a lawyer, but admits that this program is what really makes him come alive.

Our methods of charity may come in the form of being a good friend, child, roommate or coworker. If my college experience is at all indicative of the future, though, being honest or selfless in these roles won’t always come easily or intuitively.

Like Fred, most of us will graduate without a definite plan. We have yet to discover precisely what makes us happy, or exactly how we want to succeed. But if we keep in mind that third admonition – “be good” – we may inadvertently stumble upon happiness and success along the way.

*****

Link to original article here. Real posts to come soon. On a regular basis. For serious.

Post-its and Lists

If there's one thing I know all too well about myself, it's that I don't do multitasking. I've been blessed and cursed with what can best be dubbed a "one track mind."

It's not that I only have one thing on my mind at all times (i.e. What it means for guys to have a "one track mind"). In fact, I usually have 5 million thoughts racing through my head at any given moment. Rather, it’s more that I've trained myself to never divert my attention from the task at hand, for better or worse.

I cannot type and talk in multiple conversations; walk and eat at the same time; or perhaps most unforgivable, fully invest myself in a new project if I’m in the middle of another one. My mind just doesn’t have the capacity to work that way, har har.

But I’ve figured out recently that thinking this way works for me.

This is why I move through tasks relatively slowly, ensuring that everything is done to a certain degree of completion before even being able to think about the next step.

Or maybe that’s just the excuse I give myself for being so single-task-minded.

In reality, I think the truth is a lot simpler than that: Nothing makes me happier than crossing things off my never-ending to-do list.

My life is made up of post-its strewn throughout my room, spilling out of my notebooks, stuck carefully on the edge of my dashboard. I look at each day as a post-it, each part of my day filled with bulleted lists and checks and arrows – what’s the priority and what isn’t necessary? How can I break down the overwhelming flood of responsibilities into bite-size, manageable items on a list?

The method’s worked for me thus far, but I’ve been wondering recently if this is the best way to go about each day, working endlessly just to complete tasks but not necessarily enjoy them. So I’ve started adding other things to my lists, interspersing the need-to-do’s with the have-to-do’s (initially seem to be the same concept, but there IS a subtle difference between the two).

Need to do:
Finish scholarship applications.

Have to do:
Return personal emails and phone calls. Catch up with old friends.

Need to do:
Copy-edit incoming stories and return them to my writers.

Have to do:
Start pitching story ideas to begin freelancing.

Need to do:
Drop off laundry, pick up books, buy groceries, clean room, order tickets, write thank-you cards, wash the car, get my ish together.

Have to do:
Breathe.

My lists are getting more focused as I start to realize just where my priorities are. It’s all about balancing the personal with the professional, private with public, and I think I’ve struck a happy medium. Life’s been really good to me lately, and I’d like to think I can attribute this contentment to the new additions to my list.

My life story is written on a series of post-its, and I love it. It’s a form of temporary adherence – no permanence, just a few notes and reminders and a few scratches along the way to make sure my thoughts (and my ink!) are still flowing.

Forget about getting stuck in a rut or dwelling on the negative aspects of being “one track minded.” Living my life this way means that I literally only have to worry about one thing at a time, and if I have a bad day, I know I can paste over it tomorrow.

One list, one item, one step at a time.

Ponder me this, ponder me that

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

"One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention."

"True friendship isn't about being there when it's convenient; it's about being there when it's not."

"The best way to waste your life, ...is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch. Look for the details. Report. Don't participate."

“The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it's only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend - they can go on and on.”

Just thought I'd share some quotes I kind of love, in lieu of an actual post. Will blog for reals starting tonight...must must must!

Story of my life

"Alice came to a fork in the road. 'Which road do I take?' she asked.

'Where do you want to go?' responded the Cheshire cat.

'I don't know,' Alice answered.

'Then,' said the cat, 'It doesn't matter.'"

-- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Isolation and Solitude

It’s a shame that more people don’t walk in L.A. It’s too bad that the convenience of speeding from one location to the next outweighs the therapeutic effects of a casual stroll down Wilshire.

It’s dusk and as I shuffle along the sidewalk, only glancing up at every third car horn, I notice that I’ve already passed five cars in the span of 20 steps. I’m counting. They haven’t moved. I have. I shift my eyes to the right and study the face of a businessman mouthing angry words into his Bluetooth headset. Fancy car, fancy man. Everything about him is clean in a way that is uncomfortable and, moreover, unhealthy.

It looks like he’s washed and pressed his shirt a thousand times before donning it, a pristine disguise meant to conceal his very human flaws.

I wonder how many times he scrubbed his hands at the sink before leaving the office, purging himself of the germs he no doubt contracted from one handshake after the next.. Human interaction, washed down the drain.

Do his kids run out to greet him when he gets home, I wonder?

A large sedan tries to merge in front of his car. Red light. No one is moving, and yet the man in the pressed shirt inches forward to prove a point. Do not pass. Every man for himself and damn the rest.

Isolation. I know nothing about this man, can only judge him based on this quick snapshot of his life. It’s not his best moment. I momentarily catch his eye, and I quickly pretend as though I’m looking through his window at a point just beyond his head. Behind my sunglasses, I close my eyes quickly in a silent apology.

It’s wrong to stare.

I continue on my walk down Wilshire, and I’m all too aware that I’m the only one out on the barren L.A. sidewalk. It’s too much. The smell of car fumes finally gives way to the overwhelming scent of pines as I make a quick left to start the steep ascent up a hilly residential street.

Escape.

People say they need therapy to figure out what’s wrong with them, what other people have that they don’t. Money. Happiness. Sanity. Time. They want a quick fix, a diagnosis and a pat on the back and reassurance that everything will be okay – they don’t have time to dig deeper toward the root of the problem, nor do they want to admit that their dissatisfaction might stem from a problem within themselves.

Generally speaking, people are always in pursuit of a kind of simplicity they claim to have achieved at some point in their lives. The reality, though, is that this simplicity still resides within them, and always will.

But it takes a certain kind of calm to find it again. The kind of calm they can only find in solitude, but never in isolation.

Walk it out.

The Sum of All Fears

Confession: I have never before felt so lonely in my life.

I am antsy, discontent, tired. I can’t focus on the projects set before me, and I feel as though I am filling my time with useless things in anticipation for something that’ll never come.

I am caught in the middle of too many things, and yet feel as though I’m teetering on the brink of everything, of a very vast something.

I know what my goals are, but can’t bring myself to take steps toward them. Call it self-doubt, call it hesitation, call it self-fulfilled prophecy. Something in me just doesn’t want to reach that end goal, doesn’t want me to feel the thrill of accomplishment.

I’m keeping myself down.

It’s a strange state of mind, I’ll admit. I haven’t felt this uncertain about my own abilities and emotions in a long time, and sometimes I really question just why that is. The only conclusion I’ve been able to come up with is that I am, in very plain terms, growing up.

And I know I’m not the only one.

Loneliness is a curious thing. By definition, it should be a solitary state of mind, something that makes a person feel alone in a crowded street, in the pulse and flow of the world’s heartbeat. But this is far from the case. Lately I feel as though my feeling lonely actually connects me to strangers in a way that feeling content never could – maybe this is the reason why I am drawn to the emotion.

I just started my internship this past week, and am experiencing 40-hour workweeks for the first time in my life. Talk about dynamic workplaces. The office that I sit in every day is filled with staffers and editors constantly scrambling to meet deadlines, rushing to make meetings, tossing memos and comments back and forth about incoming news stories. But the weird thing is that I have never before looked into so many faces and seen loneliness reflected back at me.

Is this a part of growing up that people neglected to tell me about?

In an industry that, on the surface, relies so heavily on human interaction and communication, I find it mind-boggling that so many journalists appear to have built barriers around themselves over the years. They seem jaded, tired, cynical. It worries me that these veteran reporters and writers seem downright miserable doing their job, and look for any excuse not to work. Loneliness seems like a journalistic requirement, on the checklist somewhere between “interviewing skills” and “writing ability.” Maybe I’m being naïve, but at what point did learning and writing and educating become a chore? I know that being a journalist isn’t all fun and games, but should I expect to have my spirit weighed down like theirs sometime in the near future?

Society tells us that with maturity comes independence, but independence isn’t really about freedom; it’s really about the newfound freedom to pick and choose who and what we rely on. It’s strange, because even though people say they want to be free from restrictions, being completely alone is in itself a form of vulnerability, and most of the time, people end up running back toward the safety net of dependency. Independence and dependence are more interwoven than it would initially seem, but at the same time, there’s no real way to consolidate the two – by definition, you can’t be a little bit of each.

The reason I’ve been thinking about this lately is because settling into a new phase of life always leaves me feeling somewhat unsettled (the irony of it all), and I’m finally starting to pinpoint two of the main causes for my uneasy state of mind: fear and need.

Whenever I hop into a new part of my life, I always have to reassess myself before I can fully adjust. A lot of the reflecting I’ve been doing lately ties itself back to fears and needs – my fears in starting this new chapter of my life, my fear of being on my own, my need to feel needed, my fear of failure. What I’ve discovered, though, is that when you get right down to it, fear is nothing more than the result of not living in the now. By this I mean that fears are founded on a person’s inability to take his or her mind off either the past or the future (or both).

And when I look at the situation that way, it seems obvious to me what the remedy is: live for the now. It’s just that simple, and it’s just that difficult.

Living a life governed by fear is confining, and perhaps this is where the barriers and the loneliness come in. I think too many people, myself included, live life tiptoe-ing around their fears. People live their lives day-to-day distracting themselves from the negatives in life – some by drinking themselves into oblivion, others by chasing fleeting, materialistic things, still others by putting off problems. Generally speaking, people don’t like to feel anger, loneliness, depression, fear…the “lows” of life.

It’s easier to find distractions than to take our fears head-on.

Consequently, we become so careful with life that we really just stop living – and because we’ve blocked ourselves from feeling the lows, we can’t really feel the highs either.

We become numb.

And then the true loneliness sets in – better to feel alone and feel something, to find empathy and compassion that way than to feel nothing at all. Being alone is something everyone sympathizes with, because we’ve all been there. It’s a part of growing up, and it’s a state of mind that connects us all, ironically enough.

So when I say that I’ve been feeling lonely lately, I don’t mean that I want to work myself out of this state of mind. What I really mean to say is that I’m glad I’m experiencing a low now, at this point in my life, so that when something great happens, I’ll be able to appreciate that high.

What goes up must come down, but what falls down doesn’t necessary spring back up. It all depends on the foundation you’ve made for yourself and the durability of your character.

I’m hoping I’ll bounce back.