Thing I've learned....

I just wanted to recap on the things I’ve learned this decade:

1. It’s important to understand and accept the importance of suffering as a natural fact of human existence. With that being said, far too often we create/further our own suffering by replaying injustices over and over, victim blaming, and simply keeping the pain alive. None of this changes the situation or the reality; it only feeds into hatred and anger. To accept the suffering and grow from it is to be at peace with it, but to allow it to fester and grow will only cause you more intense pain. You will destroy your own peace of mind.

2. Life is not fair. Period. The feeling of “unfairness” can fuel a powerful flame, it can distract, it can consume us; none of which leaves much energy left to constructively repair the original issue.

3. I hold onto things for way too long: friendships, relationships, grudges, material things, emotions. For a long time I didn’t know why I couldn’t let these things go. I now believe and understand that I hold onto these things because I am resistant to change, which in turn causes part of my suffering. The more I resist change, the more I will suffer, because life will never be static, it is impermanent. But that is why I hold on. I'm scared.

4. Your parents are the most static thing in your life. Don’t ever forget that or take advantage of it. I’ve talked about change and how quickly people and things can come in and out of our life, but for most of us lucky enough, our parents are the only static thing in our life. They will be your key to your past, present, and future. Love them and respect them. You will suffer terrible guilt and regret if you don’t. Trust me; I know. I’ve been asked quite a few times, “If you could change or take back anything, what would it be?”, and I always respond the same way, “I would change how I treated my parents when I was younger.” It embarrasses me and saddens me that I even have to say that.

5. Enemies are a vicious cycle, if you allow it. We all have them. No, you’re not an angel. Let’s be real. When I was in high school I spent a LOT of wasted time on drama and enemies. (This is the part I am least proud of.) It became a battle of who could top who; who could hurt the other the most. I’m going to refer to the Dalai Lama for this one. He states, “Generally speaking, of course, we do not wish good things for our enemies. But even if your enemy is made unhappy through your actions, what is there for you to be so joyful about? If you think about it carefully, how can there by anything more wretched than that? Carrying around the burden of such feelings of hostility and ill will. And do you really want to be that mean?” I love Dalai Lama for this exact reason. If both parties expend all of their energy trying to make the other suffer (which almost always turns into a vicious cycle), then both parties are miserable and the whole purpose of life is completely lost. If someone say something about you that’s not true, who cares? No one really; except for you. After all, if people are trying to bring you down, nothing puts you on the same level as them as quickly as allowing them to succeed in their mission of making you upset.

6. Convert your Anger. In addition to wasting time on enemies, I was a very angry person for a while. I had what I called “uncontrollable” anger (I now laugh at people who say they have an “anger problem“/“uncontrollable anger“, because all I hear from you is, “I‘m not emotionally or mentally strong enough to control myself or my emotions). I was mad a lot and I let my temper ALWAYS get the best of me, saying things I didn’t mean, hurting people I loved, and creating a lot more problems than what initially triggered my anger. As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned the true power and success that can come from controlling and converting your anger. Buddhism tells us to convert our anger into two things: patience and tolerance. “Now there are many, many people in the world, but relatively few with whom we interact, and even fewer who cause us problems. So when you come across such a chance for practicing patience and tolerance, you should treat it with gratitude...you should be happy and grateful towards your enemy for providing that precious opportunity.” If you follow this mentality, I promise you peace. I find it almost exciting when I receive the opportunity to turn my negative energy and anger into something constructive. Anger can consume us, by not allowing my anger to control me, I feel in control of myself and so peaceful , even during an argument. There are also some pretty obvious pros: you don’t hurt people, you don’t say things you don’t mean, you will feel more in control, and sorry, Dalai Lama, but it does give you a bit of superiority over the other person, because you are staying cool and collected, suggesting your emotions are not taking control of you or making you irrational, and more importantly, it also shows that what someone is saying and doing does not have a big enough effect on you for you to get angry. Because really, there is a lot of truth in the saying "thin line between love and hate". It takes just as much time, emotion, and energy to hate someone as it does to love someone.

7. Memories are just that: an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information. The important part to this statement is that it is dependent on your and your mind; your ABILITY. Things aren’t always how we remember them. Don’t let memories live your life. I did this for a while. We often imagine things as a lot better than they were. Don’t trick yourself.

8. It doesn’t matter what you weigh, how much you eat, what size clothing you wear, if there is a disconnect between self and body, you WILL BE UNHAPPY. Point blank. You will waste a lot of time and emotion working on a body that has been trained to be disconnected from your mind. We already live in a society that almost encourages us to view our bodies as separate from our minds and self. We humanize body parts with dangerous rhetoric that only solidifies our beliefs that our bodies and minds are not one in the same. The result is that your wants and needs are silenced. If you think that if you achieve some “golden weight” and you’ll be happy, you’re in for a terrible surprise ending. A healthy mind is a healthy body and vice versa. Think of your body as a temple and treat it as so.

9. Love isn’t always enough. I think people get confused about love, what it is, and its role in our lives. Call me a pessimist, but there is no such thing as fairy tale love. Say what you want, but you are lying to yourself if you say there is, and frankly, no one believes you. Fairy tale love is often confused: it’s simply lust in its rawest form. Love takes work, fairy tales do not. It’s not easy. And it’s not always enough. There are a lot of things that go into loving someone and making it work. It’s sad that love isn’t always enough, but it’s the reality. You need trust, timing, compatibility, loyalty, communication, etc. But I really hate that there are people out there looking for movie love. You won’t find it and even if you do, you need a lot more than that to make it work.

10. Do one good thing a day. I have nothing profound to say about this. Just do it. You will feel good about yourself, good about our world, and good about tomorrow. It often sounds so cliché that people don’t really assess the importance of doing one good deed. But think, what would our world look like if everyone did one good thing for someone a day? The possibilities are endless. And hell, maybe nothing good comes from your good deed, but when I rest my head on my pillow at the end of the day, I like knowing that I attempted. I’d rather the a part of the solution than a part of the problem.

11. Don’t believe everything you hear. 95% of things you hear have not been fact checked and are a result of rumor or speculation. Like my 95% statistic, for instance, I totally made that up. But really, there are a lot of lies and rumors that fly around daily, please don’t be a sheep. Take a second to research and find out if what you’re hearing is a truth. For an example, there is a rumor circulating that President Obama is the first US President in history to not lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day. When I saw this, I knew better than to believe it. Sure enough, in about 30 seconds I had my answer. This is in fact a FALSE statement. While yes, it is true that Obama is scheduled to honor America’s fallen heroes with a speech at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery near Chicago, he is NOT the first president to miss the wreath laying on Memorial Day. ACTUALLY, in 2002 Bush was in France on Memorial Day, his father, George H. W. Bush, didn’t attend a single ceremony during all FOUR years of office term, and Reagan missed four of the eight wreath-laying ceremonies during his term. You see, facts change situations. It’s time for people to start taking responsibility of the things they say and it starts with understanding the implications of lies and researching to make sure you are getting an accurate story.

12. Our language is powerful. To change our language is to change our possibilities.  If you want results, start with your rhetoric and language.

13. Control who you are, don’t let who you are control you. This kind of goes along with the anger bit. Be in control of yourself and I promise you that you will have A LOT fewer regrets and guilt.

14. Weird friends are better than ”normal” friends. I don’t even really know what "normal" means anymore, seriously, but you know what I mean. I tend to be drawn to people who are “different” or what some call weird. Those people are the closest to real you will ever get. I don’t like normal/generic, because that’s not real, it‘s just a show, and adaptation to media and society. Weird is real and you will find that you can connect with those people better than any superficial friend you have. I even have some friends who go beyond weird into the realm of oddity, but you know what, I love them that much more. Those people remind me daily not to worry so much about what’s normal or what’s acceptable. And after all, who wants to fit in? It’s really quite funny, we spend out whole childhood trying to “fit in” and then our whole adult life trying to “stand out”. Be weird, be different, be you. I know I sound like Oprah right now, but it’s so true. Oh, and when I say “weird“, I attach NO negative connotation. I’m weird and I enjoy it. No one controls of dictates my actions, words, or emotions. I'm not intimidated or worried by anyone's perception.

15. And finally, the hardest thing I have realized this decade: It doesn’t matter how passionately you believe something, not everyone will believe the same thing. I used to get really angry at people for not agreeing with my opinions (especially my feminist ones). But diverse opinions and diverse people are the spice of life. We depend on diversity to make each person count. It gives everyone agency. If we all thought and said the same thing then no one would matter except the elite few, and we all know what happens when those situations comes about (COUGHnazisCOUGHgenocide). I’ve really only learned to respect and value people's differing opinions in the past couple of years. But the people who disagree with me are the very people that allow my opinion to matter. Diversity drives our world and allows for new, better ideas to constantly take over lesser ideas. Appreciate that.