Tag: Psychology

Dinner Table Talks

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I was sitting on my backyard porch with my parents, Aunt, and Uncle earlier this evening after we barbecued for dinner. I sat there talking with them for several hours just catching up on life and talking about random dinner table topics such as politics, religion, etc. Throughout the conversation, I kept thinking back on how I never really felt comfortable speaking openly about my beliefs, feelings, and thoughts on these kind of topics before. I guess I’ve always felt outnumbered or too immature or maybe that my opinion didn’t matter to them, but over time, I’m realizing that I’m able to speak more confidently about these things now – I guess this would be considered growing up.

As I voiced my opinion and listened to the opinions of my family members about the ever-changing ways of my generation in comparison to theirs, I noticed that I was beginning to agree a lot more with what they had to say.

When we’re young, we often refuse the advice of our elders. We’re too naive or too arrogant to want to believe that our parents could actually be right about the things they tell us when we’re young. We tend to learn things the hard way – through experience. As they say, experience is the best teacher. Until you experience something for yourself, you can never truly understand what someone else is talking about when they try to explain it to you.

I’ve found that as I’m growing older, I’m able to accept many more of the truths that my parents used to tell me when I was young, but refused to accept. The mental age gap is becoming much smaller than it used to be. When I look at my parents’ generation in comparison to mine, the most significant difference that I’ve noticed is how selfish my generation is. Apart from the fact that my parents are immigrants from a foreign country, my generation will be the last to really see what a simpler life looked like.

Talking to family today felt like one of the more eye-opening conversations that I’ve had in quite a while. It’s different than talking to your friends or other people your age because they have the same mentality as you.

The topics that my family and I touched upon had to do with current world issues; Things that actually mattered like natural disasters, disease, and civil rights. Meanwhile, the first thing that I do on a Monday morning is complain about my seemingly tragic problems such as, “He didn’t text me back last night. I hate my life.”

Talking to my family really made me step outside of my life and think about how differently their mindsets were when they were my age in comparison to my mindset on things right now. It seems like it was a much more simple life back when we didn’t have to create our own drama by checking social media and making up stories in our heads about the person we’re dating.

I wish I didn’t have to unnecessarily complicate my life that aren’t actually complicated.

I’m starting to think that my parents’ generation had it right; Their morals, manners, and respect (This may also be skewed because I’m Asian)

I wish I listened to my Mom before making some of the mistakes that I’ve made when it came to relationships, friendships, and reactions to situations.

Maybe if more of my generation would take the two cents from our elders, we’d be a little better off.

Fight or Flight

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Lately, I’ve been really questioning my effectiveness in dealing with my problems.

I’ve been continuing to do a great deal of self-evaluation ever since I’ve been back from my trip to Australia and I’m realizing that I’m, slowly but surely, returning to my normal state of reaction (in the form of panic) towards certain situations – specifically stressful situations

My prime method of problem-solving has typically been to remove myself from the harmful situation.

Easy enough, right? It’s a common solution that almost everyone uses.

If you’ve ever heard of the term “Fight or Flight”, then you’d know that we, as humans, share this common response mechanism with all other animal species.

In a perceived “dangerous” situation, we must protect our own safety and either stay and tough it out or leave and avoid the bumps and bruises.

I agree with the saying, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger?” but how much do we risk at the cost of causing ourselves pain and heartache?

I don’t want to call myself a wimp, but I’ve been leaning more towards the option of flight when it comes to my more recent problems.

I’ve dealt with a significant amount of obstacles this year which made me question my abilities to tolerate stressful situations.

I had to fly 20 hours from my home just to get away from the things that were causing me stress. Yes, it was a much-needed and uplifting trip, but to my disappointment, it’s now over and I’m right back to where I started and have to deal with the same exact problems that I left behind.

How do you decide what is worth fighting for or fleeing from? For example, do you fight for the one you love or do you let them go? Do you continue to work at a job that pays well, but you’re not passionate about?

Where is the threshold in which we need to remove ourselves from a given situation? How do we choose?

I suppose that’s up to the individual. After all, the decisions we make shape who we are.

“Sometimes you make choices in life and sometimes choices make you.” – If I stay

Return from Melbourne

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I returned home from Melbourne last Wednesday and have been gradually adjusting back to my version of normality ever since. It’s not easy going from one way of life to a completely different way, but what I’ve learned is that it is necessary to step outside of your boundaries.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve been re-evaluating my life much more than I did before. There is no doubt that I was in desperate need of this trip – If you’ve been keeping up with my past blog entries, you should have noticed that I’ve been anxious for quite some time. I’ve been anxious for something more than what I was settling for at home.

Before I left, I read an article on Thought Catalog called, “The Hardest Part of Traveling No One Talks About” and I was so excited to get away from it all – my job, my friends, my family, my problems. When I returned, I re-read this article and it took on a whole different meaning for me. One quote that struck me was this:

“They call it the travel bug, but really it’s the effort to return to a place where you are surrounded by people who speak the same language as you. Not English or Spanish or Mandarin or Portuguese, but that language where others know what it’s like to leave, change, grow, experience, learn, then go home again and feel more lost in your hometown then you did in the most foreign place you visited”

At first, I agreed with a majority of the article up until I read this quote. Yes, I left, changed, grew, experienced, and learned things, but I wouldn’t say that I am more lost. If anything, I see things much more clearly than I did before. I realized what I missed – my friends, my family. And that’s what pulled me back and helped me re-adjust a little easier.

I certainly loved being in a foreign place, seeing amazing views, and exploring, but if anything, the best part of traveling is coming back home.

It’s true what they say, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.

(To get a deeper look into my trip, check out my Instagram)

Countdown to Melbourne

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Whenever you make plans much in advance, you never really feel the weight of the reality until it comes down to the last final days before the big event.

Well, I’m officially less than one week away from my long-anticipated trip to Melbourne, Australia.

This is my first trip overseas and I couldn’t be more excited, A week ago, however, I was whistling a different tune.

2014 has been a very significant year of transformation for me. In fact, many of the major life events that have happened to me this year have revolved around my trip to Australia. I moved out of my apartment, moved back home, broke up with the guy I was dating, didn’t get to run the San Francisco Marathon, (which I spent $150 on) and cut way back on going out with my friends. On top of that, there were also hardships that occurred at the most inconvenient timing.

A week ago, I still had not received my passport (which I applied for in May). Trying to stay calm, I tried to reassure myself that it was in-transit and everything was going to be okay. Naturally, I began to panic the following day. The weight of the realities that have happened in the past few months all started catching up to me like a wave approaching the shore.

Fortunately, in these last final days as I’m getting closer to my trip, things started falling into place and my panic turned back into excitement once again. I received my passport, finished up last minute plans, and began to breathe again.

It never ceases to amaze me at how worried I get when things aren’t going as planned.

It’s been a rough year, but I’m banking on this trip to salvage all the hopes that I had lost for 2014. I needed something to look forward to, and now that it’s finally happening, I’m just crossing my fingers that everything will be okay.

After all, everything has always worked itself out in the past.

To follow my journey through Melbourne, follow me on Twitter or Instagram (Lindseyruns)

#australia2014 #lindseyinaustralia #lindseyrunsinaustralia

The Travel Bug

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Recently, I’ve been noticing an abundance of articles being written about the growing trend of leisurely travel within Millenials. I, myself, can see this trend occurring throughout my own close friends and friends of friends. The more people that I talk to, the more that I see a pattern of people my age having an overwhelming desire to escape from wherever they may be at the moment. Even more so, a lot of people that I know have actually taken the initiative to pack up and leave.

They say that birds of a feather flock together. Well, it’s no surprise that some of the closest friends that I have made in New York have all escaped from wherever they were to be in New York City. It’s also no coincidence that a lot of the people that I’ve encountered in New York City are from the other side of the country, California in particular. I mean if you’re going to make a move, it better be a big one, right?

A few days ago, I mentioned to my sister that I wanted to try to see what it was like on the other side, over in California. I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for or why I think I would find it over there, but I’ve been curious to find out.

In around two weeks, I’ll be leaving for my first big international trip. Back in March, I earned a bonus check from my job and had no idea what to do with the money. Sure, a wise thing that I should have done was to put it away in my savings account or use it to pay off bills. Instead, I wanted to reward myself and splurge. And what better way to splurge than to book a flight somewhere and enjoy a nice trip?

Well, that trip ended up being a flight to Melbourne, Australia with one of my closest childhood friends. We just sat down one day, went on the computer, bought the ticket and that was it.

Only recently has it finally dawned on me that it’s actually happening, and the more that I think about it, the more excited and anxious I become. At the same time, I’m also scared. Scared about loving it there and not wanting to snap back into reality and never coming back.

It’s easy to run away from your problems; to leave everything behind when things are getting tough. I do that a lot with running (and I mean literally running) Whenever I’m frustrated, upset, or angry, I go for a run with the mindset that it will magically solve my problems. It does, but only temporarily. Of course, it’s never a permanent solution. No matter how far or fast I run, my problems are always back at home waiting for me, silently sitting in my mind.

So this makes me wonder about my generation, the Millenials. Where is the sudden boom of travel desires coming from? I hate to make assumptions or say that everyone is like me when they get the itch to go somewhere, but I also refuse to deny that it’s not a part of the reason. We have to be running from something. Maybe it’s growing up, or maybe it’s the fear of missing out, but it has to be something.

Are we all just running away from our problems whenever we catch the travel bug? I like to think that I’m not the only one with these feelings. I like to think that I’m not alone in this and that there is really something lurking in the waters of my generation. There has been a shift in the mindset of Millenials. We’re making moves. And it could be a good thing or a bad thing, but I hope that we all find whatever it is we’re looking for.

Sure Things

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It’s strange how distorted memories become when you look back at them. In that exact moment, you may have been so sure of yourself. Everything seemed just right. Then, when you reminisce, those moments seem so hazy and you can’t separate what was good from what was bad.

They say, “there’s no such thing as a sure thing”, so how do you ever really know what’s right or what’s meant to be?

If sayings like these are so accurate, such as “anything is possible” or “anything can happen”, then how can someone ever put all of their faith into something or someone?

It’s hard not to become jaded lately now that we live in a time where people are constantly re-locating, changing jobs, and refusing to settle down.

It’s common now for people to put off the serious stuff. Instead, we just want to stay young and be free. It’s becoming harder and harder to find people who want the same things.

So, how do we keep up with anyone these days?

We meet hundreds of people who come in and out of our lives. All of them somehow contribute to our experiences and growth. We pick and choose which ones we want to hold onto and which ones we should let go.

Often, we try to hold on as long as we can. We don’t want to let go of the feeling, the connection. Then all of a sudden, when it’s gone, we don’t know whether to go back or move forward.

Because nowadays, it is much harder to really connect with someone the way people used to.

It’s rare.

I used to think that I had a pretty clear vision of where I wanted to go and who I wanted to be. It was easier when you were young; to think that things won’t ever change. You envision that you’ll end up with a certain person or live your life a certain way. But it’s never that easy.

It makes me wonder if I ever really knew what I was doing.

Lost Generation

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When I was younger, I used to take pride in my generation for representing a generation of independence and individuality. The vast amount of opportunities that we have in comparison to those of our parents and grandparents allows us the freedom to become whoever we want to be. The courses that are now offered in college plus the alternative options for those who don’t want to go to college can yield a countless number of careers and lifestyles. Just the thought of it can easily overwhelm a young person these days.

However, as I’m getting older, I’m starting to wonder what kind of toll this freedom is taking on us. The more friends I talk to about this topic, the more I learn that we seem even more lost and confused than our parents were at our age. We’re constantly wondering which path is right or wrong versus what we really want. We don’t know how to settle.

It makes me wonder if we can handle this freedom. We’ve become so spoiled with the privilege of being able to say “No”

I’m beginning to ask myself, “Did our parents have it right?”

I’m not in favor of reverting back to times of our parents and grandparents, but I am in favor of choosing one thing and seeing it through.

Although I’ve grown up in a generation where I can be whoever I want to be, I still wish I had someone to steer me in a certain direction because I can’t seem to make up my own mind

Between choosing the right job, the right place to live, the right person to marry, it gets exhausting trying to always figure out when everything will be “just right”.

When I was in college, one of my favorite classes was Social Psychology. One of the theories I learned really resonated with me. To this day, I can’t exaggerate enough how well it applies to my generation now. In a nutshell, the theory outlines the idea that when people are given too many options, they often become more regretful with their choices as opposed to if they only had a limited amount of options.

Say for example, you are at an ice cream parlor and there are 30 flavors to choose from. Our eyes become wide open, we take several tiny spoonfuls to try different flavors, and then we get frustrated because we are overwhelmed with the choices we have. But of course, we now have the option to take multiple flavors in one cup.

For those who are fortunate enough to be firm in our choices, there will be no regret. But for those who have hindsight bias, it becomes a little more difficult to appreciate what we have.

My major concern is this:

Will I be okay with the choices I’ve made and follow through with the things that I now have?

When will I stop seeking out other things to make me happy?

When will I settle?

It’s an impossible question to answer at the moment because I don’t know what the future has in store for me. I don’t know the person that I will become in a year, five years, twenty years, and so on.

I just hope that the path I choose as I am on it leads me to a better place.

Searching in the City

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Have you ever re-watched something (a movie, a show, etc.) that you saw when you were much younger and thought to yourself, “Wow I really had no idea what was going when I first saw this”?

Well right now, I’m doing that exact thing with Sex and the City episodes and I’m five seasons deep. Lately, I’ve been re-watching every episode of Sex and the City all the way from the first episode of the first season and it is truly mind-blowing to finally understand what they were talking about now that I actually live in New York City. I guess there are still going to be people who will never fully digest how accurately this show depicts the city and life as a whole. It may be pompous to say, but you never really understand it until you live here.

Now, I’m not trying to be melodramatic, but I was in need of something to relate to (I probably should have started reading a book or something) Watching this show has somehow brought me to this existential realization which I am slowly manifesting through this blog entry.

I have only lived in New York City just shy of two years, but I feel as though the number of experiences I’ve had far surpasses that time frame.

The recent episode of Sex and the City that I watched really hit home for me.

The main character, Carrie Bradshaw, narrates as she types,

In New York, they say, you’re always looking for a job, a boyfriend or an apartment. So, let’s say you have two out of three and they’re fabulous. Why do we let the thing we don’t have affect how we feel about all the things we do have?

As I once again compare my current situation to where I was last year, I look back and notice that I’m always searching for something or someone. I always wonder if anyone can really have it all.

Last year, I can remember loving my apartment, loving my job, and loving every bit of New York City that I was soaking up.

This year, I find myself in a not-so-content situation.

It is true what they say. In New York City, you’re always looking for a job, a boyfriend, or an apartment.

I can tell you this much: I’m definitely still looking for one of those things.

In a city that’s constantly undergoing change through the lives of the people who are coming in and out of it, it’s hard to really keep it all together. You never know what’s going to happen here, but I think that’s the exciting part. Yet, at the same time, it’s absolutely terrifying.

Happy Anniversary, Big Sur Marathon

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The 2014 Big Sur Marathon took place in Monterey, California today. Waves of nostalgia have been flowing in and out of my brain for the past few weeks. As I’ve watched the seasons change from the bitter Winter to the slow immersion of Spring, I’ve been trying to think of the things I’ve accomplished so far in 2014. My immediate response: “Nothing”

We already have 4 months of 2014 under our belt, and I can’t help but feel like I’ve been on cruise control for the past few months. This past Fall, my life had undergone some drastic changes. I was in a very uncomfortable place between settling into a new apartment as well as a new job. Now, I’m on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. I’m craving for some kind of chaos. Some kind of challenge.

With the 2013 Big Sur Marathon being my first marathon last year, I can’t help but look back and think about the training that I did last year in comparison to my training this year. My next marathon is the San Francisco Marathon coming up in July and I’ve been starting to worry about how calm I’ve been towards it. I feel less anxiety, less excitement, less seriousness, less motivation. I don’t know what happened between last year and this year, but my fire has been going out in terms of running; not even just running. I’ve also felt my steam running out in terms or writing as well.

Maybe all of the drastic changes that were happening to me in the Fall were actually a good thing. Maybe it’s exactly what I needed to keep me on my toes.

When we feel like we’re losing our fire, our motivation, our drive, how do we get it back?

I know I shouldn’t be complaining because this is the calmest I’ve been in quite some time. But as they say, there’s a calm before the storm.

I guess I’m just waiting for the next storm to come in my life…

Small Changes

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We often tend to only focus on the changes that happen within our own lives. What we don’t realize is that the changes that happen in the lives of others affect us too – especially those who are a part of our daily lives.

I’ve touched upon the subject of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable (https://lindseylazarte.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/getting-comfortable-with-being-uncomfortable/) . Change is never an easy process. We have to adjust and readjust until we feel normal again.

Ever since I moved to the Columbus Circle area from Harlem, I’ve had to make many adjustments; getting used to a different subway line, going to a different supermarket, running in a different location. After about a month, I finally had everything down pact. I found myself getting familiar with the cashier at the CVS around the corner from my apartment and recognizing people who live on my street. My life felt balanced again. And despite the chaos of our wildly opposite schedules, my roommates and I have even developed a weekly routine of going to our favorite local bar several times a week. We’ve formed relationships with our bartenders and have actually become quite good friends with them.

Then, something strange happened yesterday.

After making a slight alteration to our normal routine of going straight to our favorite bar, my roommate and I deviated from the plan and decided to stop somewhere else first. It was exciting to do something different, but it was only a matter of time before we decided to leave and go to our regular bar.

Once we arrived, we found two available seats and made ourselves right at home. We said hello to our Bartender-friend, who we always talk to and I noticed that the other one wasn’t there. I waited until it was brought into conversation and when it was finally mentioned, I learned that he no longer works there.

Here comes the strange part…

I was legitimately upset. I found myself becoming very uncomfortable at the thought of getting used to a new person. And then it dawned on me; this actually affected my life.

This morning as I was walking to work, I came to realize that this small change is only a freckle in my life, but for him it was a complete change in lifestyle.

It’s hard to think about how much one person is currently going through. We really only stop to think about how it affects us. Regardless, these changes that affect our lives also affect the people around us. Even something as small as getting used to a new bartender…