Tag: Psychology

Results

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I’ve always taken pride in my ability to get things done quickly, but with efficiency. I always anticipate results to manifest as soon as possible. Call me a control freak, but I have to admit that I try to do everything in my power to make sure that the results that I want to happen will happen. Unfortunately, I never take into account the fact that things don’t always go the way you expect them to. You can’t control certain situations.

It’s actually counter-productive to be “too hands on”. I convince myself that constantly holding hands every step of the way actually drives me further away from the results that I want. I guess this is why I’m so consumed in running and training for races. I’m in complete control of how far and long I run. I can plan every week with how much I want to get done and if I fall short, then I have no one to blame myself.

Yet, even in running, you still can never predict what your results will be. Even after all of the hours, days, weeks, and months of training that I put into a race, things can still go wrong along the way. I don’t know why I can’t accept this truth when it comes to life.

After the countless number of races that I’ve ran ever since I first started running, I’ve come to understand that things happen outside of my control. Over the years, I’ve let go of beating myself up if I don’t get the time that I want. I used to be really hard on myself in cross country and track when I was in high school. Thankfully, I’ve matured since then. I just wish I could grasp this level of maturity for the rest of my life already. I can simply apply this understanding to relationships, work, etc…but I don’t. And I don’t know why.

I look back on every relationship I’ve ever been in and I’ve tried to control every single one of them. And where has this brought me? Nowhere.

I continue to drive people away with my continuous anxiety, impatience, and over-eagerness. I don’t know how to remove myself from the situation and just let things fall together (or apart) as they should.

It’s so easy for me to write about this, but applying my understandings to the other areas of my life seems like an impossible task.

It’s ironic that what I really need to do to progress is just slow down, not speed up. Results will always come in time.

When all is said and done…

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When I checked my WordPress blog “Stats” this morning, I received a notification in the form of a little, orange trophy on the upper right-hand side of my page. To my surprise, I discovered that yesterday was my one-year anniversary of having registered for a WordPress acount.

If you haven’t already noticed, I feel very strongly that one-year anniversaries of certain events are very sentimental. It’s a milestone. Of course, not everything in life needs a one-year celebration. I’m talking about the bigger stuff. The things that have really affected you and continues to affect you.

On a micro-level scale, I’m still always in awe of how much can happen in a month, a week, even a day. Things in life change so often that you can never predict where you will be at any given moment. And this is why I’m recognizing this one-year anniversary of having my blog as quite an accomplishment. For an entire year, I have this collection of events that I’ve recorded and can reflect on through my own words. For an entire year, I’ve committed to up-keeping something that I created myself. Not to sound lame, but this is very exciting to me. I mean, I’m not throwing a party for it, but I am shedding light on this the same way that I’ve shed light on anything else that I felt was compelling to me; by writing it in this blog.

When I look back on past entries that I’ve written, it brings me back to remembering how I felt at a specific moment; it’s an interesting feeling. I’ve always felt that reflection is extremely important. It’s important to remember our lives. If we don’t, then what do we have to show for?

I was on StumbleUpon earlier today (a website/app that populates your categories of interest and brings you to random websites that are relevant) I landed on a website that had a list of “50 questions that you should always ask yourself” One of them, which really hit home for me, was this:

“When all is said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?”

I’ve mentioned before that I’m the kind of person that holds true to anything I tell to anyone, including myself (especially myself). Because honestly, what do our words mean if we don’t take action on them?

This is why I’m recognizing this milestone of my blog’s one-year anniversary. Today I asked myself, “When all is said and done, will I have said more than I’ve done?”

I’m hoping my answer is yes because life is too short to think about the ‘what ifs”. I want to look back and see that I’ve done the things that I told myself I would do.

I’m glad that I have this blog to remind me of the things that I told myself this past year. It helps me remember…

New Born

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I’ve never been too keen on the idea of being alone. I’m blessed to say that I’ve had a strong support system throughout my entire life. I’m not the type of person who was a part of a large group of friends who does everything together. I was never in a sorority. My Facebook page isn’t bombarded with pictures of thirty girls stacking on top of each other to get into one picture. I have strong ties with a select number of people, and those ties are ones that I know can never be broken. I’ve been so dependent on these people every time things in my life have gone awry. I’ve always known that someone was going to be there for me; to listen to my complaints, to pick up my broken pieces.

Now, I’ve reached a point where these people aren’t so readily available to come to my rescue because they have other things in their lives that take priority. I didn’t like the feeling of it. For the first time in my life, I’m learning to adapt to self-soothing. I kind of feel like a new-born baby who’s crying, but no one is picking them up. Eventually, that new-born is just going stop crying. Well, I’ve learned to stop crying. I guess I can say I’m officially entering a new level of maturity?

It’s weird to admit, but I’m starting to be okay with knowing that there isn’t always going to be someone to catch me when I fall…and that’s the part that scares me. I’m okay with being alone.

Roots

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I wouldn’t say that I’m the most experienced person when it comes to traveling, but over the past few years, I’ve definitely broadened my horizons in terms of drifting away from the place I call home (New Jersey) I’m most grateful to my ex-boyfriend for inviting me to be more open-minded about venturing into the unknown. The first plane I ever got on was when I went to San Diego, California for my cousin’s wedding in 2009. I was 18 and a freshmen in college. Leaving for college itself was overwhelming enough and I was only a 45-minute drive away from my parent’s house. Even then, I didn’t make the cut with sticking it out for all 4 years there. I eventually transferred to Rutgers University, which was about a 5-minute drive from my parent’s house. So much for venturing into the unknown.

Now, getting back to the first time that I was on a plane; it was a pretty frightening experience for me to be honest. I was overly excited to even be inside of an airport. Growing up, my parents weren’t extremely wealthy and we didn’t have the luxury to take summer vacations like all of my friends did. As a child, I had never even gone to Disney World. DISNEY WORLD (A sad realization when I think back on it)

Going to California for the first time was one of the most memorable trips of my life. I was blessed enough to have relatives that took it upon themselves to pay for both mine and my sister’s plane tickets. We just had to take care of our own expenses once we were there. That trip opened my eyes to realizing that there was so much more than what I sheltered myself to.

Spring Semester of my Sophomore year of college, I met the man that defined my college love life. I dated him for three years, and loved him with every ounce of love that I had to offer. A majority of it was because I loved his spirit, his personality, his carefree nature. I always wished I could be like that. Throughout our relationship, he would surprise me with mini get-aways. Eventually, the mini get-aways became big get-aways. And they extended further and further. It opened my eyes, and we hadn’t even left the United States.

I’d like to publicly thank him for giving me those opportunities to explore those unfamiliar places. It gave me the courage to move to New York City and embark on one of the greatest adventures I’ve ever been on. But, it won’t stop in New York City. He planted a seed in my mind to be brave enough to travel to where-ever I wanted to go. I learned that traveling exposes you to learning so much about people, places, and more importantly, yourself.

I caught up with another high school friend yesterday and we ran through the typical routine of reflecting on old memories and then moved onto to conversation of updating him on how much has changed in my life and how different I’ve become since high school. I’d like to say that it was mostly just age and maturity that has changed me, but a large part of it also has to do with the fact that I left home to find out who I am.

I have a lot of friends from back home who like to do nothing, but tell me how ridiculous it is to live in New York City for various reasons; too expensive, too dirty, too crowded, the list goes on.

It upsets me to hear them say these things though because although many of their claims have proven themselves to be true, I appreciate all of it. I’ve been able to find myself in a place other than my home in New Jersey. I stepped outside of my boundaries, outside of my comfort zone. And for that, Brandon, I’m forever grateful. You’ve helped me become the person I am, and you’ll continue to help me become the person that I will be.

For all of my upcoming trips to where ever the destination may be, I know that I will continue to learn more about myself. The seed that was planted has strong roots and no matter how far I go, they will always lead me back home.

All or Nothing

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I had all of my wisdom teeth removed yesterday. Not exactly a life-changing moment or milestone, but whenever something out of the ordinary happens, I tend to get uber-philosophical and try to find some sort of meaning in that particular experience.

Now, I’m not going to create some kind of ironic metaphor for how having my wisdom teeth removed is a rite of passage or how it marks my official “adulthood” because it’s not and it doesn’t. I am, however, going to write about something else (which honestly could have been attached to any other experience) The timing for this just happened to be right, and in all honestly, I’m just alone and bored at the moment.

Lately, I’ve been especially bored with my life. The month of January has been rather dull and un-eventful. They say that’s how it usually goes though. After the holidays, everyone is just in recovery mode and the New Year starts off pretty slow. It’s funny how life works like that. Two months ago, I had way too much going on. I was completely over-whelmed and in desperate need of a break. Yet, now that I have this quiet time, I’m begging for something interesting to happen.

My roommate texted me a quote a few weeks ago. The quote went something like this; “Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once”

It seems that these words are finally sinking in for me.

Some people live off of chaos. I’m that kind of person. I’m not talking about destructive, evil chaos. I just mean that I like the rush of when there is a lot happening all at once. It gives me something to write about.

Whenever I know that I have a busy weekend, week, or month coming up, I can’t help but countdown the days until it happens. I try to hide it, but I’m not very good at concealing my emotions. So, ever since I scheduled my appointment to have my wisdom teeth removed, it was all I could think about because I really had nothing else to look forward to. I had mentioned in my previous blog entry that I was a good planner. Well, it’s because I like seeing how things will pan out. I enjoy witnessing the fruits of my labor.

I always complain about how I’m such a stressed person. I guess I really shouldn’t complain because in some sort of weird, masochistic way, I like the stress in my life. I thrive off of everything happening all at once because honestly, whenever nothing is happening, I get anxious and am begging for some sort of dramatic situation.

I know that it’s only the start of 2014 and I’m sure things are going to pick up soon, but I just can’t wait until the next chaotic period to come. As they say, it’s all or nothing.

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

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If there’s one aspect of my personality that you can take away from reading everything I’ve written in this blog, it’s this:

I am an impatient person.

I’ve never been the type to sit around and wait for things to happen. My entire life, I’ve firmly rooted myself in the mentality that if you want things to happen, you have to go out and make it happen. Having this mentality has brought me success in several areas of my life; School, work, running.

The one area that constantly contradicts this mentality is relationships. Specifically, romantic relationships.

Before I left for New York City, a very close friend of mine bought me a mug that had the words “Live with passion” on it. It sits on my desk at work and I look at it almost every day and absorb this phrase into my mind.

I believe that anything you do in life should be done with deep passion, whether it be your part-time job or your favorite hobby. Otherwise, what kind of results can you expect if you don’t put deep passion into anything you do? There’s a reason why fast food doesn’t taste as good as fine dining.

Getting back to the point that I was trying to make…Romantic relationships have always been something that I really care about. I’m obsessed with the idea of giving your whole heart to someone and giving them all the love that you can offer.

Someone once said to me, “You seem like the kind of person who follows through with exactly what you say you’re going to do”

This is true.

I will never give my word to myself, or to anyone else for that matter, unless I really mean it. And for this reason, I expect other people to do the same. Unfortunately, that’s not how the world works. And that’s most certainly not how everyone else thinks.

Since I’ve been single in New York City, my ongoing goal has been to find “the one”. Well, I haven’t been the least bit successful in finding that person. And the reason for this is because I don’t even care who “the one” actually is. I’m more involved in the idea of giving my heart to anyone who will take it. I’m impatient.

I don’t actually care who this person is. I just want to be able to dedicate my time to someone and smother them with my whole heart.

Yes, that might sound psychotic, but I can’t grasp the concept of sitting around and waiting for “the one” to walk into my life. I’ve carried my go-getter mentality with me in terms of finding a boyfriend, or a relationship, or just someone to spend my time with.

Well, I’ve learned that this approach yields a 0% success rate.

I’m familiar with the saying, “Good things come to those who wait”. Well that’s never worked for me in terms of school, work, or running, so naturally, I assume it’s an unsuccessful tactic. I’m used to putting in the time and effort and seeing results from the hard work that I’ve put in.

Apparently, that doesn’t apply to finding the right person for you.

I don’t know how to do this whole sitting, waiting, wishing thing.

I know it shouldn’t even be like that though. I should be focusing on myself, living my life, and eventually the right person will come my way. It’s just a matter of when.

Similar to finding the right job, the right apartment or house, the right workout regimen, or anything in life, it has to be the right time and the right fit. This holds true for everything.

One factor that I’ve overlooked in regards to the success I’ve had with school, work, and running is that I’ve had success because these things happened to be the right fit. Life kind of just let it happen. Of course, I still put in the time and effort, but everything happened with the right timing.

I guess all I can do is just let the chips fall where they may and trust that “the one” will find me in good timing. And then, and only then, will it be worth it.

At the End of the Day…

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I can’t tell if this is just a phase that I’m going through right now. This phase of lonliness. If it’s the same phase that any person goes through in their twenty-somethings. Who am I kidding? Of course this is just a phase. At least, I hope so.

This is how we relate to other people. We experience certain things at certain ages that other people our own age can relate to. And when we get older, we look back and realize how silly we were during that period of our life (which is why our elders look at us knowing that it will pass)

I always got frustrated whenever my Mother would lecture me on how ridiculous I was acting towards a particular situation. (She still does that) My immediate response was always, “You just don’t understand.”

Well, that’s a ridiculous thing for me to say because she was my age once and she has most certainly gone through the same, or similar, experiences as me. It’s human nature to be able to feel certain emotions when we see someone going through a familiar struggle that we’ve once been through. It’s called empathy.

People write songs about it, make movies, television shows, etc. We produce these things because we want to make people feel a certain way. We all want to relate to one another.

It’s difficult to go through this life without being able to really connect with someone. This is exactly what I’m constantly searching for. And I’m almost positive that it’s what everyone else is searching for as well. Even if they don’t want to admit it, or if they do a remarkable job at portraying that they don’t care; what we need in this world is to connect, to relate, to feel.

Ever since I’ve moved to New York City, I’ve found it much more difficult to really get to know someone. Everyone wants so badly to have their space, yet we all seem so lonely once we get it.

It’s a fast life here, living in a large city. To constantly be surrounded by thousands of people who don’t really care to get to know you.

Ever since I moved into my new apartment, though, I’ve become very attached to certain restaurants, bars, coffee shops. I’ve found a comfort in seeing familiar faces and being recognized. What I have noticed is that it truly makes someone’s day when you acknowledge them as an individual; when you notice them, when you make an effort to get to know them. It’s an amazing feeling to be noticed.

At the end of the day, it’s just good to know that someone is thinking about you. In a large city like New York, it’s easy to get distracted by other things and people.

I hope to never lose the ability to connect, to relate, to feel. If I did, then this city would just completely absorb me. I can’t give in.

Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

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The beginning stages of any experience can always be slightly uncomfortable. When we’re placed in a situation that we’ve never been in before, we don’t know how to react at first. It can take a decent amount of time to warm up to the unfamiliar feelings. Eventually, once we dip our feet in and test the waters, we become more at ease. The fear of the unknown starts to fade away and we become less and less uncomfortable until we reach the point where it’s just normal.

I’m the type of person who becomes easily overwhelmed by experiences in the beginning stages. Like anyone though, I always push through the rocky start and get to smooth sailing once I’m in my comfort zone. Of course, it does take me some time to reach that comfort zone.

I’ve written a lot about the transitions that I’ve gone through this year, as well as in past years. I’ve learned that no matter what the situation may be, my adjustment process goes through the same pattern every single time.

Regardless of knowing that things will eventually be okay after a little while, I still manage to panic in the beginning stages.

Aside from being the type of person who becomes easily overwhelmed by experiences in the beginning stages, I’m also the type of person who gets easily excited leading up to new experiences. I tend to have very high expectations for upcoming events and envision them to be much more grandiose than they actually are. I think it’s because I just really want things to work out the way I want. In reality, the rule of thumb is that things don’t always work out the way we want.

(For those of you who have seen 500 Days of Summer, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the below reference)

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My Mother always told me that I need to learn patience. It’s because I always want to fast forward past the hard part so that I can get to the easy part. The thing is, the hard part is the part that counts. Learning to get comfortable with being uncomfortable is necessary. It’s a part of life. It’s something I need to learn to get better at.

Forced Togetherness

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A subject that I’ve been trying to avoid writing about is love. I’ve drifted very far from understanding the idea of it.The concept of it. The meaning of it.

Last night was one of those nights when you’re out with your friends and the conversation revolves around relationships. Unfortunately, I had nothing to contribute from my personal life because it’s been a while since I’ve been close enough to someone to consider it a relationship. Lately, I haven’t even reached the point where I didn’t have to wonder if the guy was going to text me that week.

What I was able to contribute to the conversation was a quote that I saw on someone’s Instagram. It went something like, “How lucky one must be to have someone that makes it so hard to say goodbye” I’m not exactly sure if that’s the correct wording, but hopefully you can comprehend the gist of it.

I miss the feeling of having someone who makes it hard to say goodbye.

Ever since I’ve been single in New York City, I’ve learned how easy it is to forget about someone. The hard part has been getting to the point where it’s hard to say goodbye. They say that the recovery time of a break-up is half the length of the relationship. Well, I’ve been long past my recovery time from the last relationship that I was in.

Since living here, anyone I’ve dated hasn’t even come close to retrieving relationship status. They’ve all been cut short…by me. It’s become too easy to drift away from someone, especially if your paths don’t typically cross on a daily basis.

Yesterday, I watched a Youtube video by Buzzfeed that said that many relationships grow out of “forced togetherness”. I 100% agree. It makes sense that the more time that you spend with someone, the more they grow on you (of course, it can go in the opposite direction as well; you can end up hating each other)

The more time you spend with someone in the beginning stages, the more you get to know them. Then, when you get to know them, you can decide how you feel.

However, if you cut it short, you’ll never know if it could have grown into something more.

I think what the problem is, is expecting the magic to come first. We want to dive right into love and obtain it right away. This is one of the many problems of my generation. We want quick results.

Well, what I have learned from my past is that you fall more and more in love with someone as you spend more time with them which is why it takes so much longer to recover from long-term relationships. This is also why it’s so easy to get over someone if you’ve only been on three dates with them. You don’t really have much to lose.

I’ve been expecting the magic to come first. Instead of putting in the work early on, I just want to get to the “being in love” part because I know what it feels like. I want that feeling so badly.

Many of us have had that one person that set the standards for all of our future relationships. There’s that one person that really got to you. That one person that hurt you more than you’ve ever been hurt. That one person that you’ve been so head-over-heels for that you would do anything for them.

Unfortunately, those of us who have been traumatized by that one person have been so affected that we’re incapable of feeling like we’ll ever get to that point with another person.

This is the place that I’ve arrived to.

I don’t know if I’m just not trying, or if I’ve become jaded, but I’d just rather not put in the effort of getting to know anyone anymore. It’s not a place that I want to be and I didn’t hope to be here.

Right now, I’m just waiting for someone to prove me wrong.

23

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Lately, life has been moving too fast for me to be able to sit down, collect my thoughts, and put them out in the world. I’ve been holding everything in, which has been quite noticeable through the lack of writing I’ve been doing on this blog. It seems that time goes by much faster when you’re not watching it. From my last entry up until present day, I’ve gone through enough changes for it to feel like it’s been a whole year. Now that I’m looking back, the vast collection of changes that have happened to me since I’ve moved to New York actually does add up to a whole year. Yesterday, I acknowledged the fact that I moved into this city exactly one year ago on December 1st, 2012.

A whole year of my life has been devoted to this city; experiencing it, learning from it, growing from it. This past month alone, I’ve transitioned from the very first job that I obtained as a college graduate to a new job in which I was recently promoted to in November. Within the same week of adjusting to this new role, I also found out that my roommates decided to not re-sign the lease on our apartment (my very first New York City apartment). This is a lot to digest in just one week.

In the span of one month, I’ve managed to transition into a new job, move out of my first New York City apartment, and move into a new apartment. The phrase that I’ve been using lately is, “When it rains, it pours” and I’ve found this to be completely true.

The entire month of November, it has been pouring and I just wish I was more prepared, but I guess there’s only so much you can do but roll with the punches. Life throws these things at you and that’s the beauty of it. You can never predict what’s coming next.

Most of my close friends have seen me through this time of transformation. On the outside, it may have appeared that I was keeping it together, but on the inside, everything was falling apart. Piece by piece, I’ve been shedding a lot of layers in terms of finding out how much I can handle before I completely break. I’d say that I was pretty close to breaking this month.

But I didn’t.

On a more positive note, I believe these changes were necessary. Change is always necessary. Chuck Palahniuk had a quote in a book that I read a few months ago called, “Invisible Monsters”. The quote went like this:

“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open”

Well, I’ve been trying to find true happiness for quite some time since I’ve moved into New York City and I like to think that I’m getting a little closer with every obstacle that life has thrown at me.

I never imagined to be where I am today, at this young age of 23. I really had no idea what to expect. From observing my friends’ personal experiences at this age, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. A lot of the songs that were written about the age of 23 aren’t the most up-lifting, but I couldn’t understand why. Now that I’m here, I get it.

This is an uncomfortable age. They say that people in their 20’s have a hard time dealing with this period of “quarter-life crises” This is when the big changes happen; it’s the most confusing, lost, and vulnerable time of your life.

It’s exciting in a way, though; the unknown. I suppose this is also why your 20’s are also regarded as the best time of your life. Our lives are still in the making. We haven’t settled yet. There are still more surprises.

In the short amount of time that I’ve been in my 20’s, I can tell that I still have many more changes coming my way.

23. I’m ready for you.