Author: chloejsayers

Change, Friendship, Happiness, Life Lessons, Pain

Things To Remember

Every once in a while, I make a list of the things in life that I hold strongly to.  Some of them are based on experiences and wisdom from those around me. Like many things in my life, a lot of them are rather arbitrary but I still cling to them quite tightly just to spite their lack of quantification.

I am not ultimately in control of my life or who I am.

Happiness is not our main goal here.

Life is not falling apart; it was never all together to begin with.

Life is an adventure.

It’s going to be okay.

Expectations will kill you.

So kill them first.

The times that I am the worst are the times that I am spending the most time thinking about myself.

We are never alone.

There is no point in needless sadness.

But it’s okay to be sad sometimes.

There are always decisions to be made, we just don’t take the time to realize we are making them.

There is much to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

God

It’s Time to Begin, Isn’t It?

No climax is reached in an instant.  This choice to start living again wasn’t an arbitrary decision, although it felt like it at the time.

It was being questioned about my faith and the novel concept of reading a book for edification and the Friendly Freshman and a homework assignment about vocation, and walking in physical and verbal circles with a friend, and remembering that I do actually love people and want to spend time with them as a result.

It was the devotions at SGA and calling sin what it is and a new insight into the relating of our time here and finally getting tired of hiding in my sleep.

It was a decision to grow and a few too many times of getting taken away by a mysterious train and finally getting the control of the plane off of auto-pilot.  It was a screeching door alarm and exams getting moved and inconsistencies and someone always waking me up and realizing that none of that mattered at all. It was the decision to be happy when I truly was and the relief of not having to pretend to be happy to cover up the stress I wasn’t experiencing.

It was the realization that not only can I change, that I should be changing and mere survival has never been my preferred mode of life. It was recognizing that I have failed the people that I love the most but they are still here with me regardless.  That I have so many improvements to make to be the person I could and should be by God’s directive and standards.

It was running until I thought I was going to die and listening to the same three songs over and over again and finding a healthy apathy about the things that don’t matter and an equally nutritional passion for the things that actually do.

It was changing the overwhelming need to be anywhere else to the desire to be here.  It was a failure of cognitive dissonance and no longer having the patience to wait for my thoughts to catch up with my behavior.

It is mind over matter and living again.

Happiness, Life Lessons

Cheap Medicine

My professor today advised us to put our ideas up against the “laugh test”.  If you tell someone your brain child and they make a mockery of it, than it probably isn’t such a good idea.  I just looked at my friend and choked back a laugh of my own.

Laughter is a very common response nowadays  to our ideas.  I  definitely believe that some ideas should be released before they drag you down in impossible pursuits.  Yet if my friend and I had stopped when people laughed at us, we would have missed out on a lot of wonderful experiences.  Perhaps we would have a bit more sanity than we do now, but we would be having a lot less fun and a lot less laughter.  I usually laugh along with those who doubt us,  but I refuse to let laughter get in my way.  Giving someone a good time at my expense is fine, but letting them deprive me of being absurd is not.

I think a lot can be solved through laughter.  When you have a reached a point where you can laugh at yourself, you are never more than one act of mindless goofery away from a good time.  When you can zoom out enough that the overwhelming pixels merge together and become a coherent picture, you can laugh at the lack of perspective you once had and enjoy the birds’ eye view.  Of course, there are issues that must be dealt with and can’t be laughed away.

Still, I have determined to never let the laughter stop me, and instead never stop laughing at this marvelously quirky world we live in.

About Me, God, Life Lessons, Maturity

Role Play

A case study was done in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford University where 24 mentally stable participants pretend to be prisoners or guards in a mock prison setting.  The simulation was meant to last two weeks but was ended after 8 days due to concerns about the prisoners’ psychological health who lost touch with reality.

This might be an extreme example, but if there is anything we are good at, it is playing roles.  Even when we know that the role is completely false, it is only a matter of time before it becomes our identity.

Your role in life is shaped by the people you grew up with, the stories you were read as a child, the dreams that inspire you, your peers who surround you, the mentors that guide you, those that try to derail you, the culture that shapes us, and hopefully, the God that created you.

I’ve spent a great deal of time and energy trying to fight this reality.  In my mind, there must be some way to rise above this scenario where everyone typecasts me into a character and expects a performance that follows their script.  I hope you have the complete awareness of self and external influences with the strength to view life from the clouds with your feet on the ground.  I certainly don’t.

If I could be anywhere else or do anything else with my life than attend college in Western PA and run this race, I don’t think I would.  I believe that we experience life in the way we perceive it be.  Our location and surroundings are secondary to internal perspective.  I can live life fully here, in Michigan, or across the ocean.

Even though life can easily become a game of make-believe, I am willing to live within that structure.  I could waste my time trying to be completely independent from my situations and circumstances.  I’d rather be aware of what is shaping the roles that I chase and make sure those sources line up with who God instructs me to be.

I’d rather know who I am becoming than fight an impossible battle.

Life Lessons, Maturity, Organization

Unquantifiable

My sixth meeting of the day found me in a professor’s office as he went over the specifics of a group project.  As my professor droned, I was quickly attempting to create a mental spreadsheet and time chart to accomplish the goal at hand.  Until he interrupted my flying thoughts with a simple statement:

“The way we are going to do this will be a lot more fun, but its a lot less structured.”

I couldn’t wrap my mind around it at first.  Less structure means more chaos and variables, not more fun.  Fun comes only when there is organization to channel it and make sure it meets all the specifications for enjoyment.  As soon as I thought that, I knew I had lost sight of something very important in life.

There is not pattern to follow.  Life is not defined by chores being accomplished.  It can’t be quantified, thus comparison to others is pointless.  The parts of life that I enjoy most aren’t the things that I completely understand, but rather, the ones that I have to work to figure out.

Life Lessons, Maturity

Fine Lines

It’s easy to picture life as a balancing act on a tightrope.  Just you, two buildings, a long rope, and dizzying heights.  I’ve always been partial to this analogy.  There is a thrill in trying to balance, a sense of accomplishment when you manage to stay upright, and worse comes to worst, falling can be rather fun too–once you get over the initial shock of your life falling apart.  And you can always pick yourself up and try again.

As comforting (or scary) as that mental image might be, I think it might be oversimplifying things a bit.  Life isn’t just one tightrope, it is an intricate web of fine lines.

There is a fine line between contentment and apathy.

Between confidence and arrogance.

Insecurity and pride.
Self-awareness and self-obsession.
Optimism and misplaced hope.
Kindness and manipulation.
Patience and cowardice.
Self-protection and selfishness.
Trust and naivety.
Discernment and judgment.

There are so many fine lines weaving in and out of each other.  In a way, they make it easier to stay balanced, when you have a web of ropes to walk on instead of just one.  Yet it feels
impossible to maintain a healthy balance in one area of life without crossing a line in another.

I have no resolution to this post, because I don’t know how to walk on one tightrope, let along a couple dozen.   You see, there is also a fine line between thinking to understand life and thinking to avoid life.  I may not be able to get far without falling, but I’d rather fall than get tangled in the web.

Adventure, Time

Mesmerizing Mirages

The expanse of Lake Michigan fills my landscape.  Yet my eyes are focused only on one golden spot where the setting sun has imprinted itself on the lake.  It looks perfect and I have to resist the temptation to run down the 265 steps to the beach, hijack a kayak, and paddle to it.

Something more than the 265 steps deters me though.  There is no way to reach the mesmerizing glimmers.  By the time I get there, the sun will have set and the dancing lights will have disappeared.  In the meantime, I will have missed the sunset.

It’s hard not to remember all the sunsets I’ve missed in my life, chasing after an elusive golden patch of light.

There are goals that I was never meant to reach, a person I was never supposed to be.  So many mirages that I bet my life on being true only to find them not only unreachable, but non-existent.  I’ve exhausted myself over and over again in this impossible pursuit.

So, for at least today, I will rest and watch the sunsets in life.  It is impossible to capture it’s magnificence in words so here I will end and allow you to find your sunsets as well.

About Me, Life Lessons, Organization, Pain

Heavy Backpacks

My backpack got progressively heavier and heavier throughout the school year.  I’m sure it had nothing to do with my tendency to accumulate unseemly amounts of flashcards.  Every night/early morning when I’d get back to my dorm I had the opportunity to experience one of the best feelings of relief: taking off the 40 pound weight that I had trudged along with me up and down the stairs to my classes, meals, and dorm.  No matter how many ribbons I put on it, that backpack was the bane of my college existence.

Yet I couldn’t go anywhere without it.  Without my backpack, I lost my immediate access to study materials and homework.  Without this access, I could potentially be in a situation where I was not being productive.  Without productivity, I felt purposeless.  Tasks and to-do lists gave me the feeling of meaning that, while ultimately hollow, kept me motivated to keep moving and learning and making more to-do lists.

The problem of the heavy backpack lies in me grasping tightly onto an identity that was built on empty definitions of accomplishment.  I don’t carry around a backpack during the summer, yet I still have multiple cross-referencing task lists to perpetuate this unfounded identity.

The paradox of the heavy backpack is that the thing that I couldn’t let go of  was the very thing that was dragging me down.  A never-satisfied need to be productive is what could make and destroy me simultaneously.

Sometimes other people’s backpacks aren’t as easily seen as mine.  Maybe they aren’t tangible at all.  I think it would be safe to suppose that almost everyone carries their own burdens that they both need and despise.

Let’s try lightening the load a bit.

Change, Life Lessons, People

#1 Fan

I think people become fans of sports teams because we need something to identify with other than ourselves.  We want our moods and happiness and excitement to be based off of something beyond our own circumstances.  We can’t make life what we want it to be  so we blame our TV shows, sports teams, and friends.

It’s far easier to put the responsibility on something we have no control over than ourselves.  We can’t change things around us, but we can change ourselves and that takes courage.