There comes a time in everyone's life where they have to make some realizations about where they are heading, as opposed to where they want to be heading.  Catch my drift? [do people still use that phrase?]  I've been going down a track that I always thought was a waste of time this past week, or maybe even this past month.  I'm trying to figure out how a person who feels so strongly AGAINST a certain lifestyle [although i do not judge either way], can be so easily succumb [is that the right word?  note to self: possibly brush up on vocab skills] to temptations of becoming a part of that not so appealing lifestyle.

Lately I have been going out, to parties and drinking and witnessing a lot of fights [physical i mean, not the argumentative kind, although i witness a lot of those too] and although I am a firm believer in  "do what you do" , I notice that type of crowd usually consist of people who arent in school, dont have jobs, and the typical topic of conversation that they hold is "oh my gosh did you see [or hear] about that fight that happened twenty-seven days ago between Judy and her babydaddy cousin's momma?"  And again, do what you do, I try not to judge, [especially because a lot of those kind of people are family members of mine], but that isn't the lifestyle I want for myself, yet that is the lifestyle I saw myself being a part of for the past month or so.  Got to be more careful.

So, I am in the proess of asking myself WHY and HOW.  The person I was months ago is the person I would rather be.  I was too busy to have any kind of life outside of college and a job period, let alone one that consists of the above description.  I consumed myself in books, essays, grades, thirty minute lunch breaks, and "Can I help you find something[s]?" seven days a week.  I never had a complete day off.  At that time of my life, I hated it.  I hated not being able to sleep all day if I wanted to, or stay out late at night because I had to get up early the next day, and I felt like my friends were begining to get to the point of not even wasting their time inviting me places because my answer was usually an automatic no.  But now, I am taking a year off from college to be a part of a volunteer program called AMERICORPS [which is going to look awesome on my resume and at the end of service they will be helping me to pay for part of my college career] and through this program, my work schedule is Mon-Fri with weekends off.  Before, weekends off was completely foreign to me.  And now, I have two whole days to do either absolutely nothing, or take part in everything that comes my way.  I thought it was great until I realized that I dont know how to balance my life, and I drink too much, and I party too hard.  So much that I missed a few days of work and in missing those days, I did no reflecting on why I chose to miss work [because it was indeed a choice, i was not dying or anything], but I did manage to glam myself up to go out and party hard again and again. 

I feel as if I have been getting nothing accomplished.  I dont know what it is I should be accomplishing exactly, but they type of person I am, I always feel like I should be doing something, and it HAS to be something productive.  I need to figure out how to get myself together so that I can feel like I am on the right track again, WHILE I am taking this year off from college.  I have been contemplating [and sometimes searching] for a second job, volunteer opportunites, anything to keep me busy and my mind sharp.  I have responsibilites and I have Rayshawn [i choose not to blog about him too much because some things in life, like my love, should remain private] who means the world to me and I would rather NOT lose him.  Besides, he fell in love with the person I was, and I really think he is getting tired of the person I am becoming.  I dont think too many people would choose losing the love of their life over a party and a fight.  I  just need to figure out a balance between fun and work.  Or maybe a new crowd of friends?  I dont know, the people that I probably should surround myself around, bore the hell out of me, but then again, the people that I already surround myself around, they are just a little bit of no good.  I think I will just allow myself to be a temporary loner until I can figure myself out.  And I am completely fine with that because I'm one of those people who actually doesnt mind being alone.

isaiah.

the most important man in my life.

thats all to be said for the day folks.

Think about it:

"consequences.  never make a move before weighing the potential consequences.  if you do you'll make deadly mistakes, mistakes that can cost your life.  more than likely, you'll lose the war, not because you're weaker, but because you played into their plot."

everything we do has a potential consequence.  even if we think the decisions we are making are the best ones we could make for ourselves, maybe they arent.  have you thought about all of the possibilities of what could go wrong?  have you thought about those possibilities and figured out ways to make sure that the good decision you made remains to be a GOOD one? 

i'm a thinker.  i think about things all of the time.  i think about life and i think about the things i want to accomplish; do i want to try to save the world, or just save myself?  i dont always think about every potential consequence before i put action behind every decision i make.  it would drive me crazy.  what if this happens, or what if that happens, how would i make everything okay, what if i could never make everything okay?  have you ever thought about today and tried to remember everything that brought you to where you're at?  you know how people say "i'm grateful for ...... because without it [or that] i would have never gotten to where i'm at today, or i would have never been led to you".... and blah blah.  why is that?  do you really think that THAT ONE certain thing, event, person or place led YOU to where you are, or led YOU to who is in your life?  and if the point you're at in life is where you want to be, then obviously it's something you've wanted for awhile so why couldn't you just lead YOURSELF there?  were you afraid of the potential consequences of taking those steps of getting where you're at?  maybe you did lead yourself there, maybe everything you are grateful for, the people, the place, the event, that got you there were all involved because of the decisions you chose to make.  and could more than one different decision lead you to the same place if you are determined enough to get there?  kind of like college, there are more than one decisions that can be made that can lead you into college.

sometimes i feel like people want to blame the world for their mistakes because they choose not to face or realize that the consequences they are facing are a direct result of the decisons they chose to make in certain point in their lives.  nothing is HIS fault or HER fault or THEIR fault, it is your own.  whether the fault is good or bad, it is YOUR fault.  choices.  i think people make them without really thinking about the outcomes first, and it happens so often which is why it always feels so easy to blame someone else.  because maybe you were encouraged to make a certain decision doent mean that it isnt YOUR fault.  it just means that you fell into the plot of the person who encouraged you.

"keep thinking as far down the line as you can.  think ten moves ahead.  the person who wins the game is the person who thinks the farthest."

my sister is having a hard time with college right now.  i asked her "what do you want in your life?"  i told her not to answer with the typical "i want to be a doctor" or "i want to write for a newspaper" because obviously you have to attend school to achieve those goals.  i meant what kind of car does she want in the future, and how big of a house does she hope to have, what kind of furniture would she like in her living room, because if [in my opinion] you at least think about some of those things, then it will get your mind on the track of how do i get it.  i know some VERY successful people who achieved things that they wanted without ever getting a college degree.  they thought as far down the line as they could, and they thought about every single potential outcome of their decisions whether the outcome is good or bad.  motivation and drive is also key, but you can make a not so good decision while being motivated and driven.  i have several times.  it is going to happen but i guess we all just gotta keep on doing our best to make the best decisions possible for US.  and what may be the best to one person may not be the best to the next.

everyone looks at their present state every now and then and think about the negative things in their lives; they blame them on the decisions they made in the past and sometimes wish they could turn back time.  or at least turn back to certain moments in their lives.  [in my opinion] that isnt always the best way to deal with the stresses of life because reality is, no one can turn back time so how is dwelling in the past going to change the negative of today?  it wont.  the only solution is to make more careful decisions today and slowly bring the negative into something positive, because even though we cant change the past which brought us the negative, we can change the negative into a positive for the future.  its like love, if a woman thinks that all men are "the same", then she will be blinding herself and without realizing it, she wont ever be able to see something different in a future man when it is time for him to come around.  and she will always see each man as the same as the last because her line of thinking wont let her think ten steps ahead.  i have a friend who constantly feeds of negative energy, nothing is going right, nothing ever goes right, nothing WILL EVER go right.  of course it wont, because he isnt letting himself have the ability to look ahead and make decisions that will make things "right" for him.  he never thinks of the consequences of his decisions, NEVER, which i believe is the reasons why nothing seems to go right for him.  he jumps into things way too fast because they SOUND good and he never does the research.

the point is, think.  evaluate.  give yourself credit for the good things in life.  its something i am learning to do myself.

Lexi.