Life Advice.

For a long long time, I've believed, that people are sent into my life for one of the following reasons:

1. For me to help them
2. For them to help me.
3. For us to help each other
4. For me to help them help themselves.

Well, you get the idea, it's all to do with helping and supporting each other. Now, in theory, this might seem a little stupid. But, if you know me and know some of the situations I've been in, you might be able to identify it. And in practice, you might wonder, if I am so busy helping other people, do I ever help myself?

Well, of course I do. By helping other people, I learn from their situations, and sometimes I have to help people on a more personal level and that helps me. And I know it seems a little strange, when I meet someone new I know they've come into my life for one of the reasons aforementioned. And you're probably wondering, well, how do you know if a person is just for you and not for you to help?

Sometimes, you just know. If someone is really special and really for you, you will know. And sometimes, I might get veered off course and think that someone is for me, because they've convinced me but in the end, it'll work out the other way. And sometimes, people don't need any help, they just need a new friend and that's fair enough. I'm happy to be friends with people who want to be friends. I'm not all about 'hiya. what's your problem and how can I help?'. It happens over time. So if I haven't had an effect on your life and your in mine, well watch out :P. Nah, Im joking.

I am believer of 'What's meant to be will always find it's way'. Because it's true really, if something is MEANT to happen, it will. I know that idea is slightly out there and arguements like fate and destiny and religion somewhat could be brought into it. But for once, just go with it, don't question. If you want to believe it, then do. And while I'm on this somewhat path of giving life advice, another thing. Any situation, no matter what, it isn't actually ever as bad as it seems. I know at the worst of times, you think you're going to die or have a heart attack or something, and those are drastic, but you'd be surprised how many people go that far with a situation that makes them nervous or causes discomfort. In the end, it turns out, they survived because the situation wasn't as bad as they thought it was going to be! See my point?

I mean, we all have days when we feel like shit and we even have days were we look like shit, and some days just are shit. But at the end of the day, we can say we survived. And in my experience, there's nothing better than being able to say that you survived. It's worth every panicking moment where you think you're going to die! :P. So, I've given all my life advice for today, and hopefully you might take something from it, and if not, well, just survive will ya!

Dancing On Clouds.

I met a man about a month ago and have been talking with him ever since. We've been on several dates and had a few snogathons in our time. When we first started chatting he used the analogy that 'English is like dancing on clouds. Maths is finding out why the clouds are shaped thusly'.

From that analogy, I knew he would turn out to be interesting. And he did. He challenged everything I believed in. But I always stood my ground even if he tried to convince me otherwise. I'm not easily fooled :P. But he still had respect for me. Which contrasts with my other post entitled 'No, Women shouldn't back down'.

What I want to share about this experience is that, he taught me something that I've long challenged and whined about. I once heard the quote 'I'm looking for one guy to prove that they're not all the same'. And ever since I heard it, I've been looking for that one guy to do so. And then I met him. And yes, I'm admitting it here and now, he did prove it. He respected my ideals, my feminist qualities even if he got annoyed by them, he didn't rush me into sex and he was willing to wait for me to decide what I want.

He is an awesome guy. He's just not the one for me (much to his disappointment :P). But what I will say is this, that whoever the girl is that he ends up with, will be very deserving of this man's company. He is something different and he is definitely worth being with. And if he's reading this, he knows exactly that this is about him. He probably won't believe me, but I do think you're awesome! And I mean everything I've just said.

Anyway, back on topic before I get too sentimental (haha!), he proved that men aren't all the same. I told him that although he might have done this, he was only one man in a million, to which he replied 'That's all you need for hope'. He's smart I tell you. Because, he was right. (Shock horror, I'm admitting a man was right?! haha!). I'm still going to be cautious when I meet new men but I know deep down inside of me, there will be a hope that this one might not be a bastard!

And that hope will be generated from my experience with the man I've just been talking about. And I know, if ever he reads this, he will be smiling about it! I just wanted to share this experience with you and hopefully one day, if you are anything like me, you might meet a man who changes your view, if only slightly.

So now, I'm going to leave this entry with an analogy and hopefully, he might take something from it, and if not, I hope he just smiles! So, here it is:

Life is like dancing on clouds, it's fun, but kind of pointless, until you find someone to dance on clouds with.

My Business Is To Create!

I was feeling a little stressed out earlier so I made a post in my private journal. In that post I wrote:

“Sometimes I just wish that I could just do what I want to do. Just sit around and write. And drink tea. And laugh and be happy and somewhat carefree.

Unfortunately for all of us, life isn't like that.”

I was later discussing this with a friend and he told me how he and his other friend had some kind of connection for business, but it’s locked. He said that they feel they are both here for a greater purpose. They’re made to do something more. They just don’t know what it is yet.

And this got me thinking. Are we all here for a greater purpose? A greater purpose – let’s define that. If you do something for a greater purpose, you are doing it for something else. For a reason other than yourself. We may not know what that reason is but what we do know is that it feels right to be doing it. A greater purpose – it’s almost something divine – but let’s not bring religion into this.

I was once informed that, “To understand is to inspire”. I have thought about this long and hard. It’s a short but meaningful statement. And what I deduced from it is that, if you can understand someone’s situation, if you have experienced something similar, or if you just know what someone is talking about and you really understand it, then you are able to inspire that person. Now, in logic, it seems a little silly. But let’s think about it. If you are able to understand someone’s situation, say you might have experienced it yourself before, then you are able to inspire them. It makes sense. If you give someone advice about the situation then they will think about it (though they might deny it). But they will go away and think about it and they might act upon that advice. And therefore, by understanding their situation and giving your ideas/opinions/advice, you have inspired that person to take a further action in order to possibly improve that situation for them. And therefore, you have understood, and you have inspired.

So let’s take all this and relate it to myself. Essentially, I am a writer. I have a genuine passion for writing poems, stories, prose, scripts etc. It’s something I enjoy. And I do it for a purpose (believe it or not). With everything I write, I hope that if someone ever reads it, that they may feel inspired. In saying that though, some of my poetry can be rather depressing and I hope I don’t inspire people to take the path I chose, but to take the other one. In essence, when I write poetry or whatever, I hope that people are inspired by my experiences to do something about their own, if they understand it. On many rare occasions I have inspired someone somewhere and they have told me. And this has made me feel extremely happy, because I fulfilled the purpose I intended too. But is this my greater purpose? Am I destined to write forever in order to inspire others? (Not that I’m complaining…).

Whilst I was away off in thinking land, thinking about all of this, a quote came to my mind. I recently went to see a movie for the third time (it was a good movie!) and this quote had never been brought to my attention until I heard it. I know little about the author who wrote it, though I know it was taken from a somewhat religious ‘story’. The man I am talking about is Mister William Blake, who in his book Jerusalem, wrote:

"I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create."

The part that got me, was the ‘my business is to create’. This is quite apt and is also the part that is significant in the movie. If I want to make people understand, if I want to inspire them, obviously I’ve got to create something. So that’s what I do. I create entries on blogs (i.e. here...), I take photographs and I write poems/stories/scripts/prose. I create, to make people understand and to inspire them. Essentially, it IS my business to create.

So, I’m not going to go on anymore, I’ve already posed quite a lot of things that you might want to think about. And I hope that whenever you read my blog, that one day you might feel inspired and if not, I just hope that you enjoy it. And perhaps, you might discover your own greater purpose, perhaps you already know it and maybe just maybe, our purposes might cross paths. But who knows?

No, Women Shouldn't Back Down.

I was made aware recently of a situation with my friend. She had been asked to go as someone's date to our school formal (sorry if your reading this...). They had arranged to go in the Limo with her friends. That arrangement was settled a long time ago. Then just the other morning, the guy walks in and is like "How are you getting there? There is room for you in our limo..." His friends and him had arranged another limo. My friend got extremely annoyed and frustrated with this because she had already made arrangements and now he was just being annoying about it.

I don't know if they resolved the situation, but last time I chatted with her about it, neither of them were willing to back down. And It got me thinking. Men usually expect women to do all the running. We're supposed to give up OUR plans to go with theirs. And sometimes, it's fair enough to do so if their situation is worse case scenario, or its something better than what you had originally planned. However in this situation, the man was wrong and isn't willing to admit it!

I told my friend to stand her ground. She has no reason to back down because her arrangements were made first and she should do what makes her happy, not what makes him happy. I was also in the car when she was telling her mum about this situation and her mum (she's really happy!) said something about her needing to give the man some respect at the same time.

This set me off thinking, again (haha). In the situation I mentioned, where was the respect for my friend? She had gone to lengths to arrange so that he could go with her and her friends in the limo and now he was organizing something else. That isn't respectful at all. That's just darn right rude. If you're going to ask someone somewhere and they tell you they've already got arrangements to get there, then you shouldn't bloody well go and organise something else.

And sure, I understand, each of them wants to be with their own friends, I mean its the last large school event that they'll all get time to spend with each other. But come on, it's only to get there! If it was me, I would tell him to wise up and that he either comes with me, or we don't go together at all. Because it's just creating situations that don't need to be situations.

Apologies to my friend if she ever reads this, I'm sure she doesn't really want the details of her private life on the internet, but that's why i left out names. I just wanted to share this situation, because it made me think about how men always want women to do the dirty work, when they're perfectly capable of doing it themselves. It just shows that men (I know it's a bit of a large generalization but...) don't always respect women.

[*Waits patiently for hate mail from men complaining that they do respect women and that this guy had every right to go and organise something else, when clearly he didn't! Fuck you too!*]

Never-Ending Drama.

[Note: For the purposes of this blog, all names have been changed.]

Every relationship I’ve gone into has had some kind of drama before it. For example, my first relationship started a few days after Joe’s best friend ran up to me and said “JOE FANCIES YOU!” right in my face.

My second started after he came back from a religious festival and I told him how I had felt for a long time and he was a bit like “Whoa, you should have told me!” Although that’s not really drama, the drama was that everybody else hated him and didn’t want me to go out with him.

My third relationship started 12 hours after my 2^nd finished and involved drama because I had screamed and yelled at my 2^nd guy for breaking my trust. The other drama was that we decided not to tell anybody about it until Christmas (this was October) and everybody was getting slightly paranoid and suspicious.

My fourth wasn’t a relationship, more of a snog session because we were both slightly intoxicated.

And then we come to my fifth. The drama with this one was, I met him online and we hadn’t met before, but we had this kind of debate/argument and were about to walk out on each other. So then I turned up at the same place he was and he nearly had a heart attack. To say the least, if I had a picture of his face when he saw me, you’d be wetting yourself right about now.

My point is, everything that seems significant in my life, and we can’t deny that relationships are, seems to have had some kind of drama, some kind of major event that happens before something starts. Something ends and something soon after begins.

This reminds me of something that David Mitchell wrote in his book, Black Swan Green, that I think is quite true, and somewhat relevant:

“The world won't leave things be. It's always injecting endings into beginnings. Leaves tweezer themselves from these weeping willows. Leaves fall into the lake and dissolve into slime. Where's the sense in that... The world never stops unmaking what the world never stops making. But who says the world has to make sense?”

I have to say, David Mitchell really did capture it in a sentence. And I agree with him. It’s a bit like the saying ‘With every closing door there is an opening window’. Every-time something ends, something else begins. It makes logical sense. For example, if a TV programme ends, adverts begin (yeah, that was a bad example but you get the point).

I’ve discovered that every time something in my life ends and something new begins, something smashes. For example, I had a glass rose once upon a time (and it was lovely!) but when my 2^nd relationship ended and my third one began, it just fell and broke in half. When my 5^th relationship began, a glass was smashed. Maybe it’s representative of the smashing time that people had with me, and the smashing time the new people are going to have. (Yes, that was a joke).

I’ve kind of gone off point. My point is, drama seems to follow me! I know that sounds really stupid, but I do worry about it. I know I’m still quite young and that the ‘teenage drama’ (I’m 18…) years might not quite be over. But I wonder, does the drama ever end? Or does it just transmigrate into a different form as we grow up? Does the ‘teenage drama’ turn into ‘adult drama’? I.e. does the drama about boyfriends become drama about husbands? Does the drama about schoolwork turn into the office work? Does the drama about not having any money to go out turn into not having any money to pay the bills?

In effect, does drama just transmigrate from one thing to another? Or do we ever finally get rid of it? Are we destined to be dramatists forever? Or do we grow up and let the drama fade away? If life is a play, then we’re all actors/actresses and the drama of our lives is the drama of the play. In a play, the drama ends when the play does. So in life, does the drama end when we do?

In The Eyes Of Our Elders

I was lying down just last night and I was thinking about how other people might see me. Often, when I look in the mirror, I find it hard to comprehend that the face staring back at me, is me and I am looking at what other people see.

It’s a bit of a weird thought and might be slightly confusing but I just thought it was strange. When we are interacting with people, we can’t see ourselves. We just hope that we look good and we try our best to do so. Someone told me the other day, that when you see someone for the first time and if you get that feeling that you don’t like them, but you can’t place why, it’s because in the split second that you looked at them, they have blinked which has caused a reaction in their face and from that reaction you have seen something negative which makes you automatically dislike them. It’s all a bit psychological, but apparently it’s true. I did happen to find that quite interesting though.

So then I started thinking about how older people see me. I am 18 years old, still quite young and I still look like I’m about 15. I wonder, do older people see me as a young immature girl? Do they think that I’m innocent and have still got to experience a whole load of shit that life is going to hand me? Or do they see my experiences in my eyes, or on my face? Can they tell what I’ve been through? Or by wearing make-up and smiling at them, am I giving the impression that I’ve had this great life and I’m still young and have my whole life ahead of me? What do they see? And what do they take from what they see?

I mean, I know I am still young. But I am quite mature for my age; I’ve had to grow up a little before my time. And I know that seems to be the norm these days in society and when I’m saying all this, I feel like you are all going to be thinking ‘Oh, another teenage sob story, here we go’. When really, it’s not like that at all! The truth of the matter is, I have been hurt, I have had to grow up, I have experienced sadness and regret and I have even gone as far as to hurt myself. And admittedly, a lot of us have. But every person’s story is different; everybody does things for different reasons. Everybody is different. So why are we so quick to judge?

Do we really go on the belief system about stereotypes? Does every older person think that teenagers are just angsty and haven’t had any experience of the real world? In the eyes of our elders, what are we? When we see people for the first time and in the split second that we look at them, do we deduct something negative? And do we ignore them cause of our negative instinct? Are we really that shallow?

I know I’ve posed a lot of unanswerable questions, questions I myself ponder on time and time again. But I just wonder sometimes, is this really what the human condition is being reduced to? Are we really becoming shallow stereotypical judgmental arseholes? Or are we just going with ‘society’ and becoming social numb nuts?

Whatever the answer, I do think it’s time we take a real good look at what we’re tuning into; because I don’t think it’s anything to be proud of. The least we could do, is respect our elders and show them that we’re not young immature idiots and that we do have some kind of good moral upbringing. At the end of the day, they are the ones who have paved the way for us to have the lives that we do and are we really going to pay them back by being idiots? No, I didn’t think so.

Giving Something Back

This year I have plans to participate in several charity events. I don’t really know why but I do know that it is for a good cause and well, that can’t really be anything bad can it?

I was at my friend’s house when she handed me the invitation saying ‘You are invited to Race for Life’. Her mum had put our names down to do it as their family had been doing it for a couple of years now. Basically, you walk/run/jog 5 miles and it’s for breast cancer. It’s mainly a woman’s thing but men can do it too. So we have signed up. The one here is on June 1^st at 11am so, if you are also from here and are willing to try something new, then go over to Race For Life and check it out.

I was discussing Race for Life with my friend when I remembered I had heard about another charity thing entitled ‘You’re Not the Only One’. The intention of this is to collect experiences from bloggers all over the net who submit their stories and experiences. The stories will then be selected and published in a book which will be priced at £9. Out of those nine pounds, £4.50 of it will be donated to the charity War Child. More info can be found here: Peach so hop on over if you’re interested! Although, the deadline is under two weeks from now!

In an entry I made last year, I wrote about how women in Africa are punished by being put in a box and left to fry in the sun of the desert. Well I was given this information by a girl from Amnesty International who stopped me when I was in town one day. Now, as a student myself, I can’t particularly afford to be paying off a couple of pounds a month, and I know that seems totally selfish, but what can you do. However, I am linking them here in order to show my support for the work that they do! So here we go: Amnesty International

Finally, my other somewhat charitable acts, I click on this website everyday: The Animal Rescue Website for every time you click the, donate now button, 0.6 portions of food for animals is donated. I think this is a great idea, although I do have my doubts about whether it actually works or not. But let’s stay positive and hope that it does!

Many a time in life, we pass each other by, not knowing each other’s stories or what that other person may have gone through. We simply choose to ignore the horrid truth of people’s lives and go on with our own. A lot of the time, we are selfish and self-obsessed, we often feel that we have no time to focus on others and help them, because we’re too busy with ourselves and our own problems. I won’t be the last to admit it. Although I do my fair share of playing agony aunt, but admittedly, it is something I like to do, helping others that is. So I feel by doing these several small donations for charity, I am giving something back to life, because although it has been hard at the best of times, I have been happy and everything could be a lot lot worse.

So if I have made you feel somewhat guilty (that wasn’t my intention…) then why don’t you try something I’ve mentioned above? Or next time you feel like passing somebody by, just ask them how they are. It won’t cause you any harm. If you are kind to life, it might just be kind to you!

Friendship, Flowers & The Past.

Often you hear people say that friends are the most important thing to them and that boyfriends will come and go, but friends will always stick by you.

Once upon a time, I had a friend who I thought would stick by me, no matter what. And during our friendship I had the most horrible break up and I thought I'll be alright, I have my friends. Unfortunately, I was proven wrong as not much time thereafter, my so-called friend, went off with my ex. Admittedly, that wasn't a fun time in my life.

And maybe I was wrong to befriend her in the first place, our ideals weren't really the same and we didn't see all that much of each other. But nonetheless, when you open your heart to someone and let them into your life, you expect some kind of respect to go along with that. And dating your friend's ex is right out there on the no-go scale.

There's a certain level of trust that goes along with being somebody's friend. And that's where many people find that they have problems. I know, I do. We've all been hurt before by friends, by lovers and sometimes even by family. And that's why when someone new comes along, we put up our guard. We don't immediately let them come walking right through the gates to our hearts. We have to let them find the key to open them first before we let them in. And even then, it takes time and effort. We aren't just going to drop everything for this someone new, no matter how much we want to, or how much we think that they won't hurt us. Because somewhere deep down inside us says, that we don't know that and that there is still always a possibility for being hurt.

And I know, we shouldn't dwell on our past, on our hurt, we should look positively and brightly to the future, but it is really never that easy, is it? Not everything is black and white. There are always grey areas. Areas that tell us that we know better than to let our guard down, or when we do, that we should have known better in the first place. It's a grey world, it's complex and complicated and although at times, it doesn't have to be, our human nature seems to complicate it anyway.

As each season rolls around, new people seem to come into our lives and some tend to leave for whatever reasons. Friendship can be seen to be exactly the same as the seasons, we meet in Spring and friendship blossoms and forms, and throughout summer we shine and become great friends. Then towards autumn, we begin to decay and perhaps have arguments and by winter, the friendship has died. But soon enough, spring rolls around again and new friendships come and go like they did before.

I was thinking about this metaphor when I cast my mind back to a friendship I used to have, we used to say we were roses, each of us represented one colour, white for peace, red for love and black for death. Although it seems somewhat childish, it occurred to me that our metaphor of roses was right. Friendships are exactly like roses, they bloom and there is love and peace and unfortunately, they die but new roses grow from where the old ones used to be and the cycle goes on forever, blooming and shining and dying, then starting all over again.

It kind of goes to show, that even though your current friendships might not last, there will always be new ones that will grow and that you will learn to cherish them, no matter how much hurt it causes you. At the end of the day, you know that there will always be someone there for you when you need them to be and even when they do move on, you will cherish that friendship for what it was, not what it became.