Change

When I was fourteen years old, going into my sophomore year of high school, my dad received a job offer that essentially changed my life.  I had lived in Bakersfield, California all of my life.  My entire family still resides there, and when I saw entire, I mean everyone from my two older siblings, nieces and nephews, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and close family friends.  My dad had traveled for his work and was sometimes gone for weeks at a time and as we, my siblings and I, got older, it became harder and harder for him to leave us.  He and my mom finally decided that he should quit this job and look for another with a different company, but shortly after giving his six month notice, his boss gave him a job offer he couldn’t resist.  He offered him a raise, a Vice President position of the company, and the best of all was that my dad wouldn’t have to travel nearly as often; all my dad had to do to make this offer work was move our family to East Bay area of California.  My parents decided this was the best decision for our family, and six months later, my parents, younger brother and I were on our way to San Ramon, which would become our new home.  My older siblings already had their own families and for this reason, they did not come with us.  I was devastated.  I had just finished my freshman year of high school and made new friends that I loved and had been so used to seeing my siblings, nieces and nephews, and grandparents on a daily basis, and my heart was broken. Soon after we had moved I began to have a re-occurring dream that always made me uneasy.  In this dream, I was in our house that we lived in while we were Bakersfield.  I was surrounded by my family and having a blast!  We were all laughing and talking, I was playing and wrestling with my nieces and nephews, hugging grandparents, talking to my siblings and cousins, and best of all, my dad was there with us which made my mom’s face glow with the brightest light ever.  Inside of the house, I observed myself as a very happy teenage girl.  As the dream would go on, I would somehow find myself walking outside the front door.  As soon as I would take one step out of the house, I would become lost.  The outside was not the front yard of our house, and I would have no idea where I was, and naturally, I could feel my heart break.  I would search and search for something I recognized or someone I knew, and I would never be able to find what I was looking for.  The dream would always end here.  After about a year of living in the east bay, the dream stopped.  To me, the dream symbolizes me feeling lost in the new world I lived in.  I had to get used to not always having my whole entire family around, and once I did, my heart wasn’t so broken.  I became very close to my wonderful parents and amazing younger brother.  Of course I still missed the rest of my family, but we were only a four hour drive apart and were able to see each other often.  Even now, being in college, I still miss my family, but no matter what, they are always close to my heart, and in the end, they helped me find what I was looking for.

For the Love of Sisterhood

Why do we stay in the circumstances we are, even when we are unhappy? While this happens in both our professional and personal lives, I feel as though it particularly applies to myself in my personal life. As the current president of my sorority, I hold a position where my every action is being watched and monitored and I influence a group of over 90 women. While I now love this job, and can’t imagine my life without it, this was not always a position I imagined, much less saw myself holding.

First off, I obtained the position under extremely awkward circumstances. One of my closest friends and my chapter’s president resigned from the position, leaving us without a president, mid semester.  Out of nowhere, I went from having a smaller, mellow position, to running for president. I had a lot to consider. I didn’t exactly hate the idea of being the leader of my sorority, but I didn’t really want or know how much responsibility it would actually entail.  I already had a job 5 days a week, and went to school full time, would I really be able to run an entire sorority too? I really didn’t have a choice. I ran for the position and now have almost completed my term, but another problem has come into play. Elections are coming up yet again, and I have decided to run for president, yet again.

            While I love my sisters I and have enjoyed being president, running and possibly getting the position again will have a lot of consequences both good and bad that I need to weigh out. By staying president, I will have to sacrifice yet another year of my college career spending time and energy on sorority issues. I will more than likely spend at least another semester as a part time student, and even potentially have to cut back hours at my job. Also, I have considered transferring, and if I become president for yet another year, I will feel horrible leaving my chapter in the middle of the semester, completely out of the blue. I can’t leave the chapter for many reasons. First off, this is not only a professional job, but more importantly a large part of my social life. By abandoning the sorority, I feel I will upset so many of my friends and more than likely break many close ties. Even though they are my friends, and should stand by me and support me, they would be upset with me, especially because they know I have seen the craziness that went on with the chapter when our previous president too, dropped out of the position. Secondly, I am not a quitter. I have never been one to start a job and never finish it, so now, as I run for the position I know that I will have to stick through it all the way, no matter how stressing and overwhelming it may be.  The upside to continuing my presidency is that it gives me the special bond that I have with my sisters.  I love each of my sisters with all of my heart, and they have helped me get through many tough times in my life and helped me reached many of my goals.  They are the people I go to when I have nowhere else to go.  I cry with them, laugh with them, and they stand by me through all my success and failures.  They are similar to my family, and without them, I would not be where I am today.  For this reason, I feel obligated to stay in the position that I am in.  My present position as President and I, in a way ,have a love hate relationship.  I do not necessarily hate my position, but it is a burden on my life; I love it because I know it helps my sisters to be proud and comfortable knowing that the chapter is in good hands. Even though, at times, the position can be straining, I have been shown a different side and appreciation for my sorority.

            In the end, the sacrifices I have had to make are worth the happiness and joy my sisters bring me, and this is why I continue my job as President.

Roommate Love

One experience that I have had where I had to be objective in the situation was a couple of years ago when I was a freshman living in the dorms.  Before that, I had only shared a room one other time, but it was with my sister whom I was close to and naturally bickered with all the time.  Going into the dorms I knew that it would be a hard transition especially knowing that I would be sharing a small room with a complete and total stranger.  When I finally met my roommate, it wasn’t as bad as I thought.  She wasn’t someone I would normally hang out with, but she was very nice and we got along well enough to live with one another. 

I am the type of person who needs my room to be mostly clean and all of my school stuff and things in my desk to be organized, or it is impossible for me to function.  I have to make sure I am organized for school, or I will drive myself crazy.  My roommate knew that she was always more than welcome to use my things as long as she put them back and didn’t make a mess of things or disorganize it in any way.  One day I ran back to my dorm room after class to finish a project that was due in couple of hours in my next class.  When I went to my desk to get my markers, glue, and scissors, they were nowhere to be found.  I was going crazy, not only because I was in a hurry, but because I knew that I had put my things back where they were supposed to go, and for some reason she felt the need to move them.  I ended up going to a friend and using her supplies to finish my project, and when my roommate returned, I confronted her in the nicest way possible.  I made sure I was calm and relaxed when she returned.  I simply asked her, “Hey have you by any chance seen my markers, glue, and scissors?”  Even though I knew she had borrowed them and not returned them, I did my best not to accuse her, but simply ask if she had seen them as though maybe by chance I was the one who misplaced them.  Right away, her response was, “Oh yea! I had to use them today to do a project in the library! I forgot to tell you!”  I did my best not to get mad because we had never had an argument before and although I was angry, I didn’t want to be the one to make our living situation awkward.  I told her it was fine, but next time if she could let me know because I was panicking that I had to finish my project that was due that day, and all of my things were gone.  She understood where I was coming from and apologized, and she never did it again.

In this situation, I had to confront a person I was not particularly close to or friends with, and also found it hard to because we lived together.  And me, normally being one to speak my mind, especially when I’m mad, had to figure out a way to be objective and try to see her point of view.  I did my best, and after, it actually seemed like we became a little closer and we were able to understand each other more that we were able to before. 

This experience was productive because it taught me how to deal with many more situations that I would soon run into with future roommates who would actually be my really close friends.  The next year I moved in with three of my best friends, and although we knew one another extremely well, we still ran into some little arguments and disagreements.  I, of course, am not hesitant to call my friends out, because realistically, what are friends for?  But every time something did pop up that I didn’t agree with, I made sure that when I did call them out, I went in with an objective mind just in case I was the one who was wrong.  From this, I feel like I was closer with my roommates and I absolutely never felt awkward letting them know how I felt about certain things that bothered me.  From these experiences, I learned that taking a step back and letting yourself understand that all people have different understandings of right and wrong and have different opinions overall, is a very productive way of being objective.  Objectivity is the best way to avoid conflict and for me, mostly seemed to improve my relationships

Let it Be

There are many songs that I find important and meaningful in my life; a lot of different songs that explain the way I feel throughout different chapters of my life.  In this chapter of my life, one song stands out to me and lately seems to help me get through my tough times.  This song is “Let it Be” by the Beatles.

            To me, songs are like soul mates.  My theory on soul mates is we have more than one person who fulfills a different part of our soul.  A soul mate can be a friend who is always there for us, or a person who comes into our life and fulfills a romantic or intimate part of our soul.  I believe that we have many different soul mates that fulfill our certain needs at certain times in our lives. In this same way, a song is like a soul mate.  Certain songs fulfill a particular need our life, and when that chapter of our life is over, a new song may come in and fulfill a new need.  Some songs stick, and some songs, we simply forget about.  In every chapter of our lives, we have different songs that make us feel better or let us release stress, anger, or sadness depending on the meaning of the song and the meaning of our lives at the time. 

            My soul mate song in this chapter of my life is “Let it be” by the Beatles.  This song is important to me because it helps to remember and understand that I cannot change everything, some things are just meant to be or not meant to be.  I recently got out of a 5 year relationship with my boyfriend since high school.  We were very close. He knew my family, I knew his. He knew all of my deepest secrets, and I knew his.  But of course, not everything is as perfect as it seems.  I found out he cheated on me, and being the person that I am, I forgave him and let him have a second chance.  But of course, a second chance was not good enough and the same thing went on and on, and finally, little nice me gave up and got tired of it.  When I first broke up with him, I kept going over and over in my head what I did wrong and asking myself why, and what I could have done better.  I guess I was just devastated, hurt, and confused.  Then, one day, I woke up, and I was just flat out angry.  During my angry phase, my dad and I went to visit my family, and he was playing music from his ipod.  “Let it be” came on, and all of a sudden, I felt so much better.  I was singing the words and actually listening to what they said and what they meant.   LET IT BE.  There is nothing I can do about it or say to make up for what he did.  The song has a line that says, “And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be.”  This line is what made me feel content with myself and the place in my life where I stand right now.  Many things in my life are going to happen that will hurt me, but I cannot change everything, I have to learn to accept the things I cannot change.  There’s a reason for everything, and things happen for the better.  There will be an answer to my questions of why this happened to me, but for now, all I know is that I have to let it be.  The sadness and anger turn me into a person who I am not, a person that I do not like being.  So instead of being sad and angry, let it be. An answer will come soon enough, so for now, let it be. 

            “Let it Be” has helped me dance around this situation.  It still helps me every day to get through my life without being sad and angry.  I have a goal to reach the part of my life to where I wake up and think, “Wow, I haven’t thought about him in awhile!”  I want to get to that point in my life to where he is just some guy I dated for some time.  And as Alan Watts pointed out, we do not want to wake up one day, reaching our goal, but realizing that we passed up the beautiful and most meaningful parts of life to get there.  And for me, this song, helps me to get through every day without being sad, angry or bitter, and pushes me closer to my goal while also allowing me to feel content enough to not pass up the little things in life that make everyday worth living.  “Let it Be” keeps me confident in knowing that one day I will wake up and be proud of myself for being so strong and making it through this tough chapter in my life, but also keeps me confident in knowing that I will do this without looking back and wondering where my time has gone getting over this, because now I know, I am living my life to the fullest.  When things happen that impact our life so deeply, we always need to keep in mind, let it be.

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Stages of Enlightment

At the beginning of "Groundhog Day" Phil is a rude, self centered individual who seems to have no respect for anyone, not even himself.  When he realizes that he is trapped in the same day, he takes advantage of being able to do whatever he pleases without facing any consequences.  He takes advantage of people who have done nothing to him.  We see as he becomes more aware of himself and who he truly is inside, he starts to change into a person who cares more about others than anything else. 

Phil has to go through many incidents before he understand that he cannot always have what he wants, even if he knows the future.  He comes to understand that there is sometimes things that you cannot control, and this is when he begins to discover he needs to be a better person.  In a way he has an epiphany, or he becomes enlightened.  His path that he chooses to try to help people in the town takes him in the right direction to find the way to "tomorrow."  In order for him to cross the path to reach his enlightened area, he has to first see how he can help others, and how others can help him.  His good deeds such as saving the man in the restaraunt from choking, or doing his best to save the old man from dying of natural causes, open his eyes to a whole different perspective of life which is what he needs in order to reach his highest potential. 

His enlightment also comes greatly from Rita, who helps him see that he has to do a lot more than "act" as though he knows her, but he needs to genuine about the things he does and tells her.  Rita has the ability to see through Phil's sincere voice and can see from a mile away that he's not genuine about anything he says or does.  Once she breaks his heart over and over, he comes to understand that he has to open himself up to her, and maybe, just maybe, in return, she will do the same.  Once Phil has Rita understand everything he is going through he becomes content with himself and is able to open his eyes to many points of view.

Enlightment starts out with one understanding what their particular problem is and having the courage to accept it, face it, and be able to move forward.There is a prayer that says, "God, grant me the serentiy to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdome to know the difference."  I feel that Phil goes through these three phases in order to reach "tomorrow."  He learns that he cannot save the old man from dying and futhermore cannot rescue everyone every single day, develops the courage to change himself into a better person and to change things that are changeable, and lastly he becomes able to know the difference between situations that can be controlled and those that cannot.  I feel that being enlightened takes realization first off, then comes serenity, courage, and wisdom, and before you know, "today is tomorrow."

The Long Road to Success

Everyone has to overcome many shadows in their life to find the truth and reach the light at the end of the tunnel.  Almost every situation that a person enters has obstacles they have to overcome in order to come out of the situation.  My older brother, was faced with an obstacle about a year ago.  He was in college, working his way up to get his teaching credential, but also working in a group home.  He is hard worker, whether it be at school or work.  One day, his boss offered him a full time job with benefits and a good hourly wage.  Obviously he was torn.  He was so close to finishing school, but yet, if he took the full time job, he would have to quit school.  His boss told him that he could not guarentee my brother a full time job once he had graduated because it would depend on if spots became available.  My brother made the wise decision to finish out his college career.  Throughout the rest of his college career,  my brother, just like every other college student, struggled to pay rent and other various bills, he struggled getting into classes and keeping his grades up in these classes even though he worked hard.  All of these things were shadows that were blocking his sunlight, and sometimes it seemed impossible for him to reach the light at the end of the tunnel. There were many times that he wanted to give up and take the full time.  But then again, who wouldn't?  He would  be able to quit school, make a good amount of money, and have a base to start his career and work his way up in the company.  There were many times he would pick up the phone to call his boss, and then put it down because although it was the easy way out, he knew getting a degree was worth the time and energy.

Finally, he graduated.  And now, he does not regret a single moment of the struggle.  He now has a full time job getting paid twice as much the amount his boss offered and is more educated than he ever could have imagined.  With the help, support and courage of family and friends, my brother pulled through and took the long road to success.  He climbed mountains and jumped through hoola hoops, but in the end, made it to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Half Truth?

Truth has everything to do with facts and reality.  Sometimes it is hard to tell the truth because truth is something that is strong and once it is said, can never be taken back.  Growing up, my parents were always engraving in the heads of my siblings and myself to always tell the truth.  My mom would always say, "I will be more upset with you if I find out you are lying about something and less upset if you just tell me truth."  Back then, truth always had to do with whether or not I did or did not do something.  Now, being older truth means that and much more.  Truth to me not only has to do with facts and the reality of what happened, but also with beliefs. 

I am not a person who easily opens up to people, and it takes a lot for me to put my trust in someone.  This is because of one particular relationship, where I believe I learned a lot about myself and what I believe to be true.  "Beware of the half truth.  You may have gotten hold of the wrong half," (unknown source) is something I grew to believe in this relationship.  The half truth is all around, and you either believe it, or you don't.  But once, and if you come to believe that half truth, there's no turning back, because "whatever satisfies the soul is truth," (Walt Whitman).  When I was being told the half truth in this relationship, I was being told things that I wanted to hear, things that made my soul satisfied.  But somehow, the truth always comes out in the end. It comes to the point where you realize the truth that was partially told was the wrong part you needed to know, and the only reason you believed it was because that person said exactly what you wanted to hear.  And the funny thing is, you might realize that all along, you knew the whole truth, but chose to believe the half truth instead.

When I read the truth quotes, these two stood out to me because they are a big part of what makes me who I am now.  I keep these thoughts in my head always, to make sure that I do not let myself trust people as easily as I did before.  I try to remember that just because what I hear satisfies my soul, doesn't necessarily mean it is true. The half truth only satisfies my soul because I let it, and I allowed myself to only hear the things I wanted to hear.  Telling the half truth is just as bad as telling a lie because that person who tells the half truth, knows the whole truth will hurt.  I am glad I was raised with the idea that telling the truth, even it hurts someone, is better than telling a lie, which will hurt more in the end.