Pressing the snooze button of life

Today's topic in church was procrastination. At first I thought, "Yeah, yeah... everybody does it and we all know we shouldn't." I almost zoned out. But then I started listening and thinking about it, and really so many of the worries and sources of stress in my life (and probably anyone else's) stem directly from procrastination.

What are the things I usually beat myself up about? Homework deadlines. Being late for things. Not being prepared for an audition or performance. Not being far enough along on a project. Not sending important emails or making important phone calls. Not keeping in touch with people. Not telling people how much I care about them. If I weren't such a procrastinator, all of those problems would vanish! It's not like I'm not capable of getting all those things done in the time that I have. I just get into this mode where I lack the willpower to make myself do anything.

I have a terrible time getting up in the morning. I'm the type of person who can hit snooze for over an hour and not really notice that time is going by. Funny thing is, if I wouldn't procrastinate going to bed, I'd get enough sleep and wouldn't procrastinate getting up in the morning. But that of course would require that I not procrastinate my work and have to stay up late. Which would mean that I would have to get stuff done earlier in the day, which would probably be easier if I got up on time. Which means that I would need to go to sleep earlier... etc. Endless downward spiral...

Sometimes I wish I could stop and hit the reset button and start with a clean slate. Nothing would be behind schedule, and then I could try to stay on schedule. But how do you get back to that point once you've started down the spiral? The lesson on procrastination is always to just not even do it. But where's the lesson that tells us what to do if we've already started doing it?

How do I stop when everything's already backed up like crazy? If I don't procrastinate one thing, I've gotta procrastinate something else to keep up. It's like getting caught in a pool of quicksand.

Itching to write

Apparently more people look at this blog than I thought. Which makes me slightly embarrassed about that post on falling in love... but I'm going to fight my introversion and remind myself that the reason I started blogging wasn't in order to hide my thoughts.

In all honesty though, there have been so many things I have wanted to say but I just haven't had the time to sit down and formulate coherent sentences. Sigh... the paradox of blogging. We all know it.

How to have a good day

Get enough sleep.
Take your time getting ready for the day's activities.
Do something spontaneous and different before you head out.
Pack a good lunch.
Spend some time outside in beautiful weather.
After a hard day's work, do a little bit of what you most like to do.
Spare a couple of minutes out of your busy day to catch up with people that you like.
Set aside enough time to have a nice, relaxing dinner.
Figure out one big thing that you need to do and get it done really well.
And at the end of the day...
...take a moment to reflect on how great this day has been.

I want to fall in love

I'm working on my master's and I just realized that I have no plans for after I get my degree. No preference on where I want to live, what I want to do, where I want to work... nothing. I think I always figured that this is the part where the guy's supposed to show up and start factoring into everything.

By the way, this is not a complaint about being single. I love being single. I have freedom, I don't have to worry about taking care of someone else and nurturing a delicate relationship, my time is my own and I can do whatever I like with it.

At the same time, it would be awfully nice to have someone to love and look after, and who loved me back and supported me too. Friends are forever, but that particular kind of companionship is just on an entirely different level.

I highly doubt that I'm going to be married by the time I get my master's degree. So then what? Whoever I marry depends on where I end up going after that. Don't want to mess THAT up. I mean, I'll probably end up going wherever the wind takes me but I sort of want to get married someday, too. I wonder who he'll be, what he'll be like, what sorts of things he'll like to do, what kinds of things he'll like to talk about. How will I find him? What will our story be like?

Are you out there, somewhere? Are you wondering these same things too?

I'm in an uncharacteristically girly and sappy mood. It's too bad it's a Tuesday night and I have homework, else I'd probably be switching on some chick flick right now. Wouldn't that be something?

Stop this train

Being the extremely pop-culture-ignorant individual that I am, I had never even heard of John Mayer until Jessie added a music player to her blog. I like pretty much all the stuff she's got on there, but I especially liked one Mayer song, "Stop This Train". Besides having a nifty acoustic guitar accompaniment, the lyrics really speak to how I've been feeling lately.

No, I'm not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind, but
I just can't sleep on this tonight

Stop this train
I wanna get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

Don't know how else to say it
Don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I wanna get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game to find a way to say that life has just begun
Had a talk with my old man
Said "help me understand"
He said "turn sixty-eight
You'll renegotiate
Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
And don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we'll never stop this train"

Once in a while, when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
Till you cry when you're driving away in the dark

Singing, stop this train
I wanna get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
Cause now I see I'll never stop this train

Lately I feel like I've woken up and discovered that life is racing by faster than I can handle. When I think about things like getting a full-time job, moving away from school, getting married, having kids, grandkids... and eventually losing my parents, my siblings, my friends, as we all get old... I'm not ready for any of that; I don't want to be ready for any of that yet. I'm not ready to fight life out on my own.

It seems like there are people who can, at the end of their lives, lie on their deathbeds and say with confidence that they're happy with the lives that they've lived and that they're ready to go. Obviously, I'm not to that point, but it makes me wonder -- what are the things that I want to have done by the time I die? What do I need to be happy? To feel like I've really made the most of my life?

What if I were to die tomorrow? What would I regret never doing, or trying, or saying? If I were to follow the saying "live as though you would die tomorrow", how would I live differently? Would I be kinder? More patient? Would I tell, show my family and friends more often how much I love them? Would I be better about calling, writing emails? About listening? About just being there for others?

I don't know what I want out of life. Or what it wants out of me. I don't know what I want to accomplish, and see, and experience before I'm ready to go. How can I be ready to live out the rest of my life if I don't know what I want to do with it?

Honestly, won't someone stop this train?

Inspirational quotes that I always ignored for some reason

Found my assignment notebook from high school! I pulled some quotes out of it that I like:

RESOLUTION: "When we cannot change a situation, resolution comes through the way we choose to handle it within ourselves." -- Gerald Coffee

MOTIVATION: "Ability is what you're capable of doing... motivation determines what you do... attitude determines how well you do it." -- Anonymous

OPTIMISM: "Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world." -- George Bernard Shaw

RESPONSIBILITY: "We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts." -- Madeleine L'Engle

ATTITUDE: "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude." -- Maya Angelou

TOLERANCE: "The test of courage comes when we are in the minority; the test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority." -- Ralph W. Sockman

PERSPECTIVE: "When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us." -- Alexander Graham Bell

INSPIRATION: "The key to life is imagination." -- Jane Stanton Hitchcock

Heather the 12-year-old poet (no. 6)

This was the most interesting poem for me to read. Made me kind of introspective again, actually.

MIRROR POEM: Secrets

When I look into the mirror,
I see another person.
A person I can relate to,
who can share all my secrets.
Looking into her dark eyes,
I can see something there:
A sense of achievement;
a strong self-motivation.
This, I feel,
is a dependable person,
who won't let me down,
unless it is beyond her control.
I can tell she has seen many successes,
yet I see also many failures.
I see how they bother her,
gnawing away at the back of her mind,
like little, pesky rodents.
Things that could have gone better,
had she put in the effort.
Opportunities that could have been opened,
had she only let them be.
But worst of all,
I see the failures that most torture her.
When those she cared most about,
had to endure pain and sorrow.
Those times are the most awful,
to her sensitive conscience.
Even if she could have changed nothing,
still the thought nags at her,
that she should have done something!
These things reveal themselves to me,
as I continue to look into her eyes.
However, I am quite sure,
that she will never burden another,
with the wild, troublesome thoughts,
that fly through her mind at every second.
Never will they know what lies beneath.
The cheerful smile,
the good-natured laugh,
it is all a concealment
of the problems she seeks to resolve.
She does not want others to worry,
or feel sorry for her,
or to know when they have hurt her,
so she simply keeps it a secret,
a caged animal threatening to emerge.
As I watch her,
I wish to tell her,
not to be so protective,
of the people around her,
but to be mindful to herself.
I want to tell her,
to enjoy herself in life,
and all the gifts it brings.
I feel that she should know
she can take a break sometimes.
And I will be there for her,
just as she is there for others.

Yeah. Speaks for itself, really.