A little boy at the Indian rodeo thought I was cool!
Let me tell you how flattering it is that people aspire to be me. It thrills me that I have done something that others want to do. I'm excited to share my experiences with people and I want to help others to succeed. I blush whenever cowboys tell me I did a good job and I smile big enough to hurt my cheeks when little kids want to take a picture with me.
Let me tell you what agitates me more than most will be able to comprehend. Two words; luck and wish. These two words bother me so badly that I am going to dedicate an entire bullet point to each of them. I'll start with the definition of each word in case any of my readers practice English as a second language and need clarification. I'm only at the level of 'moderately sassy' tonight also, I'm breaking you in slowly to 'massively sassy.'
- Luck; success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions. That is the official definition. Wow, nobody has ever used a dictionary before, myself included evidently, because I was pleasantly surprised when I transferred those words. Luck is chance! Luck is winning the lottery. Lucky is the name of a kitten saved from a burlap sack headed for the stock tank. Luck is not having a brilliantly satisfying career and a life worth writing about. Luck is not what I have because I have careened into every pothole the road has to offer and plans I have relied on have went up in smoke time and time again. Mind numbing heartache and back breaking work is what I have invested.
- Wish; to feel or express a strong desire or hope for something that is not easily attainable; to want something that cannot or probably will not happen. Once again I bring you the official definition and once again I am thrilled. Every single one of you whiners needs to bust out a dictionary. How inspiring! How True! Wishing is to do none other than waste time deeming something unobtainable. I shall spend the rest of this entry describing to you how obtainable every single thing you ever wanted truly is. You want my life? Then come get it.
I can't seem to recall when I was at my lowest point, broken and alone, and someone approached me and presented me with everything I wanted that would cure my impossible state. I do recall being scared and depressed and having the feeling that I was the last human being on this planet. I remember when I thought nobody cared about me and I remember when I had no one to turn to. It was at that moment I decided that the only one who could change my situation was myself. I was the only one who could pick me up, I was the only one who could fix me. So I did. Its puzzling to me the massive amounts of people, especially people my age, who live in a mystical land of rainbows and entitlement. Where is this place? Because I don't know what it feels like to have everything handed to me. Nobody can make you into the person you want to be, you can be given everything the world has to offer and you will still just be a hollow shell. Fill yourself up from the inside out because how you feel will always be more important than how you look; happiness shines more brilliantly than beauty and wealth ever will.
Nobody has all the answers. A 'Ten Step Plan' does not exist to get you where you want to be. It won't be easy and it won't be fun unless you allow it to be. Life is about the journey, the destination is just a bonus. So many friends and acquaintances of mine question me regularly on how exactly it is that I do what I want with my life. That's simple; we have an undetermined amount of days left to live our lives, you can choose to lay down and accept whatever it is that falls into your lap or you can choose to chase butterflies because the butterflies are what makes you happy. I have done everything I have ever wanted to do up until this point in my life. When opportunities knock, I answer the door. I don't question how that opportunity could end up failing, I don't try to manipulate that opportunity to suit me. I just take the damn thing and I'm thankful for it and I do my best to mold myself into becoming the person I am continually growing into. When your old clothes don't fit anymore you trash them and buy new ones. You can keep buying grey t-shirts or you can take a chance on neon colors with sequins and fringe, if you decide your new shirt doesn't fit then take it back and try something new! You are the only one who is truly forcing yourself into a set of ideals, you can choose your own ideals. You can exchange your new shirt dozens of times, that is nobody's business except your own.
It's ok to change your mind, it's okay to be a quitter. Whoever preached to you that you should stay the course is a fool. Why on earth would you force yourself to continue doing something that makes you unhappy or something you are physically terrible at? During middle school I thought I was going to be a big tennis star so I bought all my gear and showed up to practice. As it turns out, Ray Charles could've annihilated me on the tennis court and it absolutely bored me to death. I didn't stick it out, I didn't embarrass myself. I sold all of that garbage and I slept in for the rest of the summer. That is what made me happy and I've never regretted it a day since. I would have regretted not taking that opportunity though, what if I would've missed my calling? I didn't make any excuses when I saw the flyer advertising the practice dates and I didn't think for one minute that I could've possibly been so horrible at it, I just did it with great intentions. It failed miserably but it takes every little stone to build a mountain, my mountain would crumble without those experiences.
Here's a plot twist for anyone that thinks my life is perfect; I'm not where I want to be in life and I'm not the person I want to be. That is okay. It's okay because I'm working on it, every day I'm working on it. Artists don't just dump a bunch of paint onto a canvas and it's a masterpiece. One layer of paint is applied at a time, little by little, until the image comes into focus and suddenly it's worth a million dollars. You are worth a million dollars. Right now you might just be a blank canvas, or maybe you have a few layers that you'd like to cover up, either way, it's obtainable. No sense in throwing out a masterpiece in the making.
When I was little I told my family I wanted to be a cowboy and live in Texas. I sure didn't know where Texas was, I only knew the cowboys I saw on the television and most importantly I was girl. Bummer, I could never make my dreams come true now, impossible, only a wish. Right? But I wasn't raised to think that way, I was told I could go anywhere and be anyone I wanted to be and I believed that to my core. So I choreographed my entire life around moving to Texas and being a cowboy. I'll be damned if I'm not a cowboy living in west Texas. What if my plans had changed? What if I had decided that's not who I wanted to be? Then I just wasted all that time and effort? No, absolutely not. Every ounce of effort you put into yourself is magnified a trillion times to the people you associate with and that gets noticed. Doors open for you when you quit locking them with your poor attitude.
Please quit whining. Quit comparing yourself to everyone else. Quit waiting for your dreams to materialize. You can only be as happy as you allow yourself to be so you might as well start layering your paint now. Today, not tomorrow. You're a million dollar masterpiece, now prove it to yourself.
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