A Flame Within

I've developed a love for writing poems. So here is a Shakespearean sonnet about the flame within!

How darkness threatens to overtake me
The foreboding presence that lingers around
A black panther waiting to pounce upon thee
A dark sky forming shadows over ground
But the everlasting flame burns inside
Neither does it burn too hot nor too cold
Like an infant sunrise frozen in time
Enough light breaking the grip darkness holds
Frozen yet fantastically set ablaze
Mighty winds whose team is adversity
Threaten, rooting for stillness of no flame
May it waiver back and forth possibly
Like a drunken sailor while out to sea
Yet the flame within stays lit guarding me

2 Words You Should Limit

There are some words in your vocabulary you just shouldn't use or at least limit. No, I'm not talking about swearing. These two words catch people up and limit their actions. Put a limit on these words, don't let them put a limit on you.

#1 Try
This seems like an okay word, doesn't it? What then, is so bad about the word try? Shouldn't we all try to do our best?

a) I'm gonna try to lose 5 pounds next month.
b) I'm gonna lose 5 pounds next month.

What one sounds better? Letter b sounds a whole lot more empowering to me. You see, young grasshopper, try is used only when failure is expected. Try invites failure to hang around. Yoda had it right all along, for there really is no try; it's either mission accomplished or not. I realize that yes, just because people say the word try doesn't always mean they intend to fail. We say it out of habit. But maybe it's time to toss this habit. Maybe it's time to start empowering ourselves more. We can do this by limiting this one word. Some of you might be thinking well, what if i don't say try but still end up failing. That's perfectly alright.
I'm losing 5 pounds next month. When i said that, i intended to meet that goal. I didn't go into it thinking i might or might not lose the weight. I didn't intend for failure to happen but it did. That just means i have to work harder and convert that unburned potential into work and that work into results. Potential is always there, even during failure. You see, i believe it all boils down to the unconscious mind. When you eliminate that three letter word from your sentence, you in a sense eliminate failure. Your brain then has to think of ways to achieve that goal!

#2 Talent
Talent really is a nasty little word. It does an effective job limiting peoples' potential. A lot of people get caught up on this word; i know I use to. The talent definition straight out of the dictionary: a special natural ability or aptitude. Where many people go wrong, is thinking that unless they were born with it, they won't ever have this so called talent. That, my friend, is completely untrue. Talent has the dirty trick of masking over it's contender, that of skill. Skill has just the opposite effect on people. Much like learning to play an instrument; people believe they can acquire the skill. Generally, they believe they weren't born without the capacity to learn.

Now don't get me wrong, there's always going to be people with whom things come easy. There's always going to be people who blow you away with their awesome creative works. But they too at one point had to master the techniques and skills at which they are now so good at. They had to master them even if they came easier than with other people. You see, it is possible to become "talented". The way I see it, the only pure form of talent is the talent of mastering skills. And that's something I believe everyone is born with. The key thing to remember is that perseverance and desire can get you further than talent alone. Read my blog post, Can You Walk Away, for my own run in with talent vs. skill. Also, head on over to After the Rain for an excellent post on talent and skill.

An additional word you shouldn't use: HELL
If you knew how bad Hell really was, you wouldn't use the word so lightly.

Memory Photos

You know what i hate sometimes? How times goes by and things feel like they're fading into memory. I know you cannot control this process but still i don't like it. In a way, things seem like they never really happened. Like it was all in a dreamland or something.
It seems just a short while ago i was sitting in my apartment at my desk being so grateful for the current moment because i knew this day would come. I thought about how I'm going to miss coming back to my own place with my friends around me. And that no matter how much i bitched about classes, i was truly glad to go through them if it meant having what i didn't really have in high school. To relearn what i had forgotten: what a good friend is really like. If I was bored, I could just go over to the other room to my friends and we could help each other procrastinate. Yes, that last semester i probably lived more in the moment than i ever did. I wanted to capture what no picture could.

Do you ever look at something and take a picture of it only to discover that it wasn't as good as what you saw? That's because your eyes are the best camera and your memory is the best photo. To have a photo from the memory really is the best thing. Way better than an actual photo i think. Because a memory photo is a 3D picture; it contains the sounds, the feeling, the smell....everything you can think of really. Yes, an actual photo can do this but really all it's doing is reminding you of that memory photo. That's its job... of being the second best to remind you of the first.
I'm so grateful because i feel like i have a lot of those memory photos. And knowing that makes me feel a little better when I look back and realize time really does go on by.

Can You Walk Away?

Here’s a question/test. Can you walk away when you're bad at something? Does it bother you if you aren’t good at it?  Sure, we would all like to be good at lots of things but what I’m asking is something different. When you’re not good at something does it feel like it really gets under your skin and there’s no way you can just walk away? If you answered yes, you can walk away, then that’s alright. Strength comes in all forms. Sometimes it takes the most strength to walk away from something you know is not working out. But if you answered no, then that means you’ve found your interest, maybe even passion in life…..
I modeled this question after my own experiences. Right now I’m a biology major and I’m fairly certain that I didn’t really choose the right major. Don’t get me wrong, I like bio, the environment, being outside, and all that stuff. However, I’ve come to realize there’s a difference between liking something and having a passion for it. There’s a difference between studying something and getting a job in it. See, with science you have to take lots of math and chemistry courses. You have to write papers scientifically, something which you science majors know takes practice. I’m not that great at it but that doesn’t bother me. I can walk away from it. If you truly like something shouldn’t you want to get better? That’s how I came up with the first answer to the question above. Here’s the second one.

I always liked drawing. I was drawn to drawing you could say. I liked it but didn’t think I was good enough. I would get so mad at myself because at the time, I thought being an artist was all about drawing from your head-the thing I couldn’t do. Another thing I couldn’t do, but so desperately wanted, was to draw people. There’s just something about creating that life like illusion on paper! Making the unreal seem real fascinates me. I tried, but I could not draw people realistically. I remember watching cop shows and getting so jealous of the sketch artists renditions of the criminals. I envied what they were able to do. I would get so frustrated because I loved drawing but didn’t see the results I wanted. I didn’t fit into the “artist” role so I would get fed up and quit drawing. But I always went back to it after a while. This cycle happened over and over until one day in college when it completely ended. I look at that day as one of the highlights of college. That might seem like a dramatic statement to you. And that’s exactly how I feel; it was a dramatic moment for me.

I was in the part of the cycle where I picked up drawing again. I was kind of depressed that I wasn’t "talented" in my passion. So like anyone in today's world, I turned to Google for my questions. I asked (once and for all) whether you needed talent to be an artist. I wasn’t expecting to find anything but did. I came across this article that talked about art myths. One of the myths was that you needed talent to be an artist. The article stated talent is really an overrated thing. It went on to say that if you truly believed you had no talent whatsoever, then you wouldn’t have any desire to paint, draw, etc. That was like a slap in the face to me. I realized that deep down I believed in myself.  I guess I  just needed some positive reinforcement to shed away the layers of doubt. I needed to forget about that nasty word called talent. The article ended by saying talent will only get you so far; it’s the systematic learning paired with desire that gets you places. At that instant, it was like my battery went from dead to fully charged. I had that spark and was ready set fire! I finally got out of the damaging thought that being artistic is inherently based on talent.
From that moment on, I  believed if I just took the right class, or found the right book then that would be my key.  I was going to make this happen! So I eagerly began my search looking for online classes and websites. I found a few good sites but they weren’t the site. Days later, still with my newly acquired positive attitude and still looking for instructional material,  a thought occurred to me. If drawing is more of a skill like they say, then I should be able to learn what I've always wanted to do: portraits. At this point in time I pushed the possibility of ever drawing people to the back of my mind. It seemed like a huge mountain to climb but i was ready. With my “fully charged battery” I saw things differently and let this desire I once had, resurface. So that was the next thing I Googled: learn to draw people. I was nervous when it did it . It sounds weird to admit but I guess I was afraid of not being able to succeed. Of being forced to walk away.

I eventually found this website that ended up being the game changer. Here this guy had amazing portraits of famous people that you recognized. They were so good and of course I was jealous! Then I read his biography section he said he couldn’t always draw like this. He even went as far as to say that he couldn’t even draw a straight line before getting this book. He gave all this praise about how this one book taught him to draw like this. He urgently encouraged his readers to check it out and directed people to an Amazon link. I checked it out and it seemed like a good book-perhaps the one I had been searching for. I previewed the book and saw before and after pictures of people’s portraits. They had the same drawings of pictures before studying the book and drawings from after they studied the book. It was truly a 180 degree difference.  I was so amazed and bought the book immediately.
Let me just tell you that book was amazing and that guy wasn’t lying. It was just the thing I had been searching for.

I studied the book and before I knew it, I had completed a portrait. I remember that moment so clearly too. I took a sec and soaked it in. I accomplished the one thing that I've always wanted to do but thought I never would. My eyes got a little watery because it just felt so good to reach what felt like an impossible goal. It’s a powerful feeling. I wish I could just bottle it up and give it to people. That’s why it absolutely kills me when people look at drawings and say they could never do that. It kills me because I know that isn’t true. I was there at the same place you were. I couldn’t and thought that I never wouldn't but I did and now I can! And so can you! If you have the desire then you CAN do it. And if you still don’t believe me? Well, I guess there’s no hope for you because it’s like you going outside and saying the sky isn’t blue.

That story fits in with the second answer to the question because I could not walk away from drawing. I kept coming back to it even when I was bad at it. Even though I didn't have the skills I wanted, I still liked to draw.
I know this was a long blog and I thank you for reading it. This is something I’m passionate about. It’s like having a treasure map and figuring out where the treasure is! You just want to share your excitement with people and tell them where they can find their own treasure. I often think about how I would love nothing more than to take someone under my wing and teach them to draw. To guide them and lead them to experience the same things I felt. It’s an awesome feeling, so I'm telling you, go out and find that treasure!

A negative can lead to a positive

Sometimes less than best is better. That seems counter intuitive doesn’t it?

For the first year and a half of college I didn’t own a camera. Needless to say I didn’t take a lot of pictures. Looking back on it now, it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. Sure, I missed capturing some memories. Although by not having a camera, I have now have an extra awareness to preserve the moments with snapshots. It’s not just the big moments but the small ones too; the random, candid ones. I feel like random photo shots are a way of catching up on the photos that I missed. It’s a way of really capturing the true moment. If you think about it, the random, candid photos are the ones that make up the bulk of our lives.
If I didn’t have that period of time where i felt like I missed out, I don’t know if I would have felt the same need to take pictures. I don’t know if the same photos would even have been taken. Maybe, maybe not.

Power of Potential

When you feel depressed and think of the mistakes you've made, it's easy to get pulled into a downward spiral. Sometimes it feels like you're a failure, maybe even a failure at life. Although, is there really such a thing? The fact that you're living answers that question with a NO. As long as there is potential, failure really doesn't hold its weight over you. There's still a chance if you have the heart to undertake it.

Embers around a campfire look insignificant from a distance but when you step closer you see an intense burning within the branches of wood. And when you focus your efforts and blow on them, often they sprout right back up into tiny flames. That's all you need. Once you have that tiny flame, let it guide you. At the same time, help guide the flame yourself by nurturing it and adding stuff to make it stronger. Avoid self doubt for that has the same effect as water. Actively seek out the good side of a situation because that is the wood which makes the flame stronger.
The thing about potential is that there's always potential for potential.

Live Like a Baby Elephant

I'm going to share a perspective/outlook that is good to have. Don't give me credit for the idea though because i read it from a motivational book. I think it's really inspiring; it helps me break out of the mold sometimes.
So here it is: Live life like a baby elephant. Here's why.

When wild elephants are caught for the circus they are conditioned to be broken. The trainers start by putting a steel chain around the baby elephant’s leg. Now elephants are very intelligent and social creatures, so it's especially hard for this little elephant to be away from its mother. Like all of us, he does not want to be imprisoned. So the little elephant tries to escape to freedom but is jerked back by the chain. He tries over and over not wanting to hand his fate over to captivity. Soon his leg starts to get raw and sore from all the tugging. It doesn't take long before the little elephant associates tugging with pain. He stops knowing that no matter how hard he tries his attempts at freedom are no good.
As the elephant grows up, the chain is replaced by rope. By now, the elephant weighs thousands of pounds and rope is certainly not going to hold him back.
Freedom is right there. To obtain it, all the elephant has to do is try to escape just once more. That’s all it would take. You see, the elephant doesn’t try to escape because he still feels something around his leg. He assumes it’s the steel chain so he doesn't bother tugging at it. He doesn’t think he can escape, so he doesn’t try.

We are a lot like elephants. So often people let themselves get “chained” into thinking that they can’t do things. They assume they wouldn’t be any good or that things won’t change from the way they are now. Always live life like a baby elephant. Be willing to keep tugging, to keep trying to run away. Don’t let others tell you that you cannot do a certain thing. Don't let your own mentality tell you that you can't do things. Don't let these people and these thoughts be your chain. Always check yourself now and then to make sure you aren't confusing chains with ropes. We all have our moments of doubt and uncertainly but the important thing is to keep fighting and believing. Running away from things is not always bad, in this case it was remaining still that lead to the unhappy ending.
Never give up. You never know, all it could take is that one last try that gives way to success.