Our generation has everything we need to be successful. We can learn anything and everything from the comfort of our own homes. We can even learn things while half asleep, in bed.
We never go anywhere without our phones. We use our laptop, tablet or Smartphone every minute we’re awake. It’s like it’s glued to our hand. We get mini heart attacks if we don’t feel our phone in our pocket and we will jump up from the couch if we can’t find it within a few seconds. We know our way around the internet and we have the time of our lives watching fights and other stupidity on Worldstar. We use Google and YouTube, but for all the wrong reasons. When is the last time you looked up something that made you smarter? A vine is only 6 seconds, but how many do we watch? I know I like to look at compilations and those take up to 8-24 minutes. In 8 minutes I have watched 80 vines. In 24 minutes I have watched 240 vines. That means I have wasted 480-1440 seconds. I might have laughed 10 times but that’s all it did for me. You can type in anything you want on Google or YouTube and have the answers within 2 seconds (If you have good Wi-Fi). I learned how to knit and crochet on YouTube. I made a couple of scarves and I’m working on a second blanket. I didn’t have to read the books my mom gave me. I just typed a word and got all the videos explaining and showing me how to do it, step by step. YouTube also taught me how to properly decorate a cake. Things I didn’t have to take a class for. All for free. But instead of feeling the need to learn new things, when I open YouTube I want to see interviews from the breakfast club and I watch vlogs that don’t do anything for me, except wasting 10 minutes of my day. We want to see what other people do in their lives. We want to know their business. What we should be doing, is making sure we have our business in control. Most of us don’t. I am one of them. We follow hundreds of people on Instagram, Twitter, facebook, Soundcloud … what else? We are more focused on the likes we get on Facebook and Instagram, the retweets on Twitter and the followers we have. When I found out my mom had twitter and she had more followers than me I felt a certain kind of way. Why? I have no idea. (Note: My mom is a business woman with a lot of contact. Yes, this is me defending the fact that my mom (!) has more followers than me) We are so focused on things that don’t matter. What happens if internet stops working for 24 hours? We’d be lost! We wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves. My 7 year old niece came over last week. She grabbed her tablet and asked for the Wi-Fi password. What?! When I was 7, I played with Barbie’s. She doesn’t even like dolls anymore. She’s ‘too old’ for that. Ok, fair enough, when I was 7 internet wasn’t what it is right now. But she has her own Google+ account and she plays games online and she needs WI-FI!!! She didn’t use the internet to Google something interesting. No, she showed me a video of someone doing crazy dances on YouTube. She introduced me to ‘Dance Moms’ and she even clicked on a video from IceJJFish. I think my generation and the generation after mine are the first to start living online. But I fear for the generation of my daughter. I think they will only live online. Am I paranoid? Please let me know what you think about this.
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Have you ever looked up to someone? Someone close? Like your father or mother. Your brother, sister, maybe an aunt or your grandparent? A friend?
I know I looked up to a lot of people growing up. I wanted what they had. Or what I thought they had. All of my uncles and aunts own their houses. I wanted that. I still do. The one person I looked up to the most seemed to have everything she could ever want. A good job, a car, a dog a cat and her three kids were her monkey's. I always thought she made it. After letting time go by I started to realize that she didn't have it all. I wished she did but my idea of her life was so perfect when I grew up. She was so successful. The ideas I had of grownups as a child was unrealistic. Now that I've got older I realize that. Driving a car doesn't mean you're doing good for yourself. Having a house doesn't mean you don't ever struggle with the bills. Even if you look happy on the outside doesn't mean you never cry on the inside. What am I trying to say? I looked up to someone. I looked at her and saw who I wanted to become when I grew up. Growing up showed me that people are very good actors. After knowing someone for years you start seeing through the cracks of their skin. You see who they really are. I was disappointed. She wasn't as successful as I thought. She wasn't who I wanted to be when I grew up. But also, somebody might not be who they seem. You can’t judge anybody by the things you know of them. Because people will show you what they want you to know but nothing else. Someone you know who seems to have it all, won’t show you the list of all the bills they haven’t paid over the last few years. Someone won’t tell you the reason that made them do something. You can’t look into someone’s head. You can’t read their minds and you don’t know enough about someone to ever judge them. You can’t judge the people around you or people you see on the street. I have learned that it isn’t wrong to look up to someone but you might get disappointed if you find out that the person you wanted to become is nothing like what you thought they were. I decided that I want to become the person I can be proud of. I want to be my own role model. I don’t want to be like someone else. I want to be me. The best me I can possibly be. Honestly, I do still look up to some people. In some ways. I see what they have done and accomplished and I see their story as an inspiration for mine. I guess what I want you to know is… Don’t let anybody else’s success or failure decide whether or not you are successful. Don’t look to much at others and their accomplishments in life. Look at what you can accomplish. Focus on that. Who are your role models? Are you striving to become your own role model? Please, let me know what you think in the comments below. You can also send a message to my email. Go to StraightThinking.weebly.com/contact I know I've already told you this, but I started writing when I was about 6, 7 years old. It was my way into a whole new world. I controlled that world and everything happened the way I wanted it to be. It became a place I’d hide or go to when things in my own life didn't go so well. It made me feel better, it recharged my battery.
Reading the stories I wrote years ago makes me feel uncomfortable. I put so much emotion into those stories. I never wanted someone to read it. I didn't want them to know what I was dealing with. Even now, I can feel how I felt when I wrote a certain part. I didn't want anybody else to feel that too. I stopped writing for a while. I had no idea what to write about and when I did, I got stuck around page 4. So I gave up. But for a long time I felt like I missed something. Until I picked up one of the stories I couldn't finish before and began writing again. I didn't really like the story so I started writing a new one. I kept writing and before I realized it I was at 53 pages, 43.985 words and 220.326 characters. When I saw that I was proud. I love the story I’m writing and the 2 people who read a part of it can’t wait for me to finish it. I always dreamed about publishing a book and seeing it in a bookstore. I’m very realistic and I know I will probably never write a ‘Harry Potter’ or something with as much success but I’m totally fine with that! The thing I can’t wait for, is receiving a package with my book, published and printed, ready to show it to others. I like to read a book in bed, before I go to sleep. I pull all my pillows against the headboard, get comfortable, pull my blankets up high and read in complete silence. I zone out. I get so into the book that I forget that I’m just reading it. A good book plays in my head, like a movie. To me, there is nothing better than a good book. I can only imagine, someone else pulling all the pillows to their headboard, getting comfortable and reading my book. Telling their friends that they should also read it. For now, it’s just a dream. But believe me, I will do everything I can to make my dream my reality. I know that I’m not the only one with a dream. I bet you have a few yourself. If you don’t, start dreaming! BIG! The first time I started thinking about publishing one of my stories, I was with my grandma and I was about 13 years old. It was a thought. I didn't dream about it yet. If I think about a published book on Amazon with my name on it now, I can do nothing, but smile. I get a good feeling and all I want to do is continue writing so I can drop it on a publishers desk as soon as possible. Having a dream and putting in the effort to achieve it, is the best feeling ever. Knowing that all the things you’re working so hard on, are about to become real. Knowing that you will be able to say ‘I made it’ and it won’t be long before you can. Your dream doesn't have to be reality for you to believe in it. Believe in it now, only then you can make it your reality. When J.K. Rowling first showed her manuscript of ‘Harry Potter’ to publishers they turned it down. What if she had given up, right then and there? Even if you get knocked down a few times, DO NOT GIVE UP! Keep going until your dream comes true. Don’t let anybody tell you that you should give up. EVER. My dream will become my reality. Will yours? What are your dreams? Do you have an idea on how you will make it your reality? Did one of your dreams come true? How did you accomplish that? Let me know your thoughts and experiences. We all regret some things. One thing more than the other.
But why? Why do we hold on to the things we can’t control anymore? Why do we keep thinking about certain things we wish we wouldn't have said, wouldn't have done? Or would have said and done? We already know we can’t change anything about it . I know I kept holding on to the way I said some things. Hoping I would get a chance to change it. Hoping that it was all just a dream. So what’s the point? Why do we feel like we need to remember the things we did ‘wrong’ in the past? We know that we have no control over the past, so why do we keep thinking about it as if we can change something? I’m good at holding on to things I know I should let go off. I mostly regretted saying certain things. Or not saying things. So I started thinking twice before I opened my mouth to speak. That led to over thinking. I would beat myself up over it if I had said something wrong. Even if the one I spoke to didn't take it the way I actually meant it. Beating myself up over those things made me unhappy. I didn't want to rub people the wrong way but because I was so focused on what I didn't want, I stopped doing what I did want. One day I told myself to just stop. Stop over thinking what you want to say. Stop over thinking every step you take. Stop beating yourself up for making a mistake. Stop beating yourself up for how others react to you. Stop making you feel so bad. Stop holding on to things you can’t control! I had to come to the realization that I wasn't perfect. I’m still a human being and it doesn't matter how hard I try, I can’t change that about myself. I can’t be perfect, no matter how much I want to be. So letting go is the only way. The thought of letting go terrified me. I had to start by letting go of my fear. I was scared to fail. Scared that if I wouldn't try to be perfect, I wouldn't be good enough. I had to let go of that fear. That also meant that I had to start trusting myself for what I was worth. That’s probably the hardest thing. To trust your worth. It won’t come out of nowhere. It will take a lot of work from deep within. Aside from that you have to start looking forward. You’ll have to toss your rear view mirror out of the window and look ahead. When you have accepted that you can’t do anything about the past, it will be a lot easier to let it go. All I can do now, is choose my words carefully and think about the consequences of my actions before I do something. Off course I think of some of the things I said sometimes and I need to tell myself that I can’t change it anymore. So I have to let it go. It took some time, but it works. Thinking of all the things that you did wrong in the past isn't going to make anything better. It’s not going to help you in any way either. If you have to think about it, think about how to do it better next time. After that, let it go. It’s the only way. If you keep holding on to all those things you did in the past, you’re going to be more focused on the past and the things you have no control over instead of the present and the things you can control. And because you will be focused on the past you will do things in the present which you will regret in the future. Are you or were you over thinking every step you take/took or word you say/said? How did you let go of the things you regretted? Let me know what you think in the comments. |
AuthorMy passion is writing. I started writing stories when I was only 6 years old and I still do it today. Blogging is something I've been wanting to do for a long time, so here we are. Archives
July 2017
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