New Years Regeneration

"we all change.
When you think about it, we're all different people all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good, you've got to keep moving.
So long as you remember all the people that you used to be.
I will not forget one line of this.
Not one day.
I swear."
-Matt Smith as the Doctor


A few weeks ago I was on the popular ipod app "Timehop". The premise of the app is pulling up facebook statuses from 2,3,4 and even 5 years ago creating the oh so beautiful feeling of nostalgia and reminding us all how absolutely idiotic we were in the 7th grade. On this particular day a few weeks ago, Timehop  pulled up a picture that really stroke a cord with me. I was standing with a group of people who I thought were going to be my friends for life and a boy who I thought was the love of my life had his arm around my shoulder. I was skinnier, my friends were cooler and I was yet to gain the reputation of  the crazy fangirl chick who spends far too much time on the internet. But despite all of these things that should have made me yearn for this past life, I found my self glad rather than upset. Although I did miss my old friends and old life, I was so happy that I had moved on and become this new person, who was no more and no less "myself", because if I hadn't have ever been this girl in the picture, I would have never become the person I am today.

   Human beings have a tendency to cling to the past, especially me. We have this need to crawl back into our old selves rather than move forward and become new, even more fantastic people. My favorite show in the entire world is the classic British Sci-fi series, Doctor Who (if you listen closely you can hear all of my friends and family releasing a heavy sigh). For those of you who don't know, the show centers around the Doctor, who rather than dying, "regenerates" into a new face (or rather, when one actor leaves they replace him with a new guy). The character still remains "The Doctor", retaining the same memories and keeping key personality traits but changing a few things. Aside from the change of face, the Doctor also changes things such as how dramatic he is, how energetic he is and how open he is among other minor traits.

     On Christmas day the fabulous Matt Smith, regenerated into Peter Capaldi, forever handing over his keys to the TARDIS. While past doctors have feared this change with cries of "I don't want to go!", Smith's doctor embraced the change, giving the monologue quoted above.  While this was of course meant to be about the change of actor and Doctor, I feel like it was also a message to all of us. A very timely message as it was given as the New Year is fastly approaching. We should not fear becoming new people, but we should not forget who we once were. We are who are because of who we used to be.

We must learn to lay our passed lives down to rest, bet let their memories live on, especially during this time of resolution and regeneration.

 

-Ellen

"There are Children Starving in Africa!"

“Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won't make us happier.” 
― Randy Pausch

“I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.” 
― Jane Wagner

Before we get into this post lets set the scene.

You're about 9 or 10 years old and it's about 7 or 8 o'clock in the evening. You're sitting in the living room or basement or your bedroom playing Super Mario on your Nintendo 64. You're getting really into it when your mother yells "DINNER!" from the kitchen. A bit irritated  you  yell back, "ONE MORE LEVEL!".

"DINNER. NOW."

"BUT MOOooooOOOOOoooOOM!!"

"NOW!"

You reluctantly put down the controller and join your family for dinner, which to your despair includes a hefty serving of broccoli. You spend most of the dinner pushing the broccoli aside and enjoying the rest of your meal, completely vegetable free. This is when your mother says the thing, the thing that we have all heard at some point in out life, that dreaded phrase, that to be honest, did not make much sense at the time; "Please eat your vegetables! There are starving children in Africa!"

Although this scene is a bit cliche, I feel we, as a generation, could learn from it. The fact of the matter is that there ARE starving children in Africa. There ARE people who have so much less than us. So then why do we all complain so much? Something I've noticed recently is that people seem to complain... simply for the sake of complaining.

You have an essay to write?
UUGHHHHHHHHHHHH

You have to go visit your Great Aunt Beth this weekend?
AARRGHHHHH

Dinner isn't quiet to your liking tonight?
I HAVE LOST THE WILL TO GO ON

When we step back and take a look at things, most of us really don't have it that bad.

For example, and I'm guilty of this too;
At my school one thing students LOVE to complain about is the quality of the food in the cafeteria. But why? You don't have to prepare the food (it magically appears on a counter for you to grab and put on a plate), It's not old or expired or rotten, you don't have to clean the dishes (they magically disappear through a door and come out clean). So then if things are so easy, why do so many people spend so much time complaining about this? What does this complaining accomplish? The answer of course; is nothing.

Another example is the complaints that occur when we are asked to do something that might be a little out of our way. Ironically, these are usually things we signed up for in the first place. If you auditioned for and made it in to a show or musical of some sort, why would you complain when you have to fulfill the expectations of being in this show? If you applied to College/ University and got in, why would you complain when you have to do the work required to achieve your major?

Complaining for the most point, unless you are starting a revolution of some sort, is a pretty pointless act. It accomplishes nothing and does not improve society in anyway (note that I'm talking about complaints without action).

So sometimes you get handed the short end of life, embrace it! Don't waste time whining about the paint that accidentally got pulled off the ceiling of your dorm room and the fine you'll have to pay for it (it's a long story), pay the fine and move on!

Pointless complaints are something all humans are guilty of, especially including myself. It's something I feel we could all work on. So next time you let out a loud UGGGHHHHHH after having a rough day in class/work, think about whether or not that UUUGHHHH will solve anything.

In short; think about those starving children in Africa.

-Ellen

Sonder

“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.”

—

David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King Have you ever taken a moment to ponder the fact that every person you come in contact with has their own world going on inside of them. Every person you sit next to in class, every person you walk passed on the sidewalk and every person you stand next to in the supermarket has a secret world that defines how they see the outside. This world is built on past experiences, past upbringing and current situations, among other things. People are much more complex then what they seem to be on the outside. The word I used as the title of this post is one of my favorite words in the entire world. The world "sonder" puts a definition to a feeling that has before been very hard to describe in the past. The definition being; Sonder; n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk. Now this definition is quite obviously not something you would find in Websters dictionary. That is because Sonder is not in fact a real word, but rather a made up one used to describe the indescribable.      This all being said I find it very important that before I judge another person, I take into consideration what the person's secret inside world might be like. What trials they may have gone through that made them into the person they are today. The hardest, meanest individuals may have been made this way due to a lifetime of hardship that has caused their inside worlds to become a darker place. People who you consider "strange" or "weird" might simply have very different worlds from your's, leaving you little room to judge.       Although I myself still struggle with this as everyone else does, I try to make it a point  to not harshly judge others until I have heard their story and figured out why they are the person they are today. Through this I have discovered that many people I judged harshly at first are some of the most remarkable people I have ever met.  Everyone has been through their own hardships and has their own story to tell; so think before you judge.  -Ellen

Escape the Labyrinth

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

—

Albert Camus, The Stranger Something I have often caught myself doing, is thinking too much. I can't just accept things for the way they are. I feel a need to analyze every social norm, rule and even emotion. Because of this I find myself missing out on "real life" because I am too busy thinking about what "real life" really is and what is the proper way to live it. It's almost as if I get stuck in the "labyrinth" of my own mind. Many of my close friends have told me that they also tend to get stuck in these states of deep thought which often times leads to states of anxiety over the inevitability of death and our insignificance  in the greater scheme of the world. The title of this post can be attributed to a favorite quote of mine by my favorite author of all time; John Green. The quote reads as follows;  “You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking how you'll escape one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.”                                   - John Green, Looking for Alaska.  Although this is not what the quote was originally meant to be interpreted as, I tend to read this as a warning to not spend your whole life thinking about the future or what would be worth doing, but rather experience the future and experiment with what could be worth doing. The context of the quote is as follows; a young lady called Alaska is talking to her very nervous and uptight (not quite) love interest about her philosophies on life. Alaska believes in living fast and frankly a little irresponsibly. She spends most of the novel smoking cigarettes, having sex and buying illegal wine from a local liquor store. However her male counterpart to whom she is talking to, is completely crazy over her and despite his best interest and typically responsible lifestyle, he finds himself being dragged along on Alaska's crazy adventures. This young man was one of these deep thinkers. One of these people who spend much of their time stuck in their own heads.  SPOILER ALERT  Alaska's life ultimately comes to an early end about half way through the book. Cause of death; a terrible car accident that is suspected to be a suicide.  So the question is, Should you live your life as an "Alaska" (experiencing life to the fullest despite the consequences) or live your life as her male counterpart and narrator of the book, "Pudge" ( always caught up in your own thoughts and plagued with severe anxiety).  I believe that a lot of people I know, including myself, should find a healthy balance between the two.  Step outside of your own thoughts, but still be thoughtful .  -Ellen

The Villain in All of Us .

“The most monstrous monster is the monster with noble feelings.”

—	fyodor dostovevsky

“Those who are heartless, once cared too much.”

—	Frank Ocean

     Anyone who knows me personally knows that I have a fascination with villains in stories. I often find that they have much more interesting back stories and motives than the hero. This blog post is going to be a response to my last blog post about being the hero of your own story, ( can you respond to your own post?... ). Something I have realized is that it is just as easy to become the villain of your own story... if not easier. 

     Think about your favorite movie/book/T.V show for a second. Now think about the villain or antagonist of the story. Why are they the villain? Were they driven mad? Are they trying to gain power? Are they overly jealous of the protagonist? Chances are, (if the villain is well written) that they have a back story that explains the reasoning behind their diabolical deeds. Well.... aren't we all trying to gain power? Aren't we all overly jealous of something? Whose to say we can't become the villain ourselves?

     My favorite villain in the entire world has to be Loki from Thor and the Avengers, (hear that? it's the sound of everyone who knows me rolling their eyes). I'm fascinated with Loki because he starts off the story of Thor as a child. The picture of innocence. He is told that "one day you could become king!" and he believes it. Sound familiar? Here maybe this will help, "you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up!". This promise of becoming a king *SPOILER ALERT* of course; is a lie. 

Try and tell me this adorable little cutie would hurt a fly.

       Then our little Norse God grows up and things start to head south. This is when he realizes everything he has ever been told is a lie. 

      "You can be king!"

      "You're special!"

      "You are one of the Gods! That's fantastic!"

This is something I feel we have all experienced in one way or another. The realization that you are not as special as you once thought and that it is a lot harder to be "king" than you had originally thought. This absolutely tears our villain apart and becomes the breaking point, the point where he has had enough and decides to take matters into his own hands. 

Loki focuses so much on becoming Odin's favorite that he fails to realize that he's Thor's.  (cue crying)

If you explain Loki's story as, "a young man who was promised a lie and decides to go after his dream in an unconventional way but ultimately fails while at the same time losing the trust of his family and friends" it sounds down right tragic right? You wanna root for the guy! It's only until you add context that this becomes the story of a terrible villain who will stop at nothing to achieve power. This begs the question, aren't we all a little bit like Loki? Aren't we all hoping to achieve great things? Weren't we all disappointed when we realized that we aren't as special as we originally thought? So then why don't we also have the potential to become the villain? If we aren't careful enough, this might just be the case, always remember that the villain is the hero in his own world.

You Don't Have to Change the World to be Important

“…we all matter - maybe less than a lot, but always more than some.”

—

John Green, An Abundance of Katherines Once Upon a Time,  I'm going to tell you a story about a girl who thought that in order to matter to the world she needed to be an epic hero of some epic tale. She believed that in order to matter she had to defeat the dark Lord Voldemort or take down the great dragon Smaug. In short; she thought that unless she did something to change the world, she would never be important.  This is where she was terribly wrong.  What she had failed to realize is that everyone is the hero of their own story, even if the world might not know it. What she didn't realize is that teachers and accountants and mailmen are hero's too. What she didn't realize is that everyday of every single persons life is a new chapter in their epic tale.             Everybody matters and is important to somebody. Even if you don't think so, I guarantee you that you are important. Not every hero in every story goes on some epic journey to Mordor or joins the rebel forces to take down the evil empire, some hero's simply live their every day lives and this is the most epic journey of all time. People often times forget that their story is as exciting as they choose to make it, and that you do not need to change the world to be important.       This is the story of a girl who realized that her life is the story. That every day is an epic journey. She realized that everyone's life is the most epic story of all time, whether they realize it or not.     The End.  -Ellen

An Inconvenient Truth.

“Stop taking pride in your ability to destroy yourself.”

—	Michelle K.

 I am about to make a statement, a statement that many of you are most likely not going to agree with. I believe that people enjoy being busy, stressed and sleep deprived. "But Ellen, what would possibly possess you to think such a thing?". Well today is your lucky day because you're about to find out!

 "Ugh, I wish I had time to see that new movie"

  "You got a full 8 hours last night? Lucky! I only got 3 hours of sleep last night!"

  "Don't even talk to me about being busy, have you SEEN my schedule lately??"

  " Here, let me walk you through my super busy schedule so that you can feel less accomplished than me"

Chances are, you have come across people who are OBSESSED with statements like the ones above, although they may not be as blunt about it. It's the; "look how much more I'm doing than you! I'm accomplishing so much more than you!" attitude. However if we were being completely honest with ourselves, it's more of the; "look at how sleep deprived I am! I'm going to die from a stress induced heart attack at a much younger age than you!" attitude. So why do people feel the need to let everyone know just how busy they are? Why are people so proud of the fact that they working themselves to death? I personally blame a very evident shift in our societies views on what's more important; sleep and relaxation, or doing something with every minute of our existence.
     To prove this point I'm going to go to a couple quotes, our first quote comes from William Shakespeare's Henry IV;

 "O sleep! O gentle sleep! 

Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down 
And steep my senses in forgetfulness? 
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush’d with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfum’d chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state, 
And lull’d with sound of sweetest melody?".

Sounds like sleep is pretty great right? Then why did our ideals shift from the idea that sleep is great and something to love and enjoy to this quote from Thomas Edison, “Sleep is a criminal waste of time, inherited from our cave days". We have become a society of, "You can sleep when you're dead" thinkers, and with this attitude, that might be sooner than you think. 

Because of our societies praise of hard work, never ceasing, you must go, GO, GO. People feel the need to prove to others that they are really busy all the time. It's a sick game of "yeah you're really busy I guess.. but look at ME!". 

     And here is where we come to the inconvenient truth mentioned in the title. No one really cares how busy you are. If anything; you're only making others feel bad about not overloading their own schedules, thus furthering the cycle. No one cares to take a look at your schedule or to hear about how little sleep you got last night because you were reading a text book you aren't going to retain for the next day anyway. Trust me; everyone is just as busy as you are and don't need to hear your schedule as well. 

     I guess the real question I'm asking is; since when was sacrificing physical and mental health something to brag about?

-Ellen 

     

Aren't we all Just Playing Pretend?

"One day, you’re 17 and you’re planning for someday. And then quietly, without you ever really noticing, someday is today. And then someday is yesterday. And this is your life."      

Do you ever think about when you really decided what you really want to do with your life? Did you have it all figured out at the age of 12? Did you take a test in high school that told you which job you would be most suited for? Maybe it was the day your mother came home from her job as a nurse and told you another remarkable story about how she has saved yet another young child's life. I however, never really figured it all out. I made the decision to attend college because that's what people do, and I decided to get a degree in education because it was safe and produced a steady income.

     Before I continue I guess I should tell you a little bit about myself to put things into perspective. My name is Ellen and I am 18 years old, however I turn 19 in a little over a month. I attend a very Christian Conservative College and am currently a History Secondary Education major. I grew up in a town about 45 minutes outside of  D.C and attended a very good public high school filled with high standards and high students. I was an only child until the second grade but then everything changed when the fire nation attacked. And by the fire nation attacked I mean my little brother, Lon, was born. I love him more than anything in the entire world and will end anyone who lays a finger on him, besides me of course. At the fresh young age of 9 I was simultaneously diagnosed ADHD and anxiety, I guess that's what you get for having a hyper active imagination and crying all the time. As previously stated I go to an extremely conservative college (although I'm not what you would call extremely conservative) with a great many strict rules to follow ( although I'm not too found of the whole "other people telling me how to live my life" thing) and extraordinarily high academic standards (although I tend to have some issues with focusing in class rather than doodling in a notebook). Don't get me wrong, the school is great and I love my friends here, I just seem to be realizing more and more everyday that this is not what I intended my life to become. The only problem is... what did I ever intend my life to become?

     The way I see it the education system works like this; You go to elementary school where they encourage you to be creative and learn numbers and letters and how to spell and everyone's encouraged to be an individual and we're all told the most epic lie of all time, "you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up!". From here you go to hell/ I mean Middle School. Here is where things start to go sour. This is the first time you are seriously asked the big questions and told some rotten truths, "What do you want to go to school for" and "You should really think about getting that GPA up to prepare for High School, you don't wanna end up like that crazy bum that lives in the trash can down the street!". However in Middle School they do still allow some dreamers, for example when asked what I wanted to do with my life in the 8th grade I wrote, "I want to be a Broadway performer!" Silly past Ellen, that's not profitable! From here we go to the big times. The final inning. The last hoorah of public education. Your first semester of High School you meet with a guidance counselor who's office smells like peppermint and tears and who has a voice that sounds just a little too sweet. They ask you to fill out your 4 year plan.. leading of course to the greater end goal that is your life. "Don't worry!" they tell you, "This is nothing permanent! you can change it later if you want!". What they don't realize is that they have just put the weight of the world on a poor 15 year old girl who has severe anxiety's shoulders. You start to think about things in a more reasonable way, "why would I ever say I wanted to be a Broadway performer? That's so stupid... I need to find myself a nice reasonable job". And that's the end of that. That is how you end up having a mental breakdown at the end of Junior year because everyone else seems to have their lives figured out while you still have no idea how to keep your sims alive without cheats. 

     I'm hoping this first post gives you a little insight into where I'm coming from. No, every post is not going to be a big middle finger to the system and no, I do not hate the school system or the idea of going to college. I'm just a bit lost on where I'm supposed to be right now. I'm going to use this blog simply as a place to put down my thoughts on things (I have lots of thoughts on things as you might imagine) and give a little insight into the mind of a mentally unstable fangirl. 

-Ellen