1. Pick up a book that you've meant to read for over a year now.
Flaw: You're about five pages into the book and you're already analyzing the author's writing style and figuring out how to make your own writing as interesting as this bestseller. Suddenly, you're overcome with guilt that you've been neglecting your own creative writing. Eventually, you put the book down after only a few minutes and you begin work on rewriting your old stories. 2. Watch some TV. Mindless television is the perfect way to relax, right? Flaw: You're flipping channels when your attention is caught by a symphony orchestra performance--and this is no community orchestra--it's the New York Philharmonic. You watch the concert all the way through, but then when it's over, you're tempted to practice. Practice just a little...maybe just do a few warm ups on the flute...but you should definitely play through a few Berbiguier etudes before you call it quits for the night...but now that you've been working on etudes you might as well work on a Wohlfahrt etude on the violin. Before you know it, you've been practicing for about four hours and you want to keep going. 3. Read through the newspaper. Such a mundane activity for relaxing. Flaw: You found the Sudoku puzzle. It's all over now. You're addicted. 4. Invite a friend over to help you chill for the afternoon. Flaw: She saw your half-finished level three Sudoku puzzle and she wants to help solve it. You spend about ten minutes staring at the boxes with numbers to deduce that it's unsolvable...at least for you at the moment. Perhaps an overachiever's attempt at relaxing is actually being productive. Try to figure out that paradox!
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Today comes the final installment of my month-long series of blog posts musing on love and Valentine's Day. Today's finally the day of lovey dovey sentimental gift giving and such. Flowers have been given, handfuls of chocolate have been eaten, and evening dates have been arranged. People often contribute some little token of appreciation to their loved ones during this holiday (girlfriends/boyfriends, spouses, children, and friends). This can come in the form of roses, a handmade cards, or even simple greetings wishing someone a lovely and happy Valentine's Day. My contribution to this holiday was when I made my Valentine's cards to the kids in the hospital, but other than that, my Valentine's Day hasn't been much of anything (partially because my roommate and I are sharing germs and remaining sick for the rest of our Valentine's Day).
Valentine's Day is a day of sharing love to everyone. Make of it what you will. Bash it. Celebrate it. Romanticize it. Enjoy it. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Cheers! A Cynic's and a Romantic's Clashing Opinions on Love
Love at first sight Romantic: Oh! How wonderfully sweet to know instantly that you're the one for me! It's just like Romeo and Juliet or maybe Cinderella and Prince Charming! Cynic: You mean infatuation at first sight. There's no such thing as knowing instantly that you've found your one true love when you haven't even asked for their name yet. Flowers on Valentine's Day Romantic: Flowers are absolutely lovely and every girl loves them. What's more romantic than red roses waiting for you on your doorstep? Cynic: Dying flowers that won't last more than a week and a half? I'll pass. Carving your names into a tree Romantic: Our names will be there together forever! Cynic: You chislled out a hunk in a living tree to advertise to the world that we're together?! Remind me why I'm dating an Earth-killing lumberjack such as yourself. You might as well chop down an entire rainforest in South America and pretend call that a romantic act. Doodling hearts with your name all over a piece of paper Romantic: Aww! You're thinking of me! I'm always on your mind even when you're supposed to be paying attention to something else. Cynic: Oh god, here we go again with wasting perfectly clean sheets of paper with something as mundane and mindless as a dreamer's doodles. Buying chocolates for your loved one Romantic: I love chocolates! It's very SWEET of you to get them for me! Cynic: Let me guess. You just came back from Walmart where you ran by the Valentine's section of the store and picked up the cheapest box of sugary confection you could find. How thoughtful. Card giving Romantic: The message of this card is soo sweet! You must have taken so much care to pick out the right card for me. Cynic: This is just a form letter with the words "Happy Valentine's Day!" and your name signed on the inside of the card. How much effort did this really take? Giving stuffed teddy bears Romantic: Aww! How cute! I love it! Cynic: Remind me what I'm going to do with this because I fail to see its purpose. Breakfast in bed Romantic: How sweet of you! And you made it all for me! Cynic: What a way to endear yourself to me by insinuating I'm a bedridden invalid. Thank you. A sweet message left sent to you Romantic: It's so sweet that you took the time to A) think about me and B) compose the messagefor me knowing it would make me feel this bubbly inside! Cynic: And you couldn't tell me this face-to-face? A nice dinner out Romantic: You took me to my favorite restaurant, paid for my meal, and offered me part of your dish. How absolutely perfect! Cynic: Well...okay, you win this round. Nothing's worse than being diagnosed with case of bitterness or broken heart syndrome close to Valentine's Day. This lovey-dovey holiday burns like sulfuric acid in our veins and we want to lash out with anger or lock ourselves up in sorrow-filled solitude. I realized today that most of my posts musing on the topic of love were all leaning on the brighter romantic-ish side of February 14th. Don't think I'm trying to balance out the two sides of hater versus lover because I'm not. I have creative freedom to muse whatever I want! Muwahaha! Anyhow, back on topic--maybe it's a good idea to discuss the viewpoint of the heartbroken. In my time, I've read handfuls of heartbroken letters that have been written out but never sent to the person to whom they were addressed. Unsent letters, a string of tearful diary entries, two dozen midnight text messages venting to your closest friends, the ceremonial shredding or trashing of pictures, and the endless repeat of Evanescence's "My Immortal" on your iPod are just some of the various ways the heartbroken cope with their emotions. No matter what brave face you put on for your friends or family, heartbreak is never easy to deal with. We always hope for a clean break should love ever fall apart, but clean is never really how life operates. No matter the reasons for love falling apart, we always feel the absent of love when it has left our doorstep. We notice the void in our hearts and in our lives when it ceases to hold our bodies in its warm embrace. We sometimes sense the love that was once present in our veins has now chilled to icy bitterness. People are bitter for a reason, not because it's naturally coded into their DNA. Bitterness stems from pain and hurt that has gripped us hard. It's not easy to let go of that pain or heartbreak, and it's certainly not easy to throw your heart back out there to get it hurt again...but sometimes, we need for that bitterness to melt away so that we can move on. But how do you allow someone into your life after someone else has caused so much havoc? How do you keep yourself from going into that dark place again? How do you mend your heart after it has been stepped on and all your hope for love has been bitten off? I have no definite answer or solution. It's still a challenge I'm working through and a topic I will continue to muse about. If there is a magical solution to melt the hurt away and to open up our hearts fully again, I'd love to find it. For now, just keep moving forward. "You are loved." What a simple and caring message for a Valentine's Day card. This evening, my friend and I did our St. Valentine's good deed by making Valentine's Day cards for kids in the hospital. For "Valentines for Kids," you create simple Valentine's Day cards for kids who are in the hospital on Valentine's Day and send them in the mail. Late this afternoon, we went to the store to pick up some heart-shaped stickers and colorful construction paper and then headed back to the dorm to create our homemade Valentines. Listening to the music of Aaron Copland, Max Bruch, and Ralph Vaughan Williams and drinking a nice cup of steaming hot tea, my friend and I filled an envelope full of beautifully decorated Valentines. A wide variety of red, purple, and pink hearts cluttered our cards as we poured our creative and artistic abilities into such a small but hopefully powerful good deed. All of my cards contained the same generic message that could be used for any person no matter what age or gender. "Happy Valentine's Day! You are loved." It's such a simple message, but somehow, I feel it can mean so much to anyone. "You are loved." Everyone wants to be cared for. Everyone wants to know that they are loved. Write someone a Valentine's Day card. It doesn't have to be romantic or sappy or overly sentimental. It just has to be from the heart and let them know that you care. Part four! I've said this before, and I'll say it again: check out my earlier posts (aka. part one, two, and three) if you haven't already done so! A little more than a year ago, I wrote a lovely piece of creative writing for my English class titled "Letter to a Future Boyfriend." Out of all of the compositions I've published on the website Teen Ink, "Letter to a Future Boyfriend" is the most popular and viewed work that I've submitted. This strangely witty letter outlining specific requirements for a future love was written out of pure curiosity to see what I could concoct for my creative writing assignment. "Letter to a Future Boyfriend" was created out of what twisted humor I had at the time, but every now and then throughout the purely fictional composition, I glimpse snippets of my own personal thoughts from back then. I look back over the piece now and see how the words half-way mimic the words I'd say now if you asked me what I wanted in a future boyfriend. In other parts, the words are strangely reminiscent of a former me. Somehow rereading my written words, I can spot the many ways my perspective and my heart has changed since I penned that work. These days, people who I haven't seen in a while come up to me. Oddly, every person asks me the same three questions: 1) How's college going? 2) Are you loving it? 3) Have you found the special guy in your life yet? I honestly have no idea why this third question is the most frequently brought up, and it occurs right after I talk about my infinitely long list of accomplishments. Is it because I'm in college people assume that I'll find love with a snap of my fingers or a twitch of my nose? My answer: No, not yet. Single still. "Aww...well, you'll find someone soon. You're smart, you're talented--why wouldn't anyone want you as their girlfriend?" There's one flaw with this logic: No one looks at your résumé before they decide to date you. Point made. If I was to add anything new to my "Letter to a Future Boyfriend," I'd have to say that guys need to start looking within and stop focusing on superficial aspects. It may sound silly to say this, but I desire for someone to tell me that I am beautiful inside and out. How about a flattering compliment about my intelligence or my talents? Or how about someone telling me that I have a beautiful heart and soul? How nice would that be? Too often people are written off just because of appearances. The appearance of always studying in the library rather than hanging out with friends on a Friday night. The appearance of preferring a pair of comfy three year old tennis shoes to impossible to walk in three inch heels. The appearance of being terribly bitter when you're just talking. Sometimes I wish that people would look within and see what beauty lies within the soul if you only get to know the person a little better. For now, I'll keep waiting. Love may not come any time soon, but I can keep an open heart to any reply from a future boyfriend If you haven't already checked out part one and two of my weekly musings on love, go ahead and give it a read. Finding love in three steps (note: I didn't say "easy steps.") Step One: Pick a target or hope that you become the target. Talk to people and see if anyone around you strikes your fancy. Keep an open heart to anyone you meet. Don't judge a book by its cover and don't write a person off as an idiotic jerk until you have actually spoken to them first. Step Two: See if your target is worth it. Hang out with said person and strike up some conversation. Compare interests. Figure out if their personality appeals to you. Good questions to ask yourself: Do we share anything in common at all and can we connect on a similar wavelengths? Can you sustain a conversation with whomever for longer than ten minutes? If no is your answer, then you've certainly run into a brick wall. Can you see yourself with this person? Step Three: Weasel your way into their life and see if that person is interested at all. This is probably trickiest step out of the whole search. To finagle your way into somebody else's life, you need to know enough about him or her to make wise actions. Example: Giving someone a vase full of roses for Valentine's Day is an excellent idea especially if you already know that that person loves flowers. Giving someone a box full of chocolates that that person is highly allergic to is not such a well-thought out idea. I cannot stress to you how important it is to take the chance to learn more about your target before you act. Listen to them talk and don't just zone out. Listening to someone's news of the day or rants about the world gives you tons of clues. Don't go to the extreme of stalking, but do pay attention to subtle details and do find a way to weasel your way into their life. Shall we continue with these weekly posts about love? Note: if you haven't read part one, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and read it and continue to stay updated with my blog posts about love. Have you ever turned on the radio and realized how many songs mention something or anything at all about love? Turn to the country music station, you hear "If I Die Young" by the Band Perry. Twist the dial a notch to the left and you hear Sara Bareilles' "Love Song." Switch over to the classical music station and you hear a soprano from Carmen singing about love. Yank the radio dial to the right and you'll find your speakers blaring "WE ARE NEVER EVER EVER GETTING BACK TOGETHER!" Love songs (or sometimes anti-love songs) are everywhere in every form possible! If you don't believe me, take out your iPod and scroll down your playlist and see how often the theme of love comes up. Valentine's Day is coming up in some weeks ahead, and I can already feel the lovey-dovey songs hitting up the playlist in my head. It gets me in the spirit for my search for love. For anyone embarking on the quest with me through these next few weeks, give these songs a listen. There's a nice variety of songs in here so give them a nice listen. 1) "Somebody to Watch Over Me"--I particularly favor Renee Olstead's version of this song, but nice song to listen to overall. 2) "She Will Be Loved" by Maroon 5 3) "Thousand Years" by Christina Perri 4) "Rhythm of Love" by The Plain White T's 5) "Music of the Night" from Phantom of the Opera 6) "Best of My Love" by The Emotions 7) "A Love That Will Last" by Renee Olstead 8) "Fearless" by Taylor Swift 9) "The Call" by Regina Spektor 10) "I Won't Give Up" by Jason Mraz 11) "Haven't Met You Yet" by Michael Bublé 12) "I'll Be" (acoustic version) by Edwin McCain 13) "Arms" by Christina Perri 14) "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry 15) "You and I Both" by Jason Mraz 16) "Maybe" by Yiruma 17) "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman--personally, I like listening to Boyce Avenue's cover of this song 18) "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz 19) "Collide" (acoustic version) by Howie Day 20) "Have I Told You Lately" by Rod Stewart--Classic oldie that always brings a smile to my face With Valentine's Day less than a month away, maybe it's about time to muse a little about this lovey-dovey commercial holiday. There's really no better time to dwell on love, infatuation, and the meaningful relationships in our lives. Perhaps for the next coming weeks up until Valentine's Day, I'll share some of my thoughts on love. From here until the fourteen of February, you, dear reader, and I can be sentimental, cynical, serious, sorta delirious, love-sickened, and maybe even successful in our search for love. February 14th, Valentine's Day--what other day tends to make single men and women feel more awkward than that one holiday? Okay, maybe the one exception is New Year's when all the couples in the room are busy sucking face, but that's not my point. On Valentine's Day, all the lovely couples are celebrating, reminiscing, and lavishing their time and money on their significant others while all the single people sigh and awkwardly wait for the day to die. There are five categories of people to note on Valentine's Day: 1) Lovely dovey couples who are incandescently happy together--The relationship or engagement or marriage is holding up beautifully and the appropriate Valentine's Day gifts have been bestowed upon one another and the world is a beautiful place on this harmonious day. Beautiful. 2) Heartbroken souls who haven't quite healed yet from their last duel with love--You might find these people mopily listening to pathetically depressing music all day and night long. The romantic day is salt in an open wound for them. 3) Upset girlfriends who quietly complain to themselves and their friends that their boyfriend either bungled the day with a stupid gift or forgot about the day entirely--Girls will know what day it is, but guys, on the other hand, could just care less. The clashing of opinion could certainly yield to some enchanting passive aggressive behavior from some girls. Beware and proceed with caution around this unique species. 4) Bitter folks who will mock the notion of love and chivalry and the gifting of roses that will die within two weeks--Cynical is what they are, but there's probably a good reason why. 5) The dreamers and the desperate--The day (and the days leading up to it) are filled with sappy tweets and statuses screaming to the world how desperate they are to find love. They dream and sigh the day away waiting for love to magically come riding up to their doorstep. Some will accept the first offer they can find just so they aren't lonely on this lovey-dovey holiday. Valentine's Day is always met with mixed emotions from the public ranging from strong approval to pure disgust, but dear reader, I believe there is one important thought we all should hold with us as we advance towards Feb. 14th: The holiday celebrating romantic true love has always targeted couples obviously, but I wonder what if instead it targeted everyone else (the heartbroken, the bitter, and the dreamers). What if the message to convey on this day was "Open your heart to love"? What if we willingly opened our hearts to allow room for love? How much happier might we be then if we allowed for this change to embrace us? So...my first piece of advice in the search to find love: Don't ever close yourself off from love. May love melt away our bitterness like warm sunlight dissolving the last frost of winter. May the hurt and the broken souls in this world find peace and compassion. May the dreamers take the leap of faith and finally set out from their hobbit hole in search of the love they've been hoping and dreaming for. With the new year ringing in, millions of people vow to turn their lives around and hold fervantly to their New Year's resolutions. People vow to stick to diets, develop better study habits, meet their one true love, save the world, quit smoking, and even get their Hogwarts letter in the mail before summer ends. True, some of these goals are attained in a year's time, but on the flip side of the coin, it's absolutely astonishing how many New Year's resolutions fail because either the goal holds too much impossibility or that the person making the resolution instantly forgets about his or her resolution a few weeks (or in some cases, a few days) after making it. Am I saying that New Year's resolutions are stupid and fruitless? Not at all. It's excellent to set goals so that we may constantly strive to achieve them. I'm saying, think carefully about your New Year's resolution and prepare to follow through with it. Make it realistic, so don't beat yourself up when you follow the path for absolute flawlessness or perfection--perfection is pretty impossible to attain anyhow. Plan to follow through with your goal and keep it stored in your mind as you progress through the year. By the way, it's also a pretty good idea to write it down in case you do let it slip your mind. Making resolutions means hope for improvement. I believe that we can always strive to improve ourselves and work towards the goal of achieving our "ideal self." Maybe I sound too much like a humanistic psychologist, but perhaps it's the path to a meaningful life. Back about a month ago when I was preparing for a debate, a friend of mine and I discussed the definition of what it meant to have a meaningful life. Many people equate a successful life with a meaningful life. I admit that I certainly did about a year ago when I made my New Year's resolution to achieve much more success in 2012. True, I met that resolution, and I'm certainly more successful than I was before. Look at me now: five foot one young woman with a lengthy résumé that threatens to stretch longer than two pages with my added accomplishments in poetry, art, writing, music, and academics. But am I closer to ideal happiness with all my accomplishments? Not really. At the bottom of this blog, I'm posting a video that definitely made me reevaluate the idea of success. If anything, I've learned how I must balance out everything to merge closer to a meaningful life. Last year, I burnt my candle at both ends always working and studying and practicing and not really taking a chance to enjoy the other things around me. All I knew last year was stress and deadlines and how to keep pushing through each day to strive toward a larger goal. But where was anything involving enjoying life outside of work? While I did have many great moments of sheer enjoyment last year, most of my days were dominated by "do this," "finish this," and "who needs a break when you can keep up the pace and continue studying?" We, as human beings, can't always be working. We need down time/fun time/chill time. Life isn't about the destination of our success; it's about the journey we take to success. It's important to live each day with some form of happiness making each day important to ourselves. Praying for the end of the day or just a method of survival is no way to live. Life life with meaning. In 2013, I want to slow down a little and enjoy some time with friends and seek out a meaningful life. Oh, I'll still continue building my résumé, but I just want to stop stressing about every little thing to make it absolutely perfect. Life's too short to overstress. This year, I'm going to balance out my life and merge closer to a meaningful life. |
AuthorKendall Driscoll is an accomplished writer/ musician/ artist/ academic scholar. Archives
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