All I can say is that I'm a real person with real emotions, ambitions, dreams, goals, wants, desires, needs, problems, and all the other things that most people often deny because they are discouraged, unconfident, or are too concerned about what people may think. I feel that if you put too much emphasis into other peoples' opinions, it prevents you from being yourself and holds you back from being REAL or speaking your mind because you end up trying to satistfy people (who really don't matter) and you end up losing touch of your identity.
When I was in high school, my mom always told me that my peers were "temporary figures". I never REALLY understood what that meant until I got into my twenties. She was right. At that time, I thought I needed a lot of friends in order to be happy. I found a few good permanent figures amongst those temporary figures. This lesson taught me that quality was better than quantity.
Another life lesson that I learned from my dad was to "never expect anything". . . .from anybody or anything. I've seen alot of people (including myself) get hurt because of their expectations not being fulfilled to their standards. My dad said when you give and expect to receive, you get extra hurt when your expectaions are not met. But when you give with no intention to receive, and you receive something "unexpectedly", you end up being 10 times happier.
My dad also taught me the important life lesson that "you can't change people". It doesn't sound complex at all, but it's an important thing to know. I think if people can learn to accept that "you can't change people" they will learn the meaning of "compromise". Nuff said.
The last life lesson I learned was from my brother. I used to care too much about what people thought about me. . . . . and it was killing me! One day I told him people were calling me WEIRD. He eased my mind by telling me that I wasn't weird. . . that I was UNIQUE. I looked up the definition of "unique" and agreed that I was "one-of-a-kind", "exceptional", "matchless", "distinctive". "incomparable", etc. It made sense. That day, I learned that I didn't want to be like everyone else. I wanted to be different. . I wanted to stand out. . I wanted to be the unique girl in school who was her own person. That really helped shape me to be the person who I am today.
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