Day 335. Finding the key

   I've been playing some lateral thinking game today with a good friend and it made me realize we're all brought up to think inside the box. Add up numbers, look to the left and to the right instead of looking up, pay attention to the general message instead of paying attention to every little detail of it, and so on. 

   We're brought up to generate the exact information we're given instead of being set free and promoting our creativity and critical thinking. After studying for the exam this year I know exactly how important those two are and how much they can change the whole educational process and the students' minds if promoted in schools. 
   Why do you think we can't answer the lateral thinking questions?:) It's not because we don't have it in us. It's simply because it's unlocked. It's just like an amazing garden full of colorful flowers that stays up hidden behind a huge lock with no key to be found around. And we're the knights in shining armor who have to go through the journey of their life to find that one key that solves every problem, that key that leads us to the garden of Eden. And unfortunately, many of us search for it their whole life but still find nothing. Because we're looking for the prototypical type of key. And I bet that's exactly NOT how the key looks like:) 

   So why not help those knights while they're still young and teach them how they can get to unlock that amazing garden before it's too late? Why not help them believe in themselves and use every little shred of idea that comes into their mind for a useful purpose? Why set them boundaries that only lead to routine, unhappiness and lack of self esteem? 

   Being a teacher means you can teach a content in whichever way you like. So teachers out there, let's promote creativity and critical thinking! The kids will thank us later:)

Day 334. The odd one out

  We all want to fit in, be accepted and appreciated by the people we like or admire. Some will just be themselves and hope that will work out fine while others will feel like they have to change some tiny parts of them to make sure they do fit in. If they get to do that, at some point when they look in the mirror they will be facing a stranger, a person way too different than they are. It sounds cliché, but it happens every day. Mostly, to people who have self esteem issues. 

   It's hard to stay true to yourself and know that you might not fit in a group you like. Being social "animals", we want to be surrounded by people and not just any kind, but awesome ones. The kind of people who make us feel awesome as well. And there's where our mistake is. We try to be awesome with the wrong group. Why wrong? Because we have to try to make ourselves liked. 

   So my lesson for today is: first love yourself and the right people will love you too. Don't push it and don't try to be somebody you're not only to please others around you. Stay true to yourself and learn how to assertively tell the others that you're different. I know, common interests connect people, but just because you don't like the exact same music as somebody else, doesn't mean you can't still have common interests:) Be you and never be ashamed to stand for yourself: "No, dude, I don't drink vodka or tequila. I don't listen to death metal and I don't smoke. But I did love that psychological movie you were talking about and I drink beer. How about that?" 

Day 333. Believe

   Today was one of those really happy days for me:) Because I got the exam result and it was astronomical. Wow! I knew the music teacher (our exam supervisor) did an awesome job psychologically preparing us for the exam, that I loved the subjects (they were exactly what I wished for) and that I had an interesting idea for one of the subjects and all that made me very proud and confident while writing the exam, but giving the last year's experience when I thought I did good and seemingly I didn't, I didn't know what to expect this year. So in the end, looks like I overestimated the difficulty of the exam and I was wrong to stop believing in myself when I got the last year's result. 

   So what I learned today is that whenever you want to do something and you want it bad, believe in yourself. Believe you can and stretch all your resources to get where you want and remember that no matter how difficult the target might look like, it's always achievable if you believe in yourself. Trust that you can reach all your goals no matter how utopian they might look like. Know that the feeling of confidence will boost everything else in the right direction. Sure, there's competition and the resources might be scarce but know that you can. You can achieve anything you set for yourself, be it an awesome job, an amazing boyfriend, vacation destinations or anything else:) 

   Also, what I learned is that whenever you are confident you can move the mountains and nobody can take that feeling from you:) So hold on tight to it! You Will move the mountains if you believe!:)

Day 332. Bring color to your life

   I always knew that a day can be good if you choose to make it good. It's always in our power to turn a day upside down from boring to exciting and today I did just that:) 

   The summer heat is always an enemy to ideas worth putting into practice outdoors. So when I heard there's some event going on outside I denied attending it at first but then I was inspired enough to watch a video of the same event in other countries and I was AMAZED! So much color everywhere! And lots and lots of happy people! How could I say "no" to that?:) So I got dressed asap and decided to go after all. I was so nervous of how everything was going to end up. I didn't know if the colors would wash out or if it would be as amazing as it looked in the photos, but I sure for once wanted to try. And now I can say it was worth trying:) Because this event, the color fight, was what changed my day from random to awesome:) And it's part of those chances you have to take, the ones that might happen once in a lifetime, the same ones that bring color to your life. Both literally and metaphorically:) Not to mention I got the chance to meet the mayor in person and actually take a photo with him:) How often does that happen while you're soaking wet and super happy?

   So my lesson today was:

Day 331. Fearless

   It's funny how we're built up to be the strongest and the weakest version of ourselves all in the same person. It all depends on how we interpret things, our past experiences and if others seem weaker than us. Then we embrace the strong version of ourselves and we want to lift that person up. And somehow the next day we will be the weak one needing to be lifted up too. Interesting... 

   Everything starts and ends with the brain:) As much as you'd like to think that events around you influence what you feel, it's never like that. And one of the reasons that brings up the worst in us is thinking about the future and the fact that we can't control it. Then panicking happens. I'm asking you though:

   Funny how that comes from the person who usually worries about stuff. See? Today I'm the strong one. For two of my best friends needed to be lifted up. We do worry because we take into consideration the possibility that it won't be ok. And then we ask ourselves: "What am I going to do then? What if I lose everything and I will be alone? How am I going to cope with that?" But in those fearful times we forget to remember that:

   Yes, you might lose your friends but then you have your family. You might lose your family but then you have your friends. And if you lose your boyfriend/girlfriend, there's always best friends and they never go away:) That's why they're best friends. And even IF you lose everything, believe me, you WILL find the power to go on and everything will be ok. Just fight for what you want and never give up. Everything will be ok in the end. If it's not ok, it's not the end:) Simple as that.

Day 330. Brand new

   We all go through new situations at some point. Things we're not used to, things we gotta deal with even if we don't know how to. Those are the situations that are going to be cornerstones for our future development. The ones that will help us get more knowledge and achieve wisdom more easily. Because how would we evolve if life was only a continuous routine where nothing new ever happened? 

   New things used to scare me when I was a teenager because I liked my things the way I had them. So whenever something new happened, be it having a new teacher, needing to solve a new type of problem or discovering a new social network I felt odd. I would always reject it at first and it would take me a while to get used to it. The thing I learned these past years, though, is that we can accommodate to anything. No matter how bad, strange or how uncomfortable it is, we find a way to cope with it. Sure, if we can avoid it, we will do that, but when it's one of those things you have get used to... you will. Our nature helps us accommodate and keep learning from our experience. So why avoid new situations if they can help you grow? 

   Today I decided to make an account on tumblr. It's still weird for me, but I'm figuring it out. And I'm surely not feeling odd anymore:) Cos now I know new is good. New is a pathway to better. So here's so outrunning ourselves!:)

Day 329. Passengers

   We're all passengers on this planet. We don't know where we come from, where we're going or why we're here. We spend a lifetime trying to figure that out and some of us never do. Because most of the time we're so caught up in the web we create with everything we hear, everything we want and everything we can't achieve. 

   We're passengers that are brought up to obey. Obey the rules, obey the laws, obey older people who supposedly have a vast life experience. But they never think that we might want to act differently and write our own life motto instead of borrowing it from elders around us.

   We're passengers who influence one another without meaning to. Because in the end we're a bunch of cells who know how to multiply but don't know who they are or what love is. So we try to figure that out and it's taking us a while. We fall for the wrong people and we know it but we can't help it. We want to be accepted and validated so we change a bit for every group we want to belong to. We want to believe we're independent and we don't care about anything, but at the end of the day we all do. We care about our own good.

   We're passengers who like to think they're unique, but we're born to be the same. We all go through the same phases. It's our wild nature that sets us apart. Some follow it while others suppress it and go on obeying the rules. The same rules that are going to drive them nuts and make them question the purpose of life after so many failures. We, the others, decide we want to make our own rules. We have no idea why we're here but we do know that this is everything we've got for now. So we wanna live it all and enjoy it fully so that whenever the end is coming we can all claim: I've lived it all!

   We're all passengers who try to find the key to the universe. Some find it in art, others in science and others in religion. In the end, it doesn't even matter, as long as we're not staying idle:)