Biggest College Takeaway

It seems like yesterday that I was a Freshman walking into my door room for the first time in Arey Hall. It is crazy how fast the time flies and it is unreal to thing that my education is all coming to an end. For starters, it has been one hell of an experience packed with valuable information and vital lessons that I can use for the road ahead of me. You see there are so many experiences that have helped me grow myself to be who I am today and I am thankful for each and every one, the good and the bad.

With that being said there are also so many other wonderful things that I will take away but the greatest thing for me is the friendships along the way. To me my friendships are incredibly important, as you have learned from my previous posts I always have had the goal to make people laugh or smile and value my friendships greatly. Life is only enjoyable if you have people to spend it with and throughout the years in college I have met many wonderful people who I can see myself talking and hanging out with for years to come. They say that after college you will not every see 95% of the people you met in college again.

My biggest lesson is to make a huge effort to find a strong 5% of people that stick with you through your life. People come and go but you need to make the effort to find those that are worth your time and keep them close because those are the people that can alter your life.

Why Accepting Everyone for Who they are is Important

My favorite thing about myself is that I will go out of my way to talk to and make every person feel valued. I never exactly knew why I feel the need to talk to everyone and get to know them but that is who I am. Meeting people and getting to know them is something that is important to me because I love being there for people and I love having them there for me. The truth is that when you meet people you never can expect the impact that you can have on their life or the impact that they can have on yours.

That impact can be something that can be as little as making someone smile to as biggest as helping them decide on life decisions.  The point is you have to accept people for who they are because that where real authenticity shows, if you understand and appreciate their perspective you build connections that could help you in ways that you would never think could be possible.

You never know how helpful you can be for someone that struggling, there are many individuals that need help and the craziness of todays society amplifies that so much more. As we were brought up in school we were taught about how people fight battles greater than just the day to day life, suicide, depression, so much more. I have seen this affect a handful of people in my life and after wondering why I go out of my way to make sure everyone is appreciated my solution is because it truly does matter.

Making the World a Better Place

I for one am not for telling people how act but caring for the planet is something that needs to be said. The lack of caring for the earth is concerning to me because it is so easy to fix. Ideally every person would take care of their own trash, the quickest solution, however that will never happen. The point I would like to make is that if you are passionate about the Earth please do what you can for your own community, or the community you are visiting.

Over Spring Break it finally clicked with me how negligent people are with what they dispose. I went to South Padre, Texas and with this being a more “hotspot” partying destination I figured that there would be a little more trash than usual. After the sun goes everyone heads home to relax and for many people, to recharge for the nightlife.

One day walking back from the Beach Party area one of my friends and I noticed a bunch of wires that looked like seaweed. We noticed that the service that cleans the beach picks up all the cans but does not pick up these little wires (that somehow come from the ocean). Retracing back a couple months I watched a video with a piece of this wire being pulled out of a turtle’s nose and blood going everywhere. Right as I was thinking about the video my friend started to pick up trash and it was right then and there we decided that we were going to pick up all the wire on our 45-minute walk on the beach back to our place. The point to make is that if us two college students can make a difference so can you!

Along the way, we had plenty of people look at us like we were crazy along the way but our hope was just to inspire at least one more person. My plea to you all is to better the world by doing your part, I’m not asking you to go out of your way and go change the world, I’m just asking you to clean up where you are at or places that are convenient for you.

Thanks again for reading my blog and have a wonderful weekend!

Why it is Important to Fail in Life

“Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I’ve met people who don’t want to try for fear of failing.” – J.K. Rowling

I started off with this quote because you might actually listen to someone more renowned than myself along with this quote being spot on. Rowling talks about the importance failure is in life and how it pushes you to be a stronger person.  Rowling also says people talk about success all the time and that couldn’t be more true, they always talk about what they did right but never critique themselves on what they did wrong. They either do not say anything because they do not want people to see them as perfect or they do not try anything new that could potentially lead to failure. If you do not try because you are afraid to fail you are not going to learn anything and although you may be in your comfort zone, the problem is you will not learn anything to better yourself.

Failure at least for me is the ultimate teacher and what always truly makes me look at a situation whether academically, at work, or in life. Failing is so valuable because when you are put in an actual situation where you fail you have that fire lit under you in search of how to improve for next time or how to fix what you messed up. In academics and in life I have made many mistakes that have taught me valuable lessons; and yeah although my life is not perfect I would not have it any other way.

Perspective

It is all about perspective, perspective is an amazing thing because it does not require any work just adjusting your mindset. When thinking further into it it’s scary how much that the difference in mindset can make living your life less or more enjoyable. Here is the difference, if you live your life with always having a negative perspective many things in your life will be so much more difficult. This will lead you to be angrier, more disappointed, more worried, and many other feelings. It is so easy for us as people to see the worst in other but the challenge that I leave for you today is to look for the best. Taking a negative perspective with people it makes  it more difficult because you never fully open up and you miss so many opportunities to really get to know those people, which will close doors for you in so many ways.

Now to look at the positive perspective, the way that seems to make everything more enjoyable. When looking at things with a positive mindset or perspective it is so much easier to be you and be happy. When you think positively about people you look for the best in them and the wonderful thing about this is that it leads to more smiles, laughs, and more wonderful times.

I can say whatever I want but it is up to you to change your mindset. Yes, we cannot be perfect and that is ok. We as humans make mistakes but it is up to us to decide what we can do about it. So try your best to maintain a positive outlook on things and you will be rewarded in so many ways.

Smile

When you break it down you never realize how much of an impact a smile can make. Just by smiling you could make someone’s day, week, or even change someone’s life. My life goal is simple, to make one person smile everyday of my life. Now some of you may ask why I have such a stupid and trivial goal, if that is you it may be a better idea to stop reading because you probably will not care what I have to say.

A smile is the one biggest indicators that someone cares to me. Out of all the faces and reactions one can have they chose to share their biggest sign of joy with you, a smile. What I love is that joy ends up transferring through multiple people, because let’s be honest who is not happy when they see someone smile. My philosophy is to be the change, it only takes one person to start a chain reaction, so why not you or I. Simply smiling at someone shows that you care and love them, and everyone knows the world could use more of that. As Doctor King said, “hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Dr. King is right on this because with so much negativity in the world today we desperately need positive people. A smile is so powerful that you do not need a translator, everyone around the world understands it as love and joy!

In short lets spread the language the world needs so badly, the language of love. So next time you feel like you cannot make a difference just remember that smiles take people the extra miles.

Photo taken by The Hamster Factor