Woe is me
A walk through Ecclesiastes, one of the most out of place books of the Bible. And how regardless of one’s faith or belief, it can apply to your life.
Recent Posts
Daily Affirmations | “You Are”
Hello everyone, thank you for being here; and welcome to a new affirmation track, using “You Are” Affirmations instead of “I am” Affirmations. This is meant to be listened to daily in the morning. You can either listen to it in the background, or repeat {read more}
What is one thing you wish you had more of?
Hello readers! Today’s post, as you can see from the title is, “What is one thing you wish you had more of?”. That’s right, we aren’t talking about materialistic things here, although if some – thing – came to mind, it could be of use for this exercise. For example, if your immediate response was, “time”; perhaps your – thing – is actually freedom. Another example is money: if money came to mind, perhaps your – thing – is financial security.
If you haven’t already you can start off this post by going to the difficult person test. This could inspire some thoughts on where you’d like to improve.
Self Reflection
Instead, what this question dares to ask is more so in terms of character traits. As are most of the posts on my blog, we want to go inward and do some self-reflection. That being said, take a few minutes to truly think, what character trait would do you wish you had more of?
Perhaps courage, or strength come to mind. Maybe tenacity or resilience? Empathy or compassion? How about adventurous or curiosity. Or maybe you are working on calming your anger and you’d like more patience or perspective?
Challenge
As you go about your day today, or tomorrow if you are reading this late. Deliberately put the character trait you wish you had more of in the forefront of your mind. Act on it today and see how it feels. Think of it like a new accessory and use it as part of your outfit today.
At the end of the day reflect on how it felt to ‘become’ more of that character trait. Let us know in the comments below how it felt!
2022 Holiday Gift Giving Guide
Today’s post is a gift giving guide! These are all things I would personally love to receive for Christmas, birthday or any special occasion! These gifts lean toward the feminine side of things, but most can be for anyone. Especially your girlfriend, wife, or partner. {read more}
What is your driving force?
As I write my blogs, I tend to do research along side writing. Often, asking questions to the internet before I finish thinking through my own perspective. This leads to the discovery of some great gems! Today’s gem is the, “What is your driving force?” {read more}
Getting ready for your dreams
This morning as I was getting ready for the day, I of course was thinking of you, BlogFam. Typically, my ideas for this blog come while doing something repetitive and necessary, such as getting ready for the day! During these times, my thoughts go from, ‘what is on my list to do today’, to ‘who am I going to see today’ all the way to this mornings thought. This morning I randomly started thinking about the things I was taught, that I wish I had never believed.
Obviously, this could go in many different directions. One day, I will have a sit down with you all; most likely on my YouTube Channel, to discuss some of the more serious topics. (Such as, religion versus faith. One day needs to come on out). Today, however, I want to speak on something that is often said. Yes, something that isn’t unique to my specific experience. But something, I’m guessing most of you hear still on a regular basis. And that is:
Be careful what you ask for.
Storytime
My experience with this phrase. I remember being told this in a very condescending way. In a way that was meant to discourage me from dreaming big. The person that told me this over and over again was trying to ensure I would hold myself back, and wouldn’t go after what I wanted in life. They were deliberately communicating that I wasn’t ready for what I was asking for.
Sadly, I believed this for too long. Instead of being confident about going toward my dreams, or even sticking up for myself in crappy situations. I would shy away, thinking I wasn’t worthy or ready of whatever my dream, or need was. Or hesitate in my decision making and action steps toward something.
Bad advice
UGH! Even writing this it gives me bad feelings. I almost wanted to figure out a way to not write it but to get the point across. Ha! From my perspective, I think this is one of the most negative things you can say to someone. It not only puts the person down, but it also indicates that the person speaking it has zero faith or trust in the individual they are speaking it to.
Imagine for a second you divulge one of your hopes and dreams, big or small. It could be something a small as hoping the cafeteria where you work is serving a particular food. Or it could be a sweet yet significant something like you hope your crush asks you on a date (finally!). Furthermore, it could be something as big as hoping you get into the PhD program you’ve dreamt of entering for years.
No matter what it is, if you decide to speak it out loud, you are putting a piece of yourself out there. Whenever someone opens up in this way, it is an amazing moment for those around them to provide encouragement, and to speak life into their hopes an dreams!
Types of people
Imagine the type of person who listens to the dream, big, significant, meaningful to that individual, small, whatever it is and stops and encourages the individual. Perhaps, even gives them a hug or a happy high five. Or even a brief and sincere “let me know what happens”.
Now imagine the other type of person, most likely barely listening who replies with a, “Be careful what you ask for.” Gosh, I don’t know how this makes you feel reader. But for me, it takes the wind out of me. I picture someone like Cruella De Vil, smoking a cigarette; stomping on hopes and dreams.
Welp, it is time to finally throw this advice in the trash once and for all.
Get ready for your hopes and dreams!
You might ask, well Rose that is all well and good but what do I replace this with?! My answer is to: GET READY FOR YOUR HOPES AND DREAMS. Know that what you ask for is VALID, you are READY for it, and you are WORTHY of whatever it is you need or want!
Have so much belief that what it is you want is going to happen that it is inevitable. And therefore, you MUST get ready for whatever it is you have been wanting!
Secondly, TRUST yourself enough to believe that what you are ‘asking for’ is what you truly want. If you are uncertain, broaden your thoughts or do more research until you can refine your hopes and dreams and make an educated decision on what it is you truly want.
If there happens to be a person in your life who tends to be discouraging, hopeless or puts you down. Distance yourself. Have enough respect for yourself to put space between the two of you. And last, my recommendation would be to keep your inner most hopes and dreams to yourself. That is at least until you’ve matured them enough inside that nothing could take away your confidence.
Take action
Therefore today, let me provide encouragement for you. Today take an action TOWARD your hopes and dreams. Yes, take action on what you are asking for. Maybe it is just that: ASKING. Ask for the raise, ask for the promotion, ask for the date. Or perhaps it is taking an action such as applying for the job, the PhD program or updating your resume. Another action I typically take when getting ready for my next step is selecting an outfit. No matter what it is, take a step today toward what you want. At the very least, make a list of what it is you want.
Lessons from fruit
There is a good chance you’ve heard this lesson previously, but it is one I come back to often and wanted to be sure to share. The late, Dr. Wayne Dyer is known for asking the question, “When an orange is squeezed, what comes out?” {read more}
Dress Haul: Wedding Guest
Welcome to SPOOKY season! Today’s post is one from the archives. That’s right, back from when I originally wanted to start a YouTube. At that time (2017/2018), I was filming and editing just not posting. This blog started instead years later at the end of {read more}
Dreams bigger than ourselves
Over the course of your life, have you often thought of doing something BIG, something SO impactful; even if just for one person?
Storytime
In the Spring, I had the honor of meeting a lovely woman and two of her four children. She noticed Bianca and asked if she could pet her. We started talking and she told me of her family which included four adopted children and four rescued dogs. In telling her that Bianca was now deaf, she mentioned that the son who was with her was also deaf. This gave me the opportunity to use the little bit of sign language I know and have practiced over the years.
This interaction stirred something in me. Throughout my adult life, I often find myself thinking, “How can I be a light in this world?”. Various answers have come up… start a foster care home, train Bianca to be a therapy dog, rescue and train horses. The list goes on and on.
Every so often, I will have short bursts of encouragement in this area, whether it be through interactions such as the one I described above; or through big things such as the Purpose to Impact program through Harvard. One of the things that came out of these momentary, “bigger than life” moments was of course, this blog. Now that I am nearing 1.5 years of writing the blog, I realize it just isn’t big enough. I want to make more of an impact and on a daily basis.
Encouraging moments
At this point in time, my mind is thinking through all the things I could do. And as I’ve been letting my brain chew on this topic, I’ve come to realize how often I have these encouraging moments. But also how often I let the thought drift back out of my mind. Subconsciously, thinking I’ll never be able to make that big of an impact.
Isn’t it interesting how this happens. However, when I look around, and look toward my role models, I realize, each of us CAN make a difference, even if to one person. And, most likely, those of us that have these bigger than life dreams DO make a difference on a regular basis. Potentially, just by being who we are and interacting with those around us.
Bigger than ourselves
Yes, yes I realize that those of you who have read this far, are thinking something similar to my exact thought. Something like: “But Rose… I want to make a really BIG difference. I don’t want to just influence the immediate people around me, but I want to really be impactful to a LARGE group of people.” This type of dream might seem unattainable. It may seem that you aren’t enough. It may seem that these types of things are so much bigger than ourselves that no amount of money, or time could let us accomplish it.
These types of thoughts are what allows us to let these dreams drift away from us, and go back to our daily life without taking steps toward them. However, I am here to say, not just to you dear reader, but to myself as well; that in fact, we CAN accomplish these big dreams. With small steps forward, and networking with others, any big change can be made. It starts with the way we show up daily, and grows with the little interactions, until the snowball affect takes place and before we know it… we’ve started the foster care program, or the arts and music program; or we’ve planted the 100 trees.
And with this… I encourage you to rekindle the dream in your heart. Let this be the fan to the flame to allow your mind to chew on your ideas and your big dreams! Continue to be the best person you can be in the moment; and keep making small progress in the direction of impactful, BIGGER than life type movements.
Connect
For now, I’d love to know, what is your ‘bigger than life’ dream? What area of life would you like to be a part of making better? Is there a group of people you have in mind to impact on a regular basis? Are there dreams on your heart which you could take a small action today towards? And, lastly, please give your self credit of the steps you’ve already taken toward these dreams. Remember, you are significant; your presence, resources and even your smile can be the start to a wave of positive influence.
So, here I will leave you. Until all of us have are big dream defined, we can keep moving in the direction of small actions; and showing up as ourselves, knowing eventually the larger and bigger than life dreams will come about.
The desire to encourage, impact, and inspire others is something that is bigger than life, bigger than myself type of dream. .
Life lessons from baseball
Welcome back to my blog everyone, and happy autumn season here in the northern hemisphere. As baseball season is transitioning from its regular season into playoffs; I thought this was the perfect time to highlight how great of a sport it is! And of course, {read more}