Try Harder... or not

A crab looking out to the future. What does she expect, or does she even think at all?

All my life I have lived by a central paradigm: the harder you work, the harder you try, the more you will succeed.

The problem with this linear thought process is that I ended up increasing my stress level, not necessarily working harder. It is true that a more determined effort supports a more accomplished path, but I don't need to live a life constantly thinking about how I can best use my time, most effectively use each minute, study most deeply, etc. Instead I need to live by one of my central tenets: trust. I need to trust that my life will be fine. I already have a mindset that prepares me for my goals and dreams. I still need to put forth the effort to achieve my goals, but I don't need to worry about it. I can let go, breathe and accept the fate that life is offering me.

Therefore, today, I am going to try to stop trying so hard. I am always looking up self-help guides to improve my personality, relationships, life, academics, and health, but perhaps I need to stop trying to find the easy fixes in life, and just go and live. Living is much more difficult that fulfilling my brain's craving for instant gratification. I need to stop living for hope, and start living for real meaningful purposes. We'll see where this road takes me. I will still do the things that work, running, studying, friendships, but I'll stop trying to make them the ultimate achievement.

Letting go.... now.

"Turning Tables" - Adele

Vibrancy

The vivid sunset I witnessed at the Olympic Sculpture Park today (yes, in February!)

We can all agree that in general life is too short. Time is a brutal lord that controls our fates, yet also creates us into our human selves. With time we grow, and with time we lose out on opportunity. Time allows us to accomplish feats, passionately love, and joyfully explore, while limiting us from these very pleasures. Often I ask myself, "what if there were just more time in the world?" but the true impact of more time would mean more time would be spent working along with playing. Perhaps we would create new things, but in general life would not really change; we would just accept the shift and adapt to it.

In conclusion, I aspire to live every moment to the fullest. Life is short, but I can intentionally live with more meaning. This means meaningful moments with family, friends, studies, work, and even meditation and sleep. Even wasted time has a place in life. I just want to avoid wasting too much time because I have realized during my span at UW that significant moments only last a few minutes or seconds even. While I can increase my chances of encountering a special, inspirational, thought-provoking, or definitive moment by spending more time on certain aspects of my life, the inefficiency of that time spent decreases at a certain point. For example today I spent three hours with one friend. It was fine and dandy, but in only thirty minutes I surely could have gotten as much depth from that time spent with my friend. However I am not god, and I cannot predict how well I spend my time. I guess I will just try to get more sleep so I can make less neurotic decisions and more strategically use my time.

Meanwhile, I keep trying to make life more fascinating. I try to think of three impossible or crazy ideas each day to inspire me to expand my mind beyond the structure and frames of my collegiate education. I also try to keep taking photographs and explore the city. Meditation and exercise are other forms of escape that offer me time to reflect, clear my mind, breathe, and renew. I worked too much last week, so these past few days of renewal have been necessary for my future, but I have also made many mistakes. Nevertheless I am determined to live with vibrancy at every step and snore.

"Rolling in the Deep" - Adele

In Only Two Hours

Where does this rough road end?

My situation will change quite a lot in merely two hours. At 2:20 I can release and enjoy me weekend after a tortuous week studying like no other and feeling in the pits. I cannot wait to escape. I see the light in the distance, the joy in the hours that approach, but for now I am going to have to settle with the anxiety that is pounding inside my heart as my chemistry midterm approach. I will do fine I hope, but I cannot wait to just get past this climax of my stressful week. I have spent too much time studying and not enjoying life. I feel like I am wasting life away, constantly exhausted, unhealthy, and alone.

The weekend is so close, I can feel it!

"The Wilhelm Scream" - James Blake

Balance Can Be Boring

The light at the end of the tunnel?

Today I was a total workaholic, yet I feel incredibly unproductive. I spent over 5 hours studying deeply and the remaining part of my day was eating, a short photography break between the dorm and library, my young democrats meeting, and about twenty minutes watching tennis. I guess I could have cut out some more social time there with that tennis match, or avoided any creative time, but without that I really would be going crazy today. I am incredibly exhausted; today was the second day in a row where I slept through my alarm. But it was okay, despite the exhaustion that haunted me all day. I have many ideals I yearn for like reading my notes after class, applying for jobs, determining my majors, improving my friendships, but all of these expansive goals seem impossible considering how much time I am spending right now just to accomplish the necessary schoolwork.

Last year I was like this except I would spend 7 hours "studying," by surfing the internet for 6 of those hours. Now I am actually using my time to the best of my ability, yet I am still behind. I never feel up to par on any subject and I have more work to do tomorrow because I was unable to complete everything tonight. I have a chemistry midterm, and a Japanese essay, but at least after tomorrow's economics quiz I can pause a bit on that subject.

In essence life has been rather unwavering, which is ideal I guess, almost "perfect," but it's the imperfections and wanderings that give me a thrill in life. I wish I had spoken to the girl on my floor who seems interesting and I saw passing on the ave, or I wish I could just read my book for one hour. Still I managed to explore the East Asian Library today and take some delightful photographs of Mount Rainier. I'll have to display them later.

In the meantime, I've got to get some sleep and here's hoping that I will actually wake up when my alarm blasts in the morning (I can't even say tomorrow because it is already Thursday... sad).

"I Just Wanna Run" - The Downtown Fiction

Feeling Insufficient

Hectically I awoke from a restless slumber discovering that the time was indeed five past nine, not the leisurely pace permitted by five till eight. I took a minute to blink, hoping that the time would change in that instant, but instead, it remained solemnly 9:05, the seconds ticking away, time passing by. Only the night before as I wrote a blog entry I discussed my frustrations with time, and it only seemed destiny. I crawled down my ladder and took a deep sigh. Sure I had only twenty-five minutes to complete a shower and fifteen minute walk, but I just went for it. I took an impressively speedy shower (today I actually did something good for the environment!) and walked like a pronghorn sheep toward the distant executive education center. Despite the limited timespan, I actually shifted my mindset and spent those twenty-five minutes positively making the most of my time.

Following forward, my day continued to make the most of time generally. Today was a seemingly unremarkable day, yet I did a lot. My classes were unhelpful, continuing to feel like wastes of time, but outside of class I studied for hours to thoroughly understand the topics I am learning. I challenged my mind, completed the necessary tasks, and even did my laundry in the afternoon.

I achieved a significant amount of homework before the State of the Union. I was inspired by the unity of Congress. I really was proud of the bipartisanship and I hope that this will be the path forward even with my high degree of skepticism. President Obama instilled a sense of patriotism within me, a spirit lost in recent times. After watching the administration fail to follow through with promises to combat climate change, tackle immigration, and allow the economy to falter more, disappointment was building in my heart. I realize now that I must serve this country as I have always intended. We need to deal with these difficult issues of climate change, biodiversity, pollution, diseases, and resources effectively and with a conscientious outlook. If I can study my chemistry, economics, and Japanese to help us achieve these grand goals then I am doing my part.

After the speech I was greeted by a lovely phone call from a friend, another boost to my morale. We had not spoken for many weeks, but it was as if we had seen each other more recently. I was so glad to talk to someone about all the exciting things happening in my life, both positive and negative. Friendships make living more worthwhile and I am infinitely grateful for my wonderful friends, old and new. I cannot wait to meet more intriguing, fascinating, and joyous individuals as I grow older. Each new person, each new conversation is an experience that expands my wisdom of this complex world.

This isn't dubstep, which I have fallen in love with today, but it captures the feeling of exhaustion I feel working this late at night despite managing my time super-efficiently and studying without distraction.

"Cat and Mouse" - The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

Direction

This was a beautiful lighthouse at Makapuu Point on Oahu when I visited Hawaii lasted week.

Dreams. We all have lovely dreams for our future, some of us fret over them more than others, while some of us think briefly about grand ideas, but place them aside. I have gigantic dreams; this is a centerpiece of my identity. Some are specific like becoming a member of the faculty at a university in California, preferably Berkeley, while others are simple and common like finding true love. I don't necessarily believe that I will absolutely achieve all my dreams for they are far-reaching and incredibly difficult to reach, but I dislike the idea that I cannot fulfill my dreams. If I want to try and become a Rhodes Scholar, who will stop me? If I want to make a difference on this planet, what will stop me?

Well, in fact, there are plenty of people, events, and ideas that obfuscate my journey.
Friends face struggles, and these difficulties simmer my heart. I feel withered by all the chaos my friends endure and the pressure I place on myself to be a better friend to everyone. I never feel like a good enough friend because someone will always be insufficiently befriended in my world. There is no 100% with friendship, and while I struggle to accept this, I am learning to be okay with my imperfect friendships.
Likewise, these dreams require determination and self-discipline. To secure my dreams I have attempted to brutally structure my life by a tightly managed schedule. This has enabled me recently to accomplish the necessities, yet still I am not doing half of what I should be doing to achieve my dreams. To top it all off, this prudent time management mechanizes me. I feel like a robot at the end of the day, worn out, but unsatisfied. Wandering and serendipity have been banished from my world. Meditation, reflection, adventure, love, and joy have been forlorn in to a forsaken corner of my closet beneath those more pressing needs like family, friends, schoolwork, etc. This clash of my stress level reaching its capacity, while my emotional level reaching a low lead me feeling inhuman and miserable.

I want to be a genuine human. As one of my best friends used to tell me, the most important thing in life is to be human. But sometimes it's difficult to truly accept our humanity. We are not superhuman, gods, or masterminds, really we are only human, and on occasion we must accept our fate. But I refuse to let fate determine my life. I know that the most significant obstruction is time. I often despise the constraints of time, especially as I reflect upon the passing time as I age each minute, hour, day, and year. However I am going to attempt a new mindset. I will not look at time as if it is an enemy, rather time will be my friend. I have all the time in the world theoretically, so I might as well live my life to the fullest, but with no need to fear any ending.

"Who Your Are" - Jessie J

Overwhelmed by Thoughts

Sometimes I just feel so miserably overwhelmed. Right now I feel that pressure brewing. I never realized how much UW would suck the fun out of me in certain ways. I just never have time to have fun. I am much more disciplined than I used to be, but now I am miserably disciplined. I spend my time as efficiently as I can. I work, work, and work, aiming for that desired grade, that increased knowledge, this sense of fulfillment.

I am overwhelmed by friendships that I don't understand what to do with. Varying opinions about life are causing me to question my sense of self. That delicate core of being that determines who I am feels uncomfortable, violated. I thought I knew who I was and that would fix all my problems, but I am so sad. I need to get away from the stress of this place. I have just worked like a machine for so long, that I believe I have forgotten how to live. I have forgotten happiness. I want happiness so badly, but this overwhelming sense of misery overshadows me like a looming cloud of gray.

Life is much more complicated than I ever could have imagined. I always feel like when I finally get a sense of life, I become overwhelmed by the whole complexity of it all. I thought I understood what I needed to do: find a job, volunteer, study, explore a hobby, exercise, etc., as if life is this formula, but it is so much more complex. Sure I can simplify life down to that level, but there is so much more to consider. People have emotions, morals, values, thoughts. Sure, these can be examined and predicted, but in the end, one single action can have huge impacts on any single individual, or even the rest of the world.

I need some peace even though I just exited my break, and yet I think I want more chaos, but something not so depressing and stressful. I think I need to stop thinking so much!

"Pull Myself Together (Don't Hate Me)" - The Rocket Summer