Category Archives: Soul Searching

Someday when I grow up…

Posted on by under Chasing Dreams, Creativity, Grandfather, Happiness, Life, Money, Non-fiction, Soul Searching, Universal Truth, Writing

Think back to when you were young…

One of the biggest questions everyone asked was what do you want to be? Pretty big question. But if you were like me, you had an answer to everything back then, didn’t you?

I remember in first grade I knew that answer. I wanted to be a writer. The first piece I ever wrote was a play on several 3 by 5 index cards. It was littered with spelling, grammatical errors, and incomplete sentences. In my eyes however, it was a masterpiece. It sat in a box, tucked in one of my favorite childhood books until we moved, and my Mom gave them to me.

Reading the note cards provided my Husband and I with much entertainment , and by the third card, we were laughing so hard we were crying. Thankfully, my writing skills have improved since then!

Life happens, people grow up. Instead of getting happy, people’s opinions get in the way, and then we hope to get lucky.

Get lucky, and get that promotion. Hope to get a good paying job with benefits. Work for a company that offers a good retirement plan, and if we are lucky, retire by the time we are sixty. That is, if -and that is a big if- we are lucky.

Then life happens. That promotion we were hoping to get, it doesn’t work out. Our luck has not been too good. Times are tough, and with Obama Care in place,  that benefits package the company you work for is increased by $200 bucks a month. You can barley afford to pay your bills, and you will never be able to retire at this rate. Then all that labor you have done for years finally catches up. You get a chronic condition, and that job that you used to be able to do, you can no longer do. You are forced into an entry level job. With no hope of retirement at all.

You are forced to do something for yourself and you family. You come back to the only thing you know how to do.

Write. So you begin writing. The only thing in life that gives you purpose, besides being a Wife and a Mother.

Then you remember the day you grew up. The day that people told you, being an English and or Creative writing major would never make you any money. The day your dreams were crushed. The day they died.

The day I looked into my Sons eyes, was the day I was born. Then I got happy. Not just lucky. I felt the need to write. It hasn’t stopped since. I write stories and poems, for my Son, and he asks me to read them to him. He reminds me daily to get happy, not just lucky. It all made sense. The reason I was here, what life is all about.

Life isn’t about being lucky. It’s about getting happy.

When I ask my Son what he wants to do when he grows up, I am gonna tell him the same thing my Grandfather did, “Do what makes, you happy. Not what makes you the most money.”

I keep thinking about the conversation my Grandfather had with me before nursing school. I wish he was here to talk to me and support me now. He was good at listening. I think he knew me better than I knew myself.

I can’t help thinking about the advice he gave me, and about how he said I would struggle and have to jump through a lot of hoops in my life to get where I was going. He was so right. Right about everything.

I’ve already jumped about through half of them.

Driving in the same car that he used to drive, on the way to the college campus, I started talking to him, asking for his guidance. I just wish I could take one last drive with him.

If he was to ask me today what I wanted to do when I went to college, my answer would no longer be, ‘Making a decent living,” but “living a life of happiness doing what I love with the people I love.”

 

 

 

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Write, write, write.

Posted on by under Dreams, Fear, Grandfather, Soul Searching, Universal Truth, Unspoken Words, Writing

I have always been scared to write. The odd thing is, the more I write the less fearful I become. In evaluating my life, I believe I have figured out where this fear comes from.

The fear comes from people telling me over the years that what I wrote did not matter. That I could never make any money from my passion. Somewhere along the way, I gave up on my dream. I know where. In college.

I was told I was good at taking care of others, so I choose to pursue a career in the health care field. I do not regret it because I feel life is a learning experience and I learned a lot. Most of all I learned from the people that I took care of.

Life is full of disappointment. So you should spend it with someone you love, and doing what you love.

I wish I would have listened to my Grandfather all those years ago. He told me to do what I loved, not what other people told me to do. I listened to what other people told me I was good at doing. I didn’t form an opinion of myself at that age. At 18, I really had not had time to form a strong opinion of my own, so I figured I would listen to those that had formed a strong opinion of me as a person. So, I didn’t listen to that voice inside whispering inside of me.

The started getting louder the day my Son was born.

It started shouting at me the day I collapsed and found out I had a Vestibular disorder.

It woke me up in the middle of the night three and a half weeks ago and wouldn’t let me go back to sleep.

Then, I knew I had to write my ideas for my book down. The ideas have kept pouring in, all day long. Every day since. That voice I have suppressed since I entered college has come back and it shows no signs of going away. The voice that the world tried to beat out of me but couldn’t. That voice that says, Write, write, write. So I listened to it. I picked up my pen and I did.

 

Be Like a Child

Posted on by under Chasing Dreams, Childhood, Children, Common Core, Corporations, Corporatocracy, Corruption, Creativity, Dreams, Fear, Fearless, Freedom, Growing Up, Happiness, Hope, Humanity, Inspirational, Life, Love, Philosophy, School, Soul Searching, Truth, Understanding, Writing

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Somewhere in our lives we forget to truly live. I think that begins when you start going to school. These politicians and board members who sit behind desks all day, working for corporations dictate to teachers how children should be taught. “Common Core” teaches you that this is the way you have to learn. What those people sitting behind the desk don’t understand is everyone learns differently.

It is in the classroom that creativity is stopped. They kill your dreams. They kill your dreams and creativity because they do not want you to think for yourself. A large group of people thinking for themselves is dangerous. For they have the ability to change the world.

Be like a child who has not had their soul crushed. Be fearless. Have faith, and know that you are worthy. Follow your dreams. Live dangerously. Love like you have never loved before. It is in this way you will be able to change the world. It is never to late to start living the life you always have dreamed of having.

What is dream did you give up? Why?
Please leave your comment below.

A Year of Creative Writing Prompts- Hour

Posted on by under Creativity, Death, Dreams, Fear, Fiction, Humanity, Hurt, Life, Soul Searching, Writing, Writing Prompts

For those of you that have the book, A Year Of Creative Writing Prompts, by Love in Ink. You can find this on Day 17. Thanks! And please do not forget to check them out.

http://loveininkwriters.wix.com/loveinink

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2 a.m.

It was the appointed hour. At 2am there she laid on the pavement. The shattered glass reflected her image back to her, as the light of the moon illuminated the wreckage she had been torn from. Crying out to anyone that would hear,

“Don’t let me die! Don’t let me Die!”

However, the cries fell onto deaf ears. She was outside herself now. EMT crews were working on her. The biggest fear the middle-aged woman had, was dying without leaving her mark on the world. The little trusty notebook where she kept her novel she was going to publish, was clutched in her hands as the medical personal worked on her. Everything began to go black but she still cried,

“Please God, not yet! Not Yet!”

Watch “The Real You – Alan Watts” on YouTube

Posted on by under Alan Watts, Birth, Death, God, Hope, Humanity, I am, Life, Philosophy, Rebirth, Soul Searching, The Real You, Truth, Understanding

The Real You – Alan Watts: http://youtu.be/mMRrCYPxD0I

I couldnt resist sharing this video. This man is one of my favorite philosophers of all time. While searching my soul, I have come to many of the same conclusions that he has. This is so beautiful. You are an amazing being. We should never forget that. We are all one. The “I am.”