new resolution:

are you happy?

the hard road?

bring your own sunshine

inspiration

look me in the eyes.

it's ok if you're scared, so am i.

but, we're scared for different reasons...

i'm scared of what i won't become

and you're scared of what i could become.

look at me.

i won't let myself end where i started;

i won't let myself finish where i began.

i know what is within me,

even if you can't see it yet...

look me in the eyes.

i have something more important than courage.

i have patience.

i will become what i know i am. 

talkin' 'bout my generation...

brilliant post from rebekah monson.

There’s been a lot of press about my generation lately. A lot of it questions our values, work and goals. So, here is my admittedly unsolicited opinion of my generation and, more specifically, our work life.

You must understand that we are not starting out with a positive attitude. In our short careers, we already have been laid off or at least afraid that we would be laid off. We have seen our parents downsized and left high and dry by companies that they helped to build. We have been unable to get work after doing “the right things” that we were told would make us successful — school, internships, volunteer work, mentorship, etc. We have gone into high-demand fields like IT only to see those jobs outsourced overseas for pennies on the dollar. We have joined the military, served our country, come home broken and with no opportunity for honest work in the private sector.

The corporate leadership in this country has made it clear to us that no one in our generation is getting a gold watch. We don’t have any delusions about that. Hell, many of us can’t even get insurance or make a living wage now, and no one sees it getting any better. Why would we make a job anything close to a top priority in our lives, when we can have no realistic expectation of having a long-term career to begin with? No one I know in Gen Y (or Gen X for that matter), has any faith whatsoever that any employer will ever give a crap about them as human beings. We accept that we are numbers on a spreadsheet in the current corporate landscape, but we don’t have to like it. We check off your boxes, and we accomplish the goals you lay out. We play nice. But, if there is no benefit to going the extra mile, then why bother?

That said, we are largely financially conservative. Our debt is daunting. We try to save more, we try to live more sustainably. We do not trust Social Security or that our 401Ks will see us through retirement. We are waiting to buy, and avoiding rent by living with our parents. We rely on your help because you offer it. If you didn’t, we’d scrape by somehow.  Many of us live at home to help our parents as they struggle with their own low wages and financial trauma. We have no idea how we will ever afford a family or a house or anything on our own when we cannot attain jobs with basic benefits and full-time wages.

We have a lot to be excited about, but less and less of that exists within the current corporate structure. We communicate constantly. We love to collaborate. We are data junkies. Many of us are imbued with entrepreneurial spirit. We strike out. We tinker. We play. None of this is particularly valued in the current corporate environment. But, we value it in ourselves and in each other. We have interesting side projects. (And, we keep them from you so that you won’t fire us.)

We also have a conscience, and we expect it to show up in the workplace. We were raised to be aware of the plights of others and to understand environmental issues. It is important to us to be involved in our communities. Our friendships run deep. Really deep. We view our core friend groups as family, and family is supremely important to us. We give our time and our energy to causes we believe in. We share. We expect our peers and the companies we work for to do the same.

So, we work, and we wait. We are working and waiting for our side projects to become our main projects. We are working and waiting for  the right kinds of relationships to solidify in our personal and professional lives. We are working and waiting for you to retire so that there are funds and jobs available into which we can “grow up.” We are working and waiting for a chance to change the establishment to reflect our values. No, we don’t want what you have, just as you didn’t want what your parents had. We don’t want to spend our lives as perpetually burned-out slaves to a company that does not value us. We don’t want to be in bad marriages and isolate ourselves in McMansions.  Neither did you when you were our age. Of course those things will happen to some of us, or perhaps most of us. But, right now, we’d rather hope they won’t.

Every generation goes through its turn in the news cycle. And, every generation thinks they’ll do it better. Time will tell. But, there’s one really great thing about coming of age in America in an era when things are generally thought to be pretty bad: It forces an early decision about what’s important in life. No matter how it appears while looking down from 25 years up the corporate ladder, we are decidedly chasing our own ideals, even when things seem hopeless. I’m proud of that. Maybe, if we’re lucky, this experience will pay off when we get the chance to examine our kids in the harsh light of our own age, experience and privilege.

hakuna matata!

disney's "the lion king" captured a beautiful swahili phrase in a terribly catchy song.

hakuna matata.

it means no worries for the rest of your days.

so chill out man! 

swing in some liana vines with your jungle friends.

relax!

i think we forget this too often, so i am reminding you.

read this article if the song doesn't cut it for you, as far as explaining hakuna matata. :)


also, take 4 minutes to watch the clip. you-will-smile.
also, i know everysingleword. just sayin.

must-read: thoughts on homosexuality

this is old, but i only just found it recently. really amazing letter. if only more ppl thought this way, the world might be a better place...



Sunday, April 30, 2000
By SHARON UNDERWOOD




Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from you good people.
I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual agenda" and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.
He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it's about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don't know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true Vermonters."
You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual agenda" could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.
He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can't bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?"

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?



http://www.andrewtobias.com/newcolumns/000504.html

vid: jessica's daily affirmation

"I CAN DO ANYTHING GOOD! BETTER THAN ANYONE!!!"
not new, but i still love it.