Category: Uncertainty

Posted in Change, Life, Uncertainty

Stop Giving Advice To Your Younger Self

Posted on by Brittany

Screen Shot 2016-03-23 at 1.16.13 PM“What advice would you give to your younger self?” It’s a common question. One you’ve probably been asked or even asked someone yourself. And the responses are always so insightful. They’re always drenched with wisdom. Spoken from someone with hindsight that is 20/20.

They’re responses like, “I’d try and not take life too seriously?” or “I’d care less what people think” and even “I’d tell myself it’s gonna get better.” And while these trinkets of advice are all well and valid, they’re kind of counterintuitive. They’re pieces of advice you couldn’t give had you not gone through whatever struggle you overcame to learn them. If you eliminate the struggle, can there ever really be a lesson learned?

Continue reading “Stop Giving Advice To Your Younger Self” →

Posted in Change, Life, Uncertainty

Allow yourself to feel lost.

Posted on by Brittany

Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at 1.27.17 PMThere are always times in life where you feel lost. Where you see other people and their lives going off in one direction, and you feel stuck in yours. Or where you see other people enjoying the place they’re at, but you know there is something  greater out there for you…you just don’t know how to get there. But the trick to getting there is simple: itall starts with a step. It starts with one step in any direction. It starts with not worrying so much about where that step will lead you, and allowing yourself to figure it out along the way. It starts with throwing out the mapand the timeline, and walking forward anyway. It starts with being lost.

Because that’s the beauty of life isn’t it? To find what makes us happy. To become who we are. How can we do that if we aren’t searching? If we’re not exploring who we are. Why should we strive to always know where we’re headed? If life is truly about the journey and not the destination, why aren’t we getting lost more often?

It’s important to point out that being lost isn’t a bad thing. When we’re lost it means we’re always searching. For answers. For direction.  For clarity. And in most cases, for ourselves. We’re looking for something or someone to show us the way. There is a beauty to being lost. To not knowing which direction is up and moving forward anyway. To trusting in the plans the universe has for you, and having faith in how they will unfold.  To trusting in yourself to get you wherever it is you’re supposed to be. To knowing you’ll get there, even if you’re not yet sure where “there” is actually going to be.

It’s time to go seek the answers, or to choose to let them find you.  To know in your heart that not all those who wander are lost. To always be wandering and striving to explore the unknown. To choose to seek adventure where you can and create it where you must.   Allow yourself to explore the world — whether that it’s in another country or simply in the world you’ve created here. There’s adventure in every moment; it’s just up to us to seize them.

So, allow yourself to be lost. In the moment. In love. In your experiences. In your life. Take the time to wander off the beaten path. To choose the road less traveled. To follow your heart. Being lost gives us the opportunity to find the answers to questions we may not have even known we were asking. To find opportunities we didn’t’ even know existed. But above all, being lost allows who we are, and what we want, to finally be found.

Posted in Change, Life, Uncertainty

Choose to keep choosing.

Posted on by Brittany

There’s something really empowering about the fact that our life is made up of choices. Screen Shot 2014-05-07 at 4.44.52 PMThat each and every day we get to choose to make what we want out of this life. To feel the good, or give into the bad. To step out on faith, or rest comfortably in what we already have. We have the choice to find the magic in every moment. Or to create it if it’s not there. We have the choice to make our lives remarkable, so why don’t we all choose it?
Continue reading “Choose to keep choosing.” →

Posted in Life, Uncertainty

The Thing About Perspective.

Posted on by Brittany

Perspective is a funny thing. On a train whizzing by you see faces of people you’ll never meet. From a plane you’ll can fly over places you may never get the chance to go. Walking along a crowded street you’ll hear voices telling stories you’ll never know the endings too.  All of these things, they can make the world feel so big and in turn, make your world feel so small. It can almost make you feel insignificant. Like in the grand scheme of things, your problems, your victories, and everything in-between, don’t really matter. But they do. There may be a big picture to this world, but your story is an important part of it.  You may be one ripple in a vast ocean, but that water can still feel the change.

Sometimes this vastness can make it feel like you’re drowning. It can make your life wrap you up in chaos tied with a bow of your daily routine. It can box you in so you’re stuck with who and what you know, but there’s a reason for that. The world may be big, but your world, the world you interact in daily, tends to be small. Most times it has to be this way; it’s how you get by from day-to-day. If you constantly were aware of every single thing that goes on in the world, everywhere, well, it would be overwhelming. So you tend to stick to what you know. Your life essentially becomes a bubble. But you can’t let this make you forget that there is an entire world out there. It’s a world filled with new opportunities and new adventures you have yet to embark on. There’s a world filled with people that you have yet to meet whose stories can change the course of your life in an instant. There’s always something around the corner, a hidden moment you have yet to uncover. Embrace this. Let your bubble pop. I think too often, you’re afraid of running out of time to accomplish things. Too often you worry that you aren’t where you thought you would be. Too often you’re scared that your life may not amount to something. Dismiss those fears. Know that that’s the beauty of a world filled with possibilities yet to be discovered; there’s always a way for the course of your life to change.

Bumping into someone on that crowded street can literally turn your life in another direction. Every moment that happens in your life is one detail that can change everything. So, stop getting bogged down in what’s currently in the confines of your life and start embracing the fact that there is still so much to come. Use the houses you see from a plane, or the faces that pass you by, as a reminder that there is so much more out there. More than you probably will ever get the chance to fully experience. But strive to soak up as much as you can. Try to look at life from different perspectives so that your perspective on life can change. Opportunity and possibility are all around you. It’s just up to you to see them. It’s up to you to find the perspective.

Posted in Life, Post-Graduation, Uncertainty

You Are The Author(ity) Of Your Own Life

Posted on by Brittany

By Sabrina Ali

Rita* walked up to her guru with all the confidence she could muster. Everyone had told her that she just “had” to meet him and now here she was. He was a living example of what she wanted to do. Afraid that her nerves would get the better of her, she’d been rehearsing her line all day:

“I’m totally inspired by you and want to do what you do someday. What would I need to do in order to pursue this path?”

“You need to become a Social Worker,” he answered.

“Got it.” Continue reading “You Are The Author(ity) Of Your Own Life” →

Posted in Change, Life, Post-Graduation, Uncertainty, Unemployment

The Year Of Unknowing

Posted on by Brittany

By Samantha Schlemm

I’m covered in beer and I’m shaking. It’s the Thursday before Christmas Eve and I don’t want to be here anymore. My black converses are warped from all the hours I’ve put them to work, and my feet ache.

“I – I just can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.”

He studies me and I can tell he knows that I’m serious. The calm and collected girl he has come to know is gone and she is officially having a nervous breakdown. In front of me is a glass half full of liquor for sangria, the pitchers I had made earlier are long gone and I’m stuck making them by the glass now, there is no time to stop and reset.

“Come on just a little longer,” he says cheerfully, but he’s not dealing with this, he’s simply making sure that I don’t screw up, and he knows I won’t. He’s come to depend on the fact that I won’t mess up, so he mostly ignores me. But right now, I’ve never felt like this before. The tickets keep printing with more and more drink orders, and the crowd around me is tripling in size. How in the hell did I get here? It’s the year of unknowing and I can’t figure out how I got stuck here bartending. There is no stopping. There is no end in sight. Continue reading “The Year Of Unknowing” →

Posted in Change, Uncertainty

That’s Change..

Posted on by AIMG_Developer

By Brittany Davis

Change is a funny thing.  Sometimes we love it, sometimes we hate it. Sometimes we wish it would happen faster, sometimes we wish it would just stop happening. We hate when the things we know and love change. Relationships, friendships — those are the things we wish would never change, yet those are the things that usually do. We know that change happens, sometimes we even understand why. If it wasn’t for change we’d never grow. It’s because of change that we adapt, make adjustments, alter. That’s all a part of life. However, knowing that it happens, doesn’t make dealing with it any better; knowing that it happens, rarely makes it any easier.

Because when things change they’re normally beyond our control and circumstances we have no say in. People move on, friends grow apart, and things like time and distance make themselves known. When change happens our lives seem to move at a different speed, but we often are stuck standing still.  But change will eventually force you to move, change forces us to take steps. You can take steps aside, as people make their way out. You can take steps backward, trying to hold onto how things were before they changed, or you can take steps forward, and try not to look back; you can let change push you forward. But how? Continue reading “That’s Change..” →

Posted in Relationships, Uncertainty

That’s Having Expectations..

Posted on by AIMG_Developer

By Brittany Davis

Here’s the thing about expectations. We know that if you expect something there are really only two outcomes. You either get it or you don’t, you’re satisfied or disappointed. We expect our expectations to be met. Its the point. It’s when you expect something of someone and they let you down that it becomes a problem. When we let people in our lives, we expect them to be a part of it, we expect them to stay. But sometimes the expectation of them being a part of our life is met, but not in the way in which we hoped. Sometimes they become part of our lives by being a lesson. They become the person that never made it to our future. They show their true colors.  They show who they really are. The thing is, when people show you their true colors, it’s important to pay attention. Because once you’ve seen in color, there’s no going back to black and white. There’s no going back to who we thought they were.

That’s the thing about thinking you know someone. The reality is we only know the person they put out there, the things they choose to share and show. But can you ever really know someone? Who they are? Their intentions? What they stand for? What they believe in?  We have this ability of being so many people in a given day, to play so many different roles throughout our lives. So how do we know what’s true? How do we know which version to believe?  The truth is, we don’t ever really know anybody. We only know the people we expect them to be. Continue reading “That’s Having Expectations..” →