Relationships and Life

Photo taken by Cyrena Jacoby

Relationships are some pretty amazing things when you happen to be in the right place at the right time and the two of you just “get” each other. So many times people stay in relationships for too long because they think the person will change, “maybe he will change, maybe things will change”. The reality is no one, not you or me is going to legitimately change for anyone. People change because they want to. People change because they wake up one morning, they look in the mirror and they are sick of the person they see staring back at them. They want that person to be different, so they decide it’s time to change my life, I need to do this for me. Things will happen, they cannot be forced, they cannot be rushed, and they do it on their own terms.

Now that you have learned you cannot change another person what are so many of us doing in our relationships? Trying to change each other and those are the relationship’s that fail. Look at the divorce rate; it’s like that for a reason.

I love a good makeover, I think that it’s absolutely incredible how different people can look if they give a little bit more effort, or have been given the “know how” tools. I personally like this because it’s amazing how beautiful people can look, and I think confidence is one of the most important things any of us can embrace during our lives. When our confidence is up we are such a more attractive person, to ourselves and others. Not just physically attractive, but all around, our self-esteem blooms, we become inspired to do more things, we want to get out and be social, we want to live life and share it with others.

Change and building personal confidence is something that must be done by you, not me, not them, you. We all have things that make us individuals. What makes you, YOU? What makes you different? And if not different want makes you blend in? To what crowd? It’s important to know who you are. What do you like? What do you really love? What do you like doing? What do you hate doing? When do you feel at peace the most? When do you feel the most stressed out? Once you pin point these things you learn what to gravitate towards and what to steer clear of. Personal confidence is not doubting yourself, it’s believing in yourself. It’s knowing your own limits and when you’re ready or not. No one in a relationship that has any of these self-doubts is benefiting either party.

I learn so much from self-reflecting my past relationships. Why is it a past relationship, probably because it’s meant to stay there, but not ignored, not become bitter towards it. Rather looking back I can learn more about myself, what kind of person I was, who I have become and who I want to be. It’s difficult to see the whole picture when you’re lost in the picture itself. When you take time to look back and realize why you said that, why you did that, you have the ability to truly grow as a person. Sometimes when we thought we were right we were actually wrong, the situations that surround us can impact how we feel and make things better or worse. How is personal confidence? Do you have a job, do you have a career? How do you feel about yourself, how did you feel about yourself? Some people become a part of our lives to help us, give us strength, and show us how special we really are. Not everyone is a forever person, only the few special ones happen to be in the right place at the right time, when your mind is straight and their mind is straight, then you two crumble to each other’s feet and mold together as one unity.

When I look back at my past relationships I am amazed how much I have grown as a person. Things I thought were so important really aren’t. It’s funny now when I think about it. The things I thought were so important to me surrounded Hawaii, the place that I saw more beauty then I had seen before. I embraced and obsessed over that because I became so captured by it. Why did I get like that? Well a lot of it had to do with sponging off of others emotions like I do too well as well as the free feeling associated with it. I tanned, I tanned so much, I thought everyone around me needed to be tan, well those that I was interested in. A tan signified health and freedom to me. I wanted to feel the way I felt in Hawaii all the time, so a Tan was one step in that direction. Being outdoors, taking a walk, not being stuck inside, was important to me, it still is actually. I find my most deep thoughts occur outside and I’d rather be a deep person then shallow.

I think that relationships can be categorized by High School, Pre Adult, and Adult relationships. When we are young we are still learning about ourselves let alone trying to get to know another person, it makes those relationships not as deep as they could be, this also depends on the length of the relationships as well. Pre Adult relationships are after high school and things seem to be more “real”, why is this? Because you know yourself better then you did in high school and so do they. The most difficult breakups I have endured are the Pre-Adult ones. I felt that childish innocence brought me closer to others, yet drew me apart as well. No matter how long your relationships last for if you at any time cannot trust them or you find them making empty promises they have more individual growth they need to do on their own. It’s nothing you did wrong as a person, the timing just wasn’t right.

Timing, oh how that changes everything. Perspective is an incredible thing. When you look at things through different viewpoints your perspective changes. One day you might hate something the next day you might love it, what makes us change like that? Our perspective.

There really isn’t enough time in life. When we are young we think that time is on our sides, which is not necessarily true. What is time but an object we invented to keep track of days and years, ultimately time is the length of life that you have been given to live. No one is going to say, “I want to live a stressful horrible life. I want to complain about my life all the time.” Bottom line is we all want to achieve happiness and we want to be around other people that feel the same way as us.

I have tested this theory when I am out and about. When I am so overly concerned about how I look, how I am acting, and how I feel, I ultimately have a horrible time and no one approaches me (hmm I wonder why, I don’t want to approach others that look like they are in a funk). Then I tried the complete opposite, I strolled out and just oozed confidence, people were drawn to that, I got approached more and I had such an incredible time.

So what does all of this really mean and come down to? I think that each of us have things that make us different and unique. Some of us hide these things; some of us are ashamed of them. When the worst critique you have is yourself, you need to change something’s in your life. I have been there; I have looked in the mirror and wanted to be anyone but myself. I thought being like others would get me attention like them. This is simply not true. How is being a poser attractive? I sure don’t like being around “fake” people, why would I think others want to be around me when I act like that.

I decided to embrace the things that I hated the most about me these past few months. Let’s see, well for starters I am a pretty tall chick, 6’1 is not a shorty by any means. I have hated my height and avoided heels and standing up straight to simply blend in and be like everyone else. When I  look at what I look like slouching it’s disgusting, it makes us visually gain 10 pounds and just looks all around unattractive. I have always wanted bigger boobs, I was always jealous of everyone who had fake boobs or anyone who just had nice large breasts. I obsessed with padded bras and how to appear larger. I bought all these different silicone pads to look like I had bigger boobs, I actually lost a “boob” in the ocean one time, talk about ultimate embarrassment. A guy saw it floating by and was like, “excuse me, are you missing something?” I almost died in embarrassment right there. Yet I still wore things to appear larger up until recently. It’s so silly to me now, I have given up on my having to always wear padded bras and be something I am not. It feels so good to be confident enough to be me and not you and not her, but me, small boobs and all.

When we can admit to our faults and failures we can grow. If we close our eyes to things in front of us and look the other way we have a great chance of missing our lives altogether. It is so important to get to know yourself, to get to know who you are. Once you are able to accomplish this being alone is not such a fear, being around others is not such a fear and people will be overly drawn to you. I am at a stage in my life right now where change is going to happen; it’s going to happen because I am making it happen, not waiting for it to happen. If you want something bad enough go after it, life waits for no one. We are all not getting any younger. Each day that we wake up we are given the opportunity to grow, live, and be happy. The choice is ultimately ours on whether we allow ourselves this gift or stand in our own way of personal happiness.

Until next time.

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