My Job Changed Me

I think my job changed me as a person.

Or maybe it's just the passing time that's molded me into the person I have become.

I can't help but wonder if certain things in my life didn't happen the way they did, if I would be different and better than I am today. I feel that I am often finding I don't like the person I see and when I come to these realizations I try to change that. I've grown another year older and I have come to the conclusion that I'll probably never be satisfied with the person I am simply because that is the type of person I am. Does that even make sense? I don't know but I'm going with it.

Back to my job- I work in a pharmacy and I've done quite well for myself financially speaking (from where I have started to where I am now that it is). I have worked there for three years and have noticed qualities about myself that are no longer alive in me. I used to be extremely outgoing and social. Now I am more of an anti-social hermit. If I met me three years ago in the grocery store, younger me would've struck up a conversation with just about anyone. Fast forward to today and I avoid any interactions with other people at all costs as if they were the plague.

I've seen the worst in people. The negativity is daunting and heavy in my work place. It is a daily norm to get yelled at and it just about expected that more than half of exchanges with customers are going to be sour ones. I know to an extent that my own attitude is half the battle, but I've worked in an environment that has bred me to be this way, bracing for the impact everyday. I consistently try to alter the negativity with positivity, but so often it is unsuccessful. It feels the more I am defeated, the less I want to stand up and fight and as a result, I fall to the level of the rotten public.

My job has changed me as a person.

I am more than understanding that in a pharmacy I am working with medicine and therefore sick people, but you would have to work a day in my shoes to truly understand the abuse that we put up with working in the retail setting of medicine. People have learned to complain about everything and be nasty to get what they want. The world has become so bitter and misery truly does love company. I often encounter people who I truly believe have nothing better to do but go places and cause scenes. Sometimes it seems there are people who receive true enjoyment in putting other people down. A bad mood is like a disease and it spreads like cancer from one person to the next. A dangerous ripple effect. It is so much easier to allow yourself to be in a poor mood than it is to lift yourself out of that abyss. I know this because it is a daily struggle of mine.

It makes me extremely sad to think about the hopeful person I once was, and the bitter person I now am when I look at the world and the people that inhabit it. However, it is so important to remember that everyone isn't like this. It may seem like there is no good left but sometimes that because your too focused on the bad to even notice it. I don't want to be this person in the darkness, unhappy to go to my job everyday. It's no way to go through life.

I won't give up. I will continue to try and be the change I wish to see in the world. It may feel like you can't make a difference, but even the smallest of actions can make the biggest impacts in someone else's day. It is not hard to be kind. It is actually relatively easy and mutually beneficial at that. It's too bad that there are so many people out there just like me, who don't have the desire to be better and change themselves. They have let themselves rot to the core and they are truly missing out on the beauty that life has to offer.

My job has changed me as a person, but I am no longer going to let it have that control over me. The truth of the matter is that it never really had control over me in the first place. I just allowed myself to believe that to justify the shell of a person I have become. I chose the pharmacy because it gave me the ability to help people and make a difference. I am going to punch in everyday with a goal to make an exceptional difference in at least one persons life for the better. Every day. One person at a time. And maybe together we can kill the cancer and may the kindness ripple into the lives of many.

I will never stop trying to be the very best version of myself. Life is a journey of living and learning. What kind of life is it to do the same things over and over and expect it to deliver you different results? It isn't a life it all; it is the definition of insanity.

So what, my job changed me. Many things in my life have altered my path and made me the person I am today. I am happy to have this obstacle to overcome and grow from. Whatever it is that has changed YOU, you have the power to grow upward from too.

Temporary Emotions

Emotions- they are all temporary. Pain is temporary. As much as we hate it, we cannot experience true joy without the existence of pain. There is no black without white, just as there is no light without darkness, or more importantly life without death. 7 billion people on the planet and it would seem we are all chasing the very same fleeting and skittish sensation: happiness. We chase happiness and run as fast and as far away from even the most minuscule doses of pain.

It would appear that misery overstays its welcome, taking advantage of your hospitality, while contentment's nomadic appearances come and go so fast you didn't even get a chance to grow used to it's presence. That's just how our brains work however. Negativity seems to cloak positivity. We are wired to miss the good when something bad is in even in our peripheral. It's in our nature. If only more people realized how temporary it all really was though. In hindsight, they'd see how important it is to be grateful and aware of the goodness when it presents itself. Then they'd also see how utterly silly it was to hold on to a past unchangeable and things or people that do more harm than good, for they'd now understand that their hopeful patience only prolonged the healing process.

When things get bad, when you've hit rock bottom (we all have at some point), you want to give up. All you can see is the ruins left of yourself. You let the darkness consume you and you no longer see a point in trying because that's just how bad things have gotten. Yet, there is a certain beauty in this very moment of darkenss and that's simple because things cannot get any worse; they can only get better. You can only go up from the lowest crevice in which you've fallen. There is hope, there is light, and there is a point. Sometimes it takes falling apart to reform yourself and in return, truly and finally find yourself.

May I again reiterate, so you understand the magnitude of the phrase: pain is temporary. It demands to be felt (as says author John Greene, The Fault In Our Stars). In the name of a great Rascal Flatts song, "Let it Hurt". Let all the hurt hit you from every direction. Cry it all out, sweat it all out, wash it all out- just let it out. Holding it in and resisting it's existence only intensifies the effects later down the line. You cannot change or move on without acknowledging and accepting the very emotion that will eat you alive until you let it reap it's wrath; so bite the bullet and get back on the horse.

Crappy things happen- that's life. It is imperative that you be grateful for the ups and be even more so grateful for the downs; the downs are what make us stronger, and without them, we would not truly know greatness. We wouldn't be appreciative of happiness without knowing it's absence. So if you are hurting today, just know that it will pass. Know that things will get better and when they do, they will also get worse again because crisis is inevitable.

What you do with it is your decision.

Pain, Love, and Lessons

Sometimes pain becomes such a huge part of your life that you always expect it be there, because you can't remember a time it wasn't. But then one day you feel something else, something that feels wrong. Wrong because it's so unfamiliar. And in that moment, you realize your happy.

Love gave me this feeling. One single, beautiful, and gracious person. I had gotten so used to living a life full of pain that I didn't realize I was resisting something so much larger than myself. It took me two years to give it a shot and only three or four months for the flame to die out.We burned so brightly together and I've realized I was wrong to regret that for the past couple months.

Looking back on it now, I am ever so grateful for the time I spent carelessly happy and blissfully free, no matter how short it lasted. Because to me, every moment of pain I had risen from, was worth every second of love and letting someone in all the way. It was so hard to let go of, because it was such a long journey to get to where we had gotten. Letting him in was the hardest thing I had ever done and in the end it taught me that I can't get through life shutting people out. If I want to live happily that is. That love has taught me more than my words can express and more than I can even fathom right now, and that boy was the single best thing to ever happen to me. He walked into my life and changed everything, and that, is only one of the many things I thank God for every night.

I believe he was my soul mate. But before you mistake my intentions, I do not believe a soul mate is necessarily the person you are meant to spend the rest of your life with. In fact, I believe a soul mate is someone who uncovers layers of yourself that you didn't even know you had. Someone who saves you from a great struggle and someone who helps you find who you are supposed to be.

You may think you and your soul mate are meant to be. Hell, I was positive we were and at a time, he was too. Yet, I think we were so meant to be that we weren't. People come into our lives for reasons; whether it's to teach us a lesson or to guide us through the trenches. I believe that he did just that and I believe no matter how messed up everything currently is and how lost I might feel, that I'm still right where I'm supposed to be.

And I have faith that he is too.

Serenity

I don't know what it is, but when I'm outside under the sun, toes in the water, and in my bikini soaking up every bit of nature around me, it feels like I can finally breathe again.

There's just something about casting a line out on that still water and slowly reeling in your lure. Giving the pole a jerk here and there and steadily turning the handle on the reel.Something about the way the wind blows and the way the sun hits your shoulders. Gosh, I really don't know what it is but there's just something about fishing that soothes my soul. Clears my mind. Makes me happy. I swear I could spend my days like this forever.

When I get older I want a house that sits right on a secluded pond or lake. I'll sit out on my little canoe or boat with a line in the water and a beer in the cup holder. I don't even care how big the fish in the pond are, as long as they aren't those little sharp toothed devils! I mean, it would be nice to have some hogs swimming in my back yard that I could catch and put on my wall, but in the end, that's not what's important to me. 

I'll find a man who enjoys these little things that I do and I'll marry that man. We'll sit in silence on the water or on the shore, enjoying the atmosphere that surrounds us. We'll teach our children how to fish and maybe one day they'll even be better than me, but they'll see they have some catching up to do until then. 

While I was casting away today, this is what I thought about. This brought me such peace and if I achieve these things, then this is a life I'll be proud of.

Me

A guy asks me out on a date and my immediate thought is, 'Why?'.

'Why would you want to go out on a date with me?'

Then I start listing all the things that I see wrong with me. I start comparing myself to him and other girls. This boy is kind, athletic, funny, interested in the same things as me and super good-looking; he could have any girl he wants and he's asking me on a date?

Yeah, he sure is. And you know what? He won't be the last guy to do so.

I have stunning blue eyes, silky strawberry blonde hair, and a great smile. I also have a great body- I forget to be appreciative of it, no matter how hard I constantly work to keep up with it. I love exercising and being active. I am extremely athletic and competitive. I love sports, but especially football. I love the outdoors and sitting on a still pond casting toward the shore. I am not the typical girl who loves to shop and do my make-up because I think that natural beauty far exceeds all the fake tans, manicures and foundation caked on your face.

Aside from my looks, I have a killer personality. I am funny as all hell; I can make others laugh just as easily as I crack myself up. I am fun and no matter where I am, what situation I am in, or who I'm with; I make a good time happen anytime. I am creative and innovative- able to make something out of nothing. I appreciate all life's little things and I am easily amused. I am spontaneous. I dance when I hear music and I am silly when I feel like being silly. I smile often and I think the world we live in is an amazing place. I am great with children and will one day be an amazing mother, despite the past misfortunes I have experienced. I look at my traumatic past like it's a stepping stone to a great future. I see it optimistically- that my trials and tribulations have made me who I am today. I am strong, resilient, and brave. I have perspective that many don't, and I use it to my advantage to help others. I am grateful and appreciative, never forgetting to count my blessings. I am wise beyond my years and I am the only one of me there is. I may be hard on myself, but it is days like these that I realize I should be proud of myself. I have come so far and still have so far to go, but I have risen from so much darkness and it's imperative that I remember the progress I've made.

It's time I start believing and stop questioning why a man would ask me out on a date.

I am beautiful, I am me, and there is no one else I'd want to be.

"The Wrong Door"

So today I found myself in a seminar on the very thing I had been avoiding for weeks now- Love.

I was with a girlfriend of mine and we just laughed it off for a bit, because 1.) That's just what we do, 2) We had no plans of even attending this seminar until we walked into the wrong door and had spontaneously decided we might as well just stay, and 3) Because we were both actually quite heartbroken so laughter seemed an easy way to brush it off.

I don't know about my friend, but it was quite frankly painful to listen to the lecture. There were couples there, telling their stories, how they met, etc. But there my friend and I sat. In the back row having a "grand ole time". I believe that she was hurting just as much as me. It didn't take long for our laughter to die down. All it took was for the speaker to start discussing the down sides of love, the very things we fear, and the horrible things we feel. There was other single people in the room too, he was questioning them, helping them. People with different and unique examples of struggles they've been going through. It was like an optimist intervention. It was exactly what I needed to hear, it was the very thought process I have been trying to adopt.

I was consumed by my thoughts and hadn't realized the speaker had walked down the aisle and asked me a question. He was standing right in front of me.



Speaker: Miss? What's your name?

          My friend jabbed me with her elbow.

Speaker: Miss?

Me (shit why me): *ahem* Oh hi, sorry, what did you say?

Speaker: I asked what your name was.

Me: My apologies, name's Sam.

Speaker: Sam. That's a nice name. Now tell me, what brings you and your friend here to this seminar?

Me: We actually opened the wrong door, we were in the city looking around for things to do.

Speaker: So you had no actual destination in mind?

Me: Uh, no. I suppose we didn't.

Speaker: So why do you suppose this was the "wrong door", as you so called it?

Me (stammering): Oh no, I uh, didn't intend for that to uh--

Speaker (interrupting me): No offense taken, but that isn't my point. You said that you had no destination in mind, but that you quote, "came in the wrong door". If you had no place in particular to go, then how do you know that this wasn't the right door? How do you know that this isn't where you are supposed to be at this exact moment? That maybe stumbling in here will change everything about where you currently are in your life. Tell me something Sam, do you have a boyfriend?

          Uhm, excuse me? Did he really just ask me that?

Me: No.

Speaker: So you recently had one but no longer do.

          UHM, DOUBLE EXCUSE ME? 

Me: Yes.

Speaker: And he broke your heart, didn't he?

          This is getting uncomfortable

Me: What makes you think so?

Speaker: Think? Aren't you more curious as to how I know so?

Me(with a chuckle): Enlighten me.

Speaker: You put up this cold front that you think no one can see through, but really all I had to do was ask if you had a boyfriend and you cracked. Your entire posture shifted, your pupils dilated, you gulped as if the very sound made it hard to swallow, and I could nearly feel the pain in the "no" that you spoke.

Me: (silence)

Speaker: Tell me this, did you love him?

           There had to have been 100 other people in the room and he had the audacity to ask such personal question!

Me: No.

Speaker: Lies.

          No shit, I didn't know by sitting down I was giving my consent to group therapy.

Me: (silence)  

          I am not doing this right now. I don't have to, I could just get up and leave right now.

Speaker: No one is this room is going to judge you. Everyone in here is vulnerable and open to new perspectives. Everyone in this room has loved and lost, some are even here with their loved ones; others, just as you, aren't. Chances are, you'll never see this folks ever again so what are you so afraid of?

          Vulnerability. Letting people in. Admitting that I am actually a miserable wreck no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise.

Me: It's not a matter of being afraid, but rather a matter of not being ready to discuss these emotions with anyone, yet alone a stranger.

Speaker: Ah but Sam, strangers are the easiest people in the world to talk to!

Me: Yes, but I prefer not to talk on such a personal level.

Speaker: Understandable. However, I don't want you to walk away from this exchange thinking I was interrogating you so just hear me out for a minute Sam. I may not know the whole story, what his name was, or went wrong between you guys. But I can see the pain on your face no matter how well you do cover it from most and how beautiful of a smile you do have. I can see that you are struggling, I can see that you are lost, and I can tell you with no doubt in my mind that you will get through it. You are a beautiful young woman and there are lots of fish in the sea. Stop thinking about the past, the mistakes, and stop thinking that every door you walk into is going to be the "wrong one". I believe that this door today was the right one and when you lay your head down on your pillow tonight, I hope that you'll believe that too.



And then he turned around, headed back to the front of the room while people clapped, and he continued on speaking to the group. All the while the conversation had now been directed to how we need to start thinking every hypothetical door we walk through is the right one; the one that will change everything for us. Not only was I amazed at the speakers improvisation for his entire talk, but I felt as if the Lord himself had just spoken with me. I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt good.

I was utterly shocked. Even more so at how my friend and I left in silence, not saying a word about what just transpired-I didn't know what to say to her. We hadn't really talked about our recent break-ups, but we both knew that we were hurting. When we got on the train my friend handed me her notebook (she's majoring in journalism). She had written down the entire exchange between me and the speaker and she said to me,

"I'll let you post this on your blog if you let me put it in my school's paper".

My mind was blown. She had actually written all that down. I was so caught up in the conversation with the speaker that I was completely oblivious to her scribbling. I had to have this, so I let her post her story as long as she kept my name out of it just like I kept her name out of my blog. So here's my story, on my blog! I added in a few things (like my thoughts in italics), but thanks to her, I have this memory written down on paper to be remembered perfectly forever and I wouldn't want it any other way.

The man was right. I had walked into the right door today. Just a few days ago I was on the river and had decided everything was going to change in my life, and this encounter today was the greatest reinforcement I never even asked for.

I'm Done with Regret

Today I really felt in my element. I went kayaking and I know the picture is crappy- my terrible phone doesn't do the moment justice. It was in this moment, out in the sun and on the beautiful water away from everyone else that I finally felt like I could breathe again. I could think. I could relax and just let go.

I left it all on that river today. All the past, the hurt-everything. Of course I know I'll still feel the pain of heartache and the stress of not knowing where I'm going, but I have faith that I'll find my way and that's more than enough for me.

The only thing you can change about your past is how you feel about it. All my life I've looked back with regret, no matter how much I told myself otherwise. Whether a past action becomes a regret or a lesson is totally up to you. I'm done with regret. I'm finally setting myself free.

Keep Your Head Up

I often find myself wondering why our minds are wired to feed into negativity as oppose to positivity. Why create such a beautiful thing as the human brain, only to waste it on negative thoughts and happenings that we can’t help but fixate on? What about trying to redirect our attention to the good, not necessarily ignoring the bad, but to dealing with it in a way that’s productive and that hopefully solves the problem all together? Well, much easier said than done (speaking from personal experience of course).

But what if it really isn't so hard after all? What if our fixated and stubborn selves don't realize how easy it really is to find silver linings?

It’s hard to accept a mindset of optimism when we are raised in world full of pessimism. So how do we stop the cycle?

We break it.

Surely it takes more than just one person in a world of six billion to do so. I am quite obviously not the only person to share this mindset and to have pondered these thoughts, so if you're someone who has yet to, I think you consider trying it out. Despite the hardships, the past, other people, and no matter how ugly of a day, even the most simple positive can be found.

For example:
You opened your eyes to a new day today didn't you?

No one said life would be easy, and if they did, then you were told a ginormous lie. Our lives, no matter who you are, are all one in the same. It's our trials and tribulations that separate us and make us who we are. It gets hard sometimes- real hard, but it's important to count your blessings and never forget them.

Moral to the story: Keep your head up, no matter how heavy it may get sometimes.

Beautiful

Life is full of its highs and its lows, but it’s important to remember that there is always a needle in the haystack. “Sunshine follows every storm and breaks the dark of every night”-nothing stops the sun from coming up every morning. Shitty dark grey clouds may hide it sometimes, but behind it, the sun is always there.

It’s a shame how quick the moments go when we don’t want them too, and how the clock slows when the days are excruciating. Things will be so good you can’t believe they’re real, and so bad you beg that they aren’t. We think too much and live too little, and by the time we realize we had something great right in front of us, that something’s a fleeting memory. We forget to cherish the moment we’re in, ignorantly thinking the moment will never end, but when it does, it’s gone, and when it’s gone, we feel lost. Lost without that taste of joy- that sweetness that’s nearly perfection.

Unfortunately, I’m in one of those lulls in my life. Fresh out of a time where everything was so good, felt so right, and made me so happy. And I suppose that’s when things hit you the hardest. I lost someone I love deeply, and every ounce of me feels lost. Excuse me, *felt lost until yesterday that is.

I decided it was time to pick myself up, figure out who I am, who I wanna be, and where I wanna go. Otherwise I’ll remain stagnant and go nowhere, and I sure as hell didn’t work so hard to get to where I am and then self destruct. Oh no, not after everything I’ve risen from.

I was told I was beautiful yesterday and I was honored. Words cannot possibly justify how good it felt to hear that one three syllable word. In all honesty, that one word really kicked me in the ass. It picked me up from where I was and I decided I was finally ready to move on from what has been keeping me so low.

If you let it, one word has the power to change everything.