Melissa

I just finished reading Mindset: The new psychology of success by Carol S. Dweck which can be purchased from Amazon at the very affordable cost of $12.92.

I don't want to bore the world with the details of the book because I'm honestly mostly writing this for me. However, I will tell you that the premise of the book is to learn to recognize in ourselves if we foster the attitude of growth and progress or innate and limited talents and abilities. The difference between naturally being "smart" or "dumb" and rather the idea that success comes through effort and steady progress. A word that constantly popped into my head as I read the book was tenacity.

I honestly started reading this book and within the first few pages, I was convinced that I already had a "growth mindset" and that I inherently knew that my potential knows no bounds and that I really could do anything that I set my mind to. I was right about my potential knowing no boundaries, but I was totally wrong about how much I actually believed that.

Don't get me wrong, I do still believe that in most instances, I do have and use a growth mindset. But reading this book made me realize how detrimental my fixed mindset is when it does take over. So...I'm gonna do what Dr. Dweck makes her students do when they take classes from her at Columbia. She makes them give their fixed mindset a name and to identify their fixed mindset triggers. So here goes nothin'...

We'll call ya Melissa (mostly because that's what the old, deaf patients at the clinic think I say my name is and I hate it). So here I am, telling the world once and for all, that I am not Melissa, and that I will not let her take control of my life. She'll probably have some wiggle room for input, but don't let her fool you-- her opinion will not be validated and fed. We will keep her as quiet as possible. A thing of the past to be remembered for what I overcame and to remind me that I don't want to go back to her.

Right now, I find her creeping in to every creative endeavor I want to pursue. She literally tried it like five minutes ago when I thought, "Why don't I practice hand lettering more? I really want to be good at it!" and the second I looked at a challenging hand lettering font, I let her tell me "Oh that's way too hard. You can never do that!" And that's exactly how she works. I'd like to consider myself a creative, but I technically can't because for far too long I have let Melissa have total control over my creative decisions. And when she has total control of the creative decisions, she shoots down every idea--point blank. All the times that I've thought I should hand letter more or learn to draw or play the violin or guitar, I let her convince me that it's too hard for me to learn to do it. So I don't try. I think creativity scares her because it can be so liberating but the "real" creatives of the world seem so magical, untouchable, and brilliant that's it's scary to start out nowhere close to that level. Nevermind that plenty of people do amazingly creative things simply for the emotional release that it provides, Melissa is scared of it because she either wants to be brilliant at it, or simply not try.

I find her slipping in to my job. It's been hard to be in the same position for almost two years with no change. I watched a lot of people come and go in that time, and for some it was because they moved or found other jobs. And others it was because they were transferred into a different department within the office. With my specific job responsibilities, I knew that it was hard to move me to any other department. However, that doesn't mean that Melissa didn't try to creep in there and tell me that I wasn't being moved because I wasn't good enough. And honestly, that sabotaged me more than anything. I believed that nothing I did would be valued anyway, so why try? It wreaked havoc on my attitude and my performance. However, when confronted by my manager, what did I do? Instead of being accountable for my actions, I let Melissa take over. Together we got defensive. We got angry. We sought comfort from the people in the office that liked us, so that we didn't have to face the reality that we have a bad attitude. Now the word that was actually used in my performance review and written warning "to shape up or else" was "hostile" which to this day I still don't necessarily agree with, but I see its purpose. Looking back, I think a more appropriate word would have been defensive or apathetic or even insensitive. I probably was giving Melissa way too much power at the time and was really not in a good place mentally for....more time than I'd like to admit. But since we're being transparent and honest here, we'll say a solid 5 months.  Outside of work, I was honestly great. I was graduating with a bachelor's degree. I was applying to graduate school (albeit stressed) and I had a great social circle. But work? Work was miserable. And my boss could see that I was absolutely miserable. She threatened to just take my job away and I pretty promptly shaped up. Honestly I gave that fixed mindset WAY too much power in my job. And I almost let it wreck me. I realized that just because I wasn't changing departments, didn't mean I wasn't valuable. It didn't mean that I wasn't good at my job, because quite frankly, I'm pretty dang good at it. I really have learned a lot there and I've done quite well. But if I let Melissa get in there too much, I let her tell me that I'm not good enough, that what I do doesn't matter, and that whether I'm doing the bare minimum or going above and beyond that I was always going to be mediocre. A lot has changed since then, and I'm really grateful that it has. I'm still a little bit afraid to screw something up and that I'll get fired over it, but I've been trying really hard to be a better employee and example to my coworkers. Disclaimer: not perfect because the job is still beyond frustrating sometimes, but my overall mindset is better, which is the purpose of it all, isn't it?

Now let's just talk general potential, shall we? I have it from a reputable source (i.e. my patriarchal blessing) that I'm supposed to be a leader. I'm supposed to be able to teach people, to guide them, to provide understanding. I'm supposed to use my "pleasing disposition" to do so. But you know what Melissa does? She tells me that I have nothing special to offer the world. She tells me that no one would want to follow me. She tells me that I'm not refined enough to be a good leader to anyone for any reason. So why is it that I believe Melissa more than I believe God. I freaking KNOW that that patriarchal blessing was both inspired and DIVINE. and yet? I pay more mind to freaking MELISSA. She don't know nothin. But she's still the one I believe. I let it limit me day in and day out. I read that patriarchal blessing and feel inspired to do more, to be better, to be more fearless and faithful in being who GOD wants me to be, not who Melissa limits me to be.

I want her to stop having a say in who I get to be. I want her to stop having a say in what I am capable of doing. Having big dreams and wanting to be an influence for good in the world is scary enough without having Melissa in the back of my mind telling me that I can't do it. So who cares if I fail? Most likely that failure will teach me something or lead to something bigger and better. But nothing bigger or better will every come my way if I'm not willing to take chances, to get out of my comfort zone, and to take the big steps that scare me the most.

So take that, Melissa. I get to be in control of my life. You're welcome to stick around, but ONLY to remind me that I can be so much more than you'd ever let me be. The only thing you're good for is to remind me that I don't want to live a life in fear of taking chances because I fear failure. If anything, I want you to inspire me to fail so that I can learn more in the process.

Let's Love More

I can't sleep when I feel inspired, and I guess maybe that's a good thing because it forces me to write--something that I simply don't do enough.  I promised a dear friend the other day that I would start writing more because she had inspired me to. We used to spend hours reading what the other had written in high school. It served as an escape for us both. and yet, somehow throughout the years, I convinced myself to stop. Now I don't know that it was a conscious decision, but it was a decision that was easily made manifest in my actions. I don't write like I used to. And I miss it. It's quite cathartic to write about what I'm feeling- even if it feels stupid later. There's a power in giving my feelings a voice, in attributing language to the emotions that are most deeply felt, and most difficult to describe. It's empowering to see my thoughts come to life visually even when to someone else it likely just looks like word vomit. HA.

I honestly believe that God gives talent liberally. He endowed each person on earth with special gifts to offer the world. I know that's true. The challenge sometimes is just to identify what they are. However, that's not necessarily the case for me. That's not to say that I have undiscovered talents (because let's face it, we probably all do), but I do know a few talents that I've been given. My challenge comes in knowing what the heck to do with them. I want to put more good in the world. I want to use the talents that I have to produce love and to inspire other people to be their very best selves. But that's a challenge that I face every day. I don't always know how to be my very best self, so what on earth gives me the right or know-how to inspire others to be their very best selves? Honestly, nothing does. But I'm gonna try my hardest throughout my life to do it anyway.

It starts with self love, self respect, and a form of confidence in myself that allows me to believe that I can make a difference for other people. But to be quite frank, those feelings do not come naturally to me. I've had to fight hard for the love that I have for myself. I've had to confront both inner and outer demons that have tried to wreck my spirit time and time again throughout my life. I still confront those demons. Truth be told, they will likely never be totally gone. If I want to love myself, and believe in myself, that's something that I have to make a conscious decision to do every day.  But it's what I hope for most in this world.

I wish that people could love themselves. I wish that they could love themselves in the way that they want others to love them. I wish that they loved themselves so much that vulgarity would repulse them, and that saying ill-willed words to others was unimaginable. I wish that people could love themselves because once they love themselves, it's easier to love others too. I wish that people led their lives with love rather than feeling the need to live on the defensive. This world produces far too much vulgarity, division, and hatred.  We need more love. The world needs to know love without bounds. This world needs to know compassion, forgiveness, honesty, and genuine kindness for all people, everywhere. The world needs to know God, and to love God because it it truly impossible to love God and to hate others.

To be fair, though, I have never personally met anyone that can love that perfectly. I don't understand it, but I know that God's love for me is perfect, even when the love I reciprocate never can be. I know that even though he loves all people perfectly, that I can't. I'm honestly just not capable. But I believe with everything in my soul that the more I can love God, the more that love will just pour from me to others.  And I need practice. I'll need a lifetime of practice. And so will everyone else. But that's why we need to have more love for others. That's why we need to be more patient with others and their shortcomings. Let's face it, shortcomings are frustrating, but in all fairness, shortcomings are probably for frustrating for the people that are coming short. So let's be kind. Let's be patient. And let's lead with love. If we can do that, much of the heartache that we may cause others may be spared simply by being consciously considerate and kind. We may not realize it, but we are surrounded by precious, fragile souls. We ourselves are precious, fragile souls. Let's work a little harder to love a little more and protect each other. As they say, what goes around comes around. So as we protect others, we in turn will be protected. And I honestly couldn't be tasked a greater task than to take care of the people that I love most and to have them take care of me. Life is truly so much more beautiful when it's lived in love.

What's Your Genius?

I am a child of God.

that's not a phrase that I've always believed. I mean, I guess inherently I did, but I didn't always feel that truth. But I do now. I know it's true. And that honestly makes all the difference in how I believe that I have worth.

BUT.

We live in a godless world. I can believe that I am a child of God. and I can even believe that everyone else is too. But just because I believe that, it doesn't change what others believe about themselves. but oh, how I wish it did.

Now, before I even say what I'm about to say, I absolutely believe that we should encourage people to find a belief in God. I absolutely believe that the entire world would benefit from a better understanding of who God is and that we could use some serious reform in the idea of God that currently permeates our society.  I want more people to know that God is loving and forgiving and kind. I want everyone to know the same God that I do.

The problem, though, is that we, as mortal human beings, live in a world where people deny the existence of a God. And if they don't deny Him, they believe that he's spiteful and vengeful and angry. They will completely shut down at any mention of God. I'm positive that there are people who opened this link, read that first sentence, and immediately closed it again. and that is the problem.

The problem is that my ideas and my beliefs and my worth are immediately discredited by the general population because they are founded upon a belief in God, and perhaps even more so because I believe in a loving God.

But if more people did believe in a loving God, and more people believed that they were actually children of this loving God, it would completely change perspectives and people would see worth in themselves and worth in others. And our world needs that so, so desperately.

Regardless of whether people believe in God, though, I think they have every right to believe in themselves.  I believe that they have every right to feel that they have worth. And I'm writing this because I want more people to believe they have worth. And I want to be able to recognize it in other people too.

Albert Einstein is credited for putting into words what I so passionately believe: "Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid."

Let me just repeat that first part for you:

Everyone is a genius.

Should I say it louder? I need everyone to understand that. YOU are a genius! 

But what is your genius? Your genius is unique to you. And I hope you know what it is. And if you don't, I want you to find it. I promise you that your genius is not the same as your mom's or your brother's or your best friend's. but you've all got a little bit of genius in you. 

I believe with 100% of my being that if we changed what we believed about ourselves and what we believed ourselves capable of doing, that our behavior would change, our performance would improve, we'd feel (and be) more successful, which would help us gain confidence.  All of this would put us in an upward cycle. 

Recognition of Genius; Increase in Confidence

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Motivation to Use Genius

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Better Performance

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Reinforcement of Genius

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Recognition of Genius; Increase in Confidence

Think about how big this could be. What if everyone actually believed this? What if everyone knew what their genius was...and did something with it. We could honestly be unstoppable. And if everyone saw their own geniuses, it would be easier to see everyone else's genius too.  And what better way to make us better human beings than to help us see the potential and strengths of all the people around us? 

We'd naturally become more passionate, more empathetic, and more loving. 

And you know what? when that happens, it would be impossible to deny a loving God. Because only a loving God would create billions of people and make them all uniquely genius.

Digging Deep

as i sit here tonight writing this, I am overwhelmed by the amount of sheer talent that there is in the world. people are incredibly good at things. but all people are good at different things, and the combination of people and personality and talent seriously astounds me.

I think about how far technology has come in the last 50 years, 10 years, even 5 years and the brilliant minds that have brought it to us in a way that puts devices into our hands that make us feel like we can do absolutely anything. and someone, somewhere had not only the brilliance and the talent to make that happen, but also the audacity and the drive. 

what if we all lived a little bit more like that? 

but i'm not just talking about technology. 

what if we all just lived a little more passionately and a little more shamelessly? 

what kind of wonders would we work in the world? 

Look at literature and art and music and media. The people that bring us the entertainment we love have to live with passion day in and day out in order to make that happen.  The difference between us and them is that they take their light bulb moments and they amplify the electricity and they work hard to add to the brightness. they eat, sleep, and breathe their passions. 

how many of us can say that we do that too? 

personally, i can't. I'm ridiculously notorious for getting inspiration and immediately shutting it back down. I turn that light bulb right back off and sit in the dark wondering why I'm not reaching my wildest dreams. 

do you see the deficit? because I finally do. 

There is nothing that I want more than to show people the depth of humanity.  Honestly one of my very favorite things in the entire world is seeing people's souls.  

por ejemplo. (that's spanish, i promise I'm not illiterate) 

who knows the People Code? It's that personality test that tells you what color most accurately represents your personality? you can be red, white, yellow, or blue. and obviously people have varying levels of secondary colors as well, but everyone has a dominant color. and i'm blue. WAY FREAKING BLUE, YOU GUYS. 

and that basically means that my motivations to do things are almost always emotionally driven. and oh buddy, ain't that the truth. 

so you can see why seeing people's souls makes me happy.  I thrive off of getting to the depth of the soul. i connect emotionally. and everybody out there that connects emotionally is like "uh, duh, everyone does", which is true, but it's not always the first way that people connect. 

A red, for example, will often initially connect intellectually. the emotional connection follows after an intellectual or a logical one has already been established. 

but a blue. a blue is different. the connect emotionally FIRST.  if there is no emotional connection right away, a relationship will rarely develop. 

so naturally, i'm drawn to things that heighten my emotions, that allow me to connect to the emotions of others, and, for me anyway, the deeper the better. 

i will never ever complain about sitting with someone and talking for hours about the things that set their souls on fire even if i'm not interested in the same things. because things aren't my interest. people are. and I will gladly sit and listen to someone talk about what they love because it makes me love them. 

and if I could have things the way I wanted them all the time, that would be what I do with my life forever and ever. I would create and enhance and portray that innate depth. 

and that brings us back to point A. 

what if I made it more of a point to do what sets my soul on fire? what if I lived a little more shamelessly? and what if I was willing to dig a little deeper to see that depth? 

what then? would I change the world? maybe not, but I'd certainly change me. and I'd probably change a few other people in the process. I'd certainly learn to love a little more perfectly, and I'd certainly learn to see the perspectives of others a little more clearly. and i'd live a significantly more fulfilling life. 

i'm committing to living a little more fearlessly and looking for the depth that inspires me to be a little more deep, myself. 

will you? 

Cracks

I'm generally a very contemplative person. I just think a lot. I ponder things deeply and I ponder them often. I end up having nights like this one where it's well past midnight and I should have been asleep hours ago, but there's somehow a million little thoughts just taking up all the space in my brain, almost as if it were to burst at the seams.  And yet, somehow, there remains inside me an infinite amount of space to think.

So I think about myself. I think about others.  I think about my friends, and the thousands of unique experiences that I've had that have brought me to where I am today. I get so easily caught up in the things around me that make me think more deeply, the things that make me analyze my own character.  One of those things for me, recently, was a book I just finished called Paper Towns, written by John Green.

I feel like I should preface my thoughts about the novel by first saying that I've read a few novels by John Green now. And the funny thing is that every time I start reading one I never have very high expectations for what I'm going to read. Which, in retrospect, is absolutely ridiculous, because I've never read a piece of work by John Green that doesn't make me feel like I've changed in some way.  I would never pretend to know what his writing process looks like because it has to be incredibly different for every writer. However, when I read the things that he writes, I come to a realization every single time that he gives his characters a depth that we rarely see in real life.

It's not that there's a lack of depth there, though.  It's not that John Green is some mastermind with extraordinary talent in inventing a personality with more depth than is realistic.  It's the fact that he's a mastermind in unveiling the depth that already exists. The characters may be fiction, but he writes of them in a way that makes them feel as nonfiction as any of us are.

Paper Towns masterfully addresses the idea of how people see one another. How we imagine the lives of others and what we see of them. There are two parts that were so emotionally and mentally impactful for me that writing a summary of them could never do it justice. Instead, I believe the words of John Green himself are more appropriate.

The first comes at a time when the characters are road tripping to upstate New York and they are imagining the lives of the people in other cars as they speed past them. After two of the characters describe what they imagine a woman's life to be like, Quentin, the main character comes to this realization: "In the end it reveals a lot more about the person doing the imagining than it does about the person being imagined."

Let that just sink in for a moment.
The way we imagine the lives of others does absolutely nothing to their character, but it--without a doubt--speaks volumes of ours.
Not long after this, Quentin is having a conversation with a girl named Margo and he says this to her:

"Maybe it's more like you said before, all of us being cracked open. Like, each of us starts out as a watertight vessel.  And these things happen--these people leave us, or don't love us, or don't get us, or we don't get them, and we lose and fail and hurt one another. And the vessel starts to crack open in places. And I mean, yeah, once the vessel cracks open, the end becomes inevitable...But there is all this time between when the cracks start to open up and when we finally fall apart.  And it's only in that time that we can see one another, because we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs. When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out."

Now here I am at 1:00 in the morning, wide awake, thinking about how many people that I really see and how many that I only see ideas of.  I'm sitting here thinking about how many people see me.  It makes me wonder how vulnerable I've let myself be to the people that I say I love the most.  Have I let them see my cracks? Have I let them in enough to see my light, to feel my depth? Or do I let them picture the idea of me? And I realize that it's much more of the latter than I'd ever like to admit.

Here's to letting more people see our cracks.  Here's to using our own cracks to see the cracks of others, and to see them correctly.  I can only imagine how much more rich and fulfilling my life would feel if I let people see my cracks a little more often. So I'm inviting you to do the same.  I'll share my cracks with you if you'll share yours with me.

Bridling Fear and Reinstating Passion

All the best writers I know are the best because they take raw emotion and they take real life experiences and they craft their language in such a way that it elicits those emotions in their readers. It evokes something inside of them that makes the reader recommit time and time again to feeling more deeply, to thinking more profoundly, to loving more soulfully.  It reminds them what it is that gets their blood rushing and what it feels like when their soul starts to soar. It's anything but words on a page. It is emotion crafted so carefully and so seamlessly that it forever changes the way the reader thinks and the way he feels.

All I've ever wanted was to be one of those kinds of writers. One that has a knack for taking a ballpoint pen and an empty sheet of paper and turning it into something that changes a life, even if it is only my own.  Powerful people have literally changed the world with their words. I don't know that anything I could say would have the power to change the world, but then again, why couldn't it?

***

It was never my intention to stop writing. It just kind of...happened. The thing is, though, that it was anything but sudden.
I could blame it on a lot of things. I could say that I don't have time or that I don't have anything to write about. I could say that I lack confidence, or that once I start writing something I wonder why anyone would even want to read it. And while all of those things are at least a little bit true some of the time, that's not really it at all. What is it that stops any of us from doing the things that we love?   I guarantee that it's not our love for those things.

I would be willing to say that the number one dream crusher in this world is FEAR. Fear that we'll fail. Fear that we'll fall. Or maybe fear that we won't. People are afraid of all kinds of crazy things.
I wrote once, about my fears. An inventory of sorts, I guess. It was an assignment. An assignment to write down every single thing that I could think of that scared me.
At the end of it, I sat there with literally pages and pages of ink staring back at me, my fears suddenly tangible. And then I realized a new fear. The fear that I'd let all those other fears hold me back.  But the realization of that newest fear also led the way to literally the most freeing moment of my life.  I'll never forget how liberating it felt to expel all of that fear that my being had held captive for all those years.
And then, I started over. I woke up the next day feeling like I could conquer the world. Seriously. I think I was the happiest then that I've ever been. I'm positive that I've never felt more fearless.
Somehow, though, over the last 4-ish years, fear has crept back in, and it has done a great job of just sneaking its little self into my life...again.

So what was it that really made me stop writing? Fear for sure. Fear of feeling too vulnerable. Fear of letting my emotion seep from my fingertips. And yet, it's that emotion that I admire so much in other writers.
They say that passion should be bridled, but I have learned that it should most definitely not be suffocated.  So here I am, declaring my passion over my fear; Reminding myself after far too long that I am stronger than any of those fears.

Disclaimer: (Are these supposed to go at the beginning? oh well...) I'm super happy! Life is peachy and I am #blessed. I'm not letting go of my fears because I'm unhappy with my life. I'm letting go of my fears because I was reminded that I don't need to be afraid. All I really need is a whole lot of faith and a little natural-born passion to carry me in the right direction. Everything else will work itself out. I believe that with all my heart.

What School Never Taught Me

School has done a lot for me in my lifetime. It taught me how to be literate, it taught me to be curious and have a love of learning, it taught me how to use the alphabet in math, whether I liked it or not. It taught me about hypotheses and hypotenuses.

But there are things that school never taught me. Things that no amount of formal education could ever teach me, or prepare me to learn. And yet, they seem to be the things are absolutely the most important to learn.

Like how to be recover from a broken heart. Or how to be resilient when tragedy strikes. Or how to be empathetic. And how to love.

All those years of theorems and formulas all worth nothing in the end. Everything that is really worth learning almost always has to be learned the hard way. The painful way. The way that makes us do the most growing-- emotionally, spiritually, mentally.

By way of recent events, I was reminded of how crucial it is that we learn these lessons in life. It was nothing that school could have prepared us for, but somehow, naturally, through the course of our lives, we develop such knowledge.

Through developing personal relationships we learn about love. We learn how to love, how to be loved, and how to keep love alive.

When those relationships suffer or are strained, we learn what it's like to have a broken heart. And we learn how to recover by rekindling strong relationships, or perhaps, building new ones. And someday we hit a point where we forget how bad that broken heart once hurt.

We learn to be resilient by going through hard things. No one is immune, but we each learn in our way and time how to really be resilient to tragedy and heartache and suffering. That doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt, it just means that somehow we figure out how to bounce back anyway.

And empathy becomes a natural characteristic that we attain from the growth of the tragedies we experience in life.

Each lesson comes at a price, and it's not a cheap price either. You've heard that phrase, "You get what you pay for"? I think that's true in life as well. These lessons that life teaches us come at a high cost, but what we get in return is always worth the price, even though it may not seem like it at the beginning.

There's a scripture in the Book of Mormon that explains it so perfectly. 2 Nephi 2:11 emphasizes opposition. Somehow, when it's all said and done we realize that the price we paid to learn these painful lessons actually, in turn, gave us so much more than we could have ever imagined. When our hearts are broken, our capacity to love automatically increases. The deeper we feel sorrow, the more potential we have to also feel happiness.  And that is beautiful.

I think about the sorrow that I've seen in life, and the sorrow and heartbreak that I have seen others endure, and it is nothing if not empowering. It is inspiring to see the way that we, as human beings, have the potential to overcome, well, anything. It's amazing to see how people come together to show empathy and love when tragedies strike in the lives of others. It somehow motivates in all of us, the desire to be the best version of ourselves.

And in the process of becoming the best we can be we will probably say the wrong things, or awkwardly try to serve, or fumble back and forth with responding to the innate desires and promptings that we are given to reach out to others.

But I think that the most beautiful part of the process is the way that we all grow together, and in the end, God has promised that we will all become better and stronger because of it. And for that, I couldn't possibly be more grateful.