Stay Strong.

March 1st is National Self Injury Awareness Day. Typically described as a day to help spread awareness about the seriousness and misconceptions of self injury and mental health. It's also a day for people to wear orange or write love on their wrists as encouragement for all the people currently dealing with self-harm.

Things always seem to become more real when statistics are thrown in. Between two and three million people in just the United States exhibit some type of self-abuse behavior, including eating disorders like anorexia. 1 in every 200 girls ages 13-19 cuts herself regularly. Several studies show that 1 in every 100 people who is admitted to the hospital for self harm will die of suicide within a year of the self harm. Keep in mind that these few statistics are only based on people hospitalized for their self injury. The millions of others who keep it a secret aren't accounted for.

History of abuse, overly-stressed, feeling worthless, low self esteem, loneliness, fear, depression, anxiety, curiosity, and a need for control are just some of the many reasons teenagers give for self-injuring.

When Demi Lovato got out of rehab last year for self-injury issues, as well as eating disorders, she revealed the tattoos on her wrists. Her left wrist says "Stay" and her right wrist says "Strong." She got the tattoos as a permanent reminder to herself that she could be strong enough to overcome the feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. The ink on her skin was there to remind her that she WAS good enough. Demi Lovato's story is what made me decide to study Psychology when I attend a University this fall.

I know that God has protected me from a lot of the hurt that many girls and guys go through when their feelings of hopelessness reach their skin. I know that sometimes the only thing keeping me strong is knowing that even when I feel the whole world has given up on me, God hasn't.

We can be ashamed of the things we've done, but God isn't ashamed of us. His heart breaks knowing that we're hurting, but His love is still there holding us together. God made us all such beautiful creations, in His image. In the image of God, we were made to be perfectly His. No matter what the crazy world will tell you or throw at you, that is still reason enough to keep going. Don't let your fears, anxieties, feelings, or depression allow you to ruin the body God has given you. Don't let it keep you from living your life to the fullest you can.

Those moments when you feel worthless, like there is no hope for you at all, remember that God sees you as His precious child. He doesn't see your darkness or your scars. He sees right through that to your heart and He surrounds you in His love. Just like it says in Isaiah, we should no longer see ourselves as desolate, or deserted, because God has given us a new name. Hephzibah, meaning "My delight is in my child."

God sees our brokenness, He sees our fears, He sees our hurt, and none of that stops Him from loving us unconditionally. That's reason enough to stay strong.

Every moment you put down the blade and walk away, you're saving your own life. You're having the courage and strength to go on just one more day. You're being your own hero.

On this day, my heart breaks for all the teenagers out there dealing with self-injury. My heart aches for those of us who feel as though our life is no longer worth living. But I remember that there is hope and there is a light. I know that God's love is surrounding every single one of us no matter what we're going through. Knowing that he sees me as His precious daughter and takes delight in me as His child is reason enough for me to stay strong.

Just one more breath. One more minute. One more day. One less scar.

The Genius Named Steve Jobs

I'm taking a Public Speaking class this semester and I have to give a biography speech next Wednesday. I chose to do my speech on Steve Jobs and thought I would share it with you all. 

With everything I have learned, I could talk and write about Steve Jobs for hours on end, but unfortunately my speech is limited to 5 minutes. I gave small glimpses into the highlights of Jobs' life but I would encourage you all to read his biography or even just google his name. I have gained a huge amount of respect for this man and am more proud than ever to own an Apple computer. 

Enjoy. 

Introduction 

Henry Ford, (the inventor of the first mass-produced vehicle), once said, “If I asked the people what they wanted, they would have told me ‘a faster horse.’” I’m not going to be telling you about Henry Ford today. I will actually be telling you about Steve Jobs, who had a much similar view on life.

After listening to my speech, you will better understand the man behind many of your phones and computers. No longer will you know him as the man who invented Apple. You will now know him as the genius named Steve Jobs.

I feel confident speaking to you because along with reading Steve Jobs’ biography, I have done extensive research on the Florida Gateway College databases.

I will be discussing 4 major highlights of Steve Job’s life: his childhood, his college life, his work with Apple, and his death.

Body

To say Steve Jobs had an interesting childhood would be an understatement.

In the self-titled biography written about Jobs’ life, Walter Isaacson says that Paul and Clara Jobs adopted Steve from birth after being born to a Catholic mother and Muslim father. Due to religious beliefs, his biological parents’ marriage was not approved and abortion was not an option.

Isaacson also mentions that during Elementary school, Jobs was a problem child. He was known for playing pranks on his teachers and being rebellious. During parent-teacher conferences, Jobs’ Dad would blame the teachers for not keeping him interested enough.           

From a young age, Jobs knew how to manipulate people to get what he wanted. In Middle School, Jobs was bullied a lot. He told his parents that if they didn’t let him change schools, he would just stop going. So, the Jobs family sold their house, packed up, and moved away so Steve could attend a different school. 

During his high school years, Steve smoked marijuana regularly and did LCD and hash. He adopted the hippie lifestyle, ate a strictly vegan diet, and followed Buddhism.

As many of us already know, Steve Jobs never finished college.

From birth, Steve’s parents had a college fund set aside for him. Jobs found the most expensive Liberal Arts school and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He hated the required classes that he had to take.  He officially dropped out because he felt bad for wasting his parents’ money. The dean of students allowed Jobs to continue taking the classes he found interesting and live in the dorms with his friends.  Tuition free. 

In his Stanford Commencement Speech in 2005 (as reported on the Stanford website,) Jobs says, “The minute I dropped out (of college) I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting."

Although Jobs is the founder of Apple, his life and career with them was like a never-ending rollercoaster.          

           

As said in the Steve Jobs Newsmakers biography on Gale, the first Apple Computers were built and marketed in the mid-1970s.

Since the first Apple computers were such a success, the Mac was invented in 1980, but it didn’t boost the profits enough and Jobs was fired from Apple.

After being fired from Apple, Jobs created a new computer company called NeXT and made a deal with George Lucas to own 70% of Pixar Animation Studios.

While working for Pixar, Jobs released the movie, Toy Story.

After realizing that NeXT would never be as successful as Apple, Jobs sold it in 1996 and re-joined Apple, but kept Pixar his main focus.

In 1997, Jobs became the CEO of Apple once again, and from then on, invented the iMac, iBook, iMovie, iPod, and iTunes. For the first of these years, Jobs lived on a $1 a year salary and made most of his money from stocks.

In 2007, Jobs sold Pixar to Disney for 7 billion dollars.

In the August of 2011, Jobs officially resigned as CEO from Apple when he was no longer able to meet his duties and expectations.

Steve Jobs’ health always conflicted with his career.

                       

He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003 but it wasn’t made public until 2004.

Last year, Sandra Martin wrote in the Globe & Mail that in 2009, Jobs had a liver transplant that extended his life but didn’t cure his cancer. He also took a 6-month medical leave for a hormone imbalance that was more complex than he originally believed.

On October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs health failed him, and he passed away.

Conclusion

Steve Jobs founded and created one of the most successful companies in the world. People often wonder how he did it.

In an interview with Inc. Magazine in April of 1989, Jobs said “You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.”

Apple was successful because Jobs knew what the people wanted before they wanted it. He knew that the only way to make money was to put out great products. Apple isn’t successful because they have thousands of products. Apple isn’t successful because it’s sold at Walmart, Best Buy, and Office Max. Apple isn’t successful because it puts out new stuff every week.

Apple is successful because Jobs built it to be a company that thrives. When most companies are downsizing because of the economy, Apple continues to upgrade, and people continue buying the products.

At the end of the biography he wrote for Jobs, Isaacson answers his own question. “Was Steve Jobs smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius.  Like a pathfinder, he could absorb information, sniff the winds, and sense what lay ahead.”

Steve Jobs had a rough life. He was abandoned at birth and always in trouble in school. He had drug problems in his teen years, dropped out of college, and went on to get fired from his very own company.

But none of this stopped Jobs from living an extremely successful life and leading one of the most successful companies known today.

In that same commencement speech for Stanford, Jobs said this:

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

I think he definitely lived out this quote.  When Jobs died last year, he was worth 6.7 billion dollars.

And his company Apple is now worth more money than the United States government. If Jobs can have done all this without a college degree, imagine what we can all do with one. 

Happy Valentin... blah blah blah.

Valentine’s Day always reminds me that I’m single and alone.

Then I remember I’m only a teenager.

Why do I think I need a boyfriend to be happy in life? It might be the cheesy movies, TV shows, songs, music videos, pictures, billboards, magazine covers, cute couples in the mall, $100 boxes of chocolate, life-size teddy bears, flowers, restaurant ads, need I continue?

The Internet and media have pretty much made me believe that I need a guy to get anywhere in life.

But I realize now that this is so wrong and misleading.

I think I’ve written about it before, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat myself. I realize now that these single years of my life are so important to me. I think God gave us this period in our life so that we can find ourselves and what’s important to each of us individually.

My Mom told me the other day that she didn’t fall in love until she decided that she was happy on her own. This was a big revelation to me. When I sit around and try to plan out my life, I always leave an empty spot for a boy. [No wonder I’m still single.] After hearing what my Mom had to say, I’ve found a new way to live my life. Instead of planning my whole world around a guy that I have yet to meet, I’m going to start living in a way that makes me happy within myself. I have so many goals set for myself that I hope to reach one day. And I see now that I can reach all of these by myself. Realizing that made me figure out what truly is most important to me. I want to get the best education I can, and then from that, build a good career for myself. It's time for me to embrace my independence. 

It’s important for me to build this life for myself and make myself happy by accomplishing the things I want to accomplish in life. As my Aunt always says to me, “There will be time for boys later.”

I always thought that I would need a boyfriend to make me happy or experience my life with me. But, now I realize that I have to be happy with my life before I’ll ever be able to let someone else in. It’s important for me to build a life for myself that I can be happy and proud of. And once I accept that I’m happy within myself and okay with where I am alone, then I can allow someone else to be a part of my life with me. And by that time, hopefully that someone will exist. ;)

This Valentine’s Day is a reminder to me that I can be happy on my own. I’m young and I have a whole life ahead of me. I have the opportunity to make something great out of myself and do extraordinary things. I have the entire world in front of me. I can be happy on my own. I have an amazing family, incredible friends, and a God that will love me no matter what happens. Nothing more can make me happier.

I’m thankful for my 18^th single Valentine’s Day. I need this time in life to become happy with who I am. It also takes these times for me to realize that I have great potential and an amazing life ahead of me.  Most importantly, when the Creator of Love loves me unconditionally, what more could I possibly want out of life?

Jesus is my Valentine. No roses, chocolates, or boy could ever beat that. 

Love Worth Trying [Video]

I did some experimenting with iMovie and Photobooth on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. :)



Song by Audea.

Will I End Up Happy?

I logged onto Pandora for the first time this weekend. My Dad is always raving about how much he loves it, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

I just typed in a random artist that I have been listening to and loving a lot lately. [He Is We]

The first song that started playing was a song I hadn’t heard before and I immediately fell in love with it.  [Happily Ever After]

My favorite line in the whole songs says, “Author of the moment, can you tell me. Do I end up, do I end up happy?”

This line really hits me deep and makes me think a lot about life.

I realize that most of the decisions I make are based on what will happen in the future. When I am in the process of deciding whether or not to something, I keep in account how it will affect the next day, the next month, the next year.

I’ve always been raised with this mindset. I remember when I was very young, my Dad always telling me to “think ahead.” Still to this day, he tells me to think about how the choices I make will impact me in the long run.  (Which is also his advice to the U.S. government.)

I am extremely thankful for this lesson that he’s taught me. I think it’s always important to take the future into account when making decisions, because as we all know, the smallest choices you make change your whole life.

But, I think that even this can be taken too far. I think sometimes I spend so much time thinking ahead and thinking to the future, that I forget to live in the present. I forget to enjoy the day I am currently living in because I am too busy worried about what my tomorrow is going to look like and how next year is going to be.

For the past year, I’ve found myself living from exciting event to exciting event. I find one certain day to look forward to and then I spend all the rest of my days counting down to that event. I never thought this was a bad thing, until I started realizing that I was alive on those special days, but dead on all the days in between.

Instead of living in the moment and enjoying every day as it came, I found myself staring at the clock, hours on end, waiting for the day to be over. Then I knew I had one less day to wait.

When this special day that I had been waiting for for so long came, I was ecstatic. I was happy. I was alive. I felt positive and full of life. I felt like I had no more worries or stresses. It was amazing.

Then it ended.

I went back to being dead. I stared at the clock again and waited for time to pass until I found something new to look forward to.

It was… and still is… a continuous cycle.

I can honestly say that I’m not happy with this way of living. And I’m working on trying to get out of it. This song kind of opened my eyes a little bit.

I struggle every second of every day, wondering if my future is going to turn out the way I want it to. I wonder every day how my life is going to look in 10 or so years. Heck, I wonder every day how my life is going to look in 6 months. I want to know if I’ll be happy. I want to know if the choices I’ve made end up getting me where I’ve always wanted to be.

Too bad the harsh reality is- We won’t know til we get there.

I can spend all day wondering what my future is going to look like. I can spend every second thinking of how I want to be in 6 months or ten years… but all I have is today. All I have is this moment that I’m living in.

My life can change the second after I type this next word. My life can change when I drive home from work today. I can wake up tomorrow and my life be changed. I will never know what could happen or what will happen.

All I truly know is what is happening.

Right now.

In this moment.

I think maybe I spend so much time focusing on making myself happy in the future that I forget to be happy right now. I forget to live in the moment. I’ve written countless blog posts on letting fear keep you from living. This time I think I’m letting my future keep me from living.

Of course I want to know if I’m going to end up happy. Who doesn’t?

But right now, I need to focus on being happy today.

Going back to thinking ahead, I think it comes back full circle.

By being happy everyday, and living my life fully alive everyday, I think that will impact my future in a positive way. I might not know how it’s going to end or where I’ll be, but if I’m happy now, then that’s what matters.

I will always make decisions based on how they are going to impact my life in the long run. But I think it’s time for me to stop using my future as an excuse to waste today.

Every single day is new. Every single day, something can change. Every single day provides opportunity for something incredible to happen. Maybe if I wake up every day, happier, then I won’t have to worry about my future as much.

I can rest and be free in knowing that the future will work itself out as long as I let myself live in the moment.

My past is gone forever. And my future is undecided and a mystery to me… but today; I have the ability to be happy and live life. Right now, for this second, I think that’s important.  

Will I end up happy? I don’t know. I guess we’ll see when we get there. :)

Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Matthew 6:34