Okay, I should start studying now. I really do. I have an exam coming. I have so much to learn. Hmm... my favorite tv-show is on... I am a little hungry... my cat needs washing... it's the fourth Friday of the month so studying brings bad luck... my toenail is hurting... Yep, I cannot, simply cannot study now. I will start tomorrow, I promise. No kidding, I will.
Excuses, excuses. I claim that students are the masters of making up excuses since they constantly agonise over picking up the book. The struggle with your willpower and the temptations of delaying the responsibilities is excruciating. All this reveals the one fact we can't deny: we are lazy. It is so true because once you open the book, you sometimes realise that it isn't so bad after all, especially if you like the subject. The beginning is always the hardest part.
Now I will tell you a secret. I always write a studying plan on a paper and intentionally book more days for it than I really need. Doing that, I don't have to feel so guilty when I delay the starting day a little. Well, the downside is that once I delay it with one day appealing to extra time, the next day I appeal to the fact how I am already good at the subject so why would I need to study so much, and the next day I convince myself that the mark doesn't matter so much.. It's the average that counts, right? Okay, well, I am good at school and I really do study, though this makes me sound like the laziest person on the planet. I am not, really.
However, being a little lazy can be a bad habit but sometimes you just need to be lazy. Nobody can work with 100% every single moment of every single day, it is not healthy. So, the next time you need an excuse for taking a little break, think that you are just protecting your brain from overheating. You won't learn anything in that state of mind anyway. You'll do fine. And well if you don't, you have nobody but yourself to blaim. So, take a deep breath, do something fun and return to study when you have gained back your energy and motivation. That's the way it should be.
I wrote an essay today in my Finnish practise final exam about an interesting topic. According to a study, the five most important values for 15-30-year-olds here in Finland are sense of duty, sticking to the agreed, independence, getting along on your own and your own welfare. Well, I made quite a few arguments for and against each of them, so I started to think: what do I value the most?
I value peace. Okay yeah, it might sound weird coming from a kickboxer, but that is not my point. I hate fighting verbally or non-verbally. Even my personality is built on that, since I can't stay angry at someone for a long time. A few hours is a maximum, at least with my experience so far. Just as much I suffer when I hear or see other people fighting. For me peace also means a state of mind without stress or worries. If I can help someone get there, I am really glad.
I value trust. I guess I trust people easily, maybe sometimes even too easily, because I want to believe the best of everyone. I couldn't live without having people who I can trust, and I want to be trustworthy. I feel honoured when a friend or whoever shares something personal with me 'cause it indicates that they rely on me. If people trust you, you have a good foundation to do anything. The reverse side, however, is that it can be lost in a blink. That is why I consider it so valuable: you have to work for it, maintain it and you get it only if you're worth it.
I value courage. With this I don't mean that I only appreciate people jumping off planes etc, the courage I have in mind is different. Taking risks in life, using your opportunities, being genuinely yourself and not being afraid to stand up for yourself are qualities that are priceless in my eyes. Courage is saying your opinion aloud. It is allowing yourself to feel what you feel, to cry when you're sad and to help people who need help. Of these three, courage is by far the hardest and the most complicated, and I don't claim I have it. I am hoping that someday I will.
These are just a few examples of what I consider important. I think it's good to stop to think about this at least sometime, because this isn't an easy question. But when you know what you believe in, it is easier to make decisions that are right for yourself and you are one step closer to knowing who you are.
This song isn't so related to the theme, but I just like it so much that I want you to listen to it :)
After countless mornings of waking up before 6 am, numerous bus trips, scary amounts of money spent on books and all the clothing crises, it is finally over. All that we have left are a few practise exams and the finals and then it is time to spread our wings and start exploring this wondeful world we live in -- or the entrance exam books. However, one period of our lives has just ended. And just imagine how many new doors are opening because of it.
Everything will come to its end eventually. Sometimes an ending comes with nostalgia, sometimes with relief, sometimes you shed a tear or two. Or a bucket. No matter how terminal it sometimes feels, there comes the time when you start seeing how it is not the end of everything. If nothing ever ended, how could we turn a new page and see all the new, joyful episodes or our lives?
Finishing high school is a step towards adulthood, a gate that leads to a crossroads where we can choose our own path. But just as well can other occasions start new chapters, it doesn't have to be something that turns your life upside down like that. A birthday is always the end of an era, especially if you're around my age, since you get new rights and responsibilities with the age. You can spend a perfect week on a vacation and think how everything will be boring and dark after it, but soon you will realise that the sun still rises every morning and brings light to your life.
We fear the end because the future can be unknown and scary with all the unresolved questions.Nevertheless, we shouldn't let it bring us down. We should be happy to have experienced whatever has ended and look ahead. I want to believe that the best is yet to come.
Time is a funny thing. Sometimes it seems to be the only thing that matters in life and it never feels the same. At times it goes so slow, some other times it disappears without a warning. Why are we so obsessed with time?
Almost everything can be measured in hours and minutes. We tend to say "it's a two-hour-drive from here to there" instead of the number of kilometers because the length of the trip is easier to understand using the time it takes. I often illustrate the degree of difficulty of some exam by telling how long it took me to finish it. Every meeting is settled with an exact time of the day, every store functions according to the clock. Waiting for the time to pass, whether it is minutes, hours, days, weeks or even months might sometimes feel unbearable. Not to mention years... but we have to believe that it is worth the waiting.
I am no exception in this crazy, busy world. I always wear a watch and as said before, I hate being late. I get frustrated while waiting too long in traffic lights, I suffer during a never-ending lesson and I complain when a summer went too fast. Time never goes the way we want it to. No matter how badly we sometimes want it to stop or at least to slow down, it never obeys. All we can do is to adapt to its tricks.
The reason why I am thinking about time right now is that I only have one normal day of high school left before exam week and final exams. It makes me wonder where the past two and half years disappeared. At the same time it feels like forever. All these beautiful, hilarious, unforgettable memories are lasting evidence of these great years with great people.
Although time is something you never get back if once lost, there is plenty of it ahead of you, and we all should make the most of it. I couldn't be more curious and excited to see what it will bring to my path. I will enjoy the sweet and bittersweet memories of my past because I can learn from each of them. However, I will not hold on to them too tight. Making new memories is way too important to be skipped.
The only thing I can say for sure is that time will never stop annoying and surprising us. Maybe that is exactly the point, though. A little excitement in you life is always more than welcome, right?
I dream of living in a huge, modern house made of white brick with big windows, at least one that is round, with my husband, kids and a dog. Or two dogs. It would be located just outside a big, nice city with an own yard. I dream of having a rewarding job, where I can make a difference and be in an important position. I dream of travelling abroad a lot, seeing new places and using my language skills. In addition, I dream of many things that are maybe better to be kept as a secret.... ;) I shouldn't reveal everything at once.
My dreams are my motivation. The reason why I work so hard at school now is that I want to have the foundation where I can start building my dreams. I feel like with this little effort now I can get into university and that way reach what I want out of life more easily. It is a price I am willing to pay. I have summer jobs because I want to have the money to travel when an opportunity comes. I know that I am the key to getting what I want. If I don't do anything, I won't achieve anything. As simple as that.
My dreams are my ambition. I am the type that goes for the gold instead of just getting through it. I feel like I have to do my best and give all I have in order to get what I want. I admit that sometimes my perfectionist-side is too strong and I get disappointed in myself, but on the other hand, I see nothing bad with wanting to invest in the thing you consider important. By investing I mean my time, my energy, my work.
My dreams are my guidelines. Whenever I am in a situation of making a decision, I try to chooce the best alternative keeping an eye on my future goals. Yeah, sometimes I go with what I want exactly at the moment as well, but when it comes to something bigger, I consider all the factors carefully. My dreams show me the way towards what I believe will make me happy.
We all have dreams. But do we have the courage and the patience to go after them? I can say one thing for sure: I'll try. And I'll succeed. To finish this post I'd like to share this great song with you all. Music just makes you dream, don't it?
What is the most powerful weapon against another person? The answer to that question is blindingly obvious. It is me, it is you. We can be the monster in a nightmare and the villain in a story. It is only a matter of choice.
A person can make or break your career. Well, usually your own effort makes a pretty big difference, but basically your employment is in someone else's hands unless you're your own boss. Just as easily can one person determine anything else, one example of which is doctors. In some cases a doctor decides whether you will live with one leg or two, a disease or no disease, pain or no pain. When a person is troubled, he or she might choose to take something that belongs to someone else. They might burn down your house or steal your wallet or break your marriage. You can walk calmly along the street and get beaten, just because somebody wanted to do so. Simple but cruel.
We have power. It sounds nice when you say that aloud. Makes you feel strong and like you make a difference. However, that is one of the scariest facts about human beings. We can affect others' emotions even permanently. We can damage something inside someone else as easily as breathing. One look that didn't reach the one in need of help, one bad word that has the same effect as a stake through the heart, one act that could have been left undone. Tears are not so hard to lure out of someone's eyes when you know where to pull.
We are the most powerful weapon against each other. We are capable of hurting, destroying and humiliating. The only question remaining is: can we make choices that we can live with? We have the opportunity to acknowledge the power we hold and to use it right. We have what it takes to turn from a villain to the good guy and fix what is broken. We can choose to use our strength to do good. It is a battle that you have to win, a challenge you can't avoid accepting.
At the end of the day, it only comes to this. Can you live with who you are? Can you stand to look into your own eyes?
I am calm. The world just stopped spinning for a while. The moment is about an adventure deep within. I went to a beginners' yoga class today and it will continue tomorrow and it was a completely new experience for me. The speed of it took me by surprise, since I am kind of used to roughing it in my kickboxing trainings. However, in my opinion this could create a perfect balance with my hobbies. The only thing is that you really have to concentrate and get into it, otherwise you won't get so much out of it. I did my best, though my thoughts were wondering a bit at times, especially when I got hungry and saw a bowl of grapes on the table. Inhale, exhale. Anyway, I got a glimpse of why yoga is practised all over the world. Feeling every single part of your body in your thougts is incredible and so relaxing. Never have I felt so present in the moment and like nothing else matters than me, my breathing, my feet on the ground and just being. The tingling at my fingertips while streching and lifting my hands up towards the ceiling made me feel so energetic and powerful. Almost all my muscles were a little sore from training on Thursday and floorball yesterday, so some moves didn't feel so comfortable but as a whole I really enjoyed those few hours. Close your eyes. Balance. We also heard a lot about the history of yoga and its principles and I gotta admit, some words really got stuck in my head. The philosophy in it is so intangible but at the same time so real. They spoke a lot about finding yourself and I started to wonder this mysterious thing you hear to be sought everywhere. I don't know what will it be once I reach it, but I learned today that it is already inside me. All I have to do is dig it up. Now it is even more clear why people want to find themselves, 'cause it is like this magnetic source that just screams to be found. And I want it as well. I want to be able to look in the mirror and know what I am made of. I want to discover it all, the things I am proud of and the things I don't particularly like. One of human's biggest possible strengths is the ability to accept themselves as they are without excuses or apologies. Relax. Yoga is supposed to help with stress, the stiffness of body and many other things but what I consider the most valuable gift from it is that you learn to enjoy life. You learn to see the most important and to concentrate on one thing at the time. We don't live forever, so the biggest mistake you can do is to take a day for granted. You have to live every moment to the fullest because if you don't, the pieces of your life will never form a complete puzzle. However, none of the exercises or speeches had a similar impact on me as the final sentence of this post. I don't remember who has said it, I don't remember when, but it is irrelevant. What matters, is that I want to keep that in mind for the rest of my life and I hope you will too. After all, it is way too short to be waisted. Days came and days went, but I didn't realise it was my life.
I am a little bit of a control freak. Not the pain-in-the-ass-kind of obsessive freak who demands to know everything about everything and everyone, it is more about having my life organised. Some symptoms of this feature are for example planning almost always what I will wear the next day and packing everything ready in the evening for the morning. Probably many people do that so it is not so freaky. In addition, I always wear a watch since I HATE being late. Arriving a little too late makes me confused 'cause I've missed something in the beginning so it always takes a while to catch up. I honestly would arrive everywhere at least 10 minutes early so that I could get a look at the situation and prepare myself for what is going to happen. Being a conscientious student also results from this. Studying plans, schedules for everything (literally everything, and not only in studies... some days I know exactly how my day will go if nothing disturbs it) and finishing my tasks is normal to me.
I want to take a little closer look at these plans of mine. I literally plan almost everything. My student councellor said to me some time ago, being totally right, that you cannot plan your whole life at 18. Well, I wasn't exactly trying to, but I am dealing with all these desicions about applying to university which makes me think 10 years ahead sometimes. Once I create a plan, I try to come up with all the possible endings and make a plan b for those resolutions. I know it is kind of stupid, I acknowledge that you can never tell in advance what life will throw at you. And referring to my last post, I have already many different scenerios of my wedding, and also of my future house, job, kids etc. Okay, now you think she indeed is crazy. I'm not, really. All this doesn't mean that I can't let go every now and then and just live in the moment. I am not (read: I try not to be) locked inside my imaginary world trying to reach my perfect vision all the time. I experience bumps on the road constantly and they change my plans all the time. Besides, I find new paths to walk on and learn lessons that give me new directions. I guess my brain just works so super-fast that it needs something to keep busy with. (That was my kind of humour, in case someone missed it.) Organising is more than just an obsession. It is a lifestyle, not a bad habit. It keeps me calm to know that I am holding all the threads and I know where my life is going to. Occasional moments of unawareness are very welcome and refreshing, but too many would just make me stressed. I need to have everything around me in control to understand myself in this chaotic world. Now Jennifer Lopez asks a very important question and I hope everyone will consider it :)
Since my last post had kind of no real topic, this one has. You see, I had to write an essay for English class yesterday about marriage vs. being single, and I soooo liked that subject! I admit, I am the kind of girl who is impossible to drag away when they show a wedding program on tv. I don't know what is it with them, but somehow it feels like a magical era in a girl's life. (Guy's too, I guess...maybe) Every single time I see even one white dress or hear those first tunes recognised almost worldwide, I just get that excited feeling. I know, it'll be a while before it is my turn, but a girl can dream, right? To give an obvious answer to the unasked question, I chose marriage. It is not only the wedding that I care about, not at all. All those programmes represent the worst and the horrible side of it all: getting married because it is nice to throw a party and spend money and be a bitch to everyone who tries to change your mind about the colors of the flowers. Sometimes I really wonder if those people even care about their future husband or wife or do they just do it to entertain themselves. And to get gifts. Allright, I want to pick a nice dress and choose the colors of the flowers and make everything perfect. But above all that, I want the lifelong support from someone by your side. If it ever came to that, I could even give up all of the glorious elements and just say "I do" in sweatpants in a pub. Or well.... that would require an emergency. Whatever, I guess my point is clear enough. What matters the most, is the deeper meaning of it all. What you promise to each other is worth everything. Basically the wedding party is only for enjoying the time with families and friends and celebrating love. "Only"... yeah. I guess that is all you could ask and hope for. This is a subject I could talk about for hours, but I guess I'd better leave out all my wedding visions etc. It would be a looooooong post ;D Finally, I just want to say that if and when you reach that point where you declare "till death do us part" (or whatever it is, in Finnish it is not quite the same, that's just the most famous form I know from the movies), you can rejoice with your whole heart: you won. And the prize lasts for a lifetime. Now we can listen to some good music watching life through pink glasses and not caring about the problems of reality.
People, especially those who have a habit of writing a diary or a blog or something, tend to say that they have nothing to write about. Well, let me tell you one thing, folks: that's not true. You're lying if you claim that. Yeah I get it that you might not have anything sensible to say, but whatever. The point is that you always have something you can write. Might not be so helpful for a writer trying to create a bestseller, though. Let me give you an example. I logged in to my blogger and thought; hmm... I could write a post since it's waaaay too long since the last one (been busy...) and realised that I have no astonishingly deep or incredibly intelligent subjects on my mind at the moment. Well, little did I care about that and just placed my fingers on the keyboard and wow, here we are! This may not be a post that shows my thoughts so much, but definitely gives you a hint of my personality. The thing is that I have a habit of being pretty talkative. I can just open my mouth and start speaking without thinking so much,which isn't always a good thing, trust me... But comes in handy at times. Talking is so nice, and well, since I am not a freak (at least I guess so) I am not the biggest fan of talking alone, so people within 5 meters just have to accept this certain fact about me. Okay, people who know me are now rolling their eyes 'cause I can be pretty loud sometimes so maybe that estimated zone of sufferers could be a little bigger. And yeah I know that writing is not the same as talking and this has kind of nothing to do with the original subject of this post, but actually I have just proved my point. One tiny bit of a thought leads to another and before you realise, you have managed to create a text. Or a speech, since it seems I kind of lost my red thread. Hahah, I know that people reading this are thinking I've lost it a little. No worries, this is still within the limits of sanity. Anyway, in my opinion this kind of writing and talking tells a lot about people. It is a sign of imagination, the speed of thinking, creativity and the ability to just be yourself. If a person is constantly controlling what they let out of their mouth, nobody will ever be able to figure out the way their mind works. And although this post only reveals that my mind contains a lot of unimportant and irrational things, I managed to create something from nothing. That's a pretty good achievement, if you ask me. Now let's talk that talk.
