C'est La Vie

I’m a big believer in thinking positive and that we can all achieve anything that we set our minds to.  I believe that our minds have powers that are beyond our comprehension.  I believe that we inadvertently or for those who have discovered “the secret” as it’s often called (the power of positive thinking) purposefully shape our own destinies.

I think I was always a positive person and that I always kind of had this sense that I could “make” things happen.  A lot of my positive thinking was just visualizing, visualizing my life in my head – aka day dreaming.  I would very distinctly imagine my future.  On the first day my best friend and I hung out we wrote down and planned out our future and I’d say quite a lot of it came true or what we had thought about and wanted when we were younger came true although of course as we grew older we always wanted more and more. I also wrote a lot so besides day dreaming I would write about my life and what I wanted and believed would happen.  I would sometimes write in a future tense and act as if I was already a famous journalist or hot shot what have you.

Then there came a time when I wasn’t so positive.  I was so immersed in sadness and negative thinking that I often couldn’t breathe.  I’d throw up randomly (not knowing why (at the time)), I was not able to sleep well, I would wander the streets, I was pretty much constantly crying – at work, on the bus, on the skytrain, waiting for the bus, walking, in my room, in the bathroom, when watching a movie (you get the point) or hyperventilating to the point where I thought I needed to call 911.  I remember an episode where I was in my room and suddenly couldn’t breathe and thus far I had tried hiding it from my family but they found out this time and suddenly EVERYONE in my family was in front of me (including my dad, omgah poor guy), freaked out and scared and trying to help me.  It was a surreal moment and my sister told me that my lips or tongue started turning purple.  The power of positive thinking helped me.

After watching The Secret and meeting people in my life who were positive and really changing their mindset consciously I too changed my mindset.  I believe that if you clearly visualize yourself in the image that you want to be (a successful lawyer for example) and you FEEL that image, you feel the happiness, the power etc you will gravitate towards that and the powers of the universe will conspire to get you where you want to be.  It’s a very, very conscious effort.  It’s not easy to do this and you’ll find yourself slipping and thinking “one day” or thinking negatively.  You can’t imagine that you will be something “one day” you have to feel it NOW or you will forever be that person “one day”.   Create a vision board where you showcase things in a present tense.  “Your car” should not be the car you have now but the car you want and the more you look at that board and believe that that life is yours, the better for you.   I stopped dwelling on anything negative, I used to get so upset at little things.  I used to call up a friend and vent and moan about things and now I literally don’t tell anyone anything.  I may feel bad about something, write it on a piece of paper and rip it up and then I never think about that again.  I only allow myself to be upset for a few minutes and then I’m like ok .. time to move on.  It’s ok to rant and vent every so often as long as it’s not something you’re doing all the time and it’s not affecting your mental health.

It’s not easy being positive and lately I’ve been feeling that the future I once saw so clearly in my head has slipped and it’s getting more and more difficult to imagine that I will actually do what I said I would - so this post is about me trying to get back to the power of positive thinking and saying that I will once again make time for ME, for being positive, thinking happy thoughts, writing powerful quotes and speeches to myself to motivate me and working on my future as if it’s a reality.  I hope you will do the same and please do share with me if you try to think positive – what you do to stay positive – if you’ve slipped on this.  I READ ALLLLL OF YOUR COMMENTS via twitter/facebook and on this blog itself!!!!!!!!!!!  Sometimes your comments are just awesomeness so I just post it and don’t reply because there’s nothing to say cuz you’re right!!  But I do read them all!

I think I’ll write another post later on how to actually feel better and be more positive.  So watch out for that :D

**Side note** You can’t just sit there and think that thinking positive alone will change your life, it is meant to be a catalyst for positive ACTION. 

Now get out there and KICK SOME BUTT PEOPLES!! :D :D

Forward to 1:44

I’m currently obssesed with Carly Rose Sonenclar from The X Factor.

Have you read the book The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell?  It’s a book about different factors that contribute to a high level of success (high as in – Bill Gates, Beatles success).  If you haven’t read the book you really should!  It very systematically breaks down key factors that contribute to success and I for one have always thought about what makes certain people successful over others.  One of the things Malcolm talks about in the book is the 10,000 hr rule and it’s based on a study by Anders Erricson who, according to Wikipedia is “widely recognized as one of the world's leading theoretical and experimental researchers on expertise.” – so in short he’s an expert on expertise (pretty cool haha).  The 10,000 rule is that it takes one approximately 10000 hrs of practice on a specific task to become truly great at what it is that they are doing.  In the book he outlines: "It's not enough to ask what successful people are like. [...] It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't.”  In essence he questions whether truly successful people should be idolized or given so much praise because much of what contributes to their success is luck/fate/where they’re from etc vs capability.

Back to Carly Rose – it’s pretty clear that she is an amazing singer.

Carly Rose has oodles of talent and I am OBSESSED with her. I believe she is superstar material and I do think some people are just more talented than others. She has real talent (as opposed to just being able to sing like so many people out there). Her tone is amazing her last run in the song above game be goosebumps, her control and most of all the emotion made everyone else look like they were doing karaoke at a local bar.  Not like the people that she’s up against are losers – they are pretty incredible themselves and I’m rooting for a lot of them but when you see Carly Rose walk out and sing you’re just blown away.  That’s what amazes me that there are so many people out there that can sing, or act or dance or whatever – but some are just BETTER and more talented than others.  There’s a look in her eyes. (I also think her soul is old.. I mean where is she getting all this emotion from it’s freakin insane I tell ya). Besides talent, she’s also had a lot of training – she’s lucky enough to be born in a country and city that is close to New York City where she can go for auditions, she has two parents that are still married and love and support her and put in I’m sure a LOT of money to get her to this position. She’s been singing from a very young age – I would imagine she must have hit close to 10000 hrs by now!

A lot of people are capable .. certain people who obviously have talent on shows like the Voice or X factor make it on to the show but don’t win and then we barely hear from most of them again.  Why is that? 

Take the X Factor – you have a lot of people show up for the live auditions and so so many of them had amazing voices and I just thought to myself that they if given the chance could out sing Beyonce or Adele or whoever.  It’s not just about talent, it’s not just about looks.  It’s about your parents (I think that’s like #1), the community or environment you were brought up in, the amount of time you were allowed to devote to honing your craft, it’s about money, support, ease of access… so many different factors.  There are few people out there that despite everything overcame all odds and not only did they overcome odds they make you feel so much emotion when you watch them – Shah Rukh Khan and Oprah are a few people who are truly talented and superstars rightfully… but then there are others who are deemed talented and everyone applauds them and no one looks twice at any other factor.

If Beyonce or Britney Spear’s parents did not support and help them pursue their career from such a young age – move cities to help them and put their own time and money to get them trained and etc they would be nowhere today.  So when Beyonce talks about how she’s so blessed that God gave her talent – yes she is blessed, yes she is talented, but more than that she was just lucky she had the opportunity and the support (or rather encouragement) to do this from her parents who put a lot on the line for her to pursue this  (not to mention the genes to look so fierce).  There are SO many talented people out there – but talent does not guarantee success. 

This video just seems creepy.. and not very genuine lol.  Beyonce is defo blessed – she’s hot.. she’s got a nice family, she can sing, she can dance…but so can other people… I used to love her songs.. but something about her these days just rubs me the wrong way.  Every interview of hers seems fake and I think her and Jay Z are just so sickeningly removed from the rest of society.  They’re so flamboyant with their wealth it disgusts me.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

People will never forget how you made them feel.  This is what I want to do in life… I want to make people feel.  I want to be able to make as many people feel as I can.  If I can make someone feel something, then I have distracted them in that one moment from whatever is going on in their life and that one moment of their life is a gift to me… it would be mine and weaved into my tapestry, into my story and would connect me with them. 

I want to take your breath away, I want to make you laugh, I want to make you cry, I want to remind you of someone important in your life.  I want that one moment from you.

This is why I want to be an actor (and this is why since I’m not an actor right now – I write!). 

I’m jealous of Oprah!  Not because of the money (although I wouldn’t say no to a billion dollars…actually maybe I would… too much friggin money)… but because her job allowed her to make other people feel, every single day (and this is why I love Shah Rukh Khan…although mine and his story/love affair is a long story).  I’m jealous of Oprah because everyday when she was standing on her show she knew that that was exactly where she was supposed to be.  Not a lot of people can say that.  That’s a blessing. 

Have you ever watched the musical Burlesque?  In it, Christina Aguilera's character leaves her small town when she realizes that there is literally no one else in that town who’s life she would want.  There was no one there who inspired her enough to make her want to stay.  This is kind of how I feel about Vancouver.  There is NO ONE here whose life I would want, there is no one here, no career position that has inspired me enough to want to stay here and there is no position or job that I could create even to fulfill what I want.  I know what I want, and it’s just not here.  The only thing keeping me in Vancouver right now is my family – I can’t even say my friends because I know I would meet my friends if I moved anywhere else in the world but I can’t just pick up and relocate my family.

I’ve lived in Vancouver for over 15 years now and there came a point where I was overseas and was boarding my flight to come home to YVR and I was just like… what is the point?  What do I have there?  That moment was terrifying to me – that I could have lived somewhere for over a decade and feel that besides my family I have nothing really physically keeping me there.  It was… terrifying, sad, humbling.  It was kind of my “Eat pray love” moment except I couldn’t sell off all my things like her and travel the world with a book deal waiting for me because I have a FAMILY and I have RESPONSIBILITIES… but how I wish I could have!!

Living an uninspired life is a fate worse than death.  I hope I get to fulfill my dreams and I hope you do too!!!  Goodnight everyone.