thoughts | loveliness.

Tag: thoughts
- move on
  
  Posted at 5:39 pm by jasminedesirees, on February 28, 2014
  
  For someone who puts so much emphasis on forward motion, I’m really terrible at saying goodbye to the present.
  
  No matter how many times I tell myself it’s for the best, or at least you had the amount of time with that person that you did, or maybe you won’t see each other all the time but it’s not goodbye forever, it doesn’t seem to help.
  
  Because the truth is, you do make choices, whether you’d like to admit it or not, and those choices lead you towards new things, but also, away from other things.
  
  And that’s OK, it’s good even, because the alternative is being so terrified of what you might lose that you forfeit everything you stand to gain and that you stay in the same place forever and are always the one left behind.
  
  It’s normal to be sad, and to be scared that what’s to come won’t be as good as what came before.
  
  Just be grateful that you had the chance to experience something that was so hard to say goodbye to. Keep moving forward, because really, what choice do you have?
  
  Posted in life, thoughts, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged choices, life, moving on, thoughts
- sonder
  
  Posted at 9:56 pm by jasminedesirees, on February 4, 2014
  
  Love this. So true.
  
  Posted in art, life, thoughts, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged art, life, thoughts
- breast friends
  
  Posted at 6:51 pm by jasminedesirees, on October 1, 2013
  
  The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer was this past weekend. We signed up in February, fundraised for months, thought about training for months while sitting on the couch and not actually training (to be fair, it’s walking, right? I’ve been walking pretty solidly for like 26 years by now).
  
  I was excited for it, and excited to be doing it with my mom and sisters, I thought it would be fun and that it raised money for a good cause, but I didn’t give it much more thought than that.
  
  It was a really great experience, even just as far as getting to see the city. If you only have one weekend to visit a place, think about signing up for this event because it was really awesome, we walked through Fisherman’s Wharf, down the Embarcadero, through China town, North Beach, the Presidio, past Golden Gate Park, it was really an amazing way to see the city, and to get to really appreciate so many of the places that I drive by all the time and think to myself “Oh I should really stop there”, but then never do.
  
  As we were at about mile 8, we came to a corner where a woman was standing alone. She was pale. thin, and she looked frail but tough. From her close cropped hair, it was clear that she was either in the midst of chemo, or had just finished it. As each walker passed by her, she would look them directly in the eye and say “Thank you for walking for me.” I almost burst into tears, but it was so inspiring, especially at about mile 25 when all I wanted to do was lay down and drink a margarita.
  
  That night we went to Cheesecake Factory for some carb loading and some truly delicious Asian Pear martinis, I didn’t even blink at finishing most of our shared piece of cheesecake myself, because let’s be honest, I had earned it. We were sitting there, feeling proud of what we’d accomplished, 26.2 miles the first day, but tired, sore and injured, and really disheartened at the prospect of doing it all again the next day.
  
  All of a sudden, my mom pipes up with “Maybe that’s kind of what it’s like when you are actually fighting cancer. You’re tired and sore and injured and you’ve already come so far and you feel like that should be enough, but it isn’t, and you have to wake up the next day and do it all over again, even though you don’t feel like you can, but you have to do it.”
  
  I guess that’s why we have moms. All in all, it was a great experience and a very memorable weekend.
  
  Posted in family, life, San Francisco | 1 Comment | Tagged avon walk for breast cancer, breast cancer, family, health, San Francisco, thoughts
- homesick
  
  Posted at 5:38 pm by jasminedesirees, on August 23, 2013
  
  I met up with a new group of ladies last night, and we were getting to know each other and talking about where we are from. We started talking about winter and the leaves turning colours and it made me really homesick.
  
  Then today I saw this:
  
  “A Canadian can be English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. A Canadian can be Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, Arab, Pakistani or Afghan. A Canadian may also be a Cree, Metis, Mohawk, Blackfoot, Sioux, or one of the many other tribes known as native Canadians. A Canadian’s religious beliefs range from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or none.
  
  In fact, there are more Muslims in Canada than in Afghanistan. The key difference is that in Canada they are free to worship as each of them chooses. Whether they have a religion or no religion, each Canadian ultimately answers only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.
  
  A Canadian lives in one of the most prosperous lands in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which recognize the right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.
  
  A Canadian is generous and Canadians have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return. Canadians welcome the best of everything, the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services and the best minds. But they also welcome the least – the oppressed, the outcast and the rejected.
  
  These are the people who built Canada. You can try to kill a Canadian if you must as other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world have tried but in doing so you could just be killing a relative or a neighbour. This is because Canadians are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, can be a Canadian.”
  
  I can’t find the original link where it’s from, but I wanted to re-post it anyway. Obviously this is idealized, Canadians aren’t perfect, but they are pretty great and I’m proud to be one of them.
  
  Excuse me while I go sob in the corner and hum the national anthem in French. Humming is the same in every language (probably?).
  
  Posted in Canada, thoughts | 0 Comments | Tagged Canada, homesick, nationality, pride, thoughts
- at first sight
  
  Posted at 8:30 pm by jasminedesirees, on August 14, 2013
  
  I heard from an old friend last night, and it was so nice. It’s easy to get busy with work and other things and not make as much effort to keep in touch, and before you know it, it’s been months or years since you’ve talked.
  
  There are a lot of friends like that that I’ve made over the years, and then slowly, even though you still care about them and miss them, it gets harder and harder to keep in contact, as you know less and less about each other’s lives and actually getting on the phone and talking only makes that more obvious, and you start to doubt your friendship, and wonder if the other person even cares to hear from you anymore.
  
  But then there are those people that you just click with, instantly. I don’t believe people only have one soul mate, and I don’t think that if you do have one, it necessarily needs to be romantic. There are just people in life that I have clicked with, sometimes honestly at first sight, and we’ve been friends ever since. And we’ll be friends forever because even if I never spoke to them again in my life, I know we’d still feel exactly the same way about each other.
  
  Those are the kinds of friends that even if you don’t know the name of their dog, or even their address, you could see them after 10 years of not talking and pick up exactly where you left off, and those are the kinds of friends I am lucky enough to have.
  
  Posted in friends, life, love, thoughts | 0 Comments | Tagged friends, friendship, life, love, thoughts
- i’m a seven.
  
  Posted at 12:48 am by jasminedesirees, on July 19, 2013
  One of my favourite bloggers, Cara at Maskcara, posted about Enneagram personality tests today, and it was kind of interesting so I decided to take the test too.
  
  I am a seven (so is she). The characteristics of a seven are:
  
  The Adventurer (the Seven)
  
  Adventurers are energetic, lively, and optimistic. They want to contribute to the world.
  
  How to Get Along with Me
  - Give me companionship, affection, and freedom.
  - Engage with me in stimulating conversation and laughter.
  - Appreciate my grand visions and listen to my stories.
  - Don’t try to change my style. Accept me the way I am.
  - Be responsible for youself. I dislike clingy or needy people.
  - Don’t tell me what to do.
  What I Like About Being a Seven
  - being optimistic and not letting life’s troubles get me down
  - being spontaneous and free-spirited
  - being outspoken and outrageous. It’s part of the fun.
  - being generous and trying to make the world a better place
  - having the guts to take risks and to try exciting adventures
  - having such varied interests and abilities
  What’s Hard About Being a Seven
  - not having enough time to do all the things I want
  - not completing things I start
  - not being able to profit from the benefits that come from specializing; not making a commitment to a career
  - having a tendency to be ungrounded; getting lost in plans or fantasies
  - feeling confined when I’m in a one-to-one relationship
  I thought a lot of this stuff was pretty accurate for me especially how to get along with me, and what’s hard about being a seven. I’d like to see what some other people got and compare though. I always wonder about tests like this, or horoscopes, are there really only so many types of people? Does when you are born really have that big of an influence on your personality, and thus, your whole life?
  
  I always think there is no way it matters, but then sometimes I read descriptions of characteristics of a Pisces, or a middle child, and it’s so accurate that it’s creepy. Maybe if you put together the results of someone’s Enneagram test, their horoscope sign and their birth order, you’d have everything you’d have everything you’d need to know about someone without even talking to them.
  Posted in thoughts | 0 Comments | Tagged enneagram, personality, test, thoughts
- i don’t wanna be a grown up…
  
  Posted at 1:41 am by jasminedesirees, on July 11, 2013
  
  I remember when I was a little kid, thinking that 26 was so old. I pictured myself at 26 having everything I wanted. I thought I would be a whole different person, someone who didn’t bite their nails, or go to bed without brushing their teeth sometimes, or wear mismatched socks. I thought by 26 I would be a finished product, and would carry on throughout my life as this perfect version of myself, with no bad habits, no flaws, and a completely clear plan of what I wanted to do, and how I was going to make that happen.
  
  Honestly, I really don’t feel that different from 5 year old me. I don’t think we actually change that much, certainly our interests and tastes and those things can evolve, but the person we are at the very center of everything, I think that’s us, for better or worse, for life.
  
  Really the only difference for me between now and then, is that now instead of having someone else make decisions for me, I am making them for myself, and sometimes I really don’t feel like I have any more insight into what I should be doing than I did at 5 years old.
  
  I make myself go to the dentist now, and force myself to get a flu shot even though I would rather be doing anything else (do flu shots even really work?) but the feelings I have about those things, and so many other things haven’t changed. I would still eat chocolate frosting right out of the jar for every meal if I wasn’t already pretty sure I was going to develop diabetes from my sugar habits earlier in life. Seriously, Good Host ice tea crystals? It was bad.
  
  I think the only thing that changes from when you are a kid to an adult, is that you know now that there are consequences for your actions, both positive and negative, and YOU are the one who is going to have to deal with them, whether that be eating only apple sauce because you wouldn’t go to the dentist and all your teeth fell out, or you quit your job and can’t find a better one and end up homeless, or that you start your own business and become wildly successful, there isn’t anyone there to tell you what you are supposed to be doing, you have to decide, and then decide whether or not to do it, on your own.
  
  Just something I’ve been thinking about lately, it’s kind of daunting trying to decide what I want to do next, because every decision, especially the big ones are really going to affect how your life turns out, probably more than you realize. But when I start to worry about that, I just try to remember that I’ve pretty much been completely making it up as I go thus far, and I’d say things have worked out pretty great.I saw this the other day, and it kind of stuck with me:
  
  Posted in life, thoughts | 0 Comments | Tagged career, choices, growing up, life, thoughts
- attribution
  
  Posted at 4:21 pm by jasminedesirees, on December 14, 2012
  
  One of the theories that was most interesting to me when I was taking classes for my MA in Communication was Attribution Theory.
  
  It basically says that people look for cause and reaction in their everyday lives, and in the actions and behaviors of those around them, but that we are more likely to attribute our successes (winning a race, getting a promotion) as internal (we are smarter, stronger, faster, etc than the other guy) and our failures as external ( the other guy cheated, the stakes were unfair, etc) and we are more likely to attribute the successes of other people as external (they were lucky, there was less competition) and other people’s failures as internal (they aren’t as smart, they are lazy, lack motivation, etc).
  
  I feel like this is very applicable in real life, on a pretty much constant basis. We know why we do the things we do, and we all like to see ourselves as good people, so we are able to rationalize our actions and behaviors in a positive way.
  
  We also want to understand why other people do what they do, but since we don’t actually know what their motivation is or what they are thinking or feeling at the time, we basically have to guess, and it can be easy to make judgements about people based on these guesses, even though at the end of the day we really have no idea why that person acted the way they did.
  
  As a personal example, this was a long time ago but I still remember it like it was yesterday, there was a guy from my high school who I kind of knew but not very well. He messaged me online one day, so I was chatting with him, and he told me that he thought I was a stuck up bitch basically, because I never said hello to him, even though he never said anything to me either.
  
  Now, I am kind of awkward and shy if I don’t know people pretty well, that’s just the way it is, so I just figured he was the same way, and never really thought about it again, but he had rationalized to himself that the reason he hadn’t said anything to me was that he was too shy, but that I was deliberately not talking to him because I was stuck up and rude.
  
  We both rationalized each other’s behaviour, and assigned motivation to our actions, even though, really, we had no idea why the other person hadn’t said anything.
  
  That’s just one example, but it happens all the time, to everyone. They say first impressions are everything, but you might miss out on a really great person, or an awesome friend because of a judgement you made about that person based on nothing but your own rationalization of their behaviour.
  
  Basically:
  
  Try giving people the benefit of the doubt, they might just surprise you.
  
  Posted in thoughts | 0 Comments | Tagged attribution theory, communication, life, thoughts
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