MATTSNAPS #1

SO I finally got a new phone! :) Goodbye Verizon, Hello MetroPCS. It's destiny that the Samsung Freeform 2 has this groovy 'aqua'/ready-for-mattlibs effect.

Should I be doing more crunches?

oh boy - typo!

End/Beginning or "Hello 2011"

WHAT A YEAR. So this is my new years eve/new years resolution blog... I think if I went way back to older blogs and read my old new years resolutions i would be disappointed, and sad. Fear is a disease. Its held me back from taking advantage of some good ideas and some good opportunities in the past. I've grown apart from good friends. And for what? I feel at times stuck in a cycle of fear and panic. I avoid things due to fear, and end up panicking making the totally wrong decision. Which leads me to fear the issue and ignore it. I don't want to be a worrier, so I ignore something, and then end up forcing myself to make a decision at the last minute with limited results because I didn't handle the situation properly. I hope to solve my problems of unorganization, unmotivation, unself-esteem, etc. But in the meantime life and opportunities and friendships/relationship are passing or failing to materialize. I have hope for the future, i'm not giving up and i'm ready to commit myself 100%. I just gotta make an opportunity happen. I was wrong for years thinking that an opportunity would find me. It was naive and foolish. I don't want an easy road, but I need to be organized and syncopated to the rhythm of the world.

My New Year's Resolutions are:

1. Budget/Save money/GET ORGANIZED

2. Get the hell out of Savers

3. Reconnect with the people I love

4. Take my spiritual quest to the next level

5. Begin my nursing career



HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Life and Everything

So life is a constant lesson... Learning and growing, failing and trying again, hating and loving, building up and starting all over. After high school I wanted to go to school forever, I can't believe I ever stopped going. In some ways I feel that school is everything if you pay attention to life. The pressures of life takes a toll on goals. At the time every compromise was a neccessity, but with each compromise my internal rule of neccessity was softened, and more and more of my dream seems to dilute in the sea of adulthood and complacent mediocrity. However, the same part of my personality that is unfirmented in a clear plan or path also then can equally fuel a drive and vision to be in constant flux, constant growth and adaptation to problems and the world around me. I hope that makes sense. I could also say that if I have the ability to focus on worrying and stressing myself out on a specific problem, I can also then choose to focus and develop my skills in handling problems in a better, smarter way to solve the problems in a way which will help me attain my goals. Sometimes a clear-cut goal is what you want, but I have the freedom of will to choose any lifestyle. I need to get off the guilt-train. I'm not here to fulfill anyone else's plans but mine. The self-imposed commitment which love sometimes brings to 'perform' or 'deliver' is not neccessarily healthy. That complex algorithm of love, ability and desire to be able is what really scrambled my mind... I moved to New Bedford because I thought I could help my family and friends... I had the right intentions, but I seemed to miss the rule that I couldn't ignore my problems and solve them at the same time, and still help the people I care about. Stress and anxiety, self-esteem and self-control, wants and needs, dreams and nightmares, love and loss, you can't avoid any of it, you can't have one without the other. The duality of life as explained by buddhism is a never ending tightrope walk. The trick is to love the shit out of tightrope walking. I've wanted to quit, i've wanted to die, but I didn't. I am alive and won't quit. In the absolutely lowest state of mind, in any situation, the scientific evidence which shows the plasticity of the human brain to adapt to solve problems in new ways gives me hope.

"Love everything as much as you can possibly love it" JM

How I feel lately

Its been a long time since i've blogged. My imac died one day, and I never fixed it, then I tried to fix it and now it still doesn't work... hmm. Well i'm on a laptop my brother lent me, and gosh has my life changed ("in oh so many ways")... I guess I should tell my story as of lately, or since my last blog post, which was on myspace(to show how long ago it was hah) hm.. well I moved out of the apartment because I was just getting totally unorganized and not reorganized, getting totally reckless with spending money (no crazy debt or anything but just not keeping track of what I needed to save) - So, I moved back home, I had to leave Penny to live with my dear friend Joe (more to that story later).. Living at home SUCKS! Family issues make it really complicated to do what I want to do, save any money (on top of my own money screwups), or be comfortable. I need to move soo bad, but despite being here all summer I just can't get any money saved, or more importantly I need to work on putting good habits and routines in place in my life... I'm trying but its hard. On top of home bullshit, work is really burning me out more than anything else, its frustrating but that will hopefully be my drive to find something better. I guess that can be said for my entire 'situation' -- it just sucks in the moment. Time is a funny thing. Sometimes you need to remember the past, live in the present, or focus on the future, but all we really have is the present. whats that saying? the past has past, the future isnt here yet, and life is a gift thats why they call it the present? hah something like that.. I really like "the future ain't what it used to be" or something like that "the past ain't what it used to be"? Anyways this summer has been SO STRANGE, but when isn't it strange? I feel like i'm ageing every day - usually in a good 'growing' kind of way. A lot like a tree I guess. Something always grows, something always fall off.

I've grown more than I ever have this season. Hurting and healing some things. I'm getting better at understanding myself, admitting to and sometimes reshaping motives. I'm stubborn, which was really hard to admit to myself. (tweet that!) Friendships are changing. I'm learning about love from my friends and family, i'm learning how to deal with disagreement/misperceptions and communicating them more to resolve and heal some old wounds, and learning not to bend over backwards too far just to accomidate someone else's happiness - to be truer to myself and that carries across to other people in my life to be truer to themselves, then everyone is happier and atleast more whole and authentic than ever. I'm not the only one getting older. Shit happens, just like in forrest gump, you may have your foot firmly planted in dogshit and it's awful, but you keep going and you can sell bumper stickers about it later.

I'm scared that life will never get to where I want it to be, that i'm not prepared or equipped with what I need, or what I think is expected of me to have. I'm looking for a system, a routine I can run with that will get me where I want to go. I think Buddhism has helped me grow through so much, without really noticing it I guess I've had a dream the whole time, to continually become a better person. (not neccessarily a straight-line type of dream though huh?) What once was just a philosophy to read about, is now and is still becoming something to lean my virtues on, a mirror to see myself in. Its hard though, sometimes I think i'm so cool, calm and collected, and then on an average day i'm mixed up, lost, mad, frustrated, confused and lazy. Life is definitely a work in progress.

What's a Mattlib?

I have no idea what a mattlib is, so don't blame me for anything.

Think Orange

Orange is an obsolete color. Nothing matches orange. Orange doesn't even match orange. I hate the color orange, can you tell? Orange is dead.


ORANGE

January 1, ~12,999,999,999 B.C. - July 10, 2009 A.D.
"Gone but not forgotten..."