I want to write. About my aching muscles from attempting to water ski, about the strange dreams continuing in my head, or about the difference between our worlds. It’s 7 pm, it’s a Saturday night, and somehow I’ve told myself that I’ll get home work done. I’m tired though. Tired of playing catch up. I’m seventeen and already I’m tried of a race I’m not even a part of yet.
I want to tell you about the trees, the earth, family and friends. I want to show you what hopelessness looks like, I want to show you how love heals.
I was born a division, a bastard child. My parents attempted marriage, but it didn’t last a year. For most of my life, I’ve been two people at least. Who mommy wanted and who daddy wanted. I cried the day I realized I didn’t know who I was because of this acting. My mother cries because she doesn’t know who she is either, but I know something she doesn’t.
Who we are changes, we cannot be defined like synthetic life, because the essence of organic life is change. We can only know who we are at a moment, our understanding of ourselves must grow and change.
I want to read the piles of books in my room and I want to share my knowledge with someone else. I want to find the division within me, and unify it.
I have a hard time doing school work, in this world that’s falling into chaos, I want to slow us down and point out other directions we can go in. Not solve quadratic functions because some politician blindly signed and bought a new curriculum without thinking about the effects it have. I don’t want to change the world, I want to change a life, like mine’s been changed. The world will change on its own, it’s independent of my existence, but my existence is not independent of the world. One will go on while the other returns to it.
It’s now 10pm. Loving you makes me feel better. Thanks for being my outlet for the good in me.

Its 11 at night and the house is quiet. I think of how I want to go to bed and rest my head on your chest and feel the warmth of your presence. I want a life with you, and I’ve never been more sure of anything else in my life than this want. I think that scares me on some level. To want something so clearly. To love you so clearly.
I think I figured out what to do with that feeling I was telling you about. It has a strong warm energy to it, an energy I can use as fuel for my life, in all aspects. I’m alive, and I am able. Maybe that’s what this is. I’m finally able. For this first time in my life I can attain my dreams, they are within reach! I can feel them, see them on the verge of becoming reality and I’m fighting against the state of shock parts of me are going into.
That’s what you signify to me, a dream come true.

Apr.1st-Don’t limit your kindness to human beings.

I think this is an important thing to realize. That as humans and having the ability to be kind, we should be kind to all life forms, not just our own. It’s important to care and consider all forms of life because we are all connected.

Apr.2nd-Bring someone a spring day with your kind words.
A kind word is like a spring day.
-Russian proverb
Recently in the Buddhist group I’m part of, we started to set monthly goals. This month’s goal is to say five compliments daily and no put downs. Being a teenager this has proven difficult at times, but I find I enjoy spring days more.

Apr.3rd-See how all the commandments point to kindness.

Cough Golden Rule cough

Apr.4th-Go at your own pace, the pace that brings you peace.

I like this because it’s true. I really dislike being rushed, feeling pressured and stressed. I get things jumbled and misplaced and things get a tad bit disastrous. I prefer to take my time and make sure everything’s the way it should be and taken care of before moving on to the next thing. Then there are days when I just seem to work from morning to night, just go go go. And it is peaceful to work at your own pace.

Apr.5th-Decide how many tranquil moments you will give yourself and then have them.
When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
I don’t like premeditating my moments of tranquility, so I didn’t I just had them. They usually happen when I’m looking at nature and simply enjoying the view. When I simply enjoy where I am in life.

Apr.6th-Spend as many moments as possible in awareness that this moment is a place you’ve never been.
Think about that for a moment. You’ve never been here before, I’ve never been here before. Each moment is a new place filled with new options and chances.
Apr.7th-Put your whole heart into what you would do if no one were watching.
I want to sing like birds sing
Not worrying about who hears or what they think.
-Jelaluddun Rumi
I danced down the hall, and laughed at nothing. I sang or hummed everywhere I went, and I smiled.

Apr.8th-See the flowers.
Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
I started reading Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth. In the beginning he writes about how flowers represent a leap in evolution of plants. In Emerson’s quote I think he means that we fail to see the small details around us. That we blindly go through things simply because they are on the way to our destination. I love the little details, because I truly believe it’s the small things that count.

Apr.9th-Look deeply into an ordinary part of your life you usually fail to see.
For instance, have you examined the cupboard where you keep the dishes? Have you noted the direction the grain in the wood flows? The cobwebs in the back, the dishes that hardly get used? Have you noticed how often you open and shut them? The amount of light they get? How many times you’ve hit your head on their open doors? If you have, let me know.

Apr.10th-Find the words that come from the heart and follow them home.
I really like this one. Most of the words I write do come from my heart, and I use them to find my way home.

Writers can treat their mental illnesses ever day,
-Kurt Vonnegut

Apr.11th-Every time you see the colour green, remind yourself to wake up.
The way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
-Paul Jackson
The pen I got from Lochlin is green: Wake up!
When I need to correct something it underlines in green: Wake up!
The grass is green, the trees are green, the print on that bag is green…my dreams are coming true.

Apr.12th-Without allowing voices of self-hate to give an opinion, consider what your daily thoughts are turning you Into.

My thoughts are turning me into a kind, loving person.

Apr.13th-Practice deepening your kindness habit.

Five compliments, no put downs.

Mar.21st-Decide what in life you will not give up on.

I will not give up trying to get better.
I will not give up on the things that I love simply because great obstacles may be in my path.
I will not give up my thirst for knowledge, or my undying curiosity.
I will not give up writing or being myself.

Mar.22nd-Make at least one colossal mistake and it enjoy it thoroughly.

Didn’t quiet but kinda did do this. At any rate, I’ve made it a point to laugh at how ridiculously screwed up a situation can get.

Mar.23rd-Be you as if no one is watching.

Danced, sang, up and down the streets of my town and the halls of the high school. Laughed for no apparent reason other than being happy. Smiled, let things be that didn’t need immediate attention. Was myself regardless.

At 20 we worry about what others think of you; at 40, we don’t care what they think of us; at 60, we discover they haven’t been thinking of us at all.
-Bob Hope

Mar.24th-Practice not thinking.

I think too much. Which is like the leading cause for depression in my case. Thus I try to meditate daily to silence my mind, or at least bring some concentration into my life.

It is not healthy to be thinking all the time. Thinking is intended for acquiring knowledge or applying it. It is not essential living.
-Ernest Wood

Mar.25th-Think about not thinking.

Is a lot like practicing not thinking but you have to think which makes this kinda confusing to think about not thinking. Try it.

What would people think about if people weren’t taught what to think about?
-Arthur Morgan

Mar.26th-Notice an area of your life in which your ideas are so “recise” that they have become limits to action.

At this point, I am proud to say, no where in my life are my ideas so precise that they have become limits to actions. Everything in my life is changing, and in transition.

Words, like eyeglasses, blur everything they do not make clear.
-Joseph Joubert

Mar.28th-Make a list of the questions you have already lived into the answers for.

Being in a period f transition makes it hard to do things involving the past. See I’m changing direction, and as I do, the questions I’ve asked in my past cease to matter, a lot is ceasing to matter but simply being in the present.

Mar.29th-Be open to the possibility that you like the snowflakes, are in the perfect place always.

I am always in the perfect place. Say it to yourself, and think of what that means to you.

The snowflakes fall, each in their proper place.
-Zen saying

Mar.30th-Take a break from all concern, worry, striving, and effort. Ahhh. Peace.

Relax, in other words.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mar.31st-Consider what you would need to understand to find peace. For a few moments, drop that need and feel the peace.

Silence. So I find peace in music.


I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
-Helen Keller

My life is my message.
-Mahatma Gandhi

Mar.8th-Consider if your life is your message, and if so, what is the message of your life?

I would like my life to be my message. I believe that one of the best ways to get someone to believe in what you preach or say is to live by it, therefore to set an example. Thus in order for me to expand my message and truly integrate into my life and existence, I must live my message. As far as what my message is, it’s a little uncertain right now. There are plenty of rough ideas in my head but I have yet to find the perfect phrasing for it. I think my best bet would be along the lines of Create Your Own Freedom.

Mar.9th-Let yourself have some experiences of heaven here and now.

I don’t really believe in Heaven, something after this existence, sure, but not Heaven. I don’t believe in being eternally in one place. So to come up with some experiences of heaven is a little difficult. Today the closest to what I may call Heaven is to go lie down in the sun, listen to my music and sing and smile. Then maybe to laugh out loud at people with my grandmother while we eat lays chips and Amber, our cat, makes my lap into her nap spot.

Mar.10th-Focus on the breaks in the traffic.

The epitome of the human realm is to be stuck in a huge traffic jam of discursive thought.
-Chogyam Trungpa

It's hard to focus on the breaks, though I sense myself getting out of my car these days, walking off the road into the forest and finding a tree to lay under. I'm trying more and more these days to focus. I'm trying to meditate daily now, half silently half on how to do things like my tai chi. By regaining my focus I am getting out of the traffic jam.

Mar.11th-Practice “just peeling the potatoes” in whatever you’re doing.

Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
-Alan Watts

I like to do this kind of stuff. I like being in the moment and thinking about how every stroke of the key board is different, how my wrists hurt from resting on the edge of my laptop. I personally enjoy looking at how light comes in windows, and the different colours and feelings it cast. I like to realize that my lips are dry and my hands sweating from the heat of the battery. The way my hair feels around my neck and shoulders. How my legs feel crossed and the incorrectness of my posture. I enjoy peeling the potatoes.

Mar.12th-Remember that now is the best time and here is the best place for you to wake up
and end suffering.

One of the hardest things to do, is allow yourself to be ok and alright despite what has happened to you. Though sooner or later you’ll have to realize, like I am now, that only you can repair what’s broken. Only you can get up and say I’m going to get better, I’m ending this pain. And you have to realize that can happen now.

Mar.13th-Remind yourself that no matter how many maps you read, you must make the journey. Remind yourself often that you are equal to the task.

Awhile back I had written on my mirror:
You have to have faith that in this moment, in each moment, you, exactly as you are, are perfectly adequate and equal to your life.
-Cheri Huber, There Is Nothing Wrong with You for Teens

This is something I’m beginning to learn in my own life. Slowly I’m realizing that in life though my knowledge marks may be high, my applications marks are low. Right now I’m trying to find a balance between these two. Writing helps me find that balance between knowledge and application, it’s one of the beautiful things about it. Realizing that you can’t just know, you have to do as well.

Mar.14th-Sing with every step.
Let us go singing as far as we go: the road will be less tedious.
-Virgil

Today’s play list included:
La Vie En Rose, English and French versions.
Free Falling
Several songs involving Sunshine
Moulin Rouge
Que Sera Sera
And whatever else my Grandmother listened to on the radio.

Mar.15th-Offer some of those short, easy-to-speak kind words and enjoy the echo.

Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.
-Mother Teresa

I enjoy the echo daily, at least lately.

Mar.16th-Pay back as much kindness as possible.
One can pay back a loan of gold, but one lives forever in debt to those who are kind.
-Malayan proverb

This proverb feels very true to me. But you should know that when you’re in debt with kindness, you don’t feel in debt. You feel gratitude for the kindness you were given and don’t feel burden by repaying the debt.

Mar.17th-Enjoy some the time and energy saved by eschewing judgment and criticism.
I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble.
-Rudyard Kipling

Slowly, cause I’m slowing down these days, I’m beginning to do this more regularly. Beginning to agree more with what Kipling wrote. It feels nice, but conditioning reaches up and taps you on the shoulder. Slowly, I’m beginning to disregard this tapping.

Mar.18th-Let yourself have some time-out from habitual conversations about problems and be open to the new level awareness that can solve the problems.

Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.
-Albert Einstein

Didn't go as well as planned and yet it did. I talked with a guy on my flight about how Wonderland looked so small and my mother about how I enjoyed clean air and hills with trees. I'm not sure this gave me more awareness, cept for how incredibly small we are.

Mar.19th-Enjoy your inherent enlightenment.
There is nothing you need to do first in order to be enlightened.
-Thaddeus Golas

This was nice to read. Nice to just feel enlightened and not feel like its something to become.I've always struggled with the idea of enlightenment. I suggest you meditate on that.

Mar.20th-Look for joy.

And what did you tell me to do? I had a great day yesterday, much of it purely spent feeling joy. Whether it was driving around town with one of my best friends, laughing loudly at the Pink Panther or receiving texts. Oh and how could I forget, dancing around my house and singing like a lunatic.

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
-John Lubbock