... Opening Christmas letters. I mean wow, it is such an awesome experience! Bearing the bluster and chill and cracking open the mailbox to find those ornate Christmas stamps on the top right corners of each crisp, cream-colored envelope. You hurry back inside, slice open the seal and enjoy the family pictures and Christmas cards. But most of all, you unfold the single piece of copy paper and begin to devour the tiny black symbols that form the anecdotes and updates from each family. Oh, the beauty of the Christmas letter. No other holiday has a tradition so unique. You might never contact the person through the year, but rest assured, one snowy (or rainy!) winter day their annual Christmas letter will be waiting for you, tucked away in the mailbox.
One common closing line on these Christmas letters is something to the effect of "Can't wait to catch up with you and yours this new year!" Yet, we don't visit. We just wait patiently for the letter. But why? Yes, these letters are amazing, priceless glimpses into the lives of our loved ones. However, they will never replace the joy you feel when you meet with these friends in person. Imagine: Slipping and sliding up their icy driveway, stomping your snowy feet on the welcome mat, anxiously ringing their chiming door bell, laughing and boisterously greeting each and every member of the family as you track in melting snow despite your best efforts, miraculously managing to guide your famous dip through the tight hallway and on to the kitchen counter without tripping over the furry friends. You drink. You eat. You laugh. You are happy. Nothing else can bring this joy to your heart. So this year, for the love of Christmastime and all that it stands for, go! Catch up with those long lost friends! Strive to keep your friendship from dulling throughout the year! MAKE MERRY.
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I am about two and a half weeks into my junior year of high school and I am already SUPER busy!
I have my challenging school load, busy work, active social life, and me time to juggle. Those reading this might have school, work, kids, family, businesses, social lives, projects, and so much more to fit into one tiny schedule. The ONLY way to make all of these things fit into your schedule is to balance your life and prioritize! At this point in my life my priorities are ranked as follows: 1. Me & Family 2. Academics & Work 3. Social life However, some days these priorities get shuffled out of order and I become stressed beyond belief! Usually what happens is one of two things: I take too much time for relaxation and procrastination and have to stay up til all hours of the night finishing my homework OR I fill up my free time completely with homework and work and then I'm stressed out because I don't take enough time to relax and smell the roses! I think prioritizing is a really important thing to master at a young (ish) age so it's already a subconscious habit when I'm an adult. I hope all of you take this into consideration next time you are trying to figure out why you are so stressed out. And one last thing: Step back, breath, and don't forget to smell the roses :) Happy New Year!! I trust you all celebrated the coming of the new year responsibly ;) Some of you may have made a resolution and some of you might have refrained, excusing it behind the "fact" that you wouldn't do it anyway. That is only a fact if you make it one. If you make a resolution, you aren't promising anything to anyone but yourself. You can choose whether or not to put forward the effort to hold yourself to that promise. Last night I saw When The Game Stands Tall. The coach's motto for his players is to put forth the perfect effort. That is what my New Year's Resolution is: To strive towards a perfect effort. Strive is key because I am letting myself have a chance to fail, but get back to it. This encompasses all of the typical "Eat better" "Exercise more" "Do more this or this". My resolution is to do all this with the most effort I have. I challenge all of you to make this your resolution as well. Good luck and have a fantastic 2015!
Yes, this is, at it's core, a complaint about complaining. However, as you'll read, I believe complaining is useless since it doesn't fix anything-- BUT, I am writing this post to try to change people's perspective about complaining and trying to fix something! Just wow!People complaining about teachers:
Okay, first why? This mostly is going to happen during school. Hello? TEACHERS ARE AT SCHOOL. They are humans. Humans have ears. That means that those teachers can hear you complaining about them! "Oh this teacher hates me. They are failing me for no reason. They are so ignorant." The sole purpose of a teacher is to teach the kids. Their jobs revolve around the students. They are in the building for you. If they "hate" you it's probably them being a little sore towards you because you need to act better in their class. If you are failing their class, it's probably because you are failing the assignments or tests. If you aren't good at tests- which I know is a thing- you need to tell the teacher that you can't complete tests very well. If you are failing assignments you need to ask the teacher for extra credit. And teachers are a lot of things, but they are definitely not ignorant. They are the ones that put your grades on the books, they are the ones that stand by their doors and hear you all talking in the hallways, they are the backbone of the public school education! So they know A LOT. This rant leads me to my main point: Complaining. My philosophy is that complaining is USELESS. If you are complaining about something that you can fix, stop wasting your time complaining and go fix it! If you are complaining about something that you can't fix, stop wasting your time complaining since it's not going to do any good anyway! Whew. Yep that's it! :) 2 things I've been doing have led directly to 2 tips I have for you guys:
1) Sit down and ask your grandparents or parents about your relatives and about family stories, draw up a tree with details about each person. Sit down for the stereotypical kid-interviewing-grandparent-for-a-school-project-but-becoming-really-interested afternoon. Sadly, they won't be here forever. Take advantage of the time they're here for. 2) Every once in a while go through your contacts. Anyone you haven't talked to in a while, shoot them a quick email, text, or even call them. Catch up with everyone. You never know when they might need just that- a friendly message out of the blue. You won't even realize that's what you really need too! Have a great holiday tomorrow everyone! Love, Meghan |
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