I Am Beautifully, Wonderfully Flawed

"I am the architect of my own destruction" - 

How I want the words to spill of the proverbial page tonight. So much on my heart, it's hard to conjure up the right words to express them. 

I'm surrounded by many things in my life, friendships, burdens and love. Yet I am constantly discontent. I want to feel at peace and one with myself and my place in the world. Instead I'm plagued with anxiety; I'm not advancing at the pace I want to go at, not leading the life I think I'm supposed to. And it's difficult man, fucking difficult to constantly not meet your own expectations of yourself. To constantly be your own source of disappointment. 

'Nobody to blame Kurt Cubain I did it to myself'

http://youtu.be/6AIdXisPqHc

It's on you man, it's always on you. The weight of that every day, every second. is quite frankly crushing.  What a heavy burden to carry. To never be good enough for you. To berate yourself day by day: 'I could've worked harder', 'I could've looked better' 'I could've sounded more intelligent'

I do it way to often. 

Anyway, the other day it came to the point where I couldn't stand my own thoughts any longer and broke down. 

A close friend reminded me that I would never treat my enemy let alone my closest friends the way I treat myself sometimes and I (albeit reluctantly) agreed with her. How very true that is. Once you all put it into perspective.. 

You have one body, one mind and one soul. Don't soil your spirit unnecessarily. Let go of things that distress you. 

Stop. Pause. Reevaluate. 

Don't choose to launch into a multitude of attacks that only work to further dampen your soul and undermine your spirits...

Learn to Forgive and Love yourself. You are beautifully, wonderfully flawed. It's in your genetic makeup to be that way. Who the fuck am I to fight against my own biology?

Just know that It really is all okay, Tomorrow is a new day and you can try and fuck up a little less. 

Again, FORGIVE yourself. You are not perfect, nor were you ever designed to be. Don't put yourself up to unrealistic goals or wishes. This in particular is 

the most difficult lessons to learn but it all the more necessary. 

Revel in both your imperfect actions and your imperfections. They make you, your quirky unique self. 

BE

Incomplete Thoughts

Recently, I've been finding it very difficult to find the words, at all. Writing, has always been a form of escape. Being able to paint a picture with my words is something that I always have revelled in and enjoyed. As of late however I am less and less inclined to let the words speak for themselves as it were.

Being the obsessively self aware person I am, I recognise why- it is because I am missing a fluidity in thought which translates into my writing. I need to clear my mind in order to renew and write with a fresh lease on.. life. 

Life itself recently feels stale and repetitive. I'm not someone who enjoys a mundane, banal existence and I feel unable to write because I am so uninspired. 

So what do I do? I look to the future. Where the skies are blue and life is good. I look forward, hoping that I will feel something again and soon, because somewhere in these last few months I've been a little numb to the motions. 

Everyday living bores me. I live for special moments that cannot be repeated. I live for those conversations with someone you barely know that shocks you speechless. Genuine connections that broaden your perspective. I live for those comments from friends that just tell me they are grateful I'm around. Those stolen kisses on street corners from the handsome guy I met in a bar. That surge of pure happiness when I'm walking down the street and the air feels crisp and fresh- and my soul feels vibrant and light. I live for those moments where I'm listening to Take Care and every track  and melody that I've heard a million times feels like the very first time. Moments where I feel my heart pump as the familiar sounds ooze through my veins.. and Drizzy is singing to me.

Moments. That make you feel alive and happy and blessed. Small ones, blink and you'll miss them. 

Well recently, there have been too few of them and too many of the everyday. How I hate the everyday. I don't find any source of wisdom or inspiration in my commutes around the city with stone faced people and bored students. I don't see any life in the people I'm on a day to day contact with, there's no experience behind their eyes or hurt or love. Through association therefore I become like them, just going through the motions once more- doing it all over again the next day. 

Well, it bores my very soul. 

So I haven't written. Not like this for a while. Just because I always aim to leave all my thoughts on the page when I do, and as of late.. Well they've been nothing special. 

Feeling as uninspired as I have been lately makes me less able to deal with life. I can't rely on my creative mind or inherent belief in a greater purpose if I'm just not feeling like there's much of either. 

Of course, my unconscious recognises life is bigger then this, that the expression I'm searching for is very much still within my reach, but I haven't wanted to reach out. 

I guess you could say that life, with too much of the ordinary and not enough of the extraordinary is exhausting me. 

To this I have two possible solutions. I either need to get away for a short while. Renew and refresh. Or go away for a long while. Travel. Just me and my thoughts. I need to fall in love with life again, only then will the words flow easily. More then that, I need to absorb life again. I need to find pleasure in every moment, every conversation, every track on Take Care once more. (Okay that's not true - I still enjoy Take Care beyond words. The day I don't is the day I'm in serious trouble.) 

I want to go to galleries and stare at art forms. I want to have intelligent articulate conversations with someone. I want to connect with something once more. And none of this, will happen while stay here, in the safety of all I know. I'm so in love with my city but I need to get out of here in order to grow spiritually. 

So, I've decided to take a gap year when this year is over. For sure. I need to feel mesmerised, in awe, vulnerable and challenged again. Life here is too repetitive and people much too predictable. Same old shit. 

Fuck that. 

I need to go see the world. 

After all, life begins at the end of your comfort zone right?

And apart from anything else it will for some fucking inspired pieces of writing. 

Words (ironically) cannot describe how much I can't wait. 

BE. 

Legacy

When my story's told, how will they tell it?

Will they say I was a giver or will they say I was selfish

Will they say I was a sinner or pretend I was a saint

Will I go down as a winner, what's the picture they gon paint

Wouldn't say that I'm a quitter that's one thing I know I ain't ain't

Will they tarnish, will they taint?

Glorify me, overthink, say they know me, say I'm great

Say I'm phoney, I was fake

Say the things about me they never told me to my face

I was loved I was hated

Just a nigga with a dream

I'm a liar I was honest, I was all of these things

When I'm gone let em talk

They discussing who I am

When they bury me just know I was nothing but a man

I was nothing but a man. 

I Was Here

I found myself listening to 'I Was Here' by Beyoncé today and as usual I got this fiery sensation within me. Somehow it happens everytime I listen to that song. Let me put it this way, the desire to be somebody overtakes me in the best way possible and I feel this ambition of steel in the pit of my stomach. You know that feeling? Of pure adrenaline and determination. Listening to it, I become refocused and motivated again. Indeed it reminded me why I'm doing what I do.

Sometimes moments like that are necessary as it reminds us exactly what we're fighting towards or more importantly why. Day to day when things aren't progressing it may feel as if we're constantly fighting against the world and ourselves in order to achieve.. what exactly?

The responsibilities you carry today maybe so burdensome, it becomes easy to get swamped and forget that you have set goals and ambitions. The beauty of it is you get to choose the direction you're life is going. The difficulty is you have to get there on your own merits. 

Understand that the challenges you may face today are the necessary stepping stones to greatness. In order to leave your mark in this world, in whichever field, you have to put the work in.

In order to become legendary and celebrated the world over you have to come from your version of the bottom and push through the day to day struggles so that you can reach those unattainable heights. You have to do all of this, if you want to create a legacy behind. You have to do all of this if you want to be unforgettable. 

'This world will see, I was here' 

http://youtu.be/i41qWJ6QjPI

BE. 

White

 

When I closed my eyes today all I saw was a blank canvas. It made me smile.

That there is new beginnings. It made me think. Everyone is born with a white canvas, no stains on it just yet, no heartbreak, memories, moments.  No life. Just pure, white, and beautiful in its own way. Raw. 

It reminded me that there is always a new start, for tomorrow is a new day. There's always second chances. It got me thinking back to the blank canvas.. How it hadn't seen the world yet. However if you look at that same canvas again in 20 years time it will be splashed with stains and scars of all kinds. It will be filled with deep reds and high yellows. The pencil marks on it will be so deep through the paper; scars that are eternally visible. 

The canvas is you. 

It's full of the people that have come and gone in your life. It's those who have left a permanent mark and those just bristled through. The canvas showcases all of the highs and lows, the mellow blues and startling oranges that sum up your life. 

Surely that's what it's about right?

Surely, at the end of the day those with the most vibrant, colourfully marked slates are the ones who have truly lived. Sure the canvas of your life can be full of hurt, wrenching despair and quiet loneliness. But the beauty of it, the magic is that that very same canvas is also full of beauty, laughter and all consuming love. Good and bad existing simultaneously side by side. You will never know the value of one without the presence of the other. Looking at that accumulation of moments you can say you have lived. Live such a life that at the end of it all you can take a step back and yours will be a raw art. Filled with life.

Would I want a pretty blank canvas? Never. 

I would take my marked, bruised,  hurt beautifully flawed vibrant canvas over that one any day. 

Because I know I will have lived a damn good life. 

BE 

We All Need..

Breathe. 

Come on, come on

You have got to move on

This is not the you i know

This isn't real

It's just all you can feel

And that's the way that feelings go

And whether or not it's right or wrong you'll do what you will do

When the cloud in the sky starts to pour

And your life is just a storm you're braving

Don't tell yourself you can't lean on someone else

Cause we all need saving sometimes

Say what you will but the time that we fill

While we're on the earth

Should not be alone

We were meant to be known

You make me what i'm worth

But i can't keep you from yourself you'll do what you will do

I don't know why it has to be this way and

I don't know the cure

But please believe someone has felt this before

Time

I wish I could find the words to explain my soul to someone. Yet there is too many words in my vocabulary to explain and yet- still, not nearly enough. I'm pondering the presence of time in my life and like my thoughts how fleetingly they pass by. 

19.. Birthday girl. How did I get to live through 19 years already? And at the same time, how am I only 19? I feel like I've lived a thousand lifetimes. Time. A mechanism that only one works way.. I read somewhere that the moments after its gone, the word after its been spoken and the stone after its been thrown are the only things that cannot be recovered, and how true that is. 

Instead each moment given to us must be cherished and lived thoroughly. Understand that I see life as a series of moments  rather then an ongoing process.

For me it's that crazy night on a random island in ibiza, its drunken nights at Portuguese bars, its the feeling of snow under my feet, its that conversation in the park. 

 Life is simply a collection of experiences intertwined with the ticking clock of time. Blink and I'll be 30 years of age. And then what? It truly is an accumulation of good and bad experiences. At the end of it all, much like an obituary they'll list all of your achievements and travels on a piece of paper. That's it. Your life achievements and successes will be your remaining legacy. Noone will ask 'but how much did she love?' 'How much did she live?'

Noone will know your incomplete desires, all the places you wanted to go but never did. Noone will know the fears etched in the deepest part of your soul. And no one will care. 

So in the words of Lytton 'Leave no stone unturned' and leave no ocean unexplored. Work your very hardest to fufill your potential with the gifts given to you. 

Im planning to live such a life that, on my very last breath I know I've left all emotions, hopes and dreams in the world and done all I ever hoped to do. 

What about you? What's gonna be your legacy?

BE.