I’ve come to a conclusion.

I’m not nearly as serious about my future as I should be.

I just took my last regular class as a college student.  The professor has been probably the most influential professor of my college career.  He ended class with “The final half-dozen tips.”  They were mainly about our future.  Basically, I ended class a little freaked out.

There was a guy in my class who has done four internships.  Four!  I’ve only done one, and it was at a little station.  I learned a lot, but I still feel like I don’t know anything.

My college career is almost over, and I learned tons.  But I still feel lost.  I need to get some confidence in my abilities, because I do have abilities.  I swear I do.

I’m going to try and stop freaking out about my future.  God has it all under control, and I truly believe that he will take care of me.  I just need to breathe and have some faith.

Done.

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m not going to get full credit for this blog.

Last night I had a breakdown during which my boyfriend soaked his sleeve wiping away my tears.  I was crying because I know I’m not as good as I could be.  All I can think about most of the time is how much better everything I do could be if I weren’t so lazy.

I was just about to rag on myself about all the things I do wrong, but then I realized that was what I was about to do.  I don’t want to do that.  It’s not healthy.  But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m not as good as I’m supposed to be.

I’ve been playing clarinet for most of my life.  I never practiced as much as I should have.  In fact, this week is the first week that I’ve ever routinely sat down with a metronome and actually practiced, instead of sitting, staring at my music and playing random sections.  My boyfriend was listening to me play, and I got so frustrated that I broke down.  I was frustrated that I couldn’t play my piece, frustrated that I don’t have the drive I think I should, and frustrated at life.  He just took me in his arms and started wiping my tears.

I just can’t resign myself to not being “the best.”  Sometimes it’s my best and sometimes it’s the best, but no matter what, the word “best” is always involved.  I can’t resign myself to the fact that this is the reality of my life, when I think it could be so much better.  This is actually a big sin against God.  Not being content is not okay.  I’m trying really hard, but I just don’t know what to do.

So in the end, I didn’t do the work, so I’m not going to get the grade.  If anyone has any advice on how to deal with this, let me know.

I keep forgetting

that I have a blog.

That’s a big problem because I’m being graded on whether or not I post on here.  Plus, I like the idea of blogging.  I like the idea of having a place that I can say what I’m thinking without worrying about being judged.  I feel especially safe since no one reads my blog.

The problem is that I don’t know what to talk about.  Even though I have this great platform to express myself, I can’t bring myself to be completely open, in the fear that something bad I say will get around to the person I said it about.  Of course, the reason I feel this way is because I know better than to bad-mouth people behind their backs.  I don’t like people talking about me, so why should I talk about other people?

I just realized that pretty much every post on this blog is me arguing with myself about what I’m going to talk about.  No wonder no one reads my blog.

I’m turning over a new leaf.  No more arguing with myself.  I’m going to talk about my life, no matter how mundane I think it sounds.  It will be good for me to get it all out.  That doesn’t mean bad-mouthing people or gossiping, but I can write about my life.  No pretense.  Just me.

So, I basically fail at life.

I think I’ll stop issuing challenges to myself since I obviously can’t meet them.  Instead, I’ll just write what I’m thinking when I feel like putting it on the Internet.

And here’s the current thought (that’s been on my mind for days): I need to stop being so lazy.

I have a list 25 1/2 things long of stuff that needs to be done three days ago.  It’s a big problem.

I typically leave things until the last minute.  I have no idea why I do this.  You would think I’d have learned my lesson after putting off an eight page paper last year and only sleeping four hours one night.

I know most college kids pull all-nighters at least once during their college career, but I just don’t function that way.  Sleep is exceptionally important to me.  Therefore, me sleeping only four hours a night is a BIG problem.

I need a good motivator (besides the threat of a bad grade) to get me to do work early.

Any ideas?

Epic. Fail.

So, I obviously failed at my challenge to myself.  Which ultimately means one thing.

I suck at blogging.

I don’t understand it.  I like writing.  I like sharing my thoughts.  I talk way too much.  But I just can’t seem to be diligent with keeping a blog.  I should have seen this coming.  I was always really bad at journaling when I was younger, and this is just a journal that anyone can read.  Although I don’t know why anyone would.  I never post anything.

The other roadblock contributing to my lack of diligence in blogging is the fact that I’m not an Internet junkie.  I typically don’t sit around looking for interesting things on the Internet.  I got Stumbleupon and used it for maybe two days.  And yet when I’m bored, I still don’t look around.  I stare at my unchanging Facebook page.  How lame am I?

So here’s my new challenge.  Who knows if I can keep it up, but I’m going to try anyway.

I’m going to try and write about at least one obvious blessing in my life every day.  I don’t mean a blessing like my family.  I mean a tiny, minute, subtle little blessing that is obvious to miss, but is obviously God telling me He loves me.  Write one blessing a day, and see how much more aware I become of God in my life.

Maybe I can actually keep up with this one.

 

The challenge

So it’s been exactly one day, and I’ve become slightly obsessed with this blogging thing.  I set up a Tumblr and now I have two blogs.  If nothing else, they are a place that I can amass all the things I like on the Internet into one easy-to-access spot.  Now the adventure is finding all the fun little gadgets available on every blog.  I like fun gadgets.

I’ve made a challenge with myself.  Every day, for an undetermined amount of time, I’m going to post at least one thing on at least one of my blogs.  Even if it’s just a quote or a picture, I’m going to post something.  This will serve three purposes.  First, it will help me become more social media/technology/culture savvy.  Second, it seems like fun.  Third, for the rest of the semester, it will help to ensure a good grade in my reporting class, for which I’m supposed to post on a blog at least ten times, this being said blog.

Maybe it will serve four purposes, the fourth being I will remember to be inspired every day.  Posting a cool quote or a pretty picture or an amazing Bible verse will help me to see the good things in life.  Because without the good things, what else is there?

What to write about?

I’ve realized something about this whole blogging thing.  I’m really bad at it.  Most of the time, I don’t even remember I have a blog.  It really doesn’t make sense.  I like writing, specifically when it’s just me rambling, as opposed to a structured paper involving facts and other peoples’ thoughts.  I’d rather just talk about what’s on my mind.  Here I have the perfect outlet and I’m not even taking advantage of it!

But the question is, what do I write about?  This is on the Internet, after all.  Other people can read it, so I can’t exactly vent about people I don’t like.  I can’t relay all my deepest, darkest secrets unless I want the whole world to have access to them.  And to me, writing about my day seems hopelessly boring, especially for the people that have the misfortune of reading it.  I don’t have THAT many profound thoughts every day, so there’s really no point in basing this blog on that topic.  So what do I write about?

I like music.  In fact, it’s one of my favorite things.  I could write about music.  I’m also in the middle of a not-so-furious job search.  It’ll be furious in a few months when I graduate and have no way to pay rent, but right now it’s only about lukewarm.  I could chronicle that fascinating journey.  Or I could write a whole blog on what it’s like to be nineteen and graduating college.  A teenager in the big, bad, adult world is a promising enough topic, isn’t it?

I suppose the premise of this blog could be that it has no premise.  I’ll spend all my time searching for a topic, and maybe one day I’ll realize that I’ve accidentally found one.  In fact, this whole stream-of-consciousness thing is sort of fun.  Maybe I just found my premise.  Let’s see where this takes me…