forgive you not

I wrote this almost 3 years ago now.  Its raw and real, which is why I couldn't resist posting it. Enjoy.

I don't forgive you. What you did was wrong and I don't ever want to believe otherwise. I have been kind to you when I shouldn't have been. I have myself to blame for that. I gave you so many chances to redeem yourself but you miserably failed. I don't forgive you for ripping my heart out and stomping on it, and then YOU pretending to be the victim a year later. I don't forgive you for the lies you so cleverly got me to believe. I don't forgive you for breaking the heart of the girl you dated after me, and I am not happy for you now. I don't think you deserve to be with a nice girl; I think you will hurt her. I think you are a psychopath. I don't forgive you, either. One of my best friends, you decided to jump on the chance to date me when it arose. Once you realized dating actually took work, you just checked yourself out and used me until I had to leave. You were pathetic and you treated me like shit. You were so self absorbed that you also played the victim and felt sorry for yourself when all your friends quit hanging out with you because they were apauled at the way you treated me.  I have no respect for you. and YOU, I don't forgive you, for taking advantage of me when I was hurting, just like the lowest level of scumbag does. I am baffled as to why you made such an effort to care for me and get to know me. I would of had a lot more fun in China if I wasn't so attached to you the whole time. I came back and within a week you changed your mind, but you were too much of a coward to tell me why. It was the least you could of done after succeeding in making me fall for you. You know what happened next. Watching you with that other girl was some some of the sharpest emotional pain I've ever felt. I don't know if I will ever be completely "over it." Every time I am reminded of you, I go straight to that horrifying memory. I still cannot believe you did that. You are a terrible person. Only the most selfish kind of person would do something like that, and only the most cowardly would apologize for their actions via text message. You are my biggest regret. Nothing good came out of our "whatever you want to call it." If I could go back in time, and choose not to do it, I would. Now I am stuck dealing with you because you are still friends with all of my friends. So, there you have it, the unforgiveable few. I am not angry about these things any more unless I try to be. But I don't, and I do my best to avoid thinking about them. There are people in everyone's life who don't deserve to be let back in.

Pursuit of Happiness

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal" I haven't blogged in a while and I want to get more into it again. My life is so different now. Instead of stumbling through the college social scene I am experiencing the beginning steps of my career. I am currently determining my future path. It is exciting and intimidating at the same time. I am blessed to have a challenging job in the field I feel I was meant to be in. Who knows, this may change over time, but for right now I am pretty happy in project management. My whole life I have been a planner/organizer/coordinator of people and events. It is something I am drawn too and almost cannot help but do. The question is though - where do I go from here? The goal-oriented, ambitious side of me is growing impatient while the side of me that observes others and listens to my mentors tells me to have patience and work to absorb as much as I possibly can where I am at. My current struggle is knowing when to say no, when to say yes, and when to push for more. I feel like I don't have enough experience to make this call and get it right, yet I find myself confronted with this decision on an almost daily basis. I am learning to doubt myself less and confidently stand behind what I say. At the same time I am learning to put myself in my peers, team members, and superiors shoes before making a rash judgement. I know one thing for sure, which is that my number one priority in life is to be happy, however, I am still working on defining what happiness means to me.

Playing for keeps

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal"

So, I want to apologize for my lack of dedication at keeping this blog up, but I have been pretty busy attempting to conquer the world :) It was interesting reading my last blog; I've been so caught up in life that I completely forgot about those things that were bothering me.

I've learned a lot in my ripe old age of 3 months in the real world. First of all, its incredibly easy to get discouraged when I am floating around without a real purpose or goal. I don't have to have my life plan, but I am a much happier camper when I am focused in on something and am going after it.

It took me a while to gain my footing in the working world and figure out what I wanted, but a while back I got the idea in my head of where I wanted to go for my next rotation. I honestly didn't think it was possible to get where I wanted. I knew the odds were against it, and for the most part they looked for more technical people for the few opportunities that were available. So I focused on networking in the area, with the ambition that maybe someday after the rotation I would be able to work there. It all started with an incredibly nice favor from a complete stranger. He is way high up in the company but offered to tour me around and then introduce me to a few other important people. Then those people gave me names of a few other people to contact, and eventually, I found someone who liked me enough that he convinced someone else to take me on. All because one person one nice enough to help some young whipper snapper out :)

I think the most valuable lesson I've learned is that a lot of times all I have to do in order to achieve what I want is ask. Of course, it takes a lot of hard work and making good impressions as well, and a bit of luck :)

I am incredibly excited and nervous to see what the rest of this year and the next bring. I know that I am getting these opportunities becaus people see potential in me, and I definitely don't want to let them down or make them regret giving me this opportunity. I am mostly excited though because it is such an awesome opportunity. I also don't want to settle hear. One of the past mistakse I've made is stopping when I reach one goal, or setting my goal to low. This is awesome, but before I know I'll have to start thinking about what will happen next. I have an idea, but it will be even more challenging to acheive. We'll have to see how it all pans out.

Other than work, life is going swell. I am digging the stable state my life has been in for the past few months. The whole adventure of senior year was great, but I am incredibly glad it is over. Whoever said college was the best years of their life was selling themself short. There is so much more to come!

Hey! Hey! Hey!

Lately I have been letting things out of my control get to me. The main two categories of these things include

1.) Others Actions
2.) Life events that seem "unfair"

I hate even writing number 2 because I absolutely hate the word "unfair" or ever saying "its not fair." I was raised to believe that those words should not exist in my vocabulary. However, as I looked more in depth at the source of my frustration, I have to say it came from that. I guess the solution to this is the same as always, focus on what is in my control and don't dwell on the rest. Even though we don't always see the immediate recourse of our actions, in the end working hard and doing the right thing seems to pay off.

As for number one, I really need to get a grip. I have really been getting caught up on past actions of people who hurt me, which is making it more difficult for me to move on. I know that I'm not a robot, which means I can't control my every thought, but I can keep myself from dwelling on things. I can keep work on not holding myself back. I can focus on the fact that I've learned from my mistakes and misjudgments and am living according to the lessons I've learned. The second kind of people that have bothered me are people whose actions are sub par, at least by my standards. I know it is absolutely ridiculous and hypocritical of me to say this after getting up on my soap box in my last blog about "living and let live" but hey, it happens. Its frustrating to find out people are being rewarded for bad behavior and can be discouraging when it directly affects you.

However, as someone wise once told me "don't worry about it, the cream will rise to the top." Maybe it makes me sound arrogant, but I just mean this in the general sense, not referring to myself in particular. People will be rewarded for their actions, good or bad.

On a more cheery note, life is going pretty dang good. I know it may be hard to believe from the vent session above, but don't let that fool you. I am so incredibly busy at work and after-work life I am struggling a little to balance everything. What's new, right? Luckily, this week I've slowed things down a bit so I primarily am just busy from work. I really like my job. I feel incredibly lucky to have gotten on a team with so much knowledge, and not only that, most of them are willing to share it with me. Even though sometimes they are the most frustrating parts, my favorite parts are the challenges and crunchtime deadlines that push me too my limits. Aaaannywhoo, that's all you guys get for now. I am completely and utterly exhausted, its time to hit the sack!

"Forgivness is more than saying you're sorry...."

That's a quote from a comedy for those of you who don't know, I believe it was called "Just friends"

"I'm stubborn, impatient and a little bit insecure. At times I can be hard to handle, but if you can't handle me at my worst you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best"

-Marilyn Monroe (with one word tweaked by me)

Recent events have caused me to contemplate shutting this whole blog business down. It's easy to forget that a LOT of people read this. In the end I decided that I just enjoy talking about myself too damn much, so I should maybe just take into account once again that my audience spans many generations and ideologies. Now, as the reader let me ask you to keep in mind that:

a.) This is MY life and although all aspects of it might not be perfect, I'd dare to say so far I've done pretty well for myself.

b.) If you are someone who truly cares about me, that means you love me for being who I am and doing things MY way, not doing them YOUR way; if that was the case I would just be a clone of someone you, and what's the fun in that?

c.) I know that most of you out there who read this truly want what's best for me. I know you want me to set my self up to succeed and also to not set myself up to get hurt. Believe me I want both of those things for myself very much too, and although it may not seem like it at times, I actually do think about my mistakes and everything that has gone wrong quite a bit, and am putting effort to not making the same mistakes more than once.

d.) If you know me, you also know that I am stubborn. I appreciate getting your honest opinion, but give it once and let it go. Overdoing it is just going to prevent me from sharing what is going on in my life with you.

Sorry to go on a rant there, just had to get it out in the open. I have so many topics I want to cover since I haven't been making time to write. I'll start with priority one, and see how far that takes me. A concept that has boggled my mind for a long time now is forgiveness. It first really started to be a subject I thought about.

That being said, I've been wanting to talk about a concept that I've spent a vast majority of my life pondering. Forgiveness. Ever since I became a Christan its been something that has really boggled my mind, and the events of this last year have caused me to think about it a lot as well.

When I was younger, I believed that I should forgive everyone an unlimited number of times for whatever "sin" they had caused. I battled myself because it was really hard for me to let go of things people had done to me, and it made me feel like I was failing. I never could achieve the "forget" part of forgive and forget, although I did fairly well with the other.

As I've grown up I've come to realize the forgiving everyone for everything is the equivalent to having no backbone. I had a very defining moment this winter where I realized it was time to stop letting the same people walk all over me time after time. But where is the line drawn? What error is an error so big that it is "unforgivable" How many times is too many times? No wonder the Christians decided it would be easier just to make people believe in Jesus...

I honestly don't have a specific definition. I've accepted the fact that I will never be capable of completely letting go and "forgetting" when someone has done me wrong, but that doesn't mean I can't move on and still maintain a friendship/relationship with them. I know as far as guys go I have a basic idea of where forgiveness boundaries lie, but as a friend once told me, I can make as many rules for myself as I want, but its incredibly hard to be objective when it is your own life and you are dealing with a specific situation.

I want to be a good person and I want to be forgiving, because I've sure been forgiven for my fair share of mistakes. I also want to maintain my own dignity and self respect.

I feel like this is one of those issues that I will ponder for most of my life and never have a definite answer to, but I just wanted to write about it. Please feel free to give your opinion, thoughts on the subject, I'm curious as to where everyone else stands.