Today's thoughts... asking for help. This is something I am TTTTTerrible at. From a ride to carrying something when I have 8354 things in my hands, to the much bigger, I have never been good at it. To place blame, I could say it's my parents, who have always been there for me whenever I've needed something, so it's rare and unusual when I have to find someone else so I usually prefer not to. Woe is me, with the supportive parents.
To preface, this is not going to end with me discovering how to be brilliant at asking for help. This is just more pointing out a flaw in the hopes that perhaps recognizing it will highlight its existence in my life and therefore become something I improve at in the future.
I guess even more than not asking for help, I hate putting people out. And I mean, anyone. Asking a waiter for a side dish they forgot to bring me. Even if it's their "mistake", I think I've always tried to live my life in the philosophy of leave something better than you've found it (an old scout motto), and have extended it to not wanting to impose on anyone, ever.
So, how do I improve this situation? Ha. How do I start putting people out? How do I impose without imposing?
I don't know, but I hope to figure it out. I recently was listening to NPR (something I've started doing in the hopes of gaining back some of my dwindling intelligence post-educational years) and I heard an interview of author Suzan Colon of the cookbook "Cherries in Winter". Long story short, I now follow her blog and this is a quote I've taken to heart from it: "I've never run a half-marathon before. I've never been 46 before. And I've never told quite so many people that I was going to do something like this. But I like the sound of it: I'm training for a half-marathon."
Never done it. Doesn't mean can't. But what, oh what, will I apply it to? I always view birthdays as a time to reflect and change or improve things. My own personal New Year's resolutions. At 19, I decided it was time to finally pierce my ears. Not exactly changing the world, but getting over a life-long fear of needles long enough to sit in a seat and allow both Claire's employees to drop what they were doing to simultaneously pierce both ears, for my fear of not being able to go through the second one after having gotten the first. And it wasn't so bad. To the extent that five or six months later, I got them double-pierced. Again, simultaneously, but hey, baby steps.
For 24, I'd like to do something as well. Here, I've started this blog, to share my, what I'm sure I find to be starting revelations, when in actuality I will look back and laugh at my profound findings. But I digress. I'm thinking of getting a tattoo. I could barely sit through a needle going through my ear for a split second five years ago, so why I now think getting stabbed repeatedly would be a brilliant idea, I'm not sure, but I like the idea. Something small and Irish on the inside of my left wrist, because no matter who I am or where I am or what I'm doing, Irish is something that will never change. That and/or a peace & love on my foot, just on the visible side of a ballet slipper, my own personal life philosophy. Will it happen? Only time will tell.
If someone else has a better suggestion of how I change, I'm open to suggestions... For now, I leave you with random love quotes, because it is February, the month of love.
"Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly." -Rose Franken
"Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have." -Anonymous
"Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be." -Robert Browning
"A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life to be thankful or a good one." -Mae West
"My heart is ever at your service." -William Shakespeare
"There is no remedy for love but to love more." -Henry David Thoreau
"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love." -Anonymous
"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." -Mother Teresa
