a series of questions continued

How would you know if you have lived your life to the fullest?

a series of questions, can you help me answer them?

If happiness is the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?

Fair Friday

You only see me now, the tired nod, the reassuring smile that says I'm fine. You only hear the funny stories, the jokes I attempt to make without getting the real punchline. You don't get to see the truth and you never will. Ever get the feeling that no matter how hard you try, things are just never right? Like reading a book and the ending sucks the wind out of you and leaves you there, not comprehending, gasping for air, grasping blindly at some sort of solid shape you can count on. Friends, I watched us as we changed. Slowly but surely. Of course that would happen, it's inevitable. I forgive you because I too, have changed. Life is not so simple now. There are too many new variables. Each goodbye suggests a longer separation, every hello so much more precious. When life suggests a change you do two things-try to fight it or try to accept it. I say try because either may not necessarily work out. But whatever it is that you choose, remember that life does and will always go on. The world will never stop spinning and your heart will keep beating.

Good luck and all the love from me,

stargirl

Nostalgia and Lemons Part 2

Nostalgia: the human emotion that creeps up on you over time. One day you’re laughing with your friends and the next you are overcome by that exact feeling; only months, or years later. You yearn to go back to that time and do it all over again. It’s something that we, as humans, would all experience at some point in our lives. Nostalgia comes to us, not as a hazy, abstract dream but as a solid, sharp memory much like when a camera suddenly comes into focus. 

But as George Wildman Ball memorably told Newsweek in 1971, “Nostalgia is a seductive liar.” The word nostalgia carries a positive connotation because when we look back at our memories, we tend to exaggerate the good side. As the saying goes, nostalgia is looking at the past through a rose-tinted window. It’s a yearning for when times were better, or a time we imagined that was better. As a reader and a dreamer, I spend a great portion of my time with my head in the clouds. So much that sometimes I’d prefer to stay there and the line between reality and dreamland blurs. 

But to live my life properly, I must move on, create new memories and look back on them in the future. No matter how happy we are, it will never compare to the life inside your head that’s looking at a land where the sun never sets. It’s a future that seems so uncertain…. But there are certainties in life and it’s that precious confidence that forces us forward. I will continue my way and you on yours, but sometimes we’ll let ourselves wander off the well-trodden path and pretend that we’re on a different journey.

Nostalgia and Lemons

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade and you---wait, rewind, what? Lemonade? Well that's boring. Ain't it? A while ago I watched a video of Steve Jobs give a speech to a graduating class at Stanford University and he said in his speech that "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." and according to Robert Frost's poem "The Road not Taken" being the norm is wasting time and is quite frankly, boring. So from this day, when life gives me lemons, I'm making apple juice. Or no, wait, stargirl juice ;)