Sometimes you get what you need from the things you dont want

It's been a while. Right? I feel like it has. Me being the author and all I can only imagine what this must look like. Weekly Dose of Optimism. Yeah. Good one.

Yes, he judges me and you can judge me too

Fact is, life gets in the way folks. School being the biggest and foremost blockage of me getting back to this wonderful creative space that I've so desperately missed. But without any more hoopla, we can get started again!

My first story is actually a pretty frustrating one. I was out having a lovely time with my girlfriend and her friends at dinner (at a restaurant that is frequented by many students at the university) after seeing a delightfully raunchy play that some couple unknowingly brought their two small children too. Needless to say it was rather entertaining watching the squirming in seats (the parents more so even then the children)

YOU SHOULD NOT BE WATCHING THIS

Back to dinner. Lovely conversations, fun moments, and she and I are relatively new, so I was still in the process of meeting some of her friends. It was overall a very pleasant experience.

See? Pleasant.

It didn't even bother us that this place was packed. Like, to the gills. If this place had gills. But being the air breathing mammals that we are, we prefer eating in places above water. (Those dolphins do have it pretty good though)

My life is AWESOME

But this place is always packed. It's the only diner in the area that's open 24/7 and its right across the street from an enormous campus. Hence the reason why it's always packed. Never even occurred to me that PARKING might end up biting me later. Especially when there wasn't any space to park at the actual restaurant lot and I had to park in a Jack in the Box. RIGHT NEXT DOOR. Why is that in caps? First of all I don't like to refer to that button as the caps button, I like to refer to that button as the Samuel Jackson button. Because that's how he talks. Always.

Always yelling.

Second of all it's all capatilized because it becomes important later.

So after we finish enjoying our nice meals and saying goodbye, we head our separate ways. A few went to the dorms they had nearby, and a few came with me to get a ride to places off campus.

So I'm walking. And I have friends walking with me. We're walking together. And as we approach the spot where my car SHOULD be, I start to realize that it's NOT there.

404- Car not found (nerd humor)

So I do a little deductive reasoning. There's no glass, and I definitely remember locking it. So it wasn't stolen. The only thing I can assume happened is: My. Car. Got. Towed.

IT WAS RIGHT NEXT DOOR.

WHY. WHY DID THIS HAPPEN I CAN'T EVEN-HOW? HOW DID IT GET TOWED WITHOUT ME SEEING IT? WE WERE THERE FOR LIKE, AN HOUR. ONE HOUR!!!!!

Yes, yes a little bit

But I did not let the frustration take over. Instead, I just calmed down and realized that I needed to figure out the quickest way to get my car back in order to sustain my livelihood and not inconvenience my friends any more than they had already been inconvenienced. So I found the "Don't park you're car here or we're gonna tow you" signs that everyone seems to always ignore and called this place and figured out where they were. They were clear across town. It was 1 o'clock in the morning.

So who to call? Options were limited, resources scarce, health packs were depleting and our oxygen levels were low. Yes I'm exaggerating a lot but this is how it feels when you have to figure this sort of stuff out.

You said it Ming Ming

I call the only man I can possibly think of who could ever get me out of a jam this thick.

Sam.


Sam is my bro. Not like, literally bros, but he's my best friend.

Sam and I's relationship is a bit more
mutual than this

I knew Sam would still be up, watching some form of TV or playing some kind of video game or just hanging out with his girlfriend. What I didn't expect was an immediate "Yeah I'll be right there" and within fifteen minutes I was getting in his car with my friends on our way to get my car. I don't know if he found a short cut that I'm not aware of, or if he went twice the speed of light but he somehow managed to make this happen.

replace "INTERNET" with "Rene"
(yes I refer to myself as "THE Rene")

So we're driving. And Sam's being pretty awesome about the whole thing. Taking Amanda (my gf) to her dorm to get something, refusing gas money (which I'm still wanting to give to him) and just being very congenial in a very not congenial setting.

And then we get there. A fenced in lot in the middle of the night in a part of town none of us are very familiar with.

The impression I got from this place

So I get to the desk outside and they tell me how much it's going to be in order to get my car back under my possession. To which I have the reaction:

I've come pretty close...
(Only because there were no horses around...)

Again, I don't get viscerally upset. And I don't express my anger (better to just call it frustration) in any outward way. But I have to do it. Because at this point, if I want my car back, I don't have a lot of options. They pretty much have me right where they want me.

So I pay it. I get my car back. Sam and I drive side by side into the night until our respective exits, I drop off my friends, and Amanda I enjoy what's left of our crazy evening together. And despite how frustrating this whole ordeal was, I couldn't help but think that the world kept turning without happenstance...

And you know what? I kind of look back and enjoy that night. I was able to handle a very difficult situation with the help of close friends, and honestly, I hadn't seen Sam in a while, so it was really nice to know that he was still there for me and that we were just as close of friends as we had always been.  I got my car back, everybody was happy, and I learned a thing or two from the whole experience.

how I felt the next day

So even though things may not be what you want right now, It's important to realize that, maybe you DO need to get your car towed, maybe you do need to have some crazy dumb adventure that leads you in a roundabout way, just to make sure you're still breathing. Life likes to keep you on your toes that way. I say, let it. Even if you can't explain it now, in the end, everything happens for a reason. Even if it's just for a laugh later on...

Kind of like life sometimes...

things to look forward to

Life isn't fair. Sometimes it is and we don't appreciate it. But there are times when things happen and they are completely beyond your control. That is okay. These things are going to happen. What is important is what you learn from it. What is important is how you deal with what is happening around you. Can you be productive with troubled feelings? That's crucial. Do some yard work when you're upset. Get to that to do list. This blog itself is a product of a time when I was down.  Something that really helps me is to have little things to look forward to. The littlest things. And the bigger your problem, the smaller the things to look forward to can be. If you're having a stressful week, have a fun day planned with friends to look forward to. If a project you are working on has got you down, look forward to the day it's over and all landmarks in between now and then. If you have a broken heart, look forward to how good you're cool bed sheets will feel when you lay down on them tonight. Always have something to keep you going. Give yourself fuel. Never take anything for granted. Especially the people around you. If they love you, cherish it. If you love them, love them with all that you are.

the bright side of things

I have a bad habit. We all have bad habits. Some of us bite our fingernails, Some of us swear too much, some of us crack our knuckles. I have a bad habit. I drive angry

and yes, every time I drive there's a hot girl in my car

 This past weekend I drove angry. I was on my way to my robotic lighting presentation at the University of Texas campus, and I WAS NOT GOING TO BE LATE. So I decide to take the highway. In Austin. This was my first mistake. I'm driving and I'm all like

and then I see a detour. How I ever assumed that I was going to not hit some kind of obstacle on this, the most important of days, is beyond me. So I think "okay it's fine, whatever." I begin to take an alternate route down Congress and start planning on how I'm going to get back on track from where I'm going.

My next mistake was assuming that I could get back on track from where I was going. I was too busy being frustrated to really take notice of what was going on, but from what I could tell, someone had decided that this was going to be a perfectly good day to raise an ENORMOUS TEXAS FLAG around the capital.

I almost messed with it

So by this time I'm pretty angry.

RAGE

You probably wouldn't like me when I'm angry. I just start to get really snappy. Not snappy in a "I'm going to applaud this slam poetry" kind of snappy, but snappy in a "I'm going to find the civil engineer that had to do with the building of this excuse for a town and then I'm gonna find the city coordinator and do terrible things to them" kind of snappy.

One of the big reasons why I hate being in bad moods is a firm belief I have that a negative mind set will perpetuate negative consequences and therefore lead to more reasons why you're angry. In a real world example, my being angry that I had to really go out of my way to get to where I was going made me completely overlook that I was about to head into a roundabout (which why do we even have those in America?)

I was never informed of this rule

So because I failed to notice what the blazes I was doing, I almost hit a lady (who was conveniently strapped into a car), slam on my breaks, and hit my tire on a curb, thoroughly messing up my tire.

So this is one of the many ways, that bad moods can actually make your day even worse. It's a viscous cycle, there's really no way to win, like most childrens games

"How did I NOT see that coming???"

Now this blog is called weekly dose of optimism. So there has to be some silver lining. Thankfully that silver lining comes in the form of what I had to do in order to make sure I could get to school without the use of a car. I called a friend of mine (shout out to samwise) and asked if I could stay with him for a while.

Life has a funny way of pulling us away from things that are really important. I haven't had time to spend with some of my closest friends in weeks. I got to their apartment, and immediately felt at home. We wasted time on the internet, we caught up, we made stupid jokes. I had a really great time with people who I wouldn't have seen otherwise

Me when I was with my friends

So yes it's a pain that I don't have my car. Yes I still have to pay for damages. But had I not let things get me down then it wouldn't have gotten to that point to begin with. And as soon as I changed my attitude I started having a great time. Sleepovers out of necessity are always more fun :D 

MANLY SLEEPOVER

Oh and side note, the thing I was gonna be late for? I was still late (obviously) but it went REALLY well. Here's a taste of what you're missing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8jjWpdTA8A
diamonds are a girls best friend designed by Julian Joseph

Anyway, case in point, you can't change your the circumstances around you, but you can change how you view them, and that could make ALL the difference.

The Little Things

So basically this last week was a torment for everybody I immediately know, myself included. Even those who weren't in school had a tremendously busy week. For those of us in college it seems as though every project, test, big quiz, meeting, deadline, event horizon, due date, or cut off line happened sometime in this last week of February.

What this week felt like

So it was sometime between a five hour nap at the end of my day and getting on a bus to take me to campus the next morning that I remembered something my grandmother and mother always told me. "You have two jobs. One, to make yourself unhappy. And two, to make yourself happy again."

First Job

Second Job

I have made a pretty good habit out of doing this. Much to the discomfort of my friends. If I'm not smiling, I usually think of something funny that happened (or that could happen) and the result is a stupid grin on my face that comes completely out of nowhere, hence the discomfort...

Sorta my face not Creepy

Sorta my face Creepy

So I'm on the bus trying to think of things that will make me happy, WITHOUT creeping out the people around me. So I look out the window for inspiration. There's birds...

There's children at play

Nothing really seems to get me going though. But then I realize one little thing that we couldn't do without. One thing that most of us take for granted on a daily basis. It happened when some jerk who thought he was better than me (I know he did) drove past the bus in a speeding rage because he forgot how slow buses travel, even though we are practically born knowing this.

Pretty sure the guy in the car looked like this

It was then I realized. I'm so glad we have windshields.

Think about it. Without windshield you're evening drive through you're nice little town would go from this:

We're Family!

to something like this:

FUUUUU-

 you'd get bugs in your teeth, your eyes would be dry, and you wouldn't really have a very fun time driving. You would probably resort to putting on a pair of goggles but would probably end up looking like this guy:

I make these look cool

And that is something nobody wants.

So the next time you have a case of the Mondays, or the Wednesdays, or the "Let's just get this over with" days, try to find one thing, just ONE tiny thing to noteworthy to be happy about. It could be that you got a bunch of green lights one after the other, it could be that your coffee tasted pretty good this morning. It could be that your kids got up pretty well in comparison to other days. Maybe your morning just wasn't as bad as you thought it was going to be. Finding one little thing and changing your idea about it can dramatically alter how you think about other things, and can make your day more cheery. It doesn't have to be anything monumental or deep. It could be as simple as being glad you don't have to squint when you drive.

The wonder of mistakes

So Saturday I spaced out and thought I went into work at 11. So I wake up at 10:40 and think that I'm going to be late. I hate being late to work. I call ahead to let them know I'll be there within a reasonable amount of time, just so that when I walk in I don't have to deal with this:

in my case it would be the red chunk

like, well thanks for coming in sleepy head, I can go on my break now that you're here...

 So like a good little employee I rush to get ready, pop a toaster strudel in my mouth and hop the fence to go to work. (I forgot to mention I live right behind the grocery store that I work at.) I bust through the automatic doors like:

And I'm all hyped up and ready to work! Except my supervising manager says that I was never scheduled at 11. That was last week. I'm scheduled at 2.

My face realizing I'm at work three hours early

So first I'm sad because I woke up all early for nothing. So I get home not knowing what to do with myself. Then I realize... I can do ANYTHING!

I could catch up on HOMEWORK!

LITERARY ANALYSIS!!!

I could read a BOOK!

READ ALL THE BOOKS!!!

I could EXERCISE!

I CAN DO ANYTHING!!!

I could listen to MUSIC!

ROLLING STONES AIN'T DEAD!!!

The world was my hay barrel. So instead of just using those three hours to get more sleep, i decided to be productive with them [most of them were spent on this blog ;)] So I hope this small little incident in my day can be a sort of example for things that may come your way. Rather than think about the bad that can come from a simple mistake like forgetting when you went into work, try to make something good come out of it. Even if you're running late to work, try to look around and notice the things you never noticed about your commute before. I bet that even if you have been taking the same way to work for a while, chances are you may have missed something.  Or if you're like me and showed up way too early, take that opportunity to get some work done. Do that house project you haven't had time to do in a while. Make a list of things you wish you could do, and when you find yourself suddenly with more free time then you planned, do those things! You will feel more accomplished, and you will be in better control of your time that way. Try to make even the silliest of mistake worthwhile, because that's where we learn the most out of life.

You wish you had this Kitty!

I can only dream of being this cute

When was the last time you smiled?

I mean really think about it. There's the inside jokes at work. There's the funny happenstance occurrences throughout the day. Even seeing someone trying to go through an automatic door only to realize that it opens the other way.  These sort of things MAKE you smile. When was the last time you smiled only because you wanted to smile? Just for the sake of it. Just to see how it will change your day. Or even just to see how you might change the day of someone else. Smiling is contagious we've all heard it but i challenge you to see just how TRUE it is.


I challenge you to try it. It isn't easy at first, especially if you are not used to it, but this one tiny change to your demeanor will make an enormous difference to your day. Smiling makes you look happy, and people are attracted to happy people. "If he/she is happy, maybe they can make me happy" Not only does smiling make you appear happy, it can actually alter your mood!

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1871687,00.html

Give it a try. For one day. It may end up being the best day of your life. :)

This blog is intended to counteract all the negativity surrounding our daily lives. Today since I'm starting the blog I decided to go ahead and post something tonight [i got excited!]. But usually i will post on Mondays (isn't that day we all need the most convincing to get out of bed?). They may be posts covering the grand strokes of staying positive, or they may just be little things i notice throughout the day that make me laugh and smile and keep going. I hope that these things will make you laugh and smile too.