The whole world is moving and I'm standing still...

Walking out of Byars Hall today after my painting critique, I felt like a new girl. Today was the most perfect October day I've ever seen. Lately I've been caught up in daily routines and normal stress, but when I felt that brisk cold air on my face, it all melted away. I looked around and realized that I never take anything in context with my environment. I never realized that there were 27 shades of green in the view I see every other day after painting class. I never took time to notice the duck pond isn't just green, it's brown and green with reflections of the fiery orange tones from the falling maple leaves.

If you want to discover who you are, you can take yourself out of your environment and plaster every experience you've ever had, every person you've ever loved, every word you've ever spoken, every day you've ever had and you can meticulously examine it. You can dissect it, you can splay it all out in front of you, you can experiment, using yourself as the control and your environment as the variable. You can remain silent and you can perform that intropspection.... or you can accept yourself - the complete package. You can spend time blaming others for your character flaws, or you can embrace them. You can laugh at the mistakes and write them off or you can completely mutilate your spirit. You can turn off the light at the end of the day and know you'll never get that day back, or you can exhaust yourself striving for perfection. You can weight decisions or you can go with what will ultimately make you the happiest. You can float through life unaware of the ripples you make, or you can walk deliberately, with full intention. You can embrace happiness or you can let guilt crush you. You can be yourself or you can live up to expectations and be what the rest of the world wants you to be.