inspiration – Page 2 – confetti kindness

choose happy 2.0

If you’ve been with me since the beginning, or even just from early on, you may remember my choose happy post. Oh sweet, naive Renee (because now I am 20 and old and wise obviously). Choosing happy is not quite so easy when work begins to pile up and a little voice starts whispering sweet insecurities and self-doubts into your ear. You can put on a happy face and force a smile, but that does not guarantee joy. I still believe that a simple smile can change a “meh” mood into a lovely mood. But life is not always so simple.

Happiness is like a fountain.

A fountain, like joy, is beautiful. They look so simple too. Water flows up in the air with elegant grace and gravity pulls it back down. Simple magic (especially in the pre-electricity days) it may seem is what pushes that water up in the air.

Actually, there is a fair bit of physics hiding behind these majestic structures that I just spent an excessive amount of time reading about. I won’t go into the details, but here’s the buzzword from everything I learned: pressure. The water is put under a great amount of pressure in order to create the fountain.

See? Happiness is like a fountain.

There is more work that goes into happiness than just a smile or a mind state.

Happiness is a choice but it is also the result of all of the other choices we make in life.

For me, happiness is harder to achieve when I’m tired and stressed and lonely. And when I let myself listen to the devil on my shoulder telling me I am not good enough, well there’s goes any chance for a great day.

There is a long long list of items we cannot control in life. There is also a long list of things we can.

Choosing happy means choosing confidence. It means choosing sleep, choosing to stay on top of my work, choosing to find the balance between studies, fun, and friends. It also means prioritizing those people in my life that give me strength.

It may not always be easy but by choosing the things in life that make us happy, we can turn this world into a magical one with rainbows, unicorns, and unlimited ice cream 24/7.

Ha ha kidding. I wish that were true.

This may not bring unicorns into your life, but it will transform you into the little jazz hands emoji 24/7 which is pretty cute too. 12909518_10209159866253681_3496421263640732621_o

don’t be so hard on yourself

I dropped a class yesterday. It was an assembly level computer programming class filled with 87% males, all with a comprehensive background in computer science (okay maybe not all, but definitely the majority). I hated it. No matter how hard I tried, I never understood anything that was going on. I dreaded the class every single day. So I decided to drop it. Big deal, right? For me, it was. (I almost had to have a friend click the “drop” button for me)

I thought it meant that I had failed. I was giving up. And I am not a quitter. I was disappointing Sheryl Sandberg and all other powerful, successful women. I was letting down my high school AP Physics teacher who had once told me that I was “representing all of womankind” (which is a lot of pressure to put on a young 18 year old who still didn’t really understand the concept of eyeliner!).

Even with this weight lifted off of my shoulders, there is still a pit in my stomach.

For many reasons, I hold myself to high standards. A wonderful thing most of the time, but in cases like this, is not healthy. Staying in that class would not have been the right decision. I am plenty involved, I have a job on campus, and my other 3 classes are hard. I really don’t have to prove anything to anyone.

When I posted this photo on instagram, I captioned it with a very Renée, ridiculously cheesy comment on how there is beauty even in the dirty parts of winter. The same kind of sentiment is relevant today. Taking time for myself, cutting myself some slack might seem ugly from the outside. It might feel like a failure, like I am not living my life to the best of my abilities. But there is something lovely about it. I deserve to take a break. I deserve to not always be perfect.

This also applies to you too, my dear reader, sorry today was more of a letter to myself. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do. Even so, you too shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.
I think you’re grand.

xoxo,

Renée

to the women about to go through sorority recruitment:

Do not define your worth by sorority recruitment (read again please)

First off, let me get this out there… I hated rush. Phew glad that’s out in the open. I’m pretty sure I cried every single night (I have become more of a crier in my older age though so not too surprising). I would get dressed up everyday. I put on my cute outfit, the outfit I had planned weeks in advance (haha kidding… not). And then I would go spend hours trying to prove my worth in 15 minute convos. It didn’t help that I don’t love small chat and was insanely nervous.

It was all because I cared SO MUCH.

I have always wanted to be in a sorority. Ever since I watched Legally Blonde. I wanted that group of girlfriends, a bunch of girls who give you life advice, like all of your instas, hug you goodbye as you leave for break, bring you cake on your birthday, and share all their cute clothes with you. I wanted that.

So I was nervous (like the pee your pants kind of nervous) and then I would go to house after house having what I thought were great conversations. The next day, every girl receives a list of houses that they will be attending. Missing from my list were typically most of the houses I had loved the day before.

I ended up blaming it all on myself. What if I was cooler? Funnier? More outgoing? The more I got into it, the worse it became. It took a huge toll on my self esteem. I assumed that if I was better, a better version of Renée, every sorority would have wanted me. I assumed that there was something wrong with me.

It didn’t help that a majority of my close friends really enjoyed recruitment. I’m so sorry that you had to choose between all the houses that wanted you, that must have been so tough. Oops too much sass (still bitter?).

Well. That became a long rant about my rough process… but do not be discouraged! There is a morale to this sad tale! Please, do not do what I did. I blamed every bit of myself for a process that is flawed. I defined my self worth based on the first impression of girls who knew nothing about me other than my major and hometown. Which isn’t right. There is a computer algorithm and a voting system that differs for every single house. There are a million factors involved in whom a sorority picks and only a minuscule handful actually have to do with you.

I do have to say though that I am so thankful to have ended up in the sorority I’m in, I love (LOVE) it. The process did indeed work out, as everyone promises that it will. I become the little heart eye emoji whenever I think about the girls I get to call my sisters. They have become best friends and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I would never want the end result to change, but if I could go back in time (it is 2016 after all) I would tell sweet naive Renée not to stress so much because it’s not you, it’s the process.

Be yourself. Smile. Rock your favorite outfit. Talk about your puppy. Smile some more. Give your best friend a hug. Get some rest. Tell a joke. It may not be easy few days, trust me, but it is beyond worth it.

xoxo,

Renée

she believed she could [make it through recruitment] so she did.

(script by the talented Kal barteski)

choose happy

Recently, someone asked me “Are you actually that happy? How do you do it?!” Being the socially awkward little human that I am, I just laughed, shrugged it off, and said “I don’t know.”

I always get uncomfortable when people ask me things like that. “How are you so happy?”, “Why are you always so nice?” My instinct is to assume that they mean it in a condescending way. But people never do. It is genuine curiosity that makes people who see me or any of my social media wonder what the secret is.

The stress, anxiety, mediocre, sadness levels only seem to be rising in the US and so when I say “I just don’t know” what makes me happy 87% of the time, it isn’t helpful at all.

The truth is, I’m not always happy. I get stressed out to the point of tears, sad over silly things, and annoyed over petty issues. But I have made the decision to not let those things consume me. Every day I choose happy. It’s not easy, somedays it can be exhausting, but it is so worth it. There are only 525,600 minutes in a year (it’s okay, sing that line, I know you know it, + I bet you are a lovely singer) which isn’t very many. In the grand scheme of things, life is pretty darn short. So why waste anymore time than I have to on things that I can’t change? I would much rather spend my days with a smile on my face and not a care about what the haters are going to say. Sometimes it’s not easy, actually it’s pretty tough somedays. I just have to remind myself of all the reasons that I do have to be happy because there are so so so many of them.

Now, after I’ve said all of that, I know that my words can’t cure someone of depression. Telling someone to just not be sad about something that deserves sadness is like telling someone with arachnophobia to hold a spider. It’s just not going to happen. Feelings deserve to be felt + you are human. All I’m suggesting is that if the car in front of you cuts you off, welcome them into your lane with a smile and then go right back to singing along to the radio at the top of your lungs.