“Well woman the way the time cold I wanna be keepin' you warm, I got the right temperature for shelter you from the storm. Oh lord, gal I got the right tactics to turn you on, and girl I...wanna be the Papa...You can be the Mom....oh oh!” – Sean Paul
Now, I don’t know about you, but I was never exactly sure what Sean Paul’s lyrics to Temperature said until I searched them up to write this article. I’m not sure how I feel about the lyrics, but every time I hear that song, I sing like I wrote it and immediately want to start dancing. I feel that personally this is typical of me to do, just sing made up lyrics and own the song even if the only one listening to me is my cat. It might sound funny, but it’s moments like these that really get my day going.
When it comes to my life, it is extremely easy to focus on all of the unfortunate events that have occurred, and sometimes I do that too much. So I asked myself why, why do I think of something sad, and then spend all of my energy on trying to not feel sorry for myself for the rest of the day? It’s kind of pointless. Yet, all of us have gone through at least one thing that you can never overcome no matter what, break ups, divorce, sickness, falling from a tree branch and many other situations. Sometimes it’s really hard to be positive in a world where tragedy is a constant occurrence from a microscopic level to a macro one. To be completely honest, if you have never felt any pain in your life, you might not be from this planet (E.T. phone home?). Pain comes to us from scraping your knee to losing a loved one. So how do we keep going?
Everyone is different of course, and you can do many things like play sports, read a book, pick up a hobby, or now I guess we can add Pokemon Go to the list. Though these activities are good forms of releasing stress and stimulate you in some way, these aren’t exactly as to what I’m referring to when I say “keep going”. I’m talking about from the second you wake up to the minute you go to sleep. How do we stay sane in an insane world? Recently, I felt like I had lost my incentive to do things. My incentive to write, exercise, socialize, and basically just live a full life. I went from school, to my first job, to my second job, then home, and had to repeat it every single week. Then add the fact that I’m still broke, still single, and still figuring out who I am in life. It felt like a cycle, as if things just happened because you’re born, you work, and then you die. I was depressed for a while.
About a month or so ago I was at the drive thru at In-n-Out with my cousin and someone came up to our window asking for change. My cousin gave him all of the change in his pocket and I realized, “Dang, thank God we have always had a roof on our heads and some sort of food on the table.” At that moment my perspective completely changed. I was still feeling down in a way, but I realized, besides all of the things I had been through, I always had a home to come to at the end of the day whether it was my home or someone else’s home. On top of that, I have always had to fend for myself and I’m doing alright. I learned how to survive when something pushed me down till it broke me. At that moment when I realized everything, I had a little bit more respect for myself. I smiled a little brighter that night. I woke up the next day and felt a better, work seemed lighter, my goals still seemed far but a more attainable, and being single wasn’t that bad.
They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I say when life gives you lemons, go for an orange instead they’re sweeter and you can make mimosas with them. Sometimes we forget what makes our lives complete. We forget to sing, dance, smile, we forget how it feels to actually be proud of ourselves and feel good about the person you are. Losing yourself for a little bit is normal, being sad and crying is the most human emotion you could have, but that doesn’t define you as a person or where you come from. So sing in the shower, make up your own lyrics, remember that working on yourself is a never ending process and that no matter what life throws at you, you’ll find a way through it or around it and if not, you’ll find another path to follow and everything is going to be okay. Don’t let drama drag you down, be a positive Polly in a world of negative Nancy’s. That’s my advice to you.
