This, of course, always

I think this is a distinctly female problem. I read an article about a thing called gaslighting. Essentially, the article says women have been conditioned to believe their emotionally unstable. Gaslighting occurs when someone – male or female – makes a remark which we respond to and then it’s immediately met with “you’re being too emotional!” or “calm down, it was just a joke!”

I will grant that there are a lot of women that overreact to the slightest negative comment. However, I don’t think that is what the article is referring to. I think what it’s talking about is years and years of women being consistently told they are unstable, they aren’t capable of managing their emotions. You can see it throughout western literature, movies, and the media where women simply can’t control their emotional outbursts.

It has been repeated so often that women have begun to believe it. You see that image up there? That’s me to a fault. If I’m trying to have a serious conversation about something I really feel or something I think is a legitimate problem – It is pretty much a verbatim recital of the above. Why is it so hard to express ourselves and fell justified in feeling the way we do? Is this a problem only soft-willed people have?

I’d hate to disregard my male companions. I’m sure there are men out there that go through this same mental barrage of doubt. I’ll never fight that men have just as many stereotypes they need to fit into for them to be “normal.”

My only question is: when did it get so hard. I saw a fake book title called The World was Always Awful: A Guide to World History for People who Always Romanticize the Past. I think that would be an amazing book to read. Things have always been this way.

My goal for the next week is to express a serious emotional subject without needing to evade, deflect, justify, and not feel like I need to “patch things up” afterward.

I have already failed once earlier this week when I felt I had to justify my actions regarding an innocuous dinner I had with a friend. There was no reason to feel that way. I made up a problem in my head and ran with it because I worry, constantly, that people aren’t being truthful to me. I assume [wrongly, most of the time] that it takes people some time to realize that something has bothered them. That’s how it is with me, so it’s definitely that way with everyone else, right? Fault: one. I know that’s not true. But, there’s a bigger problem in my life. Recognizing what I know and what I feel. Sometimes it takes longer for my heart to catch up with my head. Patience is all I ask.

The person I think I am is preventing me from becoming the person I could be

I fear being anxious will always prevent me from being the person I want to be. I worry about the future. I worry I’ll always be this way. I worry my first thought in the face of trouble is “is life really worth living?”

Most of the time I simply don’t want to exist so how am I supposed to exist and be compassionate? How can I care so much if I can’t even find the desire to breathe in and out every day?

Will this always be me? Will I always be anxious? Will I always feel alone, scared, and tired?

I’ve been having more anxiety lately and I don’t know why. It might be a lack of sleep but it’s starting to worry me. Having anxiety worries me. When I am anxious I can think of nothing else but being anxious. All I want to do is hide. I want to simply not exist anymore and, when it’s bad, I have to force myself to remember existing is probably something I actually do want – otherwise, I will try to end my existence.

Anxiety has become a part of my life I can’t rid myself of. The only thing I can do is take medication to help control it. The medication itself makes me feel like a failure. Every morning I get to wake up and be reminded that I’m incapable of functioning as a normal human being because I have to take this tiny little pull just to exist. Just to get out of bed in the morning.

Unfortunately, while my anxiety has kicked up my thoughts on being compassionate have all but been pushed aside. I feel horribly about that. But really? How can I talk about it? I can’t help but feel selfish. Like if I were a better person thinking of compassion would help mediate the anxiety.

Right now all I want to do is justify it. Justify the fact that I wake up in the middle of the night and stare at the ceiling for hours going over conversations I’ve never had, what-ifs that will never happen, analyzing the words of everything that people said to me that day. I don’t sleep. In the morning I’m barely able to stay awake long enough to convince myself it’s a good idea to actually get up and live for that day.

I want to be anxiety free. I want to not feel like I’m utterly useless because of my anxiety. I want to feel like my anxiety does not define me and most of all – most of all, I don’t want to feel guilty about having anxiety.

So, I really am sorry if the posts that follow aren’t entirely compassion related. Until this anxiety is put in check – I can think of little else.

I genuinely think Jack Johnson had it right – “Love is the answer at least for most of the questions in my heart. Like why are we here? Where do we go? And how come it’s so hard?” I, despite my continual attempts to convince myself otherwise, am wholly preoccupied with love. I am not in love often, nor do I take the concept lightly. I do, however, say I love things a lot. I love polar bears. I love my friends. I love Rise Against. But love – real love is something special, something unique.

I hear a lot of my friends say they never want to be in love, they’ve been hurt before, it’s not worth their time, etc. And I genuinely wonder if they mean it – or if they’re just tired of trying. The concept of not wanting love is so foreign to me I don’t know how that would feel. All I want is love. I want to love people unconditionally and without reserve. Most of all, selfishly, I’d like to be loved.

I don’t think I expect much from love. I want to know my heart is safe. It’s a feeling that is hard to explain but it’s always been what I wanted. I want to know that I don’t have to worry about being who I am because it might be too much for the other person. I just want to be. I want to give strangers rides, and send long text messages. I want to come back days later to a conversation of minor significance without worrying the other person will think I’m nuts. I want someone to remind me of my goals and keep me on track. I want someone to pick the jalapenos off of my food when I can’t tell them from the pickles I also didn’t want. It’s little things I want. I don’t need anniversary dinners or Valentine’s Day presents. I don’t need [or want] diamonds, or jewelry. I want a best friend. Someone, as Sherlock Holmes says, “someone on whom I can thoroughly rely.”

I can live without all of those things. I can man up and learn that maybe that’s just not what love is. What I can’t live without is knowing I can do that for someone. Most likely not the same things but I want to be the person, for someone, that knows the little things. Knows when they’re ready to leave a party without asking, knows what they want on their Subway sandwich or their order at their favorite restaurant.

I suppose what I want is to be somebody’s, someone. It’s idealistic, I know, but shouldn’t love be idealistic? If there’s one place that I can’t understand being my normal I-can-grant-I’m-probably-incorrect self – it’s love. All the songs, all the movies, all the books, everything – had to come from somewhere. Are they all just products of someone’s imagination? Is that what people want but never actually find?

Part of me says, “yep, that’s just what people want but no one actually finds it.” Or, are there actually people like Dallas Green out there writing songs called “The Girl” for that someone. Not just the ideal but the actual someone that makes their heart jump, their stomach drop, and their mind calm. Where they don’t have to go “I really like her, but…” or the equally annoying “I’m not so sure.” ‘Cause when it comes to love, I need certainty. And it seems certainty is something people can’t give.

Now, to be fair. I understand things don’t work out, I understand people change, time happens, things don’t work out. I know that but I don’t feel it. I think if you find that someone, that someone, you’re going to know. You’re going to do everything in your power to make sure they are never not in your life again. They are the end all be all of your day. That’s how it works for me. Maybe I’m just strange.

Apologies, of course, for the off-topic post. Regular scheduled compassion posts will return, promise.

A lot happened this week and I am still trying to work through it all. The most important and simultaneously distressing and hopeful moment had to be when someone very close to me decided to check into rehab. It has been a long time coming and while I remain not-so-secretly hopeful I am skeptical about the person’s commitment to change. I am sure someday on here there will be a post about this person and their impact in my life.

I will start with the goals I had set for myself. I promised that Saturday I would update with which I have accomplished and which I didn’t – that clearly didn’t happen. So, without further ado – Goals Update: I’ll start with the earliest made to the newest.

Goal One: Open up and be more vulnerable.
I am happy to say I was successful. I admittedly didn’t specify that the person I opened up to had to acknowledge that I was opening up or being vulnerable. I am almost certain he understood the emotion of what I was saying if not the severity. It felt good and I did actually catch myself a few times wanting to make a sarcastic comment or make a joke and brush it off but I persisted. I was met with a lovely hug and what I believe to be understanding. I am just happy it wasn’t derision!

Goal Two: Not question the motives/actions/truthfulness of people in my life.
Draw. There were times when I unquestioningly accepted the what people told me and other times when I caught myself before it got too bad. I don’t feel too awful about not succeeding completely on this goal only because it is a process. I have been reminded time and time again through word and through action that people are not always about what they want. Not because they’re bad people but because they want to be nice people to you. I have been told more than once [after time had passed] that people stayed my friend/with me in a relationship/or around me simply because they thought I was nice and didn’t want to hurt me. Just a tip: delaying what you know to be inevitable makes it worse. You’re leading the person on. Don’t. It hurts worse to hear “oh, you’re really great but.” Especially, if you already suffer from feelings of inadequacy.

Goal Three: Do something unquestioningly nice for someone.
I honestly don’t know. I have done things that I suppose can be considered nice but whether or not it’s unquestioningly nice, I couldn’t say. I didn’t go out of my way to be nice nor did I go above and beyond what I consider common courtesy.

Goal Four: Research how to meditate without giving myself anxiety.
Failed. I made a list of books I want to buy, if that helps!

Goal Five: Be nicer to myself.
Yeah, that didn’t happen. I was not very nice to myself. I tried, I really did, but it didn’t work in my favor. A lot happened that kept knocking me down, making me feel bad about myself.

I will keep trying to succeed on my goals and set new ones for the week. I don’t feel so bad about not succeeding in all of my goals. This is the compassionate transformation, right? And transformation takes time.

I do have a goal for this week. Be assertive. This week I had the opportunity to show compassion and to help someone that needed it and I didn’t take the chance. I didn’t assert myself as a person of compassion and help.

The situation was this, we were driving to a friend’s house when we came upon a woman, in the middle of the road, crying hysterically.  I nearly hit her. I stopped next to another passing motorist who came upon the woman and asked what was going on. Apparently, the woman flagged down the other person’s car and was begging for a ride to the nearest street so she could meet her son. The people in the other car were already on the phone with the police when the woman started screaming “don’t call the cops!” The person I was with immediately wanted to leave. I immediately wanted to offer the woman a ride.

I understand why it was important to leave. I am not naive. I know there are certain situations that you should not involve yourself with. The inevitable helping someone move only to find out they were looting the joint sort of situation. The problem I have with this thinking is that it requires you to think of others as having ulterior motives. It’s much more difficult to open yourself up and help others when you believe they are not virtuous.

This woman was in a place where she needed compassion, regardless of what had happened. Compassion and kindness should not be reserved for those we deem worthy of it. It is needed most by those who don’t deserve it. My friend might have been right, perhaps this woman was doing something nefarious, perhaps she had gotten herself into a situation that she now had to get out of — but how does that stop her from needing a helping hand? I don’t have to condone the behavior to help her when she needs it.

I announced I was going to give her a ride and my passenger said if I did they were getting out of the car. I retracted. I drove on and left the woman walking with one shoe on, torn clothes, and still crying. I could have argued but I in the face of an ultimatum I regularly cave, quickly. The part that gets me is that I didn’t want to help the woman because some twisted belief that I’d somehow feel guilty later. In fact, that didn’t cross my mind until much later. Either way, I’d feel guilt. Either I’d help the woman and feel bad for putting my friend out. Or, I wouldn’t help her and I’d feel guilt. I wanted to help her because she needed it. Of any problem or person I came across this week this woman, this stranger, needed me to step up and exercise my compassionate heart. I failed and I failed hard.

Truth be told it wouldn’t have been the first time I’d picked up a stranger. My best friend has yet to forgive me for that shining moment in our friendship. We were in the mountains and there was a man hitch hiking to the bottom. I immediately pulled over, he got in, we dropped him off at the store and that was the end of it. I found out years later that a professor of mine actually knew the man I picked up. My friend is convinced I nearly got her murdered.

It is an impasse that will quickly be reached. I will soon learn to assert myself and do the compassionate thing, without fear, without regard, and without hesitation. I will not forfeit the person I want to be to satisfy the needs of others when the person I want to be is so insufferably nice you can’t help but feel loved in their presence.

I don’t necessarily regret my decision to not leave my friend on the side of the road in favor of driving a stranger down the street. I do worry that as I continue on this path of compassionate transformation I will begin to lose friends that are unwilling or unable to support my decisions.

I don’t want to seem unreasonable. I understand. I understand the fear and I understand the concern but I have set my mind on being compassionate to everyone - deserving or not. It’s a difficult path for myself and I imagine it will be difficult for others but I don’t want to turn back now. I only hope those around me can learn that while my gut instinct might be to help in situations where it is probably better to drive on, I am an anxious person and I am quick to determine when something will be perilous to me. My fight-or-flight is heavily geared toward flight. To be the person I want to be I have to risk the person I am. I am willing to do that. The question is: are they willing to love me as I become the person I want to be? Or, will it become too much?

It starts with discouragement or doubt. A comment here, a word there, an innocuous expression of concern, doubt, or fear and it begins: the spiral of self-doubt. I noticed it last night and failed miserably to stop it.

I had spent most of the two days before emailing photographers in the area to ask if they needed second or third shooters because I desperately want to improve my skills and start getting experience shooting weddings. Well, I received one reply from a photographer who said she’d keep my information on file. I also received another from someone who said as my portfolio stands now, he can’t take me on as a second. Full stop. I focused on this. I am not good enough. The next sentence however, he said, I was better than most people who contact him for second shooting experience, that was good, and that is why he responded to me.

I know I am not the best photographer – it would be silly to think I was, I am still learning. Yet, my immediate reaction was to ignore the statement that was good and instead obsess over the not being good enough part. The photographer offered to let me tag along to some portrait sessions and he could teach me so that I can improve, and maybe in the future I can second for him. Good, right?

Last night it didn’t seem that way. I was too busy indexing the perfectly reasonable comment about my portfolio under Reasons I Should Give Up Photography Now and Save Myself the Embarrassment of Trying. I tried last night to fight those thoughts. I tried but they wouldn’t subside. I put on movies to help distract myself but the voice of doubt and discouragement was just too strong. I was up until 3 in the morning turning over it in my head before I finally passed out from exhaustion.

This morning I was still unsure of myself and was determined not to respond to his email. Stupid. I had to remind myself things take time and I do need to learn more before I can expect my business to take off.

I had plans to go walking with my friend and we talked about it. I can always count on her to tell me how it is and she reminded me that photography is a hard business to get into. I was still unsure of myself and what I should do and I remembered my goal: be nice to yourself. I pushed back on the feelings of doubt and discouragement [albeit briefly] and returned the photographer’s email. I told him about myself and said I’d be happy to learn if he is willing to teach me.

I don’t know if it will work out or if I’ll have to pay him for private tutoring [something I just can't afford right now] but I have to believe that it will work out and that he is doing it to help me out. I have to focus on the good and believe that other people’s intentions are not to swindle, cheat, or abuse me. Trust, I must.

I’m marking this down as a draw. While I should have fallen asleep earlier and let myself be okay with the semi-rejection I obsessed. It’s a win because I overcame my urge to ignore his email or send back a polite declination of his offer and instead sent him a yes, please and am allowing myself to trust that this will work out.

The self is elusive. What is the self? The reflexive answer is often “well, the self is me. It is who I am.” Yes, but who are you? How do you define who you are? Are you the sum of your attributes? A 5’7, female, with a bit of weight on her? Are you your problems? A typical ACOA desperately trying to be unique? Are you your potential? A photographer. A diplomat. Who exactly are you?

The self and the identity problem have always intrigued me. I’ve always wondered about the tenuous relationship between who we think we are, who we want to be, and who we actually are. For a long time I thought I was the sum of my problems. I truly believed that who I was, who I was as a human being, was defined by the problems I had inherited or developed. These days, I am not so sure. It’s no question to me that the problems I have – which I feel are many – have shaped who I am as a person. If I hadn’t been anxious my entire life I’d most certainly be a different person than I am now. But their existence is merely an influence on my character. They are not actually my character. A simple fact I often forget.

A quote I recently came across [along with a conversation I recently had] helped me remember I can be better than the so-called faults or problems I have. The quote is by Jerome Kagan and goes,“joy and serenity are not slavishly tied to our physiology. We are not programmed neurons over which we have no control. We are collaborators in the generation of our thoughts and emotions.” While I am a determinist – a philosophical determinist, fate and star-crossed lovers are better left to the new-age gurus than to me – I do believe we are capable of adjusting the neural pathways in our minds. We can change what our natural reactions are. We are not prisoners of our own minds. It is more like we are under house arrest. For the most part we’re stuck thinking whatever our brain decides to come up with but we can also move about and change.

A conversation I very recently had was much needed and much appreciated. I was caught, point blank, and basically given a what-for about my personality – rather, about what I do. I am admittedly not very nice to myself. I give everyone, and I mean everyone, the benefit of the doubt, the second chance, the pedestal. When it comes to me? I should have done better. I didn’t do enough. I’m not doing enough now. There is no excuse. I am, as with everyone, my own worst critic. The only problem is I do it to such an extreme. I get on my case about everything. Someone didn’t hear me? Chastise self for speaking. Someone makes a general comment about a category I fall under? Oh God, they’re talking about me. I better change. If I perceive of a fault, or if I perceive a part of me is bothersome or troubles someone I care about, I go into hermit mode and will either change it or hide it from that person to the best of my ability. Essentially, becoming a new me to suit their needs. That is not to say I become a totally different person when I am around certain people but I adjust what I say or what topics I pursue. For example, someone I know does not particularly enjoy sarcasm. I am extremely sarcastic. When I’m around that person, out of courtesy, I refrain from making sarcastic jokes or comments because I know it bothers them.

I oftentimes feel like I’m the sidekick in my own life. I am Robin, not Batman. I don’t feel as though I am worthy of my life. Given the opportunity someone could live my life better than I could – and because they could I don’t deserve it. I feel like I am imposing on the universe, as though I am an unwelcome guest who has overstayed their welcome. And this is in my own life. You can amplify that to get how I feel when I interact with other people. If my own life doesn’t even want me in it – why would anyone, anyone, want me in theirs?

I have to learn to be better to myself if I am to be better to others. The old cliché “you have to love yourself before you can love someone else” is true and [unfortunately] applies to compassion and being nice. I can’t be nice or compassionate in an honest and true way unless I am those things to myself, first. To exude the warmth, the caring, the general goodness that I want people to feel when they’re around me, I have to feel it myself.

I do struggle, a lot, with the idea that perhaps that’s just me. That’s just my quirk or my personality attribute that I have to accept as fundamental to who I am and move on. If others don’t like it then that’s on them ‘cause that’s me, right? I work hard to accept people as they are without question. One of the best compliments I’ve received wasn’t really a compliment at all. A friend of mine had come out to me and it didn’t faze me. It legitimately didn’t even cross my mind as something that could have been a big deal. I understand the concept that it is for people – especially if they’re unsure of how the person they are telling will react but for me it just really didn’t matter. It didn’t change my opinion or how I interact with this person in any way. Months and months later my friend and I were talking about nothing in particular and my friend mentioned briefly how much it meant to them that I didn’t make a big deal about it. My friend appreciated how I didn’t ask questions, I didn’t really say anything about it, I just went “cool” and we moved on to become really close friends.

People are who they are. So, how am I not who I am? How is this somehow un-me? Can you have a part of you that is un-you? Or is it you but you could be a better you by changing the bit of you that is sub-par? Will changing the un-me bit change the me bit? Or will the part I want to be me remain while the part I’m not so sure about be melded into something new, something better? Then there’s the question, how do you decide what is un-you and what is you? Is it as easy as the un-you is the parts you, yourself don’t like?

I am stuck a lot of times in a perpetual cycle of am I trying to fix something that’s not actually broken? Or, am I trying to talk myself out of fixing it because it’s easier to label it a personality trait and move on?

As of right now, this moment, I am under the impression that if I start teaching myself to ease up, to be nicer to myself I can remain the person I think I am – the good version, the one I accept at rare intervals when I allow myself to believe those around me [that's another internal battle, how do I say I think I'm a good person without sounding like I'm full of myself?] and become the person I want to be.

Another goal of mine is to be nicer to myself. To catch myself when I’m starting to go down the rabbit hole of self-doubt and stop it. I need to start reminding myself that I am okay. My life is actually mine and no one could do it better than I could, no matter what.

On Saturday I hope to happily report that I’ve succeeded in my goals for the week but for now, I will keep breathing and keep trying. I hope you will too.

In Field Notes on the Compassionate Life, Marc Ian Barasch often makes the assumption that we push strangers away. We hold trust the ones we know more than strangers. I have no real qualms with this assessment of the human experience except that it doesn’t seem to apply to me very well. I tend to question the motives and trustworthiness of those I know, while assuming the very best of those I don’t. My guess is this has to do with those oh-so-lovely trust issues I have.

This week’s goal is to not question the truthfulness of the statements those around me. I will work to silence the voice of doubt and accept that yes, maybe people really do like me as much as they say they do. That no, the people in my life aren’t just placating me like a child that doesn’t have a good enough grasp of human nature to realize people are being nice to them because they have to be. [Perhaps that's just a sad way of looking at children? How about a handicapped animal taken in off the street that's too useless to fend for itself but too innocent to kick to the street?]

I did not do my Tonglen meditation today. I have to work on researching how to do Tonglen meditation, how to meditate at all, and most importantly, how not to give myself anxiety while meditating.

For today, I focused on a conversation I had about the nature of niceness and compassion. Do I want to be nice or do I want to be compassionate? What are the differences? Should I be concerned with such a distinction?

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. I want to be insufferably nice. I want to be one of those people where it doesn’t even to seem to register that there is another option available. As of right now, for the most part, I do the nice action but I want it to be all the time. I want there to be no hesitation, no question of “will my nice action upset someone?,” “will my nice action put someone else out?,” “will my nice action be misunderstood?” I no longer want to question whatever niceness I act on. I don’t want to ask for permission to be nice [something I often to do in my mind - isn't that sad? Questioning your personality on the basis of whether it will put someone else out].

I worry I shouldn’t put my “achievements” on this blog for fear of being pegged as someone that just wants attention. I would like to give a warning: I do not do this for praise, for recognition, or for anything other then personal growth. I will put my “achievements” up here because I think it’s good to see the little things that can be done.

My goal for today was to do something nice.
I was invited to a party of someone that didn’t necessarily want to go to said party. I made sort of a fuss about going but realized my friend card had been pulled and agreed to go. Plans fell through and I didn’t end up going.

Goal: Failed.
Not because plans fell through but because instead of reflexively offering to go with no questions, no concerns about motive, or concerns about putting someone else out, I did all three. I felt I had to justify my reasons for going and even ended up feeling bad about wanting to go help a friend.

Save?
I suppose in a half-assed attempt to feel mildly accomplished I cleaned the kitchen and bathroom at my boyfriend’s house.

Goal: Gone to Judgement
I was successfulish because while it’s nice, I did it really ’cause I was tired of applying to jobs [which I desperately need!]. I was nice, technically, but not in the way I wanted to be. I wanted to be unquestioningly nice.

Weekly Goals [For Saturday, January 28th]:
1. Not question the motives/actions/truthfulness of the people in my life.
2. Do something unquestioningly nice. More than once!
3. Research how to meditate without causing anxiety.

I didn’t do as well as I would have liked to but it was my first go. I think I will pick up a book on How to Meditate – for Dummies! I gave myself anxiety trying to relax. Compassion will be harder to come by than I once thought.

I’m worried about money. My computer keeps blue screening because of a hardware problem. I can’t afford to fix it. I have to find a new job. I feel stuck. I want to do so much but I don’t have the ability to at the moment. Patience, I tell myself, patience.

I feel distant. Quiet. Something [not vague, just not sure what!] is bothering me and I can tell that I am resisting it. I can tell that I’m retreating instead of opening up.

Today my goal is to open up a little to someone. To let myself be vulnerable and to trust.

One, become a professional photographer. I started a photography business called Star Thrower Photography based off an old story about a kid who finds starfish dying near the side of the water. The kid starts throwing them back to sea when someone comes up and tells him there’s no way he can make a difference, there’s just too many starfish needing to be saved. The kid pauses and looks at the starfish he’s holding, he throws it back to the water, and calmly responds, “it made a difference to that one.” I saw a comic artfully drawn by Jake Parker updating the Star Thrower to an alien who saves astronauts and I fell in love. Even the littlest things we do can have a profound impact.

Two, I’ve known from a very young age I wanted to help people. I didn’t care how I did it or what talents or skills I needed. I’d find a way to help people. Right now, along with being a photographer, my goal is to work for the UN, Amnesty International, or another organization that works to improve the situations of those less fortunate. I would be a happy camper if I could use my abilities as a photographer to travel the world helping those who need it. Honestly, I don’t care if I get to achieve my goals and dreams in life as long as I know I’ve been able to help others.

I am by no means a bad person. I do what I can, when I can, with what I can. There is however always a twinge of I’ll-offer-you-my-hand-but-at-arms-length. I can send money, I can offer knowledge, but I often forget that maybe what’s more important than money is knowing someone’s there, that someone cares. You know, to have a friend.

Having a truly compassionate heart requires that we shed the ego and realize the potential of every person. I am capable of doing this, I know, because it is what made me want to be a photographer in the first place. I’d spend hours looking at National Geographic magazines that my dad had stacked up and looking at how gorgeous the photos were and how wonderful the people looked. I think every person is complex and beautiful in their own way and the only thing I want to do is take enough pictures to when they see it, they smile and realize how gorgeous they really are. The short 16-minute movie Validation with T.J. Thyne captures this perfectly.

I have started this blog because I want to become a truly compassionate person.  I want to be the “escapee” as Marc Ian Barasch puts it in his book (which this blog borrows the title idea) Field Notes on the Compassionate Life. The escapee, he says, “has broken free of self-centeredness and lit out for the territory of compassion.” (Barasch, c. 2005, p.1) I want to put the reservations I have about people, the trust issues I know I have, and the fears of day to day life that I am plagued with aside and focus solely on the good and happiness that each person and that this world has to offer in attempt to become a truly compassionate person.

My goals for this blog are as follows: weekly, if not daily, updates on my attempts to be compassionate. This includes my attempts to actually follow through with Tonglen meditation on a daily basis. Tonglen meditation (according to the all-knowing Wikipedia) is “the practice, one visualizes taking onto oneself the suffering of others on the in-breath, and on the out-breath giving happiness and success to all sentient beings. As such it is a training in altruism.”

I will also try to update with my personal feelings and reservations of things that scare me, things I’ve struggled with, and things I’m worrying about. As a chronic worrier (anxiety disorders will do that to you!) I have a tendency to exaggerate and blow things out of proportion. I also have a tendency to keep it all in for fear of imposing. Here, however, I plan to be completely honest. If anyone who knows me personally ends up reading this blog I hope they understand the personal nature of this and don’t use it to make my life miserable. If this blog is found by any prospective customers, well, I really hope it doesn’t make them think less of me as a photographer, but if it does, so be it. I would rather be a better person than I successful photographer. Though, I really hope I don’t actually have to choose!

I am in no way an expert on how to do any of this stuff. I’m just a kid who wants to be better. Hopefully anyone reading this blog can relate to whatever I end up posting and realize they’re not alone.