I am a jammed gear...

We celebrated Lan's b-day on Friday @ Busby's. It was good to party w/ all the lil sisters for once. I can't believe we're all grownz up now! Happy bday Lan! Sorry I couldn't stay for pho! I wouldn't have been able to handle the temptation with just a few days of Lent left!!!

of POSITIVITY and the forces against...
The following piece is a speech that I gave @ a local speech competition. It didn't place, but I thought it was something that was worth putting down on paper, and something I hope one day I can put in my book...it was called "POSITIVITY." I actually started writing about this topic a few weeks back and then decided it would be good material for a serious speech:

NEGATIVITY! It's all around us! Everywhere I look lately it seems that news ain't news unless it's...BAD news.

Flip on the television; turn on the radio – and what news do you get? War? Ongoing and seemingly unending? Iraq, Afghanistan, the Mexican Drug Cartel war... Or is it devastation? By Tsunami, Earthquake, Hurricane, or Typhoon. Or maybe it's crime, or gang violence. Even locally, things like this are all the news we get.

So is it any surprise that when people get together, the topic is NEGATIVITY? All we do is complain complain complain. Whether it’s the economy, how we’re doomed as a society, how our youth seems to be getting more disrespectful, whatever it is…we seem SO happy about how UNHAPPY we are.

Negativity; it’s contagious...and it spreads; from the media, to work, and then it trickles into our daily lives, our families, and seeps into our hearts; it’s INFECTIOUS. And when we become immersed in NEGATIVITY; we start to take for granted all of the good things that surround us. And the more negative we are, the more INDIFFERENT we become. And that’s where it gets dangerous, because the more and more INDIFFERENT we are, the more HOPELESS we get. And when hope is gone, then there’s NOTHING else.

Think about those people who are so caught up in negativity that they simply give up, on work, on people, on life. They have absolutely no hope, and can see no way out of it. I know someone who was in just THAT situation; a friend of mine, not a close friend, but a friend nonetheless. This friend ended his life because he felt that hopelessness, that there was nothing else to live for, NOTHING. It was because he was indundated with negativity; because he was enveloped in INDIFFERENCE, that all of it it SUFFOCATED him; so much that it extinguished any hope he had left to go on. NO hope to live…. Do we really want to live in that type of world? Well, I for one...DO NOT.

But continuing to talk, or rather, write, about this NEGATIVITY is perpetuating the very issue I want us to combat! We HAVE to change this way of thinking. In today's world, especially one that is so mired in bad news, we must all take on an attitude of POSITIVITY. POSITIVITY; POSITIVITY fights back against the NEGATIVITY. We all have impact on one another – and just like negativity brings each other down, in POSITIVITY, we raise each other up.

We are ALL connected, and BECAUSE of that connection, it is all of our RESPONSIBILITY to do our part in making the world a better place. POSITIVITY. It starts when you wake up in the morning and instead of thinking, about how little sleep you got, or MAN...ANOTHER day to get through...i just wish it were the weekend already... think, Ah, ANOTHER beautiful day; I wonder what’s in store for me! POSITIVITY. It starts w/ a smile, a friendly greeting to a stranger. You never know what they’re going through, but that positive energy might just have made their day. POSITIVITY. It grows and finds strength in seeing the silver lining, in never giving up when things don’t go the way you plan.

Do and think positive things. Whenever someone around you has a complaint, maybe about how rude people are, smile. Then tell them about all the GREAT people you know. But even better, you can lead by example and be as positive as you can. Soon enough, they’ll feed of your POSITIVITY. We begin to get rid of that negativity, and realize that the world IS good. That it is FULL of hope and promise. You never know just how your smile, your words, or acts of kindness, might turn their lives around. You may never know how positive your influence impacted another’s life; maybe even enough to be a light to them when all they saw was darkness.

Victor E Frankl is one of my favorite authors: a holocaust survivor who got through the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp by being positive and chose to learn from his circumstances and even created a model of Psychotherapy called Logotherapy, where our greatest drive is searching for meaning. I believe that meaning is POSITIVITY.

So when you step out of this room tonight, how are you gonna affect the people around you? Are you going to fuel the fire that is NEGATIVITY? Or will you join my cause; the cause that will help all of us towards happiness…the cause of POSITIVITY.

I am the light of a new day...

Here are one of the few pics I have from Easter Sunday. This is a pic of all the eggs that were laid out on the St Tim's lawn after each mass so that the kiddies could go on a mini Easter Egg hunt. Pretty cool I thought. Spent the AM with the fambam and the gf, then church, then gf's fambam. Was a pretty exhausting day, but fun nonetheless.

Speaking of pictures, I haven't been taking many pictures lately...I don't know why exactly. Maybe partly because I'm not roaming around frequently enough at the various events that I attend...or maybe I'm just gettin lazy. Well, I'm hoping to remedy that situation. Here's to un-lazifying myself!

So Easter has come and gone, and yet, I don't feel as renewed. When I ask myself why, it's a pretty easy answer; I didn't really do anything to make myself a better person. Sure, I sacrificed something that I loved; noodles and McD's...but that's just a superficial sacrifice(in my eyes)...it doesn't help me in the long run. I had also vowed to volunteer more, which I have not even yet done a single time! So with that said, I am quite disappointed in myself. But at least the arrival of Easter allowed me this self-realization and my Lenten resolution doesn't have to END with Easter. It can merely mark the beginning and a continued promise to dedicate more time to helping rather than just always doing my own thing. At least once a month I think would be more than enough right now. It'll at least show I'm doing SOMEthing. Hopefully, I can hook up with a church choir soon and start at least dedicating myself in that way. I can fill the musical void and also participate in ministry :)

Been a slow day......can't even think of what else I wanted to write right now...at least there's something to post tho.