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One Step Forward, 10 Steps Back

March 5
by
Erika Evans
in
Creative Outlets
with
.

Just when you think that you’re doing great. Just when you think you’ve got your life all in order and everything is going to work out fine, the world finds a way to catch up to you and come crashing down.


I was dumped. And given my past relationship record, my friends had really, really good reason to be worried about me. The really, really fun part about borderline personality disorder is the extreme fear of abandonment and the feeling of being unlovable. All of which are a dangerous combo added on top of a break up.

But I played it cool and actually did not contact my ex after a week; a normal task to your average person but to me was a very large feat. All-in-all I stayed silent, just like every Cosmo article had ever told me.

Until Friday night came. I hadn’t been out in a total of 15 days, which, any normal person in Athens would tell you, was downright crazy. My hair looked good; my eyebrows flawless. I was ready to see my ex if only for the moment to say hello so nonchalantly and then carry on with my business. I mean, everyone had advised me to keep my distance, act casual, and pretend that everything was going okay. And my plan was to do just that. Let’s act cool. Let’s act okay.

But was everyone okay? Up to this point I had completely avoided the true feelings of being dumped for the hope that he had made a mistake and would come back.  And having a chaotic week made it pretty easy to pretend that nothing had changed at all.

Until I added alcohol into the mix. The second the sweet sweet taste of Strongbow hit my lips, my fingers were just itching to text him. The savory feeling of a drunk text. And I get it- nothing good can come out of any of this. So why not have a drink and see how you’re feeling then?

4 drinks, two bombs, and 2 shots later- here we are. I’m in a bar by myself. My girlfriends gone. Every boy that touches me makes me cringe, and I don’t know how to have a conversation with even the slightest hint of flirtation to it without my skin crawling. The whole night my eyes dart side-to-side looking for him. Hoping for that moment that I can link eyes with him and pretend like all is grand.

But it never comes.

I go home. $20 uber for one. And I change into my t-shirt and boxers and look in my mirror. I look so closely into it and a weird outer voice comes into that mirror and says “it’s okay baby girl. None of this is your fault. You are beautiful. You are kind. This isn’t your fault.” It’s is a fatherly, assertive voice that comes out of me, I don’t believe a word out of it.  Despite my own inner voice trying to give me a pep talk, here I am.

I feel lost. I feel scared. And I feel alone. So far alone at 4:30 AM that I’m not sure what to do anymore. After several more drunk texts and a few more conversations in the mirror (all of which are essentially an outer-body-me saying that I actually matter to the world) I grab my box of tissues and I crawl into bed.


The world I tired of me, and I am tired of it. And we have completely exhausted one another for today. It won’t be until morning when the two of us get to wake up and deal with one another again. And that’s just the way that we work for awhile.

My Biggest Challenge: Surviving

February 9
by
Anonymous User
in
Health
with
.

I felt as though I had lost my innocence, like I had sinned. I was wrong and dirty. I could never be loved.


I was five when it started. Too young to fully understand what was happening, and old enough to feel violated. As a little girl, there’s no way I could have known it wasn’t my fault. There was no one there to tell me. Yet, the little girl still inside my soul, hiding back in the corner afraid of another attack, doesn’t know it’s not her fault.

To be honest, I had forgotten all that happened over the next ten years, but I carried around so much anger, hate, and depression.

I had fallen deep into this hole and it took me a while to remember why, but when I did, it was like a flood.

“Shh, I’ve got you.”

“No, don’t tell.”

“This is love.”

I fell deeper into my depression, a hole so deep and dark nothing could grow. Not my heart, not my love, and not the reality I would make it out alive. I became so fed up with the little girl I used to be. I pushed my problems back in the corner where she was hiding.

I have my own life to live now. How can I carry around the burden of being a victim when that little girl I used to be felt like an entirely different person? She was weak. She wasn’t even brave enough to open her mouth to make it stop. She has caused me so much pain and agony. She is why I’m here in this place; this place of distress and confusion; of fear that I’ll never make it out.

But then…I remember tears streaming down my face, but not making a sound because I was so scared. I can’t blame a child for being scared.

That little girl I used to be is why I’m still here. Because she kept fighting against the odds. Because, for over 19 years she has never given up no matter how deep the pain, no matter how many tears I shed, no matter how many times he whispered, “Shh, it’s okay.”

No matter how deep and dark it got, we worked together to survive. I grew up convinced no one would help me, so I learned to help myself.

I stand today, not as a victim of circumstance, not as a victim of child abuse, not as a victim of a sad story people cringe to, but as a survivor.


Because I am a survivor.

My House Was Burglarized

February 3
by
Carden Wyckoff
in
Overcoming Challenges
with
.

Our house and rental house next door was burglarized yesterday. No one was physically harmed as nobody was home except the 3 cats. I can’t imagine how scared they felt. The cops said it happens in as little as 4 minutes. How is it that someone can totally flip you upside down in 4 minutes?


Our home was completely trashed, valuables stolen, heirlooms stripped away and door frames busted. It was like a hurricane swept through. Drawers, cabinets, desks, closets completely torn apart and scattered across the stone cold floor. My mother got the call at 3:30 pm from our trusted maid saying there was signs of a break in. She immediately rushed home and called the cops. The day of all days we didn’t set our alarm because the maid was coming and the day my dad started a new job, so he wasn’t home.

I can’t begin to wrap my mind around these people were watching us.

They were tracking our every move, notating the times we came and went, counting the number of cars, studying us like a science experiment while just lurking around the corner. If you’ve been to our home, there are 4 foot wide canvases of our family pictures everywhere. How is it that someone upon breaking in not stop to think these are real people who are well respected in the community who love and support each other and we are about to totally uproot their life? There are people in this world that are lost and confused and angry for whatever reason I can’t comprehend.

Total violation of trust, security, worth, dignity, pride, and self confidence. How do you emotionally move on from this? Not literally as time will pass, and we will repair or replace what we can and rebuild our lives. But how do you truly move on?

Bad things happen to good people.


We are thankful for all the friends and family who came over last night or called to provide moral support. We are thankful for Cobb County Police Dept for being on top of it. We will pick ourselves up and carry on. We learned from our mistakes and will take better precaution next time. Trusting others and feeling safe will take time to rebuild, but I’m hopeful.

A Reflection: A Poem

December 11
by
in
Creative Outlets
with
.

One day I looked in the mirror
To see if what I held most dear
Was clear, or if it was fear
That held me in its snare.
Perhaps I just didn’t care
It didn’t seem fair
I wasn’t aware
Now it seems so clear
As long as the Lord is near
There is no room for fear.

There is only one way
And though you may say nay
There will come a day
We walk together, that lonely pathway

Death Is Not an End, but a New Beginning

November 19
by
Maddie Smith
in
Inspirational People
with
.

“It is a curious thing the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited and that eventually all of us end up under some sheet never to wake up. And yet, it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls through the air and there is a sickly dark moment of surprise as you try to readjust the way you thought of things.” – Lemony Snicket


Lemony Snicket brilliantly puts into words how I felt the moment my brother took his last breath. He was diagnosed a little over a year before he died. Acute myeloid leukemia, a type of cancer that quickly and aggressively attacks the bone marrow.

‘Death’, as defined by Merriam Webster, is the ending of a particular person’s life. By that definition, my brother died the day he was diagnosed. His life was over. He could no longer plan for anything in his life. Simple tasks began to grow harder and his cognitive ability lowered.

Watching him go through this has opened my eyes to life. My outlook on life and death completely changed. I no longer fear death.

%tags Inspirational People

My brother during treatment

I think the cancer treatment played an equal part in my brother’s demise. The medicine and procedures my brother received killed his mentality way before the cancer physically ended his life.

For this reason, my brother chose death. He could no longer endure the endless amount of chemotherapy being pumped into his body. The poking and prodding of needles day after day. The endless amounts of biopsies, ranging from orbital to spinal! I had never seen someone endure so much, only to have no promise of getting better.

He couldn’t bear to live his life that way anymore and so he told my family he wanted to stop treatment. My parents were devastated. I know that the only reason my brother pulled through for as long as he did was for us. He was always more concerned about how my parents, my siblings, and I were feeling.

I think I am the only one who fully supported his decision to end his life. I began to think it was selfish of me to make him put up this fight that we all, unfortunately, knew he was not going to win. I feel like we all feared his death way more than he did. He wanted nothing more than to be at peace. After all, as Albus Dumbledore says, “To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” My brother was ready to begin his.

Through this experience, I realized something that I believe everyone should – there is nothing to be feared in death.

It should not be looked at as an end but a new beginning. Once you stop fearing death, there is a lot less to fear in life. I can’t be sure what happens after death but I do believe it has to be a peaceful place. I find comfort in it, seeing my brother ready for that part of his journey made me not fear mine. Death is not scary. Death is warm. Death is a promise that this life isn’t forever, and I love that.


If death ceased to exist nobody would care for people the way they do. Nobody would cherish memories the way they do. Nobody would love the way they do. All aspects of our humanity could not be the same. People live so passionately because life is not promised. Imagine a world without death and it’s an apathetic one. Death is essential for us to live life intensely, for us to truly live it to the fullest.

How to Conquer the F-Word

November 17
by
nick catania
in
Overcoming Challenges
with
.

Fear, the one word that summarized the single demise of every person. Fear is the reason that our society has not progressed at an even faster rate than it should, and fear is what holds people back from their real potential.


In Seth Godin’s Tribes, the concept of fear in great leaders in heretics is never absent in these revolutionary thinkers or leaders, rather they learn to control the fear and use it to drive them. Godin writes “What people are afraid of isn’t failure. It’s blame. Criticism” (Pg. 46).

Looking back on my life I can think of countless times that I have been afraid of rejection or criticism, but who hasn’t. More specifically I am going to talk about a specific time that I overcame my fear of failure and actually used the fear to fuel my success.

Personally I believe fear is the most powerful emotion that can turn even the bravest of people into a puppy who hears lightning for the first time.

I remember that fear to succeed when I finally decided to go after the rank of Eagle Scout when I was 17. For those who do not know, most young adults join the Boy Scouts in the 6th grade and typically, when they apply themselves, can achieve the rank Eagle Scout by the time they are 16 or 17. So, attempting to go for the rank of Eagle Scout at the age of 17, of which 2% of scouts achieve, was definitely intimidating.

So intimidating in fact that I considered just dropping the idea and coasting by instead while all of my friends succeeded in obtaining Eagle Scout right before my eyes. I wish I had read Tribes back then so that I may have had a little more inspiration and understanding of success. However, I realized that obtaining Eagle Scout was something I wanted, and I inevitably went out and overcame all fear of failure, which finally helped me realize that fear of failure and criticism is not something that should hold one back, but actually give us a healthy pressure to work harder.

“It’s about making it clear to yourself (and others) that the world is demanding that we change. And fast.”

It was the fear of not finishing what I started and being criticized, the fear that my project idea’s for my Eagle Scout project would be rejected, and fear that I would not do an outstanding job for my final project that held me back, but I realized those things were irrelevant if I did not at least dare to succeed.

With this new drive to overcome my fear I realized that I would need a team of people to help me accomplish my goal. I needed people who were not in it for glory, but because they genuinely wanted to help out a friend and the community. The right people just so happened to belong in the tribe I was already in, which was the scouts.

Without realizing it, I went from not having a position of leadership in the troupe, to being the guy everyone was following because we had a genuine goal in mind for my Eagle Scout project, which was to fix up the basement of a Bed and Breakfast for women with cancer. With my highly motivated team we eventually defied the odds in April 2013 to finish my Eagle Scout project, and in May 2013 I earned the rank of Eagle Scout.

Not too long after the project was completed there was a horrendous storm that flooded some beach front property, which also included the B&B we fixed up.

This disaster would ruin most people’s confidence, but I had faith that my tribe would not let this be a problem. With the help of my troupe we went back to the B&B and essentially redid my previous project as well as hand made a commemorative Adirondack chair that we put out on the front lawn for guests to sit on.


My experience taught me a couple things that I later read about in Tribes. Fear should not be an inhibitor, it should be used as the fuel to feed the machine. Once you get past the fear of failure and criticism you can be an effective leader. People will follow the one who conquered fear and has genuine ideas to get behind. I have carried those lessons with me ever since.


 

Our Hearts, Swollen With Stories

September 24
by
Ryan Prior
in
#HalfTheStory
with
.

As a filmmaker, entrepreneur, and journalist, I feel I’ve had a lifetime’s worth of fascinating experiences since I’ve graduated from college.


I’ve been invited to speak coast-to-coast from the National Press Club to Stanford Medical School. My film, Forgotten Plague, which tells the story of a disease called myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) has been hailed a “Must-See Documentary” by The Huffington Post. Each week I might be meeting a U.S. Senator, talking to world-renowned scientists, meeting with CDC officials, or speaking on the radio. But most of what I’m sharing on social media only represents half the story.

Beneath that thin façade of success, there is a much more sinister and grim reality that my team and I live with every day, plagued by the universal notion that there is no magical formula for success other than hustle, 12-14-hour days, and knowing the greatest success in any early business is to fight hard enough so that the organization survives at all. The bad days, of which there are many, are best left forgotten, and the failures are never Instagrammed.

This isn’t out of vanity, but rather a survival instinct.

The only way to get more funding for our film production was to cultivate an image of success and not report to our donors how often we come within a hair’s breadth of failure. Some days it’s the specter of IRS late fees, other days it’s a disastrous contract negotiation, still other days it’s the threat of a global boycott of our film for some perceived slight we committed. I know each week to expect some new challenge that could torpedo our company.

This is the story of perhaps our most dire day: February 21, 2014, when we were filming our documentary in Boston, a thousand miles from home. That day it wasn’t just our film or our company on the line.

My co-director, Nicole Castillo, and I felt like our very lives were in jeopardy.

I’d been experiencing significant chest pain for weeks, and the strain of running a two-person film crew on a hectic national schedule was leaving me gasping for air, barely able to stand, and in so much chest pain that the emergency room was the only solution.

We were leaving to go wait for a taxi in our hotel lobby. “Wait,” Nicole said, heading back into the hotel room. “I need to get something.” She emerged with her camera around her neck. I hadn’t the strength to care that the cold, unblinking lens, which had recorded countless interviews with others, would now be turning its gaze on me.

Nicole filmed nearly every second of our trip to the emergency room. She filmed as I cowered in a chair in the hotel lobby. She was shooting as I leaned against the taxicab window in the fetal position. She was right next to me rolling as I stared into space, shirtless, laying in a hospital bed with electrodes on my chest, while nurses rushed to discover whether or not I was having a heart attack.

%tags #HalfTheStory My ultimate diagnosis was pericarditis, an inflammation of a sac around the heart caused by herpes viruses and cocksackie viruses. Ostensibly it is caused by a pathogen, but I knew entrepreneurial burnout was the real diagnosis.

My beating heart had swollen to capture and carry the stories of hardship of thousands around the world. Now those horrors threatened to tear me apart not just emotionally, but also physically. The whispering voices of sufferers were a chamber orchestra just off one of my ventricles, beating an off-kilter rhythm you could now hear with a stethoscope.

That episode made the final cut of our documentary, and became one of its most gripping sequences. But what didn’t make it into the film was a scene equally heart-stopping. And yes, I do mean that literally.

Around 2 am, the ER staff concluded I wasn’t dying, and was therefore clear for discharge with some over-the-counter painkillers. I got up from the hospital bed to go find Nicole. A nurse was wheeling Nicole on a bed coming straight toward me. “Odd, yet fun,” I thought, that the nurses must be putting people on wheeled beds and staging races in the halls.

But Nicole’s face was pale, blank. She didn’t return my smile. The nurse docked her in an alcove, half a dozen more staff poured in, and they snatched the curtains shut around them.

“I’m not getting a pulse!” someone shouted.

A few more ran in. I figured someone just hadn’t hooked up the electrodes up correctly. I peaked up over the top of the curtains to try and comfort her with a goofy Bullwinkle grin amid the pandemonium.

She stared blankly, didn’t even recognize me. She was a ghost of her normal self.

I thought to myself, I should be filming this. But Nicole’s camera was still around her neck, blocked by a fierce squadron of ER nurses. This probably wasn’t a great time to grab it.

For several long moments, I watched figures scrambling behind the curtain, until finally, there were faint beeps as her heart rate reached into the zone of 40 beats per minute.

A few minutes later Nicole was cognition, and color. “I’m fine, we need to go home,” she tried to convince them.

“Finding people passed out in the floor of the bathroom isn’t fine,” the nurse retorted. “You were standing and you just hit the deck. We have to keep you for examination.”

Recently, in recounting the story, Nicole told me, “There have only been a few times in my life where I felt, with absolute certainty, that I was dying. That was one of them. As I was lying there, in the bed, I had two thoughts. The first was that I was dying. The second was, ‘Wow, the nurses don’t very good poker faces.’ I was very, very frightened. But I could tell in their faces there were just as frightened.”

Her condition, I learned, was called vasovagal; it is characterized by a sudden drop in heart rate, which leads to fainting. Medical textbooks say it is often caused by a stressful trigger, an example of which might include seeing your best friend admitted to the ER for chest pain in the middle of night, thousands of miles from home, while at the same time you have little to no extra money and no one to turn to.

After, being released from the ER, I fell asleep on a bed outside her room. She wasn’t released until 6 am. We went back to the hotel room, canceled all the shoots for the next day, and slept.

Rattled, and in need of advice, I called my mother, a nurse, and she called her father, a doctor. Remarkably, both advised us to take a day off and continue our trip, the next leg of which included lugging our equipment to a bus station to travel to New York City for a few more days of shooting.

Even more remarkably, we took them up on their advice.

I suppose that simple decision, to board that bus to New York, perfectly encapsulates the other half of entrepreneurship that you don’t always hear about. Even after a harrowing, near-death experience, you take a bit to collect yourself, punch your ticket, and carry on with the next leg of your journey.

The world isn’t there to see your shaky arms thrust the trunk of cinematic lighting equipment into the cargo bay and to mount the steps up into the bus, but those are the moments when you begin to feel you might just be actually earning whatever little success may come your way.


There is, and always will be, only one magical formula. And that is grit.

Recommended Resource:

My Time in Rio

August 9
by
Andrea Fernabdez
in
Culture/Travel
with
.

(Written by Andrea Fernandez)


I went to Brazil in the summer of 2015. Spent a lot of time meeting people and working on my Portuguese. I quickly trusted everyone I met there. The weekend came when I would travel alone to Rio De Janeiro, an idea that very few people encouraged.


I had started reading a book in Portuguese while I was there, Onze Minutos by Paulo Coelho. This book only helped to reinforce the fear everybody was causing me to feel about traveling to Rio alone. I started to feel like I could relate to the protagonist of the book. She was a naive young girl who was so excited to travel to Rio. She let what she thought was love and romance change her life and eventually she went with a man to Switzerland to become an exotic dancer.

I was starting to feel so anxious, I did not want to be scared, but a lonely and desperate feeling started to snea%tags Culture/Travel Overcoming Challenges k up on me.

I could not decide if it was something telling me not to go, or if it was pushing me to go for an adventure. On my way to the airport in Belo Horizonte I started telling the taxi driver about where I was headed, and the first thing he said was “sozinha (alone)?!” He went on to explain that Rio is super dangerous; that people got stabbed and robbed there.

I started feeling nervous again. The possibilities of me getting robbed, stabbed, abducted, or becoming an exotic dancer kept growing in my head. But, I hid all these fears and landed in Rio with a brave smile.

The first day, I met some men on the beach and played soccer with them leaving my bags in the hands of a man running a coconut water stand. Nothing was stolen, and the only thing that got stabbed was the coconut he gave me for free. I continued playing soccer with another group, and this time, something unfavorable did happen.

I twisted and sprained my ankle. Luckily, I was in very good hands. The boys made sure I was well taken care of.

%tags Culture/Travel Overcoming Challenges

On the last day, I went with some new friends to the beach one last time and to make a complicated story simple, I got caught in a riptide. I will be completely honest; there was a moment that I thought I wouldn’t make it. I saw my friend waving at me to come back, but he wasn’t coming toward me so I thought nobody could help me.

The last thing I saw before a big wave took me was my friend coming my way. At that moment I felt hope and then suddenly we were both so far out in the ocean that we could no longer see the shore. I was so happy I was not alone, and the two of us were just laughing trying to stay afloat.

We did not know what we would do because we knew we could not go back into the waves. Within ten minutes a lifeguard comes out to us, and lends us his board to catch our breath, but he tells us that he will not be able to take us back- says he has alerted the helicopter.

WE WERE GOING TO BE SAVED BY A CHOPPER!

We were picked up in nets and then dropped off on the beach where everyone was surrounding us with their cameras out. The experience was crazy. I felt so in love with life, though I could not help but feel a sense of anxiety again; I felt confused. I had been warned about all the dangers of Rio – primarily of all the dangerous people and yet, the people in Rio are the ones who took the best care of me.

I realized from my trip to Brazil that if you are going to be fearful then get ready to fear just about everything – because anything can hurt you. Sand can hurt you; water can hurt you; pavement can hurt you; love can hurt you – anything can hurt you. That is why I gave up on fear and decided to live guided by my intuition and YOLO. Let’s see where that takes me.


“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

-Yoda

What Falling In Love With Your Best Friend is Like

July 26
by
Anonymous User
in
Creative Outlets
with
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It’s been almost 6 years since I met the girl I fell in love with. And finally I’m writing about it.


I’ve been confused these past couple weeks. I’m lost. I get these waves of emotions. Some days I’ll be good and some days I’ll get this knot in my stomach. I start questioning everything. What could have I done differently? What could have I said differently?

I had no plans to have a girl best friend, nonetheless, fall in love with her. But it changed my life. Falling in love with your best friend is scary. You get so close to this person that you can’t see life without them. You need that person just like you need air. It’s like they’re a part of you. And I think that’s when you know you’re in love. When you realize they’re your other half.

It always seems like someone eventually falls in love in a best friend friendship.

I happened to be the one to do so. Head over heels. The whole nine yards. I think I fell in love with her because she was my best friend. Not because of her looks, but because of how powerful our trust was. I told her everything and vice versa.

We knew exactly what was going on in each other’s lives. But what was unique about us was that our brains were the same. Our thoughts, the way we acted, and the ways we talked were all identical. It was the weirdest/coolest thing. We could finish each other’s sentences. We already knew the answer to the questions before we even asked. We had some sort of telepathy, kind of like we had super powers.

It’s hard to tell your best friend that you’re in love with them. What happens if they don’t fall in love with you back? What if they just want to stay best friends? You’re putting a forever-lasting friendship at risk. In high school I wasn’t really a patient kid. If I wanted something, I had to of have had it right then and there. Why wait for something when you know what you want?

“You’re like a brother to me”, were her words after I told her how I felt.

You see, she fell in love with the guy that didn’t give her the time of day, but would talk to her just enough to keep her in check. Like he wouldn’t really talk to her in person that much, but the minute he texted her it changed her whole day. It was the classic high school girl story. Falls in love with the a******, because the chase is a lot more fun than the good guy that’s just waiting for her.

He was smart. I was dumb. It’s weird being best friends with someone who knows you’re in love with them. I thought if I kept being her best friend that maybe she would eventually come around. For some reason I thought if we kept on getting closer then maybe she would realize. I think the opposite happened. The closer we got, the farther my chances got.

I think the only regret I have was that I never truly believed I could have her. I did everything for her. Got her soup when she was sick, gave her a ride whenever she needed one, etc. I was like a puppy—I would get so excited when she gave me attention. But in the midst of everything I did, I never told myself that I could actually get her. It was always “I’ll never get a chance” or “This is going nowhere”. And these past couple of years I’ve realized that if you can’t even believe you can get something then you never will get it. Not just with girls, but just whatever you want in life.

Months and months went by and we always went back and forth.

Some weeks we were good and some weeks we didn’t hear from each other. It’s like we would say to ourselves, “Welp this week we aren’t talking.” And then it became a game. Not officially, but we both knew it. Whoever caved to text first was the loser. But every time we would talk—she ended talking about her guy problems. I didn’t want any part of that. I think that was the worst part of everything. Hearing all her guy problems when there wouldn’t be any if she chose me. I was getting kicked while I was already down. I couldn’t deal with it.

I just wish she had perspective. That was the one thing that we never really were on the same page about. She’d always get mad when I didn’t want to talk to her, but she didn’t realize that in order for me to get over her I had to stop. It’s like a drug addict needing to go to rehab. In order to be sober you have to stop . . . She was my drug. And I kept coming back for a hit.

What I’m scared about—is my future. Do I think about her my whole life? Does it ever end? I compare her to the girls I talk to. How bad is that? I still think about what we could of been. More than I should. My body feels like something is missing. It just doesn’t feel right.


I still feel like we’ll find our way. When she’s mature. I know she’ll come to her senses one day. I’m just scared it might be too late.

Getting Over The Fear of People

April 18
by
Hit Records Worldwide
in
HRW Music Group
with
.

Have you ever felt like people do not understand you; or maybe you feel nervous talking to people?


I use to feel this way especially during a speech; predominantly through high school. I was shy, reserved, and didn’t have many friends. I wondered, “What do I say”? In those situations I would lock up or excuse myself.

But this is a problem of the past for me.

One day after getting out of a meaningless date, if you would call it that, I told myself “I am going to get the hang of interacting with people on a social level, or die trying.” This is about the time I started college. I must have flipped through the college major guide a thousand times banging my head against a desk wondering what college degree would define me for the rest of my life.

On one icy Texas night, I finally came to a decision. I decided I wanted to learn something at which I am not very skilled. I decided to pursue a degree in Communications. For five long years of nocturnal studying, back-breaking labor at my day job, and trying to juggle my spare time with friends or family, I finally completed my goal. I held a bachelor’s degree in Communications.

Since then I have publicly spoken in front of thousands of people, run a high grossing business, but most importantly, I feel comfortable with myself. I have my tenacity and my will to thank for my accomplishments.


 

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