happiness

HEY YOU…

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

A friend posted this on my Facebook wall. I wasn’t sure if I should be offended, hurt, or what…? Honored that he thinks this much of me? Afraid that he knows me well enough and realizes that I let off the idea that I think so little of myself? How many of us need to read this and turn around and realize that we are awesome, we need to give ourselves credit and love ourselves? Do we know how to do this? Do you? Thoughts?

 

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I think this message is the key. It’s the cornerstone to happiness. But it’s hard. Really really hard–for some of us, myself included, anyway.

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This is Going to be Good

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

I’ve always been good at procrastinating. Shit just gets done easier when there’s A LOT to do and a little time. When I have two jobs, class, volunteer responsibilities, and a training plan to follow I am happier, healthier, in better shape. I’m generally amazed at what I can accomplish. When I have three weeks to ‘get everything done’ nothing gets’ done.

            I sit here on a Saturday afternoon putzing around not cleaning, not packing, not getting ready to once again move my life. D-day is tomorrow and my suitcase of clothes and bag of shoes sit in ruins around my mother’s spare bedroom. After this post, I swear I’ll start the laundry and begin rolling my clothes to make them all fit as much as I’d rather kick back and not, I will, I must.

 

Back to Maryland. Thank god. Once there I won’t get crazy looks when I get carded at the bar and whip out my random Maryland driver’s license.  I’ll live near a lake, near the mountains and have work that will keep me busy and active, and hopefully another job that will keep me on my feet and social. I’ll play in the woods, paddle around the lake and explore the productive side of me that I have missed for way too long.

            Tomorrow I say goodbye to the flat lands of the mid-west, goodbye to the lake that stretches for miles and goodbye to my friends and family that have supported me. I’m excited and nervous and ready to embark on this new journey. I’m excited to say hello to the mountains, make new friends and reconnect with some old ones. This is good. This is going to be really good.

What a stranged shaped state

What a stranged shaped state

**More on where, why, and what next week. NOT back to Baltimore, I’ll give ya that much!***

Searching For ‘it’

/ Sloan / 3 Comments

When I first arrived in Thailand nearly 3 months ago I tweeted: it’s hard to be homesick when you don’t know where you call home. Bittersweet, I suppose. Since I was a kid I’ve moved around about every 3 years. My adult life has been a series of avoiding unpacking boxes because I knew I wasn’t going to stay wherever I was for long. I have never signed a yearlong lease. Deep down I knew I wouldn’t be in that apartment or house for more than a few months and then I’d be on the road again searching for something new, something surely more exciting.

In a recent conversation with my Mum I realized that I haven’t had a real bedroom, decorated and made the way I wanted it, since I was in high school. Home is where the heart is. Blah, blah, blah. You can say that quote as many times as you’d like, it doesn’t ring true until you start dissecting, understanding and believing it. As I study Buddhism and begin my journey down the path of meditation, I’m reading that happiness lies within wishing others to be happy and that by giving that to the world, that is where you find happiness. I haven’t bought into this concept just yet—but I also hear it takes time to accept this notion.

My heart has been pulled overseas, it’s been pulled east and west each time searching but I’m not sure I’ve ever known quite what I’ve been looking for. My heart is inside of me, and I think that that’s where home has to be—we must find happiness within ourselves, create a comfortable and happy body and mind in order to be happy and healthy.

I believe that happiness is finding love within yourself. This may be obvious and simple for some but this is something I have struggled with—part of me wonders if I came around the world in search of myself, in search of acceptance. I’ll teach kids on the side, but this journey may be for selfish reasons. I think that that might be okay.

Khoa Ko

Khoa Ko