MY SAGA

I thought about moving all the time.  I dreamed of moving. I hoped I would SOMEDAY have a chance to move. But until now, the tug of war battle between my dreams and my fears had a winner that kept me stagnant. The fearful me chose security over opportunity, caution over adventure, the familiar over the unknown, my comfort zone over new experiences.  The fearful me just wouldn’t budge; and so it was in control. I tend to be a bit of a homely person. The people, my family, my friends, are the reasons for not my relocating. How often I stopped myself from moving forward for fear of uncertainty and not paying attention to my inner voice. I reflected in myself, about all the fears which stops me from taking risks and also sometimes from remaining happy in myself. We always care for safe zones and overlook other opportunities and spaces. I’ve always wanted to do it, but I’ve let fear keep me planted. I have to break free, moving is the first step, but there’s quite a journey ahead.


Every journey begins with one step. I have to change my thinking and attitude. Thanks to the people behind this deep thinking I am having now. I’ve just received a phone call from my bestfriend Pam. So what I’ve learned with our conversation was fearing what could be, will only rob me for what it is. It’s been therapeutic after I confided to her. The feeling of opening up to another human being without fear of exposure is very freeing. I think it is total emotional security. The knowledge that you can always confide in someone and tell them your innermost thoughts without being criticized or judged, and hopefully they might know what you're going through. The person who will always be there for you when you make mistakes and who knows how much they mean to you. Pam is someone I can confide my deepest secrets and problems to, and she tries to give me sensible answers and advice. Sometimes if you are going to confide with a close friend, he or she could be a friend one day and then turn around and becomes your enemy the next. I was even told before that sometimes, the things you have told them can be used as the information against you. So, choose the real ones to confide things. Pam is someone I can talk and confide, because she’s my bestfriend. 

This time I can tell, I am down and I am not doing well. But just hanging around with the right people, with my family, is probably worthwhile. It will be worth it to be with a person who knows my worth. This negative life experiences just means that I have areas of my life where the universe is helping me to point me to struggle harder. Occasionally, we get asked some unusual questions for which we are quite often totally unprepared in many ways. It is amazing the sometimes we are all blind to what is staring us in the face. We don't believe everything we see, or sometimes our minds refuse to let us see what is in front of our noses. Sometimes I think all I need is to step back and see what I am really up to, even if it is right in front of me. Maybe it is so obvious I am becoming blind to it. It happens to all of us. True that, it happens to you and me. Most of us live on autopilot so in a way this is just bringing ME more awareness and consciousness to what is going on inside of me. I want to become aware of the areas in my life where I experience low self esteem and begin reprogramming myself to think MORE POSITIVELY.

Most of the time, we all know what we need to do in order to attain our goals. That’s not the issue; we know what needs to be done. We just don’t do it. That’s probably the case. You may tell yourself you want to succeed, but if you cannot do whatever it may be to get there, then you don’t really desire it. You are not “hungry” enough. You want it, just not bad enough. FOCUS AND TAKE ACTION! Change has always been a part in this blog ON THE STRUT. I have to keep going. I am determined, I am ready to take it and move on.  I am just discouraged by these tough times by now. The fear part I’m over, but the comfort makes a lot of sense! I know that these struggles will create a big role in this so called life. It is because of night’s darkness that we see the moon and stars.  It is because of dark times in life that I experience the joy of a brighter day. For this, I give thanks!

-dyoyzee-

FACEBOOK, SMALL WORLD AFTERALL

Facebook is the world’s largest social network with over 901 million users worldwide which started in a dorm of Harvard University by a student Mark Zuckerberg who is now a billionaire. So what brought me here writing about this social network? I actually wanted to know the date when I signed up for the FACEBOOK. I would assume that it would take me many many many hours to click 'older posts' until I got back to the beginning. It took me a long time scrolling down just to find out when I joined FACEBOOK. I've looked and there seems to be no sure fire way. Here’s what’s really intense! Now with the activation of timeline, we get the exact date and time we joined the FB.  Admittedly this application found my earliest stored status update. So what I did was, I let my sister open her account and voila! It showed up! It was on  September 9, 2008, it’s been four years as I remember it, and I signed up in the first place because of my friend Vanessa, whom suggested it to me.  I’ve been in Friendster before and then Facebook came along and altered the new paradigm in social networking. So what I did, I deleted my account in Friendster and went around the bend over FB. With timeline, it showed me proof that I have been on Facebook that long.

When Facebook first started, it was a social networking site geared towards college students, to meet people in their new schools in order to have a small group of acquaintances before they got to school. It also allowed students to keep in touch with their friends from high school who had gone to different schools. WE are all thankful; a lot more people have the opportunity to stay connected with the people they care about. Besides basic information, Facebook trends have taken part in everyday life. Friends near and far get to know their peers, and one saying it could lead to someone telling people more than many need to know. This social site has a heart; displaying what mattered to you, things you did, and things you experienced, right there for all to see. It has proved to us all that we can keep in touch under one social networking site – even while out of touch. It is only a tool of communication, how we used it is our choice. As Facebook grew up alongside us, it improved our collective social lives. To me, it is really capable of profound emotional impact wherein pictures, events and news are being updated making it possible to document entire lives with ease.  It is sort of an assistant to me along with writings of my own personal remembrances. For some users, it might even serve as a personal demonstration of why life is worth living.

Every time Facebook changes something on their platform, people seem to get all freaked out and complain because they have to learn something new or change the way they were doing things. I understand and appreciate change can be a bit disconcerting, but I’m one of those people who not only accepts change; I actually seek it out. At first, I was really hesitant to put my Facebook live on timeline. I hated it, yet change is therefore to be accepted.  My timeline is something I am getting used to look at now. Anyways, a lot of changing will still to come on FB. We may not be able to like it or we will love the new features to come, but that’s inevitable. It is going to happen and there's nothing you can do about it. Change is related to growth. If you do not change, you do not see, hear, feel, know or go towards anything more than what you are now. In order to gain, in any way, you must change what "is" now. Let us study change and find out. It is a far easier thing to manage change than you may imagine. Changing is choosing. Nothing more.

Happy 4^th year to my FACEBOOK account! CHEERS!

-dyoyzee-

STRESS MANAGEMENT

Lately, I’ve been a stress wreck. Maybe this is just how it's supposed to be right now. The minute I started thinking this way, it was like I wiped that heavy stress off my shoulders. My body is screaming at me because of exhaustion. I pretty much refuse to be a victim to negative thinking nowadays, so I’ve been looking for ways to reduce stress. Whenever worries and anxiety overwhelm your life, people tell you, “Just relax.” Thanks, and that’s a wise advice you could ever hear but how the heck would you do that. When I'm stressed out or having a bad day, I take several deep breaths and then I create a mental time-out. I talk to myself and say, I can do this and that I’ll be over it. Being comfortable seems impossible when you’re feeling heavy and enslaved. And we find it a little hard to put it into practice to just possibly relax and never think of it. This writing is a stress buster for me, where I could air my inner thoughts. Everyday is a struggle. The choice is to always have positive thoughts and that there’s a rainbow always after the rain.

I n the course of my being, I have embraced my flaws and I feel more confident. Knowing these words, “I can”, “I will”, I am able”, and “I am ready”, I would be able to dwell on positive thoughts and not to waste precious times. I’m into grips with the elements of emotions. I am a person of extremes. I’ve been knocked down figuratively and got back up many times over. Who am I really? I am a nobody. I know nothing; no one knows who I truly am. No one but me. Not everybody gets me and I don’t try to push myself on people. I’m a lot tougher now. I’m not talking about tough in terms of taking a punch or hitting someone else. I’m talking about endurance. Tough is not how hard you can hit somebody but what you can endure. I’ve endured a lot. I am an angel with a shotgun. Thanks to a friend, for giving the idea to use those words. I can be as kind as an angel or a good person but once I'll get mad, I can be mean or dangerous. I am naive. I am like an empty jar, and I am open to learn anything, to gain a lot of lessons to learn. Everything that happens around me is a miracle. 

Most of the people associate miracle with supernatural happenings but for me , every new day is a miracle of God.  So often I’ve taken for granted the daily miracles I’ve been given.  As I get older, I become more aware of the miracles that God does all around me.  It causes me to live with a deeper sense of gratitude in my heart. Miracles do happen, somewhere, every second. And I now look around me all the time at this amazing Earth we live on and think, this is no coincidence! When negative emotions begin growing out of control and taking over ones life, emotional stress comes in. Therefore, I alone could be the only one who could surpass feeling this. The miracle is inside our mind. It is just an idea away. 

 Everything we need to know about increasing miracles can be summarized by honestly facing  stressful emotions; use positive thoughts to stay in balance; take positive action to overcome any challenge and to  hold to positive belief systems that give us  hope, faith, and peace of mind. Whatever problem you are facing, it's important to just face it. Reality is what we should embrace. It is true that we always want a miracle coming from Higher Being but little did we know that God gave us wisdom to understand what kind of miracle is suited in our lives. Life is too short to allow emotional stress to control you anymore. Life is too short to spend a majority of it feeling depressed over something within. We always have the key to unlock it. People who claim to be sad choose to be sad. So whenever I feel I have a problem, I say, Hey problem! I have a big God!

Nothing's perfect, the world's not perfect. But it's there for us, trying the best it can; that's what makes it so damn beautiful.

“I am strong because I am weak. I'm beautiful because I know my flaws. I'm a lover because I am a fighter. I'm fearless because I have been afraid. I'm wise because I have been foolish. & I can laugh because I have known sadness.”

-dyoyzee-

BLAH BLAH BLAH

I was 15 when I started loving writing. I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and sat for an hour and a half and wrote the poem. Those write ups I made before had been compiled back then. I just don’t know where it is now. I have written many poems in my past. For me it's the best way to express my feelings. Sometimes I just have to write it or I will flip. Through that poem making, I find that emotional issues are much easier to express. So, I decided to make a blog then. I learned that I can write and it is always possible to do hard things! I didn’t ever say I can't. I said, I will try! Sometimes we try to show all our emotions through it. There are some things which seem impossible to begin, but when we put in our efforts and the work pays off, then the realization comes like a lightning bolt that we should have done it long back. There was a time I wrote at eleven o'clock at night or even at dawn, I was on the verge of sleep, and these lines popped into my head.  Although, I can’t finish that in just one sitting, I already have the intros and ideas and need to condense it in my thoughts, write it on a piece of paper or more likely type them out on MS Word. All I know is that writing is a beautiful form of thoughts indeed, no matter what time of the day it is. With a little patience, I could form one article. It is one of the greatest ways to express myself. It is where I can say anything I want to release the emotions that I feel. It is a healthy release and easy to do for me (sometimes)

ON THE STRUT, is one of the ways I keep myself writing. I chose the words ON THE STRUT because I subscribe with the thought that my life is flowing like that. Ideas that come out were swagging. There are lots of things to write about and my words just keep on coming.   I will never stop blogging as long as I can think of beautiful things to ponder. On the strut is effective in conveying emotions and almost all the feelings I have in my everyday life. I have a lot to say through this blog. I am a free-minded spirit and being ON THE STRUT means be happy with who you are, be yourself and don't let people keep you down, "own" it and strut your stuff. I have every reason to say these words and am proud to say them. When I started putting up a name on this blog, I added “of darkness”. Why is it so? In the dark, I remain quiet, unmoving. My thoughts would flicker as I stare into the void. It’s always been a habit for me of late. Usually when I can’t sleep, I just love looking amidst in the play of light around darkness. One time, I have shared the link of this blog to a friend. All of a sudden, she criticized my BLOG heading which is ON THE STRUT OF DARKNESS. I’ve been told that with that title, it only appears that I am an emotional being, but I admitted & I’d say, I naturally have quite a melancholic disposition. Sensitive it may sound yet, full of feelings and emotions are in me. So to simplify, I decided to cut it off then it became like that :)

I've stumbled into this wild wilderness of blogging madness. I indulge in personal writings and social activities around. At first it seems that nobody ever reads my blog, but a little later I was surprised to see that my blog has caught the attention of the few people in my stomping ground. In regards to the hobby, I am single and have a lot of time on my hands when I am not working, so it helps me fill in some “alone time” where I am not dwelling on being alone. Though I do connect with other people, I’m not able to do that every day but only a couple days a week as personal schedules will allow. It occupies those times and keeps my mind busy with something that I enjoy instead of just sitting around and letting my mind wonder about things that would bring me down or even make me depressed. Therefore, blogging is a healthy means of avoiding the blues and periods of depression. Human beings are caught in the habit of thought-running as they face living. This pushes the awareness outward so much. Like me, a healthy avenue to step out of this scenario is available through writing. I do this because I want to express myself in ways that have never been seen or understood before. Sometimes, I end up writing abut myself. In this sense, the historic form closest to blogs is the diary. But with this difference: a diary is almost always a private matter. But a blog, unlike a diary, is instantly public. The advantage of a blog is that it can last for a long time and also be edited when needed without leaving any traces. So as I grow old and the world is changing, I would love to re-read my write ups and see how what has been written by me back then. So I therefore say, this ON THE STRUT is my public diary. It always stays spontaneous.

Walking the walk and talking the talk

-dyoyzee-