Advice from a teenage survivor
Showing posts with label inspiration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inspiration. Show all posts

Friday, April 12, 2013

Top 10 of the week

Just a couple more months to go.

I'm sorry I've been so busy. I'm trying to keep up with posting, but school has been more than happy to keep us busy, and with the end of the year talent show coming up I'm deciding whether or not I'm going to do it, and if I did, what song I'm going to do. So I've decided to create a simple top-10 list of random crap, starting with the song I'm highly considering doing for my talent show. Enjoy!

10. Stay - Rihanna
This is such a beautiful and meaningful song. It's really raw, and since performing in the school talent show well be my first time ever performing a song live, I figured I wanted it to be sentimental and meaningful. I'm really good at piano, and since this is a piano song I'm strongly considering this. Plus it's in my vocal range, at least for the most part, but please, if you have any requests about a song you think I should do feel free to comment below, it's greatly appreciated.

9. The word "hyperbole"
Hyperbole basically means an exaggeration. I might never use this in a sentence but the word itself is pretty damn entertaining.

8. Witty comebacks
Because sometimes "Your mom" just doesn't cut it. I recommend "you're just mad because your mom has a bigger dick than you do" or "if I wanted to hear a bitch I would've bought a dog"

7. Cherry Airheads
No explanation necessary.

6. The card game "BS"
Because why not?

5. Quote;
 "Nobody said that it would be easy. 
They just promised it would be worth it."

4. Color: Yellow
This has been a very long and heavy week, and the fact that it's Friday is really relieving. Yellow is a light and airy color, which is probably how you should take today.

3. Food; Pizza
Generally pizza is my first choice but it seems especially appealing this week.

2. Emotion; Relief
That's definitely the tone for today, at least. I'm exhausted after this and I think today is a day for recovery and fun. :) Enjoy yourself, splurge, hang out with people. Make today awesome.

1. Random acts of kindness
Being random and putting it to good use for strangers will make you a superhero in disguise.

Have a beautiful week, my friends.♥

~Evie




Saturday, April 6, 2013

Letting him go

Advice #10

(This is for you guys out there too)

You know who I'm talking about.

Him.

The one person you know that has the capability to take your breath away just by looking at you.
That grin he has.
That hair you just want to run your fingers through.
Those eyes, my god those eyes.


But here's the thing; he's just your crush.
And that's the hard part.







You have a couple of classes (all of them if you're lucky) with him. And my god they're the best classes of the day.

But you've never been more than friends. And that kills you.

Lately, I've been really crushing on, well...him. 
And we've never really been close, because honestly, he's too good for me. 
He's so gorgeous...he can be a jerk sometimes, but he's so funny. His eyes...

Well, anyway, he's popular. And like Taylor Swift, I'm melting as he walks by to talk to another girl. 

And we've been getting closer, which just absolutely makes my day so much more worth it. Those first two classes I have are with him, and they're the best classes of the day. He makes me want to go to school. 

Well, like I said, we've never really been that close (But closer than a lot of people there. He at least talks to me sometimes, which is actually really good considering he doesn't even talk to half the freshmen) but I've been slowly hoping we'd get closer. But then it dawned on me; what if we don't have any classes together next year?

So, as you can see, I've been getting my hopes up really high. Well, today on facebook, he posted that, "Talking on the phone to *insert pretty girl's name* makes me smile"

And it crushed me.

Why can't I make him smile? 
I've never understood why. And I've been doing all of these things, like getting up early to make myself look extra good, hoping that one day he'll finally notice me.

But he hasn't.

And...he won't.


Which leads me to advice #10; Letting him go.


1. Stop getting your hopes up for this guy. 
He doesn't notice you, and hoping he does every day is just gonna make it crush you even more when he doesn't. This is literally setting yourself up to break. 

2. Stop deeming yourself un-worthy. 
You are worthy. My god, you're so much more worthy of anybody than you could ever think. You are valuable; any guy would be lucky to have you. No, don't give me that. It's true. And I need you to know this. If he isn't going to notice anything you do for him, he isn't worth being around. Like I've said before, if you have to change yourself to be around him, you need to let him go.

3. Be yourself.
Yes, I understand you've been hearing this cheesy-ass saying since your days in pigtails watching Disney channel. But there isn't a better time for you to enforce this than now; just be yourself. Don't go that extra mile for anybody else but you. You're the only person that you need to make happy, so don't spend your days acting like an acceptable human being for the sake of how everybody else is acting. Do what you want, for your sake. If you be yourself, then you'll naturally attract more people. The less you care what others think, the better your life will be. 

4. Don't care what they think of you.
Going with what I said before, the less you care the better your life will be. If you decide to wear a dress for no apparent reason, and other people will judge you for that because it's "weird", do it. If it makes you happy, just do it. Other people are always going to be judgmental a**holes, so the less you care about what the critics say behind you, the more confidence it'll give you to stand up for yourself. If you're doing something to make yourself happy and get through the day, then who are they to say that's wrong?

5. Don't listen to taylor swift.
All of her songs are about breakups. It'll make it a lot worse.
Try to find some music that'll enforce happiness or talk about something positive, rather than hearing "he's the reason for the tear drops on my guitar" because that'll just make it worse.

One more thing before you carry on with your life;
don't compare yourself to the people he does talk to. If you do that, you'll just end up breaking yourself down and faking yourself to please him. As you do that, you lose who you really are, and as a teenager it's already hard enough figuring out who that is. So live for yourself, and put his picture down tonight. Focus on important things that'll actually end up sculpting your life, and give him something to be jealous of. Because while he's breaking hearts with a flip of his hair, you'll be changing the world. And that means something.


Stay yourself♥

~Evie
























Sunday, March 17, 2013

Playground Eyes


 This is a quote that really has me thinking lately. I'm actually really surprised I haven't seen it around more, because it really means a lot to me. And since I couldn't find really anything about how beautifully meaningful it is, I decided to make a tumblr-esque picture about it like most meaningful quotes have, and elaborate a little bit about why it means so much to me. ♥


So, I stumbled upon this quote when I was listening to My Chemical Romance's song S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W, and as I was listening, the term "playground eyes" really caught my eye. Lately I've been kind of revisiting my childhood, revisiting memories of warmer days of innocence. And writing an essay about To Kill a Mockingbird didn't really help either - the whole book seems to be based on childhood nostalgia. So I decided that for this post I was gonna incorporate a list of little things that bring me back to my childhood and remind me of the days I've been missing for so long. So without further nonsense, here's a list of the beautiful things that remind me of my childhood:



1. Listening to a CD you used to hear as a kid

2. Seeing moments happen in slow-motion

3. Playing with your old favorite toys

4. Eating your favorite food as a kid

5. Summer

6. Hearing the flapping of a flag

7. hearing your parents call you for dinner

8. Watching the birds and the butterflies in Spring

9. Roadtrips

10. Staying up late with your friends

11. Ice cream

12. Popsicles

13. going swimming

14. finding that one toy that just made your life better

15. stargazing on summer nights

16. catching fireflies

17. BBQ's

18. Hopscotch

19. Hearing your parents sing 

20. Bubblebaths



21. Scavenger hunts

22. Finishing an amazing book 

23. Buying new clothes

24. Riding bikes

25. Hide-and-seek

26. Going to the arcade

27. Birthday Parties

28. Tire swings

29. Building "forts"

30. Watching cartoons

31. Drinking cocoa after a long cold day

32. The first snow shower of the year

33. Getting presents

34. Play-Doh

35. Baking cookies 

36. Wrapping things in newspaper

37. Making "time capsules"

38. Jumping off swings

39. Vacations to the beach

40. Your first rollercoaster



41. Making sandcastles

42. Hiding things in your yard

43. Easter egg hunts

44. Making your parents breakfast in bed

45. Chasing birds and squirrels and lizards

46. Your first time ice-skating

47. Taking pictures you'll remember forever

48. Going camping

49. Playing in the rain

50. Being free







I really hope you enjoyed my list.


Remember, when you're feeling down, just take a moment to see the world through your playground eyes.♥

~Evie

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Beneath the Surface

Advice #9

Beauty. 

How many times have you looked in the mirror, and looking back at the person staring at you, just given up? So used to the let down of seeing somebody you don't truly feel like walk around as the mask you show the world?

Well look beneath that.

I know you've heard this before. We've all heard this before. But I don't know about you, but I've never been called pretty by a three-year old in Wal-Mart. I've always struggled with my image, being the younger sibling of somebody whom I've always seen as the pretty one, because not only was I told that by my mom and everybody around me, but it's what I think too. Not what I thought, but what still, to this day, believe in my heart.

But I know that true beauty isn't what you see at first glance. It never had been, and it never will be.

When you look at somebody, first glance, what do you see? Even if it's only for a split-second, you already have an image of what they look like, an opinion about them. You see their hair, or maybe the way their nose is shaped. But they look away, you look away, and you carry on.
But what you've just done, is taken somebody clean apart, analyzed them, and put them back together. In that split second that you saw them, you've completely judged them. And that's exactly what you've just done. You've judged somebody you know nothing about, except for what you've just seen.

Now I don't care if you're a saint, a priest or a monk. You're judging people constantly, and this is a part of natural human instinct. We judge people; and what it is, is that there's so much mystery around us, so much that we don't know--how the world was made, why we're here, what humans are, how we came here, what created us, or even if we're real-- that we're desperately trying to figure it out. You may be doing it subconsciously, but you're trying to figure out one of the only things you have even a little bit of power over. You're trying to figure that person out by first glance, taking in as much information about them as readily available.

But who are you to judge somebody?
This really struck me when a couple days ago I went out looking terrible. I was sick out of my mind that day, and normally I don't go in public unless I look (at least to my standards) good. I cannot tell you how many people stared at me for that second too long, trying to figure out why I looked that way. I cannot tell you how many people looked at me in disgust for having my hair messed up, sniffling around the store barely able to move because I was in excruciating pain just walking. I was getting medicine, but these people didn't care. They took me apart, judged me, and walked away with a negative opinion about me, right in front of me. Just because I was sick. And you know, half the people that saw me probably didn't even care enough to bother thinking I might have been in some kind of pain. They just judged me by what they saw, which was an unacceptable human being to be seen in public. Nobody cares about your story, all they care about is the benefit they get by seeing somebody pretty.

Now let's be honest - we've all done this, we all do this, and we're all going to do this. But I want you to take a minute and be honest with me. Have you ever seen somebody walking on the sidewalk, who's severely overweight? What did you think about them? Most people would look and say "ew, get a life you pig", but what they don't know is that this person has a severe auto-immune disorder that prohibits them from exercising because most days they're in so much pain they can barely move. For this person, it's miracle that they're even walking, but you, just looking at the surface, all you care about is that they're fat.

So what I want you to do for me, is that when you see somebody, don't just take that first glance and think that's enough. Look at that person. Really look. Watch how they move, look at how they think about things. I want you, no matter who you're looking at, to go below the surface of their face. Look at their features and how they hold themselves. Are they lost? Are they confident? So this way if you judge somebody, you can at least give this person a little effort. You never know what you might find.

A couple people I know always tell me I have horrible taste in men. But what they're looking at, again, is just the surface. They're looking for pure eye-candy. But I'm looking for that person, that when their face is angled just right, they're the most beautiful person in the world. Not when they walk around, but somebody that takes effort to see the beauty in, so that way I never stop looking for it, and I'll never stop finding it.


I really hope this advice will be useful to you. This is one of the biggest ones I stress, because looking at people like I mentioned before like Benedict Cumberbatch and Jared Padalecki, these are people who you have to really look to see how beautiful they are. But once you've paid somebody enough attention to find them in their best moments, I can assure you the world will repay you by giving you the same respect. ♥

And also, don't forget to find this beauty within yourself. I don't care how low your self-esteem is, I can assure you there are 100 things I can find in you that are beautiful, just in the way you handle yourself.

Keep your head held high, stranger.♥

-Evie


Tuesday, February 5, 2013

And even though I'm alone,

I'm gonna win this fight.

May have lost my will to live,

but the world will go on tonight.

And even though I'm by myself,

I've got nothing to lose,

so tonight I'm gonna win this fight, 

stand up and drop the noose.

Maybe someday I'll look back today and smile, 

knowing that I never gave up,

I walked that extra mile. 

So today I'm gonna fight, 

for everything I love, 

and even though that number's rough, 

I'm gonna fight my way back home.


I wrote this a long while ago. I thought I'd share it.♥
-Evie

Friday, February 1, 2013

Mistakes

Advice #7

"I don't know you and I'm the last person to be giving advice, but I do know that no one has ever done anything so bad that they can't be forgiven."
-Supernatural, "Free to be You and Me

Do you make a lot of mistakes? Maybe it's all you think you do. Well let me tell you you're wrong. Because everybody makes mistakes, it's human nature. 

My older sister used to make all kinds of mistakes, nearly constantly. Maybe she'd forget to take out the garbage, or she'd break a glass or spill milk. But no matter what happened, our mom would always get mad, and tell her how stupid she is, or how she'd never keep a job, or how worthless she was and that she'd never amount to anything. 

Maybe this is happening to you.

1. Forgive yourself
So f*cking what? You made a mistake, you screwed up. Whatever you did is in your past now, so don't let it bother you. You can't change it anyway, so accept what you did. 

2. Forgive others
Forgive that person who's blaming you. Forgive your mother who's yelling at you; forgive anybody and everybody who has ever blamed you or accused you of anything, who knows how their lives are. They could literally be going through hell, and so bitter and angry about how their life should have been better, that they take it out on the first person they can. Forgive them, and it'll make forgiving yourself easier.

3. Accept what happened, and fix anything that needs fixing. 
Pay your dues and move on. You have no reasons to keep going over what you did in your mind, it's poison. Like the quote at the top says, nobody has done something so bad that they can't be forgiven.


4. Look towards the future
You screwed up. Everybody on this planet screws up, so instead of spending your energy thinking about how it could have been better, look towards the things you can control. Your future is in your hands, and spend your energy doing constructive things.

Stay strong.♥

-Evie




Let me tell you why you're special





Everybody's special. 
Now I don't know about you, but I've had a hard time being able to express myself, hence the talking Peeta. And lately I've been coming across people that don't think they're good at anything, and I can't begin to tell them how wrong they are! Two of the people that said this were both gymnasts, and good ones too. They said that they weren't good at anything, when they could do a back hand-spring like nobody I've ever seen.

And you might think the same about yourself, I know I do. But everybody in this entire world has at least one thing they they're the best at. 

Maybe you already know what you're the best at, in which case you're incredibly lucky. Some people spend their entire lives looking for this one thing that they can do better than almost everybody, when it's been right in front of them, invisible to ignorant eyes. And don't get me wrong, you can be the best at more than one thing, but let's just focus on that one thing you absolutely own at. 

Sometimes the odds aren't in your favor. For instance, my dad loves playing golf, it's his passion. But he's the best mechanic I've ever seen. So while he's working on cars, doing what he's best at, he has to sacrifice what he loves doing, because he can't make a living off of shooting 74. So there are cases where the thing you're best at isn't what you love. But most of the time, no matter what it is as long as you're doing better than everybody, it's at least a little enjoyable. 

I've been spending a while looking for mine. I've nearly given up, and I'm hoping that when the time comes, it's what I hope it'll be--but I haven't had the chance to show my talents yet. I'm really good--but not the best--with instruments. I'm good at writing. I'm good at listening, and I'm good at taking risks. I could go on, and these things are wonderful, but I just want to find that something that I excel at. 

What are you good at? Are you good at drawing, painting, building, singing, reading, chess, horse-racing? I want you to challenge yourself to find that thing if you haven't. Try everything, take classes, take every opportunity you can find. You won't regret it, and finding people that are willing to do something is a rarity. 

So, back on topic; Everybody's special. Everybody has something they excel at, and everybody has a place on this earth and the power to change it. All you have to do is take that risk, take a leap of faith; and you never know what might happen. You could be the one people look up on wikipedia.

 I'd give more examples but I don't know who you are--and only you have the power to change that. 

-Evie♥


Ask Evie #1

This is a pretty big moment for me. Ask Evie's first question.
So a while ago I got this question;

"Should I 'suspend' my happiness for three months while studying for my end-of-course exams? My parents want me to."

Now, we all know how important exams are. But nothing is worth suspending happiness.
Now, let me ask you this question;





It may seem impossible. But studying for exams is setting you up for an accomplishment. And since Happiness is the most important thing in the world, why would you let anything jeopardize that?
So here's my advice to you;

Try to have fun while studying. These exams are huge deals, so why let that thought stress you out? The fact that you're doing it alone is an accomplishment. So try to find things to look forward to that'll make studying more fun. Time yourself so that you can do whatever you want after a specific time of studying. Listen to music, give yourself candy after studying. But don't ever--and I mean ever--let anything you do stop you from being happy. 

Good luck.♥ 

Is there a situation in your life you need advice with? Anything you're going through that you'd like some support with? Ask me anything--my age, my life, my school, what color my dog is--anything you want in the comments below.

-Evie



Sunday, January 27, 2013

Better Sorry than Safe

Advice #6

So, who here likes the saying "Better safe than sorry"?
Well, let me give you a little info about that.

This saying is an excuse. 
When you're about to do something exciting. Like, for instance, in my English class we've been given the opportunity to do something called Poetry Out Loud, which is where you memorize a poem from their poem list and then recite it in front of the whole school. My friend wanted to join, but she told me "Well, better safe than sorry. I'm not gonna do it."

But my question is why not?

So, life is about living, right? So why in the world would you give yourself a decent excuse not to live life? Everything is just more experience, one more accomplishment, one more story to tell your grandkids "Yes ma'am, I did that."

So why would anybody say "Better safe than sorry"?

Playing life on the safe side is equivalent to staying indoors your whole life. Life is about experiencing, trying new things, living for crying out loud. You were born to do something great, but you're so scared of something going wrong that you end up not doing something that could be the greatest experience of your life?

So, my advice to you, would be to change that saying. Change it so instead of better safe than sorry, it's

Better sorry than safe. 

Do Poetry Out Loud. Audition for your talent show. Ask out your love. Jump off of a cliff into the ocean. Ride in the back of a pickup while your friends drive full speed. Take any and all opportunities presented to you. Make that joke in class. Send that risky text. If something goes wrong, it doesn't matter. Just doing it is an immense accomplishment that will make up for any mistakes you make for doing so.*

Because in life, if you do something and it ends up going wrong, you can at least look back on it and say,

"At least I had the courage to do something."

And that's a rarity these days.

I'm sorry. This has been more of a rant than anything, but I really want to make my point clear. Life is about making mistakes, and in all honesty, yes, being sorry is much better than being safe. Just as I tell myself and my friends, It's just more experience, and life experience never really hurt anyone, now did it?

Stay daring.♥

-Evie

*Please don't take this as an excuse to go do drugs and get laid. This is not the context it is meant in...this isn't yolo