Changes, Cousins, Canucks

Over the last few months I have put a lot of thought into how I spend my time and where I invest it. I realized that in being someone who is fairly agreeable, I say yes to a lot of things that when I think back on it, I didn't really want to do. And so I have decided to be more intentional with my time and with my friendships. I have a lot of friendships and a lot of wonderful people in my life, but sometimes I feel like I am stretched too thin. So there's a need to decipher which friendships were more for a season and which ones were long term. Not to say that you never speak to people again, but the intensity changes. This may sound harsh and I don't intend it to be. It's just been me figuring out how to best be a friend to the people in my life. I'm embracing the different seasons and how they each have molded and shaped me into who I am today.

Another thing i have been realizing over the last couple weeks has been how our perceptions and views of ourselves and the world around us impacts the way we react to others and even in the way we hear and interpret words and actions. I've had some unfortunate events take place that I am regretful of, because in communicating, I did not respond well. And did not present well either I suppose. But I was reminded of how hugely our lenses of the world affect us. If I feel like everyone dislikes me or wants to attack me, I will interpret most things through that lens even though it may be incredibly far from the truth. This has caused me to examine what my expectations of others are (as they are often unrealistic and need to be shifted), but also what my expectations of people's reactions to me are as well.

Anyway, that was a lot of jabber.

The other night I was able to hang out with my second cousin Nicole and it was funny when I thought about it, because we went to high school together, we read each others' blogs, we're similar in a lot of ways, yet we never hang out. So recently we decided we should actually make it happen and we did. And I am already looking forward to the next time. It's funny, because in talking and hanging out, I felt like we hung out all the time, although I hadn't really seen her since high school nine years ago.

And thus concludes a very random post with a lot of scattered bits of my thoughts. And I will add a shout out to the Canucks who are playing amazingly and will hopefully win the presidents' trophy this year. And hooray for them having the most wins on record for them in a regular season. I am saddened by the fact that I'm pretty sure the NHL playoffs will be hard to find while in Asia... but hey, you never know, right?