I'm sure most of you local chicagoan's/midwesterners are aware of the storms that have been hitting on non stop since early June. I was lucky enough to miss a couple weeks of storming and left just as one of the many storms had passed. Being completely used to no rain down in Arizona for two weeks, coming up to stormy Chicago was a bit of a culture shock. Needless to say that I do enjoy rain and the fresh air that is produced after a nice rainfall. Yesterday was quite a frightening evening. Being someone who lives in the Midwest I am pretty familiar with "tornado" warnings. Everyone in Chicago knows that tornado's never come to the city, but bumble who ha Illinois or [insert other midwest state here]. When we look outside we never see this so called
green sky that is produced in part because of an eminent tornado. The green sky was not hiding yesterday. Words can not even begin to describe how yesterdays sky appeared. It was pure green, the exact green font that I used for my first mention of green. It was a tornado, just south of me blowing away at some of my good friends homes (well no one was hurt thank goodness!)
Lightening struck in the same place repeatedly and
winds gusted faster than I could have ever imagined, and I am used to the wind. I mean I live in Chicago for crying out loud! During the storm I did a lot of thinking, I know you are probably saying to yourself "isn't that what you always do", but this time it was different. I really thought about life in a much more deep way, deeper than I had really ever experienced. It wasn't thoughts about those in my life, I wasn't praying or hoping for someone else to find happiness I was thinking about myself and my own happiness. I realized in my collection of thoughts that I often care so much, too much, about how I am going to please others that I don't think enough about how I am going to
please myself. Now I do acknowledge that it is important to consider and do whats best for others in the process of doing what is best for yourself, but you are the ultimate leader/constructor in your own life. This virtually leaves you an endless amount of possibilities that only you can stop yourself from accomplishing.
Family members, close friends, significant others they can only understand you to a point. Ultimately you are the only person who really understands you. If anyone can vouch for that it is myself. My brain is complex and every mistake I've made or every bad event in my life I have replaced with education. I have transformed my dull, simple brain to a complex machine that never stops analyzing. I critically analyze nearly every little detail of life and though a part of me wishes I didn't, I enjoy my brain the way it is. I enjoy learning and further educating myself. I love the challenge, because I know that in the end it is a challenge I can live up to. I know I am not perfect, but nobody is. We all have our imperfections it is what makes us human and unique. I have always had this fear of the past repeating itself. I've seen and had a lot of negative events in my life and I try desperately to avoid and stop them from reoccurring. I silence myself and am always striving to be the perfect person, but nobody is perfect. Silencing myself is something I advocate for people not to do. I preach that people should not be afraid to speak of their emotions, yet I avoid talking about how I feel. Most of this fear stems from losing the people I love the most in life, or having other things happen in result of speaking of how I feel.
I've come to the realization that if I continue to silence myself I am not being true to myself. It is important to be true to yourself, because in the end you are the only one who can make decisions in your life. You are in complete control of your life and if you allow others to define who you are and make decisions for you then you are not living your life fully. You are living under influence and not staying true to what you believe is right in your heart. I know that inside I am a good person and that I treat others well. I have to start treating myself well and doing the same for myself as I do for other people. I believe that this is the true key to happiness. If you stay true to what you want in your life and make decisions based upon what you feel then you will be more satisfied. Others input is never a bad thing, but you have to listen to yourself in the end. I do not dismiss the fact that we do need others. We are social animals who need others in our lives and this is why we work and communicate with them, but we have to listen to our inner thoughts instead and attempt to find a balance between what we want and things are are best for those in our lives.
It is often said that Communication scholars are actually the worst communicators known to man. I believe that is because we attempt to emancipate and understand this fundamental idea of
communicating so much that we forget what basic communication is. We anticipate what is said and try to find underlying meanings in ideas or phrases that may not be attempting to give off any other message at all. I think for my sake I need to start trying to understand things in more simple ways and not attempt to refute every little thing for the sake of seeing things from multiple angles. Life isn't always meant to be seen from every single perspective, but just one more simple one. One in which allows for the most understanding and the least amount of analysis.
Love always,
Alexis Zoe
The aspiring scholar
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