Today's Path: Something New

I am one for staying in the box. I try new things every now and then but not very often. Stepping outside of the box is like people on this side of the Missouri River do not go to the other side of the river. When things go outside of the box I get worried and tense, but it usually turns out okay.

Yesterday, Chad and I went golfing. Wait somethings wrong, this is way outside of my box!! I am the Happy Gilmore of golf. I went to the driving range a couple times last summer. Not a good thing. I threw a couple drivers onto the driving range. Another time I sliced one so good that it hit my dad in the next stall over, that's right I am that good.

After last summer, I gave up golf even though it was only my first time, until yesterday. We went to a little golf course called Yorktown.

I thought that I was going to hate golfing and I was going to loose some clubs due to throwing them, but it turned out okay.

What I am trying to say is the box you build around you is smaller than it should be. Golfing took to the other side of my box and it turned out alright. Step outside your box. It might surprise you what you can do.

What other things take you outside your box? Try stepping to the other side of the line.

Today's Path: Worry Not About Tomorrow

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.”
-Matthew 6:26

Some good friends and I are in our senior year of college, and we are preparing for after college. We are interning, doing more hands-on projects and some of my friends are applying for positions. As my friends are applying for positions many are not hearing back from the companies and are in turn afraid that they have chosen the wrong career path. They begin to worry about tomorrow.

”Who of you by worrying can add an hour to your life?”

- Matthew 6:27

God, Himself, told us that there is no reason to worry because he takes care of all of us and in the end everything will fall into place.

In June of this year, I started my panic about the future. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and the only experience I had was in Youth Sports. I had not idea what to do. Then in July things started to fall into place. I began volunteering with the Chamber of Commerce, and then I received an internship at KMOX 1120, “The Voice of St. Louis.”

I never thought I would figure out what I wanted to do but the pieces of the puzzle now falling into place.

*For my good friends out there, everything is going to be okay. God will take care of you. Be patient!

Today's Path: The Juggling Act

It is the beginning of a new year (because life runs on a school calendar unless you are out of school and do not have children), and the juggling act is becoming calmer.

Each year I have to figure out how to manage school, work and social life. And each year it takes about a week to figure out how long to hold onto each ball before tossing it back into the air and how high to throw the ball.

I finally today figured out the juggling act for the semester. I was juggling four balls, school, work, internship and a possible knee surgery. Today, the knee surgery ball disappeared (thank you Lord) making the juggling act of three balls a lot easier. However, I still am not the greatest juggler. If you ever have seen me juggling it doesn't last very long. Sometimes I have to bring in someone to help.

When it comes to juggling balls, sometimes you need someone to pick the ones up you drop and toss them back into the mix. The same is true with life. When things get rough it takes someone who can pick the balls up you drop. Sometimes it is just talking to someone and other times it is giving them a ball to juggle or having them become part of your team to juggle each others balls with them, like they do at the circus. (I wish I were as good as those who juggle at the circus).

*Take the time this week or early next week and look at the balls you are juggling. Do you need help with them? Do you need to pick up a lighter ball in place of a heavier one? Or are you ambitious enough to add one or take a heavier one?

What ever you are doing, I wish you the best.

Today's Path: Life's Book

The other day I was talking with one of my professor about different things, and she said she wanted to write several books in her lifetime. (She is on her way. She has contributed a chapter to a book already.)
Then tonight, I was flipping through the channels and stopped on Grey's Anatomy. There was a quote about writing our own history everyday.
I have been struggling lately with the future and not wanting to royally screw up. I realized I was spending too much time preparing to write my history than I was writing it.

If we go through life and never write a book or an article or anything that gets published, we have still succeeded in writing. We have written our own book about ourselves. If we are too scared to take a step off into the unknown, is anyone going to want to read our book? Take a step in a new direction who knows what could happen, at least you will learn something.

Good ideas do not come when you stress over needing an idea; they come when you just relax and let them come to you.
So over the course of you life, remember the best book you ever will write is the one you work on everyday.

Today's Path: Learning

"The day you don't learn something is the day you die"

-Groucho Marx

Last Monday I started my internship at KMOX 1120 AM. Each day I am there, and even those that I am not there, I learn so much. Somedays it might be how to do something new, while others it is how to juggle the million things happening in my life.

At the end of somedays I have to really search to see if I learned something. Once I get thinking, things just keep flowing.

Take the time at the end of the day and just think back at what you learned today. The list is longer than you think.

Today's Path: Good Things

"Good things come to those who wait."

Whoever said this was right on the money. I have been trying to get an internship all summer with no success. Last Monday, however, I interviewed for a marketing and promotions internship at KMOX, and I was offered the internship.

I was getting upset over not having an internship and being afraid of graduating college with little to no experience in my field, but now I don't have to worry about that.

I guess what I am trying to say is that if you want something you will get it if you don't settle for something else along the way. Just wait and you will succeed.

Today's Path: The Dance

"Life's a dance you learn as you go,

Sometimes you lead,

Sometimes you follow."

-John Michael Montgomery

Life is a dance. Each day adds a new step to it. It is the next line in the song that we all struggle with, "Don't worry about what you don't know." But what happens if you cannot learn the routine? Does life stop? Do you get left behind?

Many times you switch into auto pilot and just keep going. Sometimes things change and you can't switch to autopilot. It is at these times when you feel the most stressed, whether it is good or bad stress it is still stress. We try to get back into autopilot as soon as we can, but many times it takes to long.

So the question is what is better: autopilot or pilot?

What is better is pilot; what is more comfortable is autopilot. Once we settle into autopilot we stop changing what we do. Right now I am one of many who are struggling with autopilot. I am fighting to turn it off but the switch seems to be stuck on on. Each day I become closer to getting the switch flipped, but there are some days when it seems like it has been broken off.

If you are like me and are struggling with the autopilot switch, take some "me time" and re-sort what you think you should be on autopilot for and start over. Fill your rut in and start a new path.