"Living In The Moment"

I absolutely love Jason Mraz.  I stumbled across across one of his new songs "Living in the Moment" while listening this playlist on Songza and I immediately pressed the thumbs up button, googled the lyrics to this song, and added the song on Spotify. (Random tangent: It's pretty ridiculous just how many different ways it is to listen to music now.  You'd think between my CD's, car radio, iTunes, Pandora, last.fm, Grooveshark, Youtube, Songza, Spotify,  and my iPhone which has access to most of these music mediums, I'd have enough ways to listen to any song I want whenever I want.  And you'd probably be right.  But should it really take so many different avenues to get music?  I think it's slightly ridiculous, but I've pretty much almost always got at least one of them playing. I may be slightly addicted. I wonder if that's healthy?  But I digress.) Just ask my mother, this song is exactly what I need right now.  This past month have been absolutely insane and I have a feeling the next few months are going to be even crazier.  Now most of the madness has actually been very positive and I am so grateful for the opportunities that have been presented in my life right now.  But as good as they have been, they have also been stressful and I've been feeling really anxious, which I know is not healthy.  I know that I need to "run and hide my crazy and start acting like a lady" and "I wish I could be just a little less dramatic" (Miranda Lambert, "Mama's Broken Heart").  This song helps me to be a little less crazy and dramatic.  Jason Mraz is a genius, there isn't a song of his that I have heard that I haven't loved.  This song is like a grown up version of "Hakuna Mata"  which is perfect because I love that song but I'm not so good at having "no worries for the rest of my days."  But I'm going to try to be better at living in the moment with no worries.

Enjoy!

Video:

Lyrics:

If this life is one act 

Why do we lay all these traps 

We put 'em right in our path 

When we just wanna be free 

I will not waste my days 

Making up all kinds of ways 

To worry about all things 

That will not happen to me 

So I just let go of what I know I don't know 

And I know I'll only do this by 

Living in the moment 

Living my life 

Easy and breezy 

With peace in my mind 

With peace in my heart 

Peace in my soul 

Wherever I'm going, I'm already home 

Living in the moment 

I'm letting myself off the hook for things I've done 

I let my past go past 

And now I'm having more fun 

I'm letting go of the thoughts 

That do not make me strong 

And I believe this way can be the same for everyone 

And if I fall asleep 

I know you'll be the one who'll always remind me 

To live in the moment 

To live my life 

Easy and breezy 

With peace in my mind 

With peace in my heart 

With peace in my soul 

Wherever I'm going, I'm already home 

I can't walk through life facing backwards 

I have tried 

I tried more than once to just make sure 

And I was denied the future I'd been searching for 

But I spun around and searched no more 

By living in the moment 

Living my life 

Easy and breezy 

With peace in my mind 

With peace in my heart 

With peace in my soul 

Wherever I'm going, I'm already home 

I'm living in the moment 

I'm living my life 

Just taking it easy 

With peace in my mind 

I got peace in my heart 

I got peace in my soul 

Oh, wherever I'm going, I'm already home 

I'm living in the moment 

I'm living my life 

Oh, easy and breezy 

With peace in my mind 

I got peace in my heart 

I got peace in my soul 

Oh, wherever I'm going, I'm already home 

I'm living in the moment

Another Late Night

I'm up late again, chilling in the stairwell, making sure none of the EFY Friday night lock down "prisoners" don't escape.  The keys are collected, damage reports completed, I'm listening to my Walt Disney Pandora channel, reading some General Conference talks, finishing up my tenth journal and beginning my eleventh journal.  I love EFY. It's weird to think that I'm not going to be doing this for another three weeks.  EFY has consumed my life this past month and I've loved it.  I'm exhausted and I could use a break, but part of me really doesn't want a break.  It's so cool to actually be making a difference by what I'm doing.  Even if I just touch one or two lives for good, it's so worth it.  I love going to bed exhausted because I've been serving others and my Savior.  And bringing these girls and boys closer to Him has brought me closer to Him.  I've made some awesome friends.  I've learned what it means to be truly respected by men and I've learned what it looks like when a man loves the Lord with all his heart.  I've learned that I need to learn how to work in a partnership better.  I've learned that I hate disciplining people, even when it's necessary and in their best interests.  I've learned that people get scared when you threaten to go all "Lamanite mother" on them.  I've been able to glimpse Heavenly Father's love for these kids.  I've learned how much I've learned over the past seven years of my life.  I've learned a lot since I was fourteen.  And when I'm twenty eight I'll be like "I've learned a lot since I was twenty one."  I want my kids to know that life gets better than it is at fourteen.  It really truly does.

Becoming Peter Pan

I’ve heard it said that people my age are walking around like “a bunch of twenty something year old Peter Pans.”  I never was a huge fan of Peter Pan as a kid.  I wanted to grow up.  Grownups got to do so many cool things.  And my life was going to be perfect, of course.  Like a fairytale.  Why not grow up?  I could eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  I wouldn’t have to go to bed.  I would have so much independence and freedom.  I couldn’t wait to grow.

But the older I get the more I feel like I’m becoming Peter Pan, stuck in Never Land.  In some ways it’s my decision.  As I’ve grown up I’ve found that all those adults who told me not to grow up to fast were onto something.  And I’d always just thought they were crazy.  Why wouldn’t I want to grow up?  There was no such thing as growing up too fast.  But now I’m wondering where the past twenty years of my life went.  Now I’m wishing I could go back to the innocence and the simplicity of childhood.  And I do sometimes.  I eat foods I loved growing up.  I watch The Lion King (I still know most of the words).  I sleep with a stuffed animal and my “security blanket”.  I occasionally listen to the Backstreet Boys and my Touched By An Angel CD.  Sometimes I feel much younger than my twenty years.  I wonder when I became old enough or responsible enough to drive, pay rent, go to college, and feed myself.  When did I become old enough to have friends my age who are married and even starting to pop out babies?  I don’t feel old enough, mature enough, or prepared at all for anything like that.  I’d say the older I get the less I feel like I’m ready for those responsibilities.  

I feel like Taylor Swift’s song “Never Grow Up” says everything I would tell myself when I was younger and how I feel right now.

                I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone

                So here I am in my new apartment

                In a big city they just dropped me off

                It’s so much colder than I thought it would be

                So I tuck myself in and turn my night light on

                Wish I’d never grown up

                Wish I’d never grown up

                Oh I don’t want to grow up

                Wish I’d never grown up

                It could still be little

                I don’t want to grow up

                Wish I’d never grown up

                It could still be simple

Miranda Lambert’s song “The House That Built Me” make me feel the same way.

                I know they say

                You can’t come home again.

                I just had to come back one last time.

                I thought if I could touch this place or feel it

                The brokenness inside me might start healing

                Out here it’s like I’m someone else

                Thought that maybe I could find myself

                If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave

                Won’t take nothing but a memory

                From the house that built me.

                You leave home,

     You move on

    And you do the best you can

                I got lost in this old world,

    Have forgotten who I am

                If I could walk around I swear I’ll leave

                Won’t take nothing but a memory

                From the house that built me

In some ways it is our society that is keeping me and my friends in Never Land.  I almost have a bachelor’s degree but that doesn’t mean a lot anymore.  I’ll have to go on for my Master’s degree.  Which means more school.  I have a job, but I can’t pay for everything on my own.  It’s a frustrating to still be financially dependent on my parents but I know I’m not alone in this.  I’m actually doing better than most kids my age because I’m not in debt at all.  We want to grow up, but there are so many hoops we have to jump through first.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is this:

 It's hard to grow up.  

Home

I have been listening to this song all week.




I feel like Dorthy from the Wizard of Oz, clicking her heals "There's no place like home. There's no place like home."

I guess I'm ready to come home for a little while.  :)

We Seek After These Things

It's amazing how when good, positive thing leave your life how you begin to really look for them.

These past few weeks I've keep thinking "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." It keeps running through my head like a broken record.  I've started encountering more things this year that are not virtuous, are not lovely, are not of good report and are not praiseworthy.  Because of this I've started looking for things that can be described by those four adjectives.  And I mean really seeking.  Every chance I get I turn on something that is uplifting that I can listen to, whether it be music or a talk, while I work on homework.  I have felt the difference in my life as I have started consciously inviting positive influences into my life.  Changing schools has given me a chance to re-evaluate what I want to allow into my life and what I don't.  I've started looking for positive friends and influences.  I feel more at peace.  I feel more love.

 I am starting to learn what it means to hunger after righteousness, to hunger for the truth, to hunger for the words of prophets and of my Savior.  I am learning that desire truly is the most important thing in life.  What we desire changes everything.  What we desire determines everything.  What we desire decides everything.