Category: reflection

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My Health & Fitness reflection

Daily Post Day 49: When Running Becomes Freedom

I used to think I would never be able to run long distances. Years of humiliation, huffing and puffing through the annual mile run in physical education class…I was almost always the last student to complete the mile. Shame coated my mind.

Back in September, I laced up my new pair of pink sneakers and decided it was time for me to take up running (after experimenting with different workout programs over the course of my fitness kick).

I held my iPhone in one hand and my water bottle, keys, and ID in the other. Listening to my app’s voice coach, I walked along Sunset Boulevard to warm up. Cars passed by and the breeze swept through my clothes. Fresh, crisp air mixed in with gasoline fumes.

I fell into a trance along the path when suddenly the voice coach yelled “Start your running!” Huff, puff…I found my PE days flashing through my mind and then I found myself flying away from those painful memories.

For the first time in my life, I realized that running liberated me and gave me life. And ever since that autumn day, I have enjoyed running like I was born to do so. Hey, even a personal trainer here in New York said I’m a “natural runner” with my stance and all. Encouraging!

When spring rolls around, can’t wait to take my running back outdoors and off the treadmill. I love basking in nature and feeling the wind against me as I run to my freedom.

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reflection

Daily Post Day 24: My Favorite Sound

Simple enough: my favorite sound is laughter. I love hearing how others laugh (and sometimes my own guffaw makes me want to laugh even more). Laughter is such a happy sound to listen to (well, as long as someone doesn’t have a high-pitched giggle….I don’t know if that’s really music to my ears).

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goals Life Decisions reflection

Blocks & Balance in Life

This week, I’ve heard the phrase “be happy but be practical” a few times. I am supposed to take a day off from my thoughts somehow, but of course, the question is: How do I shut off my brain?

I’ve been writing goals for the next few years and I feel a tug from both sides of myself: one side saying “You can and you will achieve these goals!” Then, the other side says, “Sigh, didn’t you have these goals down awhile ago? And you still haven’t achieved them. You never will.”

Yes, there’s that saying that says we’re our own worst critic. The Inner Critic in me is not just for my writing–it likes to criticize everything about my life. That I’m not good enough for the things that I really want. It’s tiring to have to battle this all the time.

Of course I know I could just shut the Inner Critic up and just go with the flow. I have done that before. But during times of immense change, all I hear are the nagging words within me.

I suppose for the weekend I shall retreat from these thoughts and just go about my daily deeds with no concern.

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magazine reading reflection

Sifting Through Literary Magazines

(Photo taken February 7, 2007)

This week I’ve found myself extremely intrigued by literary magazines. I ventured out to The Booksmith on Haight to pick up a copy of The First Line since I anticipate submitting stories to them. While I was there, I began looking at other magazines and discovered a few more that I hadn’t known about.

To be honest, I didn’t think much of literary magazines until recently. I was more interested in consumer magazines and didn’t find interest in reading others’ stories. I suppose you can say I was engulfed in my own writing and felt like I couldn’t be bothered to read short stories, and that my time would be better spent reading novels…

But of course that mindset has changed. There’s an abundance of literature to be read out there, and, after looking through several magazines I’ve purchased, I realize that hey, reading others’ short stories is enlightening. We’re all in the same boat and it’s nice to see the different styles strewn throughout the different journals. That’s what makes art art: we may have same or similar dreams, but we all go about the experience in different ways through our different writing styles.

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change reflection

May: A Time of Change.

I received my alma mater’s alumni newsletter yesterday and it listed over 3,000 students graduated this past weekend from the school. I’m reminded of how I felt three years ago when I finished my undergraduate studies and how the world seemed so vast before me at that point. It was the end of school life, but the beginning of my professional life, or at least as most people see it, “The Adult Life”.

And now, I’m embarking on another change in my life during this month of May; the end of something, the beginning of another. Transitions seem to be happening at this time regardless of industries; people leaving their jobs to return to their home countries, counselors moving their services to another center, etc.

Change is in the air and it seems unstoppable. I often find myself face-to-face with people who are afraid of change, afraid of leaving the familiar. And then they look back on this point in their life when they’re older and they kick themselves for not having more courage to do the un-thinkable, or the unusual.

As the saying goes, ignorance is bliss. It’s best now to leap before I look and see where I land. I let fear hold me back for the past few months, but now I’m moving forward. “The End” used to be more painful for me, but I’ve grown to see that there will always be beginnings and ends throughout life. Things come and go throughout life, but those that really matter will stay throughout the changing times.

I say, bring it on; I’m ready for whatever comes my way now.