Ho hum

Just another day. You know, sometimes I'm just not sure why I even bother getting out of bed. It's always the same thing. Sit at the computer, check my email, check out the want ads on the local newspapers website, go through the local businesses to see if there are any new job postings. If I'm lucky, I get to fill out an app or two or send out a resume or two. Though writing cover letters sucks. With as many as I've written, you'd think I'd be getting better at them, but I still sit there and worry about what to say, or not to say. I'll admit it, I'm terrible at trying to sell myself. Which probably explains why I'm still job hunting. I just can't sit there and say, "Oh, I'm so wonderful, I'm so perfect!" I mean, jeesh, I'm freaking human, there is no way I can possibly be perfect! All in all, it's pretty depressing. I keep saying it, but I haven't been able to do it yet: I've got to just suck it up and go pound the pavement looking for a good ol' fashioned retail job. Yeah, I hate retail. Yeah, it makes me feel pretty sucky since I had this great job and now I have to go back to a mediocre job. I know there's nothing wrong with retail, it's good, honest work, but it seems like a step backwards somehow. I know that's a horrible, snobbish thing to say, and it makes me feel like garbage even thinking it, but the truth is, that's how I feel.

You know, when you're young, you have all of these big plans. I have pretty much made a complete mess of those plans, for better or worse. It just makes me wonder if all of this "planning" I'm doing is really planning or just hopeless dreaming. Gawds, I'm depressed. I just wish the world would stop so I could get off now. Maybe today is just one of those days where I feel worse than normal (I didn't even know that was possible!) Blech. I have got to get out of this slump!

New Year

Here's wishing everyone a Happy, Healthy, Wonderful New Year. It's that time when we sit down and make our resolutions and start planning all of the things we want to do in the coming months. Every year I toy with the same old resolutions: lose weight, get healthier, make new friends, be wiser, etc. and every year I don't succeed the way I envision. So this year I'm going to try something different. I don't know if it'll work. I don't know if it'll make a difference even if it does work. It's one of those funky experiments that I make with my life in the hopes of making it a bit brighter.

I love the idea of the "pay it forward" challenge, but I also know that I'm not in a position to help out any one else. Yet. I'll get there, and I am very much looking forward to it. But what about right now? I think about all of the wonderful things that other people have done for me, and I wonder, how can I repay them? The truth is, I can't. What I can do, is try to be kinder to other people. Even just the little things, letting a car out of the parking lot when there's heavy traffic, helping someone get something off the top shelf in the store because they can't reach it, that sort of thing. Earth shattering? No, it's not. But the truth is, when I do little things like this, these random acts of kindness or whatever you want to call them, I feel better about myself. I'd like to think that for a few minutes that other person feels good too.

I don't know if this will accomplish anything. I'm hoping that it'll help me to feel better about myself and my surroundings by helping me to feel like I am a part of something bigger than just "me". I'm hoping that along the way, I'll help one person to smile a little bigger, to laugh a little louder, to feel special for one fleeting moment. I think my prospects for this are much better than my prospects for losing weight or quitting smoking too. So maybe, by just not setting myself up for a fall, I'll grow just a little bit this year. And maybe, just maybe, I'll learn how to be a better person.