They just keep coming.

People say I think too much sometimes. This time, I've got nothing to do but think, and what I've come to realize was that Life is a hard teacher. She gives the test first and the lesson after.

I realized after months of being miserable, but physically, emotionally, and mentally attracted to V, that I went about it all wrong. He was initially attracted to the strong, self-reliant and confident, fun, happy person I was. When we started dating that stayed for awhile, but then, we both changed. He wanted to be a different version of himself, a more-fun, happier, more active version, and I thought I had to be his role model and give him guidance and tell him what to do, how to act, how to fix things, and essentially, that he HAD to change and wasn't good enough.

I am so sorry for that.

I'd forgotten that I have to be myself at all times, and if someone wants to change, they can change themselves.
I can support, come along for the ride, but I can't change someone else. And to think he was feeling that pressure from me cuts deep. Especially now that I've lost him. He has to now avoid me, because he needs to heal. I guess we're both healing from the things we inflicted upon each other.

I'm so sorry I hurt us both.

I have to remind myself constantly that I am a good person, because lately, I have felt rotten about the way I acted. I guess, I'm just not going to have a healthy relationship. Not any time soon. For one thing, I'm still ridiculously in love with him, and I don't want anyone else. I want him just how he is: all those things the minister asks when you wed, I want those things. I want to marry him, and be with him always.

But since we've both got things to do, wounds to heal, and lives to live.. it's just not feasible that I'll pursue anyone else for a very long time.

Guess I'd better start working on em. Remembering who I like being, and trying to live with the pain of fucking things up so badly that I'l be alone for a long time.

I lied.. hardest thing.

That would be to realize the flaws in yourself, that possibly brought out the flaws in another.
I've done this before, to lovers and friends and enemies alike; forced them to see themselves in a way that was ugly to them, to see the flaws in themselves that they might not have been ready to tackle yet. Not out of malice, out of ignorance.

I know that I've got my own flaws, and what they are: impatience, frustration, selfishness, and low self-esteem at times. I've got issues with expressing my anger in an acceptable way. When one of these slips, the rest are in a rush right behind it, to pile onto me until I feel smothered in failure.

And this, I just discovered. I'm blind. When I feel overjoyed at having gotten something right, I want to share it with everyone and tell them how I did it, and push on them to do the same thing. I know I didn't do it out of malice, or of seeing them as flawed. I saw it as trying to help: "I learned a way to do things that worked for me, maybe you could try it!"

What I seem to forget is that everyone is on their own path. There are people in differing stages of their lives, that I'm just not seeing. I've had to step back and look at other peoples' lives as just that: their lives. Not mine. I have to remember that I'm not living their life, and I'm a different person than they are, with different thought patterns, life experiences and habits, so what works for me may not work for them. To think that I can fix everyone is unreasonable, and arrogant.

From now on, I will strive to remember that I am my own person, just as you are your own person.
From now on, I will strive to be more patient with everyone, myself included. Things take time; goals don't fall onto your head, neatly wrapped up in a Quest Log.
From now on, I will love myself, and treat others as I wish to be treated.
From now on, we're all individuals. You are not peripheral characters in my story. You all have your own.

I love each and every one of you. Whoever may be reading this. :)

The Hardest Thing

The hardest thing to do is pretend to the world that you'll be okay, that you'll get on and move on and feel great, when inside, you're dying.
I spent the last several months, hoping that the changes we talked about would come to pass. I waited for him to want to work out with me, like we did at the beginning of our relationship. I waited.. and waited.
He waited for me to ask him.

Our communication and expectations were in totally different places.
I have been hoping that he could be the person he said he wanted to be, when we began our relationship. It was such a bright hopeful future he had laid before him. In response to his happiness, and our love for one another.. that we professed.. I was so hopeful that things would be great. He is so incredibly awesome, except when he's dating me

I feel at turns happy, and sad, that he seems to be doing so well without me clogging up his life.
:(

We have called it quits, over such cowardly communication as MSN messenger.

I feel terrible about the way we last spoke to each other, especially since he had only been asking when we could see each other again, and I wanted to see him. I don't know what prompted the rage to spill out. Maybe unloading my anger into punching the wall, something I haven't done in a decade, woke up emotions in me that I'd tried not to let out, for fear of invoking them in him. I didn't ever miss him like THIS, until he refused to see me, when I asked to speak to him in person; to make up for the unleashing of fury I heaped on him via texts. I wanted to tell him that I love him. Instead, I called him names and gave up on him.

I haven't felt this broken, and torn up, and godamnit absolutely shit-awful, in so long, I forgot how much a person can hurt. I am wailing when I cry. My stomach clenches in knots and I scream in long gasping keening wails. I think the last time I did that was in 2004.

I'll be okay for a time. Life seems unreal. For about an hour today, everything I looked it had about a 1/2 " red glow around the edges. I have no idea why. Is this what my pain looks like? Like everything bleeds?
I'll feel numb, and my eyes feel glazed and too big for my head. It's silent, like a grave.

And then I'll think to myself, "You're gonna be okay, you'll get through this! Get up and Do something!" And my thoughts, what I want to do.. Turn to anything at all, that we did together, and I fall apart. I can't do what I did before, because he's not here with me, and never will be again. It feels like someone cut off my arms, and then told me to go and hug people to show I want to live. I can't.

I sit and I cry, I wail into my hands, and I don't know why it hurts so much. I can speculate that because my other friend, Jason, may be moving away to China in the coming months, that it's rendered me incapable of coping with all of this at once. My two best friends in the world, leaving and not coming back. How do I do this? Can I even be human any more? Can a human being hurt this much and not die?

I feel so battered and broken, and utterly, utterly alone.

How do I live this life when things are happening as I said I wanted them, but all I feel is pain and loneliness?

Now is when I start to Live Life.

I have been overweight for 11 years. I gained about 60 lbs when pregnant with my son, and then went on Depo Provera contraceptives for 4 years. I am currently (and have been mostly) hovering at around 200-220 lbs, when my ideal weight (personally ideal, not “You’re this tall, be this fat” ideal) is roughly 130-150lbs, toned.

I have started to work out and eat right many times over the years. And it works; each time I start, I see results, but then I stop, for one reason or another, and it comes back. Most usually the problem is food, or rather, money to get the right food. Another factor is how I feel about myself. If I’m having a rough time in regular life (a break-up, a job loss, some other perceived failure) then I lose motivation and just stop what I was doing that made me feel great and productive.

I recently started again, in January, to work out daily and drink more water, as I’ve had a problem staying hydrated for at LEAST 10 years. My body’s now been trained to retain water, so when I flood it out with the RIGHT amount, I shed inches really quickly.

This past month however, my workouts have dwindled down again, pretty much due to my sadness at how my relationship was going. I’m now starting back up again, every morning at 6:30.

I now get up, don my workout gear, grab a bottle of water from the fridge, and turn on the Turbo Jam. It’s a 20 minute workout and it’s intense for someone not having worked out for a week or a few. I sweat, I wheeze, my knees ache and I feel energized. So many people I know say, “Ugh I’m not a morning person *grumblegrumble*”. Really. Neither was I, until I forced myself to change.

I was the girl who had to have her mother step on her head while jumping on her bed to get her out of said bed and ready for school. I was the girl who arrived at school rumpled and mismatched, because she got dressed at the last second and usually in the dark. I stayed in bed until ABSOLUTE TIME-SENSITIVE NECESSITY required me to be out of the house to catch a bus to school. I would glower at my family, not eat any breakfast unless forced out of early by my mother screaming, “GET UP THE BUS WILL BE HERE IN 3 MINUTES!” only to find I had 13 minutes. I would not talk in the morning ever, I did not want to be AWAKE while the sun was cheerfully blazing, and I sure as shit did not want to be around smiling, cheerful, chattery MORNING people.

When I made the decision to be a different person, I changed a lot. And it was gradual change. It wasn't overnight that I decided to hop out of bed like a happy little chickadee and hop around being cheerful. No way.. It took me years to work up to that. In the past few years though, if I woke up in the morning, and I had a game plan, I’d be cheerful about it. I LIKED having goals, a routine to follow, places to be. On the days when I have no plans, like no work, no school, no appointments farfar’way from my house, I laid in bed til 1pm and then did nothing.  This has lasted me for quite a while now actually. I still do this.

Until recently, I mean.

Now my mornings, whether I’m working that day or not, consist of wake up at alarm (6:30am on work-days, 8:30 on non-working days), work out for 30 minutes, shower, dress, make a protein shake and healthy breakfast, and then get on with my day.  I’ve found if I stick to the work out plan every morning, I’m less inclined to sit on my buttski and stare at Facebook or webcomics if I have the day off. I’ve also found that it keeps my feet from hurting as soon at work, while standing in one spot for hours, chopping vegetables. I also seem to be in a better mood. I’m fully aware that exercise releases endorphins to make you feel good, so the more exercise you get, the better you feel, so I’m trying hard to stick with it as much as possible. Trying to adjust to such a massive upheaval in your life as a break-up, thus removing any contact with the people you both considered friends, is difficult already; without some sort of routine, I’d fall apart.

On March 2^nd, I will be starting (for real!) the Georges St-Pierre RUSHFIT program. On February 29^th, I will be taking the assessment, which is as follows:

60 seconds of air squats

20 seconds rest

60 seconds of pushups

20 seconds rest

60 seconds of sit-ups

20 seconds rest

60 seconds of burpees.

Oh gods.. the sweaty...

Essentially 5 minutes of pushing exercise, to see what your endurance and strength and stamina can produce. In 3 months I will do it again, myself, just to see what I can then accomplish, after the training.

I also plan to bring my pell into my living room, and practice my SCA sword shots, more with my left hand than my right, because my left hand is weaker. By spring I want to be able to look good, feel good, and hopefully begin training again with the rest of the unit.

I know this will take time and effort. I know that I will have muscle pain and that weight loss, either 12 inches around my hips or 60lbs, whichever comes first, is essential to me feeling good about myself, and being able to walk without feeling dragged down. I want to wear pretty clothes, I want to wear costumes, and crazy outfits. I cannot do that without toning up, slimming out and building muscle and confidence this time. I’ll be 32 this year, I don’t want to continue living the way I have for the past decade. I want to have fun!!

I will do this by cutting down sugar and gluten intake, by drinking more water, eating healthy meals and snacks, and with my exercise. I do not plan on spending a lot of time on the internet, or playing computer games. I don’t do a lot on the internet anyway; Facebook, webcomics and occasionally news are all I really look at. I will keep updates a-coming on my blog, so we can keep track of what I’m doing and how things are going.

So my new year begins now. Now is when I’ve decided that I want to be happy, successful, proud of myself and my looks, as well as my massive accomplishment of cutting an addiction to pieces and becoming who I want to be.

Who do you want to be?

Things I Keep Running into Lately.

I got this from a post by The Walkable and Livable Communities Institute 

“Who we become depends on who we surround ourselves by. I really believe that this is true.”

I did not write this, but I feel it should be shared, and there was a bunch of stuff written at the beginning that doesn’t really go with it, for me.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn

This is a quote made by Jim Rohn, motivational speaker and self-help guru. To be honest, I don’t fully agree with this statement because it negates the fact we have our own consciousness as well. The quote will be more accurate if we revise it to: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, including yourself”. 

In my general day-to-day life, I encounter 'sleepwalkers', who generally lack a core focus in their lives. Their lives revolve around working, eating, sleeping, partying, random entertainment and generally getting by. When I am with them, I find it very difficult to branch the discussion beyond lower level, fear/ego-based topics such as gossip, complaining, unhappiness or dissatisfaction and day-to-day weary, to more higher-level, love-based topics such purpose, self-improvement, and so on.

How people around you can affect you

There are two variables that interplay in determining how much of your thoughts and actions are influenced by people around you. The first is your consciousness and resilience as an individual. The second, is the collective sum of the consciousness of the people you are with. These combine to give you a weighted impact on who you become.

You may be the most conscious and smartest individual around, but if you are constantly surrounded by negative, fear-based people in your life, it will have an impact on who you eventually become and your progression in life. If you are heavily rooted in yourself, there might be a limited downside that negative friends can bring you. However, you are also getting a limited upside because you are spending time with people who are holding you back vs people who can be elevating you.

If you hang out with a group of successful, positive-minded individuals who believe in taking responsibility for their lives, you will move to become a proactive individual who shapes his/her future. If you hang out with a bunch of pessimists who believe the world is out to get them and there is nothing worthwhile, you will start descending into the negative whirlpool at some point, even if you are initially a positive individual.

This is especially important in goal achievement, because the consciousness you vibrate at affects the kind of thoughts and actions you undertake. If you want to lose 20lbs of weight, you need to think as your end persona; the person who is clean cut in making diet decisions. However, if you are constantly surrounding yourself with people who eat a lot, you make it harder to restrict yourself. At this point, your ability to stay on track in your goal will boil down to how grounded and resilient you are. Think of how much easier the task becomes if you were hanging out with like-minded people with similar visions, or even people who have already been there before.

Of course, this does not mean you should sever relationships or cut away every single person who does not contribute to your goals. It just means you should reduce the amount of contact you are having with people who do not enable you to become a better person. Only in the event that the person is seriously dragging you down should you resort to cutting him/her completely away. Remember, if you are entrenching yourself in relationships which are not elevating you or bringing yourself forward, you are not really helping yourself nor anybody else since you are not being the best you can be and subsequently, not being the best you can be to them.”

There follows an exercise to identify your core circle of people.

Let us do an exercise now.   Pick up your pen and paper, and write down the answers to the following questions: (Even if you’re “not the type of person who does this” try anyways. If you’re sincere about change, things have to change.

1. What is the kind of person you want to be?

What is your ideal self that you wish to become? What are the qualities you want to possess?

2. Who are the 5 people you spend the most time with in your life currently?

How are they like? What are the top 3 qualities each of them stand for?

3. Do they match who you want to become in the future?

Do their qualities match who you want to become? Do they help enable or disable your vision for yourself? Do they elevate you or bring you down?

4. Who are the top 5 people who embody the qualities you desire?

They should be people you aspire to become and/or respect in some way or another. There are no rules here – It does not matter whether the person is a specific individual or a general person, outside of your social circle, lives in a different country or dead. It can be someone who already achieved the end state or goal that you want to achieve. It can be Oprah, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Obama or whoever. Let your imagination run wild here!

If one of your career aspirations is to be a chef, you can list Iron Chef or a world-renowned, international award winning chef as one of the 5 people. If you want to lose 100lbs, list someone who has already achieved this goal or someone who has your aspired body type/weight. If you want to be a movie producer, list someone who has achieved acclaimed successful in this line of work, such as Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, etc.

5. How can you increase contact with them?

This is where the interesting bit comes in. Depending on who the people are, you can use the following methods to reach out to them:

·         Direct contact:

This can be via face-to-face contact, telephone or via email/internet. How can you increase the opportunities of interfacing with this person? If you know the individual, how can you communicate with him/her more often? If you don’t know the person, does this person belong to a certain community which you can be part of? Do you have any friends who might know this individual? Is there a way for you to bridge into the same social circles?

·         Products of their work:

If direct communication does not work out, you can always bring the person to you in the form of his/her works. Does the person have any works under his/her name, such as shows, books or podcasts? Get your hands on them and soak yourself in them. These materials were after all written/made by them and the content will convey their consciousness and knowledge. In essence, being exposed to these materials is equivalent to interacting with them in person.

·         Visualization:

This one sounds like the most airy fairy method out of the three, but it can actually the most powerful. Clear your mind and visualize these people in your mind. Try to project them as clearly as possible, from how they look, think, act, say. When you are done, consult them in your mind and observe their responses to whatever you ask. It can also be used in daily life, where you project their persona onto you in your situations and think/act the way you think they will.

Napoleon Hill wrote in ‘Think and Grow Rich‘ that every night before he slept, he would have an imaginary council meeting with his ‘invisible counselors’. The council started out with a group of 9; it eventually expanded over time to over 50. These included people such as Darwin, Einstein, Aristotle, Confucius, Socrates, and the like. Through these nightly council meetings, he received immense inspiration, knowledge and ideas which he credited for his success in life.

Transitioning to the new you

What will happen from here on as you increase your contact with these 5 people? If the disparity in consciousness levels is high, you are probably going to start off feeling terribly misfitted. They will probably talking in lingo and topics which are different from what you are used to. Even when they talk about topics you are familiar with, the perspectives they come from can be totally different and not something you looked at before. You probably feel awkward around them.

But if you are to connect with them every day, even if for just 15 minutes a time, it’s a matter of time before your consciousness alters and shifts to the new level. If you are a stubborn individual in a low consciousness, it will take a longer period of time; if you are a high consciousness individual who is highly adaptable, it will take a shorter amount of time.

Eventually, you will start resonating with these people you aspire. You will find that you start thinking in the same wavelength and start talking about the same topics as them. Those thinking will then affect your actions, which will manifest into results you see in life.

Shape your life by choosing who you are with

By choosing who you spend time with, you are literally shaping your own future. Start by examining the people you spend the most time around. Consider if these people are enabling you towards your envisioned self. If they are not, identify and increase contact with the people who will enable you to become the best person you can be.”

Holiday labels.

This is a small but heart-felt message, on this day, called by the human people, St. Valentine's Day, or simply by Valentine's Day.



To the societal masters and media who make single people feel unworthy of attention or love on this day, to tell all those people to believe that your self-worth lies in your ability to score a significant other for this day alone, I wish you to read this and take it directly to heart.


Fuck you.
Fuck you, with crunchy peanut butter and glass as lube. 
In any orifice handy.



That is all.

My Anger Solution

Well folks, it’s been about a week since I last wrote anything. The past week has brought a lot of memories to the surface.

For now I want to talk about anger. We all have it. One of first few things I decided to change about myself was to deal with my anger. First I had to acknowledge I had it, which wasn’t easy.

Remember the person I spoke of before, with whom I moved to this city? Our adventure obviously didn’t end with hopping a bus. I believe it was some Higher Power, Serendipity, Fate, whatever you want to call it, that saw I was ready to change and thrust this person in my path; someone who was willing to go balls out (so to speak), say what needed saying, do what needed doing, for the greater good.

We packed up and left Hamilton, on a Greyhound bus, and 13 hours later we were in Sault Ste Marie. At first, life was exciting; lots of hope, and sunshine, and faith that we’d be Somebodies, we were going to change the world!

Walking 6-8 hours a day, looking for apartments that would allow us to live there. Meeting all manner of people, some nice, some rude, some sketchy, some shady-looking but with good hearts. And then we found a place.

Once we moved in, and were no longer nomads for the summer, the shine wore off the relationship. Living with that person, and trying to set a routine for his kids, trying to be a Mommy to kids I didn’t particularly like, as he’d raised them to be demanding little selfish brats. His loud mouth got him in trouble a lot, and the testosterone he was taking for his gender-switching worked only when he took it, which wasn’t regularly. In between, the Bitch came out.

Above: The Bitch in Rych.

It was at one of these times, that the peace of our quasi-life shattered. There was shouting, a fistfight, two shots to the face (by me, to his, btw), and me leaving in my slippers.

I had nowhere to go, so I stayed at a shelter, and had to come to some hard truths about my life. Where did I want to go? What did I want to do? Who did I want to be? These weren't things I'd thought about before, but I knew that I needed to change. The people I was with tended to be reflections, mirrors of myself, and I am grateful I saw them. I realized soon enough, that I had anger issues. I would bottle my rage up for YEARS, against myself, against others, and then without any warning, it would blow and someone would get hurt, usually not me, but sometimes.

I tried to date again after deciding that I had to work on these problems with my emotions, but it lasted a month and a half before there was another explosion, and this time, a lot of his blood spilled. (Though to be fair, he knew I was going through a lot of soul-searching, and that people had attacked me before, so he shouldn’t have been surprised that when he leapt on me I reacted like a rabid, cornered badger, with teeth and everything).

Also frightened. Badgers are rarely frightened, but you get the idea.

I stopped dating for about a month, but I was lonely. New city, middle of winter, didn’t know a ton of people. Tried a few times to meet people from online dating services, just to have some friends, someone to spend time with, and nothing went anywhere productive. I chose one boy because he was the exact opposite of the previous: instead of tall, short; instead of strong, weak; and instead of exceptionally masculine, this boy was very effeminate. We got along, had things in common, and it was nice to have someone to hug regularly, even if we didn’t sleep together very much at all. That ended about 2 months later, when I broke it off, saying that I was interested in spending time somewhere that was not his house; his friends were for the most part, NOT the types of people I wanted to spend time with, and he never did much without them. I was also very interested in another man I’d met online, strictly as friends at first while I was with the other, but on my side, it was developing into more than that.

That ended as well, not long after it started (couple of months), as I’d never really met someone decent (male/dating) who was interested in spending time with me, up til that point. I became very clingy, because hey, when you’ve had crap-sandwiches all your life, someone hands you a ham & swiss and you hold onto that sucker! He walked away. I broke, I healed, I still grieve sometimes for what could have been, but I've healed.

I had a lot of trouble trying to keep hold of any relationships while fighting myself. I had a lot of weeks, even months, where I couldn’t do ANYTHING. If I didn’t have my best friend around, I’d probably have never gotten where I have today. I yelled at him, screamed, raged, demanded he leave, and he just smiled and said, "No." He was the best thing that ever happened to me, and after experiencing what I have recently, I am even more amazed by his incredible patience. It must be the divas he's had to work with; rages and screamfests are easysauce to deal with.

Working on the anger was hard, because I had to acknowledge I had it, and what to do when I felt it. My typical reaction was to just smile and let it bottle up. That worked until I recognized what it was, then it wouldn’t stay bottled! Having to constantly remind myself that OTHER PEOPLE cannot MAKE you feel emotions, YOU are in charge, was the hardest part. It’s so much an ingrained habit to say to someone you’re arguing with, “Yea well, YOU made me angry, so it’s YOUR FAULT!” I had to remind myself to say instead, “When you do this, I feel this emotion, and I don’t like feeling that way. How can we solve this?” To converse, instead of accuse. To look for a solution, rather than just bemoan the problem.

When you have one side working hard to change themselves, and the other side refuses to help, it’s even more difficult. The person I was with at the time I started the Anger Solutions program, (call him M) had what I call White Knight Syndrome. As long as I was helpless, and didn’t know where I wanted to go in life, and didn’t wanna work too hard, he was Everything To Me Man. As soon as I started changing my thoughts, my behaviours, to reflect the person I wanted to be, as soon as I started to try and achieve better for myself, I was a lost cause and he picked fights with me as often as he could. I look back and see that he had the same problems I did, he just never wanted to deal with them himself, and by having me around doing so, it made him face uncomfortable truths he didn’t want to face.

I felt unlovable. I felt unwanted, and broken, and useless. Worthless. Nobody loved me, because I wasn’t good enough. I grew up thinking that I had to be everything for a partner in order to be fulfilled. I had to take care of them, feed them, make sure they remembered important things, basically, I believed I had to be a Mother to everyone I dated, so they’d see I was useful, important, and had to keep me around. I had to feel needed.

PLEASE LOVE ME!

I still sometimes feel that way.  It’s good to be needed, to be depended on for doing what you’ve promised. I was taking it too far. I was trying to do my own version of the White Knight. I’d meet broken people and want to fix them, change them into what they said they wanted, help them live, but in the meantime, I felt lousy. I had to help them, because they wouldn’t help themselves. They’d sit and moan about not being able to do something, get something, feel something, buy something, understand something, and I’d be there, giving them what they had to have. I felt like I couldn’t have a life, because I had to take care of them. And I hated it. With M, I hated it so much more because I saw him doing the exact things I was trying to change in myself. It was a very hard lesson to get through, but I did it.

I’ve been accused of not being patient enough. Maybe that is true. I get impatient when I see something fixable, not being fixed. I want to do it, so I know it’s done, and we can all move on. But how does that help who I fixed things for? Does it help them learn how to fend for themselves?

I feel angry very rarely now, or rather, I express my feelings more than I did before.

Lately I’ve bottled them up, but it’s never longer than a few days. It’s still just as painful to let out those feelings, but now I am not inarticulate with rage, sputtering and hating myself because I can’t communicate my feelings when I’m that angry. Now I let it out, still not rehearsing in my head what I’ll say (I’ve never really been good at that, maybe something else to work on so I don’t sound dumb) but it tends to make more sense when I do speak while angry.

Not many people have seen me angry, and I like that. I like knowing that I’ve had a good handle on my feelings since working so hard to change how I see myself, and see the world.

There’s a phrase I saw recently: You can't live a positive life with a negative mind.

So, blog reader-friends, when those angry, negative thoughts come up, remember to change them to positive ones. Yes, it’s Work. Yes, it’s hard to stick to it. But it can be done.  The more you do it, the easier it becomes.

I did it, and I’m still working on it. But I can’t do it for you. You have to want the change in yourself, so you have to work for it. And remember, when you achieve something all by yourself, it’s that much more rewarding when you accomplish your goal.

Here’s to faith in ourselves.