I got a new job, as if I wasn’t busy enough.  I just don’t have time to keep up with it now.  Maybe we’ll see a return this summer.  Thanks for the support everyone!

Love,

The Social Outcast

“When Tyler asked me to be a guest blogger on The Social Outcast, my first thoughts were, ‘What can I possibly say that anyone would want to read?’  While that may be true, I decided to honor his request and go for it.  My thoughts are not original, but draw from the wisdom I have adopted throughout my life, from various people and events that have shaped me into the person I am.  I have been lucky to have good role models in my life to help me stay on track.

It amazes me of how many ups and downs we have that shape our life.  Some enhance who we are and some drag us down.  I often think about how words stay with us forever and how a person can be hurt more by a few unkind or misplaced  words than when physically hurt by the same person.  Physical injuries have a way of healing while words seem to settle in and often fester into a big open sore, inside.  Our mental and emotional health is so important to our well-being and development of who we are.   That being the case, I think we need to be careful on how we treat and talk to others.

In my opinion there are some key things to consider.  Honesty has always been a big thing for me.  If you want people to respect and believe in you, it is so important to be trustworthy.  If someone is consistently dishonest with me, and if I can’t always believe that what they say is true and factual, I can’t have a meaningful relationship with them.  If someone consistently lets me down, I tend to back off; ‘Why set myself up to be disappointed?’  I’m not saying this is the right thing to do, but  it is the way I am.  It doesn’t mean I treat them badly, I just keep  my emotions at a distance.  If someone doesn’t want me to be a part of their life, I back off; it is their choice and I can’t change that.  I just need to watch for a new door or window to open with them, but it may or may not happen.

This thought brings me to the idea of forgiveness.  I find that it is very important to forgive people (sometimes this is difficult, to say the least).  Even in the best families and friendships there are going to be problems.  Forgiving a person is important, not for them but for myself.  I have found that in order to move forward I have to forgive.  It does not mean that I am wrong and they are right, it is simply giving myself permission to put the event behind me and move on. The only thing that may change is my inner self.

This brings me to another lesson I have learned, a particularly difficult one for me, which is the idea that the only person I can truly change is myself.  I have learned, for the most part, to be in tune to what I can change and know that I have to let go of what I cannot.  The fine line is knowing which is which.

I try to have people to hang out with who have positive thoughts  and good attitudes in my life.  I can get all the negative stuff by watching the news, I don’t need to live it.

Thank you for letting me get on my soapbox and share a thought or two.”

-Zell Collum

Hey everyone!

Sorry I haven’t posted in quite a while, I’ve been pretty busy.  At the moment, I’m working with a guest blogger (yes, my mother) on an article, that should (hopefully) appear in the next day or two.  Stay tuned!!

In the meantime, I wanted to share with you an article called “10 Exercise Tips For A Healthy Brain.”  This article has some long term tips for maintaining a healthy brain.  Also, I found a site that has different brain exercises, puzzles, and riddles, that I would love for you guys to try out! Be sure to leave me some feedback on these, and I will (again, hopefully) do the same.

Happy Exercising!

Hello, everyone! I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend! I have been very busy, so hopefully this post will make up for my absence.

My dear mother has been following my blog, and made a great comment a couple posts ago, which got me thinking. Read the post Here. What she made me think about was the concept of forgiveness. She reminded me that, although I have been through quite a bit, there is plenty to be learned from the regrettable moments in my life. If I went through my entire life in ‘survival mode’ as she puts it, I am likely to lose out on many opportunities, and many great relationships.

I think that this is a great thing for everyone to remember; identify what went wrong in a specific incident, do your best to come to terms with it, learn from it, and move on. Don’t get stuck on all the hurt and pain in your life, because then you’ll be stuck for good. I can’t think of anyone who hasn’t had to deal with their share of ‘rough patches’ throughout their life, so this applies to everyone. If we all got tripped up every time something bad happened, we would be ‘tripping’ our entire life, and it is entirely possible that we will land flat on our face.

Long story short, recover from a stumble just in time to catch your stride, and before you fall to a grinding halt.

One more thing:  Anyone else think it would be a great idea to have my mother guest blog for The Social Outcast?

His comment was this:

“Life seems to have a way making one resistant to hardship, or maybe it is the experience. Unfortunately this tends to be unavoidable. The main idea is to do this without becoming too pessimistic.

I was raised in an odd way, with my family teaching me not to depend on anyone but myself and to keep my expectations from others so low that I would never fall prey to disappointment. Seeing how this is rather on the extreme side of anti-social behavior, I wouldn’t recommend this.

The reality is I still do this, but I do realize there are people one can trust in life. Maybe not with every tiny detail but enough that you won’t be set back by huge disappointments. It doesn’t have to be family, friends and other loved ones seem to do the trick just as well.

My advice would be to not miss out on some amazing connections because of a history of set back, but be weary who you allow to connect. Trust like that should be earned over time.”

In my last post, I talked about not expecting too much from others, so that you are not set up for disappointment, but instead are pleasantly surprised when and if someone follows through with a promise. I failed to mention that balance is needed between the two methods of dealing with expectations. If one expects too much, then they are more likely to be hurt by disappointment, but if one expects too little, then they can become pessimistic, and emotionless. It is important to find a level area to stand between the two. While perhaps being saddened by a lack of follow-through by someone they care about, they should not be devastated. Being upset is not a bad thing, it is a natural emotion that should not be shuttered. The thing I am talking about preventing is being so upset by something that you emotionally shut down for quite some time after. For instance, in the story about my birthday, I was upset for weeks after, and shut down, emotionally.

I hope this helps explain a bit more about what I mean, and please let me know if you think i’ve missed something, or have not explained this well enough. Thank you to Dark Slander for bringing this up. Discussions on this blog are fully encouraged, because I am certainly no expert. I am just sharing my views, the way I see them, so if you feel that I am wrong, please speak up.

When I was fourteen, my dad had promised he would come visit me for my birthday.  I hadn’t seen my dad in several years, and so this excited me very much.  It was just a few days until my birthday, and I was so anxious I couldn’t contain myself.  All I could talk about was how thrilled I was going to be when my father arrived.  My birthday came, and I received a call from him, giving me some wild excuse as to why he was not going to be coming to visit, on such an important day for me.  I was devastated.  I had never been so hurt, or so let down before.  I had expected to see my dad, and I was sorely disappointed.

From this single event, alone, I learned not to expect too much from others.  The pain I felt from this one instance of let-down lasted for weeks.  After getting through the pain, however, I came to realize that it is better to set lower expectations on the other people in my life, and be pleasantly surprised when (and if) they come through, rather than expect what is promised, and be let down.  The story above should have sounded more like this:

‘When I was fourteen, my dad had promised he would come visit me for my birthday.  I hadn’t seen my dad in several years, and so I was excited to hear that he might be coming for a visit.  I went on with my daily life, and although I was excited to possibly see my father soon, I also remembered that he had promised me things before without following through, and he has several issues going on in his life that may prevent him from coming to see me.  On the morning of my birthday, I got to celebrate with my grandmother, the woman has cared for me my entire life, and who has never let me down.  When my father called, and said that he would not be able to make it, I was disappointed, but I was not devastated.  It is possible that something came up for work, or he was just too busy to see me.  Either way, I still spent a great birthday with the ones I loved.’

Although in both variations of the same story, I felt both excited to see my father, and upset when he did not show up, the intensity of these emotions greatly varied.  In the second story, I not only set myself up to be pleasantly surprised when and if he did show up, I also was able to reflect on the positive aspects of that day, rather than letting the bad severely outweigh the good.

To sum up everything I have touched on, don’t set yourself up for disappointment.  When you are promised something, it is okay to expect it, and it is okay to look forward to it, but do not become so obsessed with it that you allow it to cloud your vision.  If a loved one promises something to you, check your emotions so that if they do not follow through, you are not severely hurt, and if they do follow through, you are pleasantly surprised.

Just a quick note, if you have tried to subscribe, and are not yet receiving email updates, then I believe I can help you.

When you enter your email and hit subscribe, it does not automatically sign you up.  You will receive a confirmation email containing a link which you must press in order to activate the subscription.

I know this is a bit tedious, and I’m sorry.  At this point this is the only way it will work. Thanks for your support, Outcasts!

I did a bit of googling today, and found a very interesting article about finding passion and purpose in your life. The article talks about different goals people have, and how an external goal is usually stemmed from a deeper, internal goal. The author of the article, for instance, mentioned that when he was young, he was seemingly obsessed with the sport of boxing. This stemmed from a deeper goal of becoming a stronger person, and becoming more self confident than he already was. As soon as he achieved his inner goals, and was more self confident than ever, his intrigue with boxing subsided. This urged me to find an example of the interrelation of goals in my own life.

Sometimes, I do things in an attempt to draw attention to myself. Whether it be the way I dress, the way I act, or just the way I think, it seems as though I am always yearning for attention. I think that this comes from a need for more interaction with my peers. I’m not exactly the most popular person around, and I certainly don’t have the most friends at my school (hence ‘The Social Outcast’), and this feeling of always working towards getting attention shows this. Now, what does this goal link itself to? Why do I want more friends? Sure, friends are always nice, but why do I feel the need to surround myself with people to do things with? Am I afraid to be alone? Is not having many good friends a bad thing? It shouldn’t be.

So, if it is not necessary to be involved in many very good personal relationships, then why do I feel the need to be? I’m not sure, to be honest. I don’t have all the answers to these questions just yet, but this is definitely something to be thought about. Can you all relate to this sort of feeling?

Anyway, here is the link to the article, I suggest you all read it. It is very thought inspiring (as you can tell).

http://zenhabits.net/2009/03/passion-and-purpose-in-life/

Hey guys, just a quick update, I wanted to show you all The Blog’s very first Fan Art! This was made by Mariah, and it tasted delicious. I hope you all have a wonderful day!

I began today by sleeping in.  Now, that may not sound like I was ‘Keeping Busy’, but I assure you, I was.  I had some very wild dreams, which may or may not have included a certain local news anchor or two, and may or may not have been revolved around a menacing tornado that had just touched down a mile from my house.  Anyway, I woke up around 3:30 PM (don’t hate, it’s a Sunday).  I had planned on heading over to my house, and gathering up some old video game systems to sell, because I could always use some extra cash.  Blah, blah, blah, posted the video games on CraigsList, blah, blah, blah.

To bore you with the humdrum details of my day is not what I intend to do.  The point is, I was very busy today.  I may not have answered a single part of the question at hand, which is ‘what am I doing here?’ but I did find some insight on what I can do in the meantime.  I have decided that, rather than drop everything, and attempt to attack this intense inquiry head-on, I will take my time, and just ‘keep on keeping on’.  What I mean is, I think I am going to find the answers to my questions in the little things.  Sometimes, the best solution is a great offensive plight, but in this case, I’m just going to let the knowledge come to me.  And while I wait for this to happen, I’m going to keep busy.