Release

With every tough job or task you take on, there is a fight to overcome the desire to be celebrated, praised, and for me personally - the desire of being approved of by others.

We also fear humiliation, being forgotten, being wrong and in my life - fear of being corrected. My struggle with this idea is that if I am corrected then I am bad or a failure. How silly & false my concept of correction is! And the cool thing is that I am working through that & changing my perspective on correction. I can thank my friend James because he told me this: "Do not fear being corrected Meagan, fear when no one is willing to try to correct you." When we are so stuck in our ways & don't leave room for ourselves to grow, expand or change, we close our hearts off to any progression.

We work for a goal. Servitude is a place where we all need to strive to reach. For it is about letting others around you be raised up so that they can achieve things far greater than they perceived. When we take the time to help others move forward, we allow our hearts to be open to the unpredictability of change & growth even though we may not see it immediately.

That's what I've been learning lately.

Overthinker

I don't know why I, or anyone for that matter, seem to hit hypothetical "walls" in our lives.

Writers call it a "block in thought"
Athletes call it a "burn out"
Musicians are "uninspired"
Christians go through "spiritual deserts"
Marriages go through "rough patches"

There are so many types of people & phrases that match their haults in the flow of life. I have been the athlete, I am a christian, and right now I'm primarily an acitivist and philanthropist. There is a place that our lives hit when the honeymoon or the newness fades & the true fight & committment come into play. Don't get me wrong, I don't try to put people's lives & trials into tightly wrapped & easily define key words, but work with me here. I don't know much and I've experienced only a small amount of trials, but I find that the hault in ease of whatever situation you are in brings about reflection & questioning.

What do these times do for our overall well being? Can we look at our hardships & change with them? Do I have to question everything?

I've been told I think way too much. I admit that it's true. I ask a lot of questions. I analyze my situations. I wonder about future outcomes. Sometimes it hinders my actions, sometimes I'm not present, but many times it helps to see past my current situation & change my perspective. In the midst of physical fatigue & mental exhaustion, I really want to break down this wall. If I don't question my experiences & how to reach a better understanding of the world & people, then what will I learn? I want to believe in the idea that I can change for the better. If a 22 year old girl can let go of frivolous anxieties, release judgement from her mind, and continue to learn more from the people around me, maybe that means change in a broader perspective can happen, too.

"Live a life that demands explanation"

questions

there are only 3 weeks left of tour. i can't comprehend the time vortex we're living in while on the road. the best description i can give is that of an airplane. when you look at it from the ground it looks like it's moving slowly. once you're next to it, you can see the crazy speed of the engines blasting through the clouds.

even in the midst of waking up at 5:30am to drive to a high school and hang out all day, i still have time to think about different ideas or questions. some of the revolve around my role as a global citizen and as an activist. are we programmed to think that this is just a phase we go through when we're young and in our twenties? am i crazy to think we can change the world? will this be that one moment in time where i really did something with my life? i freakin' hope not! and i refuse to let it become a reality. a friend of mine who i met at IC wrote this paper about idealism and coincidentally enough, Ellie touches on everything i've wondered about but with so much more depth and support to back up her cause. is idealism dead?

i've also been watching numerous videos from RSAnimate. what they do is take a speech and animate drawings in order to better explain the information given. i'm slightly obsessed. this is my favorite so far: smile or die this video correlates to a lot of the struggles i've dealt with in my life. obviously i have not been laid off from a job or lost my family, but hardships happen to all people. basically she talks about how we create this false mentality about "attitude" and success and how they are tied to one another. what i love about this video is that she rejects the idea that staying positive will get you where you need to go. she stirs the pot with her opinions about losin' your bitter 'tude dude and always look for a way to think better!

we can't go through our lives with or faith, our religion, our jobs, our families with this mindset that if we just smile, everything will get better. we have to fight for what we think is right and best. we have to go through the bad and the ugly in order to see clearer. i hate the idea of never allowing yourself to process, think, debate, and fight with ideas or situations.

i want to understand how to disagree and also learn from disagreeing with someone. there is so much depth you can reach when you commit to the mentality that no matter how long you disagree, you will come out with a conclusion, an answer, or a better understanding of each other.

i think that is what i' m learning on the road. there is such beauty in difference. and there is real life in what doesn't come easily.

realizations

The more I'm on the road, the more I realize that there are so many more connections to my past and my present life than I could have imagined. Here is my fun example:  I took an English 1101 class my freshman year of university that changed a lot of my ideas regarding my personal abilities as a student. One day, my professor asked us to write about our dream job - not a real job like doctor, lawyer etc. but one that isn't a job and you could make a job and get paid to do it if you had the choice. I remember sitting there for a while wondering what mine would be. After 10 minutes of pure contemplation, the job popped into my head like a light bulb switching on. I decided that I would love to be a professional meet & greeter. The job would include me having the opportunity to sit at a table every day and meet every person who came and sat there. We'd sit and chat and get to know everyone's story and past in great detail. I'd hear stories from any and every person who wants to share. We'd get to know each other and I'd be able to see a broad spectrum of lifestyles. Some would be painful, others surprising, many inspiring, and then of course some that are tragic - any way you choose it I'd listen to them, hear them, care with them, and pay attention to them. I can't explain why this job would be incredibly awesome to me, but maybe that's why its my personal choice - you can't really explain the heart but you know its what keeps you going. 


Anyways, the other day while in some random town in Washington, I talked with a woman named Sue and she asked me "does this job ever get tired to you? saying the same things over and over may be pretty monotonous after a while..." I can see her point, yes we do have the same presentation every day, yes I have memorized the film, but I am never in control of the outcome. Each person's response is different, every conversation I have is unique. The coolest part is that I get the opportunity to hear a different individual's story every day! They share their life, what they think and what has made them who they are. I started smiling while talking to Sue. My dream job is now here. I am capable of being a professional meet & greeter - and so much more than that! 




"There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go." - Richard Bach

simple post

I've never really been one to quote Oprah before, but shoot, this woman knew how to speak directly to my heart when she said this: ‎

"Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it."

 -Oprah Winfrey

I have never done this job before. My team and I have never worked together before in this environment. Every day I am learning something new. The amount of mess ups I've accumulated  is too much to tally and I'm starting to learn the beauty of screwing up and failing. Where else would we learn? In what other experience will we be taught how to see things clearly and with a right perspective? Tough, but so good. That is the beauty of this experience and the beauty of my team as a whole. Thanks Oprah, you da besttttttt

not all thats gold glitters

i want to write about my favorite school we've been to so far.

first off, in spokane, washington you have about eight schools in the same 7 mile radius. its nuts. they have a lot of one way streets that weave in and out of suburbia and then all of a sudden - BOOM you're in the middle of a rebuilt beautiful school campus with kids walking everywhere. two schools were on the same street! thats really funny to me. maybe i'm weird. there are 2 universities in the same town, too. i finally saw gonzaga university instead of just putting them on my NCAA final 4 basketball bracket every march because their name is fun. anyways...

we've been in spokane for 8 days. we leave tomorrow to go to another part of washington, but the best thing happened yesterday. we were able to go to havermale high school - an alternative school in the city. we show up and we see tons of students in one area and there is a pillar of smoke just above their heads. right next to them is a garden fenced in and well taken care of. we step into the school and see the interior - lockers, posters, classrooms, etc. we ask two students where the lunch room is and they direct us down the hall. allowing the smell of food to direct us to where we need to go, we walk into a room filled with students munching on cheezeburgers and salads. with all of our boxes in hand i find an older woman with a smile beaming across her face. "hi! you must be meagan!! i'm cindy!" she proclaims as we start to shake hands. there are two high schoolers standing next to her. wearing thick eye liner and a shirt that says "spokane zombies" one looks to me and says 'hi! i'm haley" and we begin to have conversations about the school and Invisible Children as an organization. 

during lunch we're able to talk to Cindy - the adminstrator of the school - about what exactly havermale stands for. she tells me that most students make the choice to come to havermale. usually they are looking for an education and want to go to college, but the normal structure of school doesn't match well with their personalities. as she explains, i find out that there is much more attention put on quality and depth in the relationships with the students instead of just making a good grade. most of the students live in poverty and one student lives in a tent under a bridge. its crazy imagining that even now out of college, much less being in your teenage years. 

while we showed the film, i found myself on the edge of tears many times.in "Go!" one of the students who won a trip to northern Uganda is Tye from kentucky. 80% of the students he went to school with live below the poverty line and yet they still found a way to unite and make change together. i remember how i felt when i first saw the "rough cut" and how i saw a way for my life to be a part of something bigger than what was right in front of me. i kept thinking about how this message of hope speaks directly to the heart of a lot of people going to high school. the mere thought of any of these students seeing that hope and ability in themselves made me want to do everything i could to encourage them to get involved. i kept thinking - "this is one of the reasons why you are so lucky to be here, meg." powerful. most of the time we go to regular schools and try to connect with anyone, but this time it was different. the best part was knowing that they could relate with James and Robert about living and growing up through difficulties and tragedies following you throughout your whole life. this is why we have this job. to reach out to the people who have so much to give and don't know their outlet to do so. 

after the screening almost half of the students stuck around with bright eyes and excited tones in their words. many of them wanted to do everything they could to help. one girl named Cassy almost couldn't stay in her seat because she wanted to start now and do everything she could to be involved. many students brought up ideas and plans and had such eagerness to be a part of this. today i got a call from Cindy again asking for a copy of the DVD to share with people who missed the film yesterday. the buzz was still going and they were still excited. 

every student and connection matters. this is the beauty of what we do everyday. 

descriptive text only please.

maybe I should describe my life to you right now. we wake up early and stay up late. some days we drive across entire states. we stay with people we've never met before only to find that they are our family by the time we leave their homes. i spend my day talking to high schoolers of every type of background and hope that they find something they connect to and want to pursue. each day we wake up hoping that our work right now will end a war across the globe.

i live with 2 people who have grown up in a war. they have taught me more about resilience than anything i've ever gone through. they are no longer people from far away but their are my brothers. my team leader's name is taylor swift but he doesn't really sing country music BUT he does have beautiful blonde hair. the only other female on the team is from alabama and is the motherly role of the group. i have recently found out that she has a heart for cats almost as much as i love bunnies. sarah and i laugh harder together about random things more than a farside comic book. my other american teammate is stuy. his real name is mark kearnes lewis and the fact that he goes by stuy is an exact indicator of the kind of person he is. he finds a way to jump and spin and flip off of objects everyday. he is excited and lives with eyes open. we have deep chats almost daily. i love that.

i find excitement in traveling. you see things you've never imagined - like ginormous paul bunyan statues, redwood forests, hippie villages, coast lines that are mingled with rocks and drift wood, dogs of every kind, organic foods that heal the soul, silly elementary kids running through parks.

we are always busy. there is always work. my brain is constantly buzzing with thoughts and organizing. i have now become a woman who receives work emails on her phone and can be found in corners organizing and chatting about schedules with a notebook in one hand and the phone in another. coffee has now become necessary like oxygen.

this is my life, and i wouldn't have it any other way. unpredictable. messy. changing. growing. learning. happy. joyful.