Quotables 2

• Only through experience of tiral and suffering can the soul be strengthed, ambition inspired, and success achieved. - Helen Keller
• Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. - Mother Teresa
• Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need. - Khalil Gibran
• To learn to succeed, you must first learn to fail. - Michael Jordan
• Everything comes too late for those who one wait. - Elbert Hubbard
• If you're going to be able to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now. - Marie Osmond
• The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. - Bertrand Russell
• The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. - Rumi
• Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved. - Victor Hugo
• The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. - Hubert Humphrey
• You have got to discover you, what you do, and trust it. - Barbra Streisand
• Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him. - Booker T. Washington
• Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. - Helen Keller
• Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. - Albert Einstein
• Always tell the truth. Then you'll never have to remember what you said the last time. - Sam Rayburn
• Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. Life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
• A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it. - George Moore
• Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise. - Cato the Elder
• Friendship with oneself is all-important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else. - Eleanor Roosevelt
• The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things. - Henry Ward Beecher
• Every calling is great when greatly pursued. - Oliver Wendell Holmes
• There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. - Nelson Mandela
• You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at least you create what you will. - George Bernard Shaw
• The spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which can be pointed out by your finger. - Cicero
• It is only by doing things others have not that one can advance. - George S. Patton
• It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. - Abraham Lincoln
• They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. - Andy Warhol
• Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours. - Mark Twain
• Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others. - Robert Louis Stevenson
• Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me. - Carol Burnett
• Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve. - J.K. Rowling
• My opinion is that you never find happiness until you stop looking for it. - Chuang Tzu
• No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow. - Alice Walker
• You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
• So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain. - Helen Keller
• Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. - Pablo Picasso
• Nuture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes. - Benjamin Disraeli
• Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. - Soren Kierkegaard
• Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. - Eugene Delacroix 
• Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. - Theodore Roosevelt
• You can't be brave if you've had only wonderful things happen to you. - Mary Tyler Moore
• One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. - A.A. Milne

Quotables

• Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings tunes without words and never stops at all. - Emily Dickinson
• They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. - Carl Sagan
• Someday you will find out that there is far more happiness in another's happiness than in your own. - Honore de Balzac
• It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference. - Tom Brokaw
• I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone. - Bill Cosby
• We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch. - John F. Kennedy
• I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite. - GK Chesterton
• Money often costs too much. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't. - Margaret Thatcher
• Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools talk because they have to say something. - Plato
• The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice. - George Eliot
• Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. - Will Rogers
• The moment one gives a close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a magnificent world unto itself. - Henry Miller
• We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it. - Lyndon Johnson
• I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning to sail my ship. - Louisa May Alcott
• Sometimes it is not enough to do our best; we must do what is required. - Winston Churchill
• I never think of the future - it comes soon enough. - Albert Einstein
• The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. - Eleanor Roosevelt
• You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through. - Rosalyn Carter
• Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything they just cry over [it]. But when they get angry, they bring about a change. - Malcolm X
• Think wrongly if you please, but in all cases think for yourself. - Doris Lessing
• If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. - Henry David Thoreau
• Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. - Martin Luther King Jr.
• With slight efforts, how can we obtain great results? It is foolish to even desire it. - Euripides
• A sound mind in a sound bady is a short but full description of a happy state in this work. - John Locke
• Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won't have to hunt for happiness. - William Gladstone
• Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its ultimate reward. - Patricia Sampson
•  Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand. - Neil Armstrong
• Happiness is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. - Helen Keller
• The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. - Lucille Ball
• Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made of! - Bejamin Franklin
• One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remans a fool forever. - Chinese Proverb
• We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face. - Eleanor Roosevelt

What I Learned from Britney Spears

So I went on a cruise to Mexico over this past week. I'm not going to blog about it. Sorry.

But I am going to blog about one experience that I had on the cruise, the highlight of the cruise (or at least the parts where we were on the ship) for me. A truly life-changing experience.

They had a show called Carnival Legends where any old person on the cruise could audition by going to karaoke and singing a song by one of the legendary artists they were going to present at the show. I thought there was no harm in trying out. At the very least it'd give me some experience and feedback for my voice lessons.

So I went, and I signed up to try out for Madonna and Aretha Franklin. Unfortunately there were some women (who were awesome) that pleased the crowd a little better than I did. But then the DJ announced that no one had signed up to audition for Britney Spears. So I thought, why not. Another girl signed up right when I did, and I sang terribly for the audition (Britney's always been a little low for me). But when the crowd cheered for me, they erupted! I was seriously hit by a wall of screaming and clapping. It was the craziest sensation I've ever had. And thus I became Britney Spears for the show.

The girl who was Madonna actually offered to switch me, but I decided to stick with Britney because I knew the song better (Baby One More Time) and because for some reason, it just felt right.

The night of the performance came and I didn't feel nervous. For once I just felt...I practiced, I'll do my best, I'll let go and have fun and who cares what the outcome is. My friends did my make up (which I hadn't worn at all in months) and I looked fantastic.

I sang terribly. My dance moves were probably hilarious (I haven't watched the DVD yet). But the crowd of 900 that was watching me cheered. I entertained them. My off-pitch singing and my naive, curvy white girl moves were entertaining.

Afterwards, I felt great. Even though I knew I'd not sung to the best of my ability. I went out in front of a larger crowd than I ever had, I had fun, and I entertained. I was Britney Spears.

 (Sorry, I cannot get the pic to upload vertically). I loved the way I looked and felt so much, that right then and there I made some changes in my attitude.

1. It's ok to get made up and pamper myself, even if it costs a lot sometimes. Because I deserve to feel like I look amazing, and that will reflect in my mood and attitude and how I interact with others. So it's worth the extra money and time sometimes.

2. I don't have to perform perfectly in everything I do. It's ok to be human and to be less than the best, as long as you are your best. So just live and have fun. You don't have to be perfect at living. You just have to actually live. So you let go of control, and you dive head first into whatever you want, even if you have no idea how long it will last. Because if it makes you happy, helps you grow and learn, or changes you for the better, it's worth it, even if it's fleeting.

So, I came home and colored my hair a darker blonde and got bangs cut in. Because I needed to feel different and special, and also needed a physical reminder of what I've learned from Britney Spears.

Also, I listened to 3 country songs today, all the way through. Because I decided that part of jumping in and appreciating growth and change in myself should involve branching out and exploring uncharted territory. Am I a country fan? Not yet, but I think I might find some virtue in it. :)