staying hungry and foolish

this is up on my old blog as well. heard the sunscreen song today, and i came back and read this again..so i wanted to remind myself.

of all the conflicts iv faced in life, big small important not-so-important, the hardest and most intense one has always been trusting myself in the face of oppostion. or doing what i think is right, without having to fully justify it, no matter what anybody thinks or says. to trust myself and believe in my ability to think and act well, even when everyone else thinks im completely crazy. to believe in myself above everything else, and to have faith in my instincts and what my heart desires despite anything anybody says. some say its a selfish attitude, but its always been the way i have dealt with things, or tried to at least. because you cant make everyone happy, so you might as well try and make yourself happy. the only times i have given in were when the feelings of people i loved were at stake.

but yeah, its a tough call to make even now. to make that choice, stand tall and protect your sensibility. sometimes i dont even feel like its justified to reason it out, or to prove a point. if i want something my way and it means a lot to me to have things work out that way, i hate having to justify it to an 'audience' that is already biased and judgemental. in such a situation, no matter what i say or do will please and appease them.

in the end my choices are mine to make and mine to live by. and unless i take those steps and make those choices, i will never know what lies ahead, or what consequences are possible of those same actions. when will i be set free? when will i have that complete sense of abandon, that eerie loneliness of having to trust in nobody but myself alone, and to do what it is that i wish to do, without a hundred different opinions. when can i feel and experience the fruit of MY decisions? good or bad, and have that sense of having faced what came from my choices, and having given it my best.

stumbled upon a steve jobs quote on rambling muses blog. iv read it before. but somehow everytime i look at her blog, theres something new that instantly connects with me, given the situation at that time. i love steve jobs and id forgotten how powerful some simple truths can be so i dug out the rest of the speech to remind myself.

"your time is limited, so dont waste it living someone elses life. dont be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other peoples thinking. dont let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice. and most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. they somehow already know what you truly want to become. everything else is secondary."

baz luhrmann, in the sunscreen song [which im currently addicted to] says something about advice which made me grin with delight today. i love it when something out of a song suddenly strikes you as beautifully honest and touches you.

"be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. advice is a form of nostalgia. dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth."

i have to remember to stay hungry, and stay foolish now.