Colored Glasses

I’ve had a lot of really positive AND really negative feedback from this blog. Which surprises me because I’ve said over and over how I just write this as a diary for me – just for me to record the stuff I’ve done, as I always have, in order to remember it all. People don’t seem to get that and I’ve been slapped with some heavy criticism from Anonymous strangers who are, apparently, completely against Americans even being in this country in the first place. I’ve seen and met a lot of people since I’ve been here who rely heavily on stereotypes to classify every single person they come across, usually putting them in some box full of negative adjectives. Isn’t this why we get into wars and stuff? Because we take a whole group of people and say we hate them all; they’re different than us so we should get rid of them. Call me insane but I prefer to let people stand alone and show who they are as an individual. I know - crazy. 

So that’s a big reason I stopped writing these blogs for a while. I was sick of the negatives. On top of that the move up to Essex I’d mentioned earlier in the summer had not gone so well. And that’s the understatement of the year. There’s no need to go on a public rant here but the depressing state of things here has left me unmotivated to do much else other than avoid the house as much as possible – I continue to thank god for the ‘loneliness of the long distance runner’ because it’s been my saving grace on more than just this account – and look for my escape route. It’s really awful, really, really awful to feel trapped and alone in a country where you’re still a foreigner, to be taken advantage of by the people you’re living with, and then to have even more strangers online tell you anonymously how awful a person you are, with no basis at all in reality, pulling arguments out their asses.

Anyway, I’m moving out by the end of the month and there seems to be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. But being in that dark metaphorical tunnel for so long reminded me to look for the little things in life that make dark days seem brighter. I altered my morning routine bike ride to include audio/video of inspirational TED talks instead of punk rock music. I made the most of my weekends by cramming trips to all my favorite stops in London into two days. And most importantly I stayed linked to my family back home via all the platforms internet and phones have to offer. 

As a result, or one result, I should say, is that I wanted to change the tone of this blog again in order to showcase not just the big things in life that are obviously noteworthy, but also the little ones that crop up less noticeably but still make us smile. A goofy comic, a seasonal pumpkin spice latte, or a new book you can't wait to read. That's why I chose these photos from the Festival of Colors in Utah; I think they demonstrate two big ideas I'm trying to show here. Superficially, bright colors are enough to make people smile. But also, by transforming familiar things, like our friends and family, into something similar yet different, recognizable yet altered, this experience at the Festival represents the idea that we can choose to see things in a new way, with "rose colored glasses", so to speak. That ability is just as important to our happiness, if not more so, as big accomplishments, fancy vacations, wild nights out, or heaps and heaps of cash. So I want to give a little more recognition to the little bits of awesome in our lives, so that even when we're saying "life sucks" and everything just seems too damn hard we can remember that there's more to appreciate than we think as long as we're looking at it with the right glasses.