You are no more Important than the Person Sitting Next to You

Sometimes it’s really hard to focus on the good when there is so much bad happening all around us. Nothing worth giving two cents about is occurring. It’s all going in one ear and coming out the other. Headlines are dripping with negativity, your friends are blowing you off, and that guy you’ve been talking to just started talking to some other tall blonde girl, that just so happens to live two doors down from you. Nothing seems to come with an explanation anymore. It’s become more severe than just “we stopped talking and I have no clue as to why”. People do bad things because they can get away with it. Detachment from people is easier than sticking around. Everyone is temporary, even family in certain circumstances. All because it’s seared into our brains that we don’t need anybody who doesn’t need us. Being single makes you strong and independent. Having the ability to stand alone makes you solitary and influential. Strength in numbers has dissipated and fallen to the way-side. Nobody gives a passing glance to the people around them. We’re absorbed in this unenthusiastic world where popularity is more important than individuality. Beauty is more important than substance. Individuals are more concerned with how much money they have in their hand rather than whose hand they could be holding. The brand on the tag of your shirt holds more significance than the brand you create for yourself. Your attributes are worthless unless your body is flawless. Your ideas are unimportant unless you hold a place of importance in society. Your integrity isn’t about who you’re there for anymore, it’s all about who you know. Morality is now more a concept of who’s on top rather than who could be the better person.

Everything is messed up.

We can’t push people away because we believe we’re better off on our own. We can’t wipe our schedules clear of lunch dates and cocktail parties all because relationships seem so superficial. We can’t push people away because we want to be noticed for being solitary. Things don’t work like that. People don’t work like that. We need human interaction in order to be healthy and happy. We need people to lift us up; we can’t always do that ourselves. It’s impossible for someone to be completely self-reliant.

So let’s get over it.

Let’s make up our differences with the people around us and start leaning on each other again. Lets take off our suits of armor made up of hurtful words and pride and start bridging the gaps that we unknowingly formed with each other. If we can start to realize again the importance of human contact, I think we’ll all be a whole lot better off.

Never again should we push the ones away that could help push us to be better individuals. How can we build on our own character when we don’t have others’ to base off of? We can’t improve or grow unless we have the influence of improvers and growers in front of us.  We cannot follow by example if we avoid the examples all together. What’s the fun of seeing all the captivating sights in this world if we can’t share them with someone else? We’re not useless on our own, but we’re more useful with the uphold of others. We have a greater chance of success if we surround ourselves with successful people.

NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU.

Give your time up for someone who needs it. There ARE people who actually need things more than you want them. Place yourself in someone else’s shoes for once. How can you do that if you don’t associate with anyone else? You can’t begin to learn about other people and their struggles if you don’t place yourself in their vicinity and position.

Solidarity is okay, until you look around at who you love and cherish memories with and you see an absolutely and utterly empty room. You can’t celebrate your life with yourself. You can’t love yourself the way someone else can. It doesn’t work like that. Life doesn’t work like that.

If we were meant to live alone we wouldn’t miss people. We wouldn’t feel little panging holes in our hearts when someone is gone from our lives. Our eyes wouldn’t sting with diamond tears when loved ones left for good. We wouldn’t be in denial when the one we thought loved us up and walked away. We feel all these things, so we are meant to be with people in our day-to-day lives. It’s so simple and obvious.

Let’s stop being oblivious, and let’s start soaking in all the relationships around us. Let’s start loving everyone and embracing the people that we associate with in our daily lives. Life is a beautiful, overwhelming thing; why not share it with someone? Fall in love, make friends, and hold family close. Never push someone away because you feel it will make yourself look better. It’s not fair to yourself, or the people around you.

Think about others, not just yourself.

xoxo,

Madeline

I get a Little Help from my Friends

Life gets busy and overwhelming sometimes. It gets to the point where you want to throw in the towel and say, “I’m done! That’s it! I can’t do this anymore!” You have 1,042 things to do and they’re all eating away at you, making you more stressed out and even more irritable than you were before.

That’s why we have friends!

I was talking to my mom the other day about how thankful I am for the friends in my life and all the great people I have. They help me not only get through the day sometimes, but they support me with my music and reaching my goals. I wonder how they put up with me... or WHY… but I don’t think too hard about it because, they’re here for me, no questions asked.

I love that.

I know for an absolute fact that I’m the craziest, weirdest, strangest person ever sometimes… but my friends put up with that, and that’s pretty neat. Without these people I would be utterly insane, bonkers, derailed. With music being my primary outlet for expressing my feelings, my friends are my other source for letting my emotions run free like wild horses. (cue rolling stones song going through your head right now.)  I can tell them my secrets, where as if I wrote a song about those same secrets I might be taken to some sort of specialist. My brain works in mysterious ways, I tell you. Not even I understand it sometimes. The mechanics of my thoughts are to be understood by God alone, and it should stay like that.

Anyways, I truly am one blessed individual to be able to have these close knit friends that I consider like family. I’m an only child, so it does get lonely to an extent sometimes, but my parents have always been there to keep me entertained. I think I’m extremely lucky to be able to call my mom my best friend, and she calls me hers. God gave my mom me to be there for her, to talk to her, and to be a friend to her, and I take that very seriously. I would do ANYTHING for my mom… just like I would do anything for any of my other friends. She means the world to me and I love being there for her. My favorite thing on this planet is when we sit and talk for hours about deep, life stuff. Like, people that are put in our lives to teach us patience, and what the world would be like without certain things, or how certain relationships happen only to teach us a lesson, not to stay with us for the rest of our lives. She’s a genius sometimes, I swear. I go to her with any of my troubles and I walk away with a new understanding. Sure, I get mad at my mom but who doesn’t. She is the true rock in my life and I have absolutely no clue on God’s green earth what I would do without her. I’d be a hopeless fool.

Also, whenever people tell me, especially people younger than me, that their parents are annoying them or making them mad about something, I say that I understand, but to not get upset with them. Take what they have to say and do what they tell you to do. Being in college now, I miss my parents so much, and I look back and appreciate all the things they told me and taught me. I was angry with them, yes, and I still do get aggravated with them, but I’m thankful for the way I was raised. I’m strong and independent because of them. They taught me to stand up for myself and to be firm in my beliefs. They showed me how to not be intimidated by others, and that giving into peer pressure won’t make you fit in, it will only make you like everyone else, which is something you don’t want to be. Standing out in the crowd is strangely satisfying. Because you are different, people want to know who you are. If you look like everyone else in the crown and do what they crowd does, no one cares who you are or what your name is. You’re just a person in a crowd. Plain and simple.

When I was younger I always had the idea set in my head that my parents were way too strict. While sometimes I still agree it would have been nice to let the reigns looser a few times, I’m thankful I wasn’t able to do whatever I pleased. Not like I would have six tattoos or a drinking problem or anything, but I would have gotten into a lot more dumber stuff than I had if I didn’t have them watching over me. Nothing good happens past like, 11pm in this town, so I get where they were coming from. They wanted to keep me safe and protect me from the world and it’s tiny hidden evils.

Speaking of my mom though, it’s her birthday tomorrow and I want to do something awesome for her but I have no idea what to do. I could write her a song but, I’ve done that already. Or I could write a poem, but I’ve done that already too. I’ve made her larger than life cards and drawn and painted her many pictures, so what’s left?! I was thinking plane tickets to Nashville… that way the whole family can reap the benefits of my generous gift (insert cool sunglass emoji here). I think I’d be considered the best daughter ever… just saying.

Anyways, friends are beautiful people that we must never take advantage of. I always try my absolute hardest to keep in close contact with my friends, and sometimes I fail at this, but the ones that forgive me, or understand that I have a busy lifestyle, are the ones worth keeping around. I tend to do this thing where I fall off the face of the earth and I forget to text people back and call them and email them, but that’s just me. It’s who I am. I honestly forget EVERYTHING which is awful, I know, but sometimes there’s just nothing I can do about it. When someone gets mad at me for not talking to them for a week I’m honestly hurt by that. I say I’m sorry, because I really am, but then I almost want an apology in return. I realize I haven’t talked to you but you need to realize that I just completely blanked and needed time to myself for a while. It’s normal to want to be solitary for a little while. When people get mad at me for that, it makes me pretty blue to be honest. I get over it though, because I like to live a happy lifestyle. I never hold grudges and forgive always, because if you hold bitterness and bad blood with people, you’re bound to end up unhappy and bliss-less. That’s not cool!

Happiness is key to everything in life. If you are happy, then the people around you are happy. Your mood affects the ones surrounding you. If you’re upset and angry at the world and giving off an attitude to everyone you come in contact with, they all will take your attitude and apply it to themselves and go on with the rest of their day acting like big ol’ cranks, just like you. Don’t do that to people! Smile at everyone, say thank you to everyone, look people in the eye and mean what you say. It will rub off and the world around you will be such a happy place. Not even a rain storm could dull your sunshine. (I sounded lame there, I get it) But I’m trying to prove a point, if you’re happy, I’m happy, your whole life will be happy, and the world will be a happy place. Yay! Sunshine and sprinkles and unicorns and happy stuff…

Ok, enough with sounding like a six year old… I’m going to attempt to tie this whole thing together. It’s like those conversations where you start talking about one thing and end up on something totally different and you look at the other person like what the actual heck were we talking about in the first place…

So, in concluding all my thoughts into one thought; I’m so thankful that I have the relationship with my parents that I do, and am even more blessed to have friends that are like family to me, which in turn make me the happiest person on the planet. Then throw in something about it being my mom’s birthday and me having terrible forgetfulness. There! I think I did it!

I’m actually impressed with myself.

Anyways, I hope you guys are all doing swell and leading good, happy, healthy lives. THIS TIME I SERIOUSLY PROMISE TO KEEP UP WITH MY BLOGS. It’s summer now and all of my time is dedicated to my music and everything associated with this career that I love so much.

Have a wonderful, happy day.

Love you much.

-Madeline