Work Smart, Not Hard

“Work smart, not hard” is my dad’s favorite thing to say to me aside from “I’m going to be cleaning my guns when you bring a boy to this house.” Well I’ve been applying that quote of his (the first one) to my future. Working smart, career wise, would be getting a well paid job. But I have not yet found a job that brings money in with ease and would make me genuinely happy to do. I do know what job I want. I want to train and professionally compete horse. But the money that goes into that and the money that comes out, aren’t compatible.

So I will have to make a decision between worrying about the bills or not being completely satisfied all of the time. Or I could marry rich, but I can’t count on that. What I have come down to is that my job needs to have something to do with animals. Every one always says “Then be a vet” to that, but I don’t think that would necessarily be my ideal job either.


When is school going to teach me to balance my happiness and my success? When is school going to teach me anything significant to my life ahead? When is school going to stop asking me "What would be your ideal job?" and start telling me what different jobs are out there?

What I want most in life is to find and thrive in my happy place. But my happy place is too expensive for me to not have to stress about bills. And the second thing I want most in life, is to not stress about bills. The only way I am finding that I could possibly pull off both is if I found a well paying job, probably not animal included, and then train and compete in my free time. And still have time for a family and sleeping and eating.

Why does happiness seem so hard to find in this world? Why am I fourteen and already stressing about my adulthood?

Sorry for ranting but I feel the need to express what’s going through my head right now.

 Photo courtesy to Annika Amilie

What's Wrong With The World?

Though Earth is only one in an infinite amount of planets out there, it’s the only one we know of that can host the survival of creatures like ourselves. But people seem to think that the world is the same thing as the Earth and that the world is what is wrong with us.

world |wərld|
1 (usu. the world) the earth, together with all of its countries, peoples, and natural features: he was doing his bit to save the world.
(the world) all of the people, societies, and institutions on the earth: [ as modifier ] : world affairs.

“All of the people, societies, and institutions on the earth” the world is not what’s wrong with us, we are what’s wrong with the world. We our very selves, are the world. We are the world as we know it, living our day-to-day lives on the Earth. We are not the Earth, we are the things ruining the Earth. And in doing this, we are ruining the homestead of our world. So when it comes down to it, we are ruining, destroying, ourselves.

Now, I am not proposing a solution. I do not believe that there is a solution. For every star that there is in space, there is a solution to this problem. The most simple one would be to kill off every single human being on this planet, but that’s not the most self-satisfying one. The problem is, every single human on this planet would have to contribute in their own ways, and that is just not going to happen. I have absolutely no faith that that many people would care. Hell, I don’t even care enough to do something. I have ideas of things I could do, but I have no time to do them. Even if I did have time, I’m too lazy. This is the problem for most others in this topic too. I know I’m not alone. No matter how many commercials, seminars, ads on billboards, and etc. I see, I will probably never decide to actually go and make a change. I hate myself for it, but it’s true.

That right there is the problem with the world. The fact that we are too caught up in our own lives to even think twice about going out and cleaning up our societies. We are the problem. We are the heart and soul of our own disastrous world. We are the reasoning for the tears we cry. We are the reasoning for depression. We are the reason for suicide. We are the reason for rape. And what are we going to do about it? We are going to put our heads down and act like nothing has ever been any better.

Photo courtesy to: Athenaeum

The Plain Out, Uncultured Truth of Why School Sucks

Adults seem to have this twisted view of why exactly their kids complain 24/7 about school. “Oh, she just dislikes school because of the homework” or “He doesn’t like school because he’d rather be gaming than learning.” This is not the case for many of these students.

School is cringed upon not because it takes effort or because we have to do home work at night. Kids actually want to learn. They want to have something to do. They want to have something to get better at. School is shamed upon by them because of the way it is set up. The way it is scored. The way it is taught. The way it is shoved into our brains as hastily as a toddler pokes the buttons on a remote. School is hated for its standards.

Standards are set by highly educated, fully matured, adults. The problem? These standards are for kids, not adults. So take the standards crafted by highly educated, fully matured, adults and add these to parent standards. Do a sport, be smart, be successful, do your chores, go to bed at a decent time, and have a social life. And then add the sum of highly educated, fully matured, adult standards and parent standards to sport standards. Sport standards differ due to what sport the child pursues but by high school it’s typically this: two to five hours of your sport at least two to five times during the school week, do well in competitions, condition at home, get good grades in school or we’ll kick you out. Oh, and have fun! If that doesn’t seem hard to you then great! Because there’s one last thing that everyone seems to forget about. Ready for it? Us students have standards for ourselves. Wow! Who would have thought? We have goals? Yes, we all have goals. I have goals, ones that are just as important to me, if not more important, than school standards. WHAT?!
Nope, nope, nope.
That’s not allowed.

School is more important than the way I view myself.

School is more important than what I want for myself.

School is more important than my happiness.

School standards, the standards made by people I don't even know for me and the other 1.436 billion students in the world are more important than my self-standards.

Strangers are deciding the path of my life.

And that’s the plain out, uncultured truth. Strangers rule me. Strangers tell me what to do everyday. Strangers tell me to shut up, glue my eyes to a white board for eight hours, and complete what wasn’t finished in the previous eight hours at home. Strangers tell me to not care about what other people think. And then they tell me to care more about what they want for me than what I want for me.

This is what parents don't get to see. This is what we are told to obey. This is school.

Photo courtesy: Friendship Circle