The Necessity of Friendships

As I have experienced the trauma that is college application season, I have been forced to think deeply about my life and the various events that have impacted it. One of my essay prompts asked me to describe someone who has had a major impact on my life.

Looking back through my childhood, my friends were the ones who really defined my happiest moments. I believe that a friendship is more valuable in this world than many many material items and even experiences. A great friendship can truly make life more beautiful.

I have decided to share the poem I wrote in response to the prompt here. Thank you to all my best friends who have made every single day that much brighter.

This prompt asked me who has made an impact on my life
and I wonder whether it’s best to outline this through the medium that matters most to me
a medium that seems to always show what I am thinking better than prose can
Poetry done well can make you connect to people you didn’t think were similar to you at all
and if we want to get at the heart of things
poetry has a way of pulling those strings and making you think about what is really all that important in your life

So my poem/essay starts with a friend
This friend is a boy and no we will NEVER be in a relationship
but I care about him as much as I imagine two 90 year olds do when they sit in their rocking chairs
holding crinkled, knotted hands after sixty years of marriage and thinking about the day they met
able to express their appreciation for each other with the blink of an eye
as if a wink from an orb that has seen so much and at times, too much, can actually say
I love you.

In this cynical world of economic recessions and conflicts that sink you into a depression
having a friend who can point out the glowing hope at the end of a shooting star and tell you
“That’s how bright your future is”
can lift you beyond the Heavens into a celestial body you didn’t realize you were capable of fulfilling

And when that friend understands saying nothing at all works as well as saying just the right thing
it makes the loss of your mother that much easier
Few realize that all you need when the world shatters around you is just one solid piece under your feet
supporting the weight of your pain even if it takes the strength of Atlas
When you can release your soul and not fear judgment like you would from some other human who has declared himself God
you know you have placed your world in good hands.

Aristotle said a friend is one soul living in two bodies

and without my own best friend, I’d be nowhere near reaching my soul’s fullest potential

A Lesson Learned from 'The Help'

The innocence of kids is a beautiful truth. As we grow older though, we quickly lose that innocence as well as the absence of inherited biases that begin to build over our reasoning.

As I watched The Help today at the movies, I noticed this in one of the characters. She was a young child cared for by one of the maids. Despite the fact that her mother and father obviously thought this maid was nothing more than scum, their daughter loved this woman who had shown such compassion and love for her all of her young life. This child had yet to be exposed to the conditioning society of the 1950's south would soon install in her.

Sometimes we should look at situations with a child's point of view. This child growing up in the 1950's did not judge a woman based on her color. She was too young to know what that meant at the time. Her innocence let her adore her caretaker simply because no other person cared for her as much.

While the issue may not be racism or discrimination, maybe we should look at certain personal relationships with the innocence of a child. Maybe we can peel back those layers added over us from society and our experiences and treat humans with the dignity we all deserve.

What Adults Can Learn From Kids

Watch this child prodigy and consider yourself enlightened.

Adora Svitak: What Adults Can Learn From Kids

Ketchup with Some Smiles

For those of you wishing you could brighten your ham/veggieburger with something low in calories and just a little bit special, try this trick mothers have used for centuries on sandwiches: draw a smiley face out of ketchup. Make it creative and as detailed as you can (mixing your grown-up talents now with the joys of being a kid) Now, smile at your masterpiece and dig in.

Time to Get Distracted

Yesterday I was flying my way across the country after a wonderful vacation with good friends in Montana. On my way through Chicago, I felt like a kid in the candy store in terms of visual pleasure (hello! There was a huge dinosaur skeleton in Terminal B!). The O'Hare airport gets a lot of bad rap for being super busy and inconvenient to fly through. While some of those complaints are legitimate, many of those delayed or waiting, maybe even just walking around the airport, do little to enjoy the aesthetic beauty of the airport.

In terms of the InnerKid, we should all allow ourselves to get distracted once and a while on something special. While there are many distractions in the adult life, normally they are stressful. But kids embrace these distractions and enjoy every single moment of them. For those walking with your heads down to your phone while beautiful neon lights play to music above your head in the transfer corridor, maybe you should put away that phone and look up. Let yourself be enthralled by the technology that is meant to be enjoyed and looked at. Don't be sucked in by Angry Birds while walking somewhere...it can wait until you are stuck on the plane on the tarmac for an hour. ;-)

Bringing Back the Bouncy Ball

Here's the first example of how you can incorporate InnerKid into your every day life:

When I was younger, bouncy balls used to be the most amazing toy in the world. Whenever I had those tiny little super balls from the grocery store dispenser, it turned into tons of time spent seeing just how high I could make it bounce as well as how many walls it could hit against before stopping (the parents didn't really appreciate that one). It got even worse walking into superstores or toy stores where they had those HUGE containers of bigger bouncy balls that stretched to the ceiling and the only thing separating you from your future enjoyment was crisscrossing of strings. Again, I think my parents cursed the brilliant salespeople who placed them there as I swore I would never ask for anything again if I could just buy that one swirly blue ball.

Anyway, what if you brought back the bouncy ball?

In my room, I have decided to do away with chairs as they were making my legs and back ache. Instead, I purchased the largest exercise ball I could possibly find (here we go with the more mature version of the bouncy ball). Now when I work on my computer, I have much more versatility as to what I can achieve during the day. I can roll around and around while holding on to my desk and reading an e-mail. While singing to music, I can make the new "chair" bounce up and down with me like a kangaroo. I can even do sit-ups when waiting for my stupidly slow Internet to connect. This provides me with so much more energy and fun than my previous method of making my butt sore.

So how does this fulfill the InnerKid? You are not only making your work environment more fun, but you are also changing your world by making it more open to more physical activity (those small movements really do add up in terms of burning calories!). It's fun and healthy!

Go out as soon as possible, buy one, and try it at your computer at home! If you love it, bring one to your work desk if you have that capability. Nervous about being the odd one out? Recruit a friend and the two of you can laugh and hop around while burning calories while those silly co-workers of yours watch in confusion.

Do it. Bring back the bouncy ball.

What is the InnerKid?

The InnerKid philosophy didn't have a name until just a few months ago. Before then, it was mostly a way of life, something that ensured I was actually living every moment of my time here on Earth.

In 2005, I learned that I was at-risk of inheriting Huntington's Disease (HD). My mum, only two years earlier, had been diagnosed with the disease, which meant that I had a 50% chance of developing an illness that robs the victim's ability to walk, talk, think or reason around middle age and eventually causes secondary conditions that lead to death. However, as an 11 year old, it was impossible for me to discover my fate for another seven years.

This prospect that I could potentially have a incurable, fatal disease haunted me for months. My mum, who in retrospect, had only six more years to live, was quickly declining into a state of dependency. It terrified me to think that I too could have the rug swept right out from under my feet at such a young age like my mum.

This is when the "innerkid" came to be. I don't remember the date or time or whether it was gradual or not. Yet I decided in 2005 that I was going to start to REALLY live the rest of my life, and not wait to grow up in order to do certain things (this would eventually lead to the creation of GreenTeen...but that's another story).

As the years passed, I looked back at my childhood and was a little disappointed at how much time I had spent being an "adult" for my younger brother and mother. It felt like my childhood was spent being older than I should have and yet, here I was, already a teenager.

Childhood doesn't have to end when you turn eighteen though. The InnerKid philosophy suddenly bloomed into the idea that the power of fun can change your world. Children laugh on average 25 more times a day than adults, but that does not have to be the case. Adults of all ages can harness the power of the inner kid. Here's how it works:

With the InnerKid philosophy, you can change your world, someone else's world, or even the planet. The great thing though is that it will always make you happier because all of these actions are reciprocal. To put the InnerKid philosophy to work, find times in your life that suck away your energy and make you think of those days in the sandbox. Now. Hone your InnerKid and think of ways that you can make those events more playful. Can you put out M&Ms for the conference meeting? Can you organize a fun game to play at a family gathering? Maybe it's even time to make someone else's day.

If you want more concrete examples of how one can use the InnerKid philosophy in your life, stay tuned to this blog. (and hey...remember to wake up and laugh tomorrow.)