With a few of my friends graduating this past week and weekend, besides reflecting on my own graduation, I can't help but flip through one of my favorite books/the book I love to give for graduation, Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss. No matter how many times I look through this book, something new always strikes me and it is always so relevant. While it may be considered a "book for children," I love how anyone journeying through life can connect with the story, no matter what their age may be.
(my new DVF phone case, Gap Inc.'s founder, Don Fisher, "Look for the silver lining" idiom bangle by Kate Spade, Bethenny Frankel's amazing book, A Place of Yes. )
I will admit, in the past I have been quite the (excessive) Negative Nancy. Why, oh why, is it so easy to slip into that frame of mind? Especially when being positive is so much more fun and much better for your health? Since its no secret that the more positivity you have around, the more positive you become, I try and keep things around me that keep me focused on my goals and remind me of what's truly important in life.
“It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.”
– Claude M. Bristol
What about you? What keeps you in a positive frame of mind?
It's amazing how something as sad as death, can be inspirational and motivational at the same time.
Realizing (at the 99th hour that is my senior year, I know) that I'm not really cut out/in love with my major as I had previously thought, has had me in a rut and doing some major soul searching. After missing the train Tuesday, I decided to skip class, and went back home to take what ended up being a two day mental health vacation (it would have been the whole week, but I had presentations due).
When the news broke Wednesday night, that Steve Jobs had died, I was begrudgingly preparing for the rest of the school week. I was shocked and saddened. My sadness, however, soon became inspiration, when CNN played a clip from a speech Steve Jobs gave in 2005. It then clicked:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t 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.”
Steve Jobs was nothing short of a genius and as everyone has been saying, a true visionary. He had successes and he had failures. He had dreams and ideas so big, that many just couldn't fathom them. Yet, no matter what, he let nothing get in his way. For that I am grateful, because I can't imagine my life without my Macbook, my iPhone, and most certainly not my iPod.
So thank you Steve Jobs, for sharing not just your wonderful inventions and products, but also your passion, with the world.
Lastly, I wanted to share this clip I saw earlier today. What a great sense of humor Mr. Jobs had.
"We broke all the rules that season. I had been told we were not allowed to change the monogram ... I had been trying to follow the rules and do what everybody told me until it got to the point where I realised that's not why I was brought in here. I'm here to do something to make this young and cool and contemporary and of the moment. I wanted to use Stephen's graffiti specifically because it meant something to me. Stephen as an artist, Stephen as a New York figure. It had the credibility of street, but also this sort of style of somebody who was a fashion designer."
-Marc Jacobs in a recent interview with The Guardian on the new Stephen Sprouse collection for Louis Vuitton
"I've shopped everywhere! I go to Kmart, I go to Wal-Mart, I go to Sam's Club, I go to Target. I love those stores. One of the most therapeutic things you can do is go to Target with a basket and a trolley. I love Target!"
André Leon Talley, in a recent, must read article from The Cut.
