Be free

For the past couple of days I've been thinking about the changes I want to make in my life. I'm starting a new chapter in October in which I definitely want to live life at its fullest: go out to university parties, meet people from around the world and learn all I can to be a great professional. But I also want to get to know myself better in the way and make changes to be my better self, or what I think my better self would be. Sometimes I think about the personality traits I'd like to see in others. How I don't like it when one person does this or another person does the other, but then I realize I do the exact same things. And that's precisely the point of it. How do I want to see this change in the world, when I don't change myself first? This reminds me of a quote painted on the Berlin Wall in the East Side Gallery. "Many small people who in many small places do many small things can alter the face of the world."

So I've drawn up a list of the things I want to change in myself to be my better self. It was not an easy thing to do because you have to face being something you hate, or disliking yourself in some way, nonetheless the first step to change an aspect of any thing is to acknowledge its existance.

<.>

Cellphone addiction 

It's nerve-racking. I hate the fact that I'm tied to a machine and I can't have a full day without having to answer Whatapp and feeling the need to check the social networks. You'll find this ironic since I run a blog, but I don't blog because I want to reach a kind of "blogger fame", instead I want to share my thoughts and finds with people. And I'm really thrillled about the fact that actual people read me as I imagine other bloggers feel when they see their audience grow. But there's another part of me that rejects the need to network and finds amusement in talking to real people in real life. On the other hand, I need Whatsapp to comunicate with my family on the other side of the globe. So there's the duality on the usage of social networks: you need them but at the same time you don't really need them. Instagram? Snapchat? Twittter? Facebook? Google Plus? What should go and what should stay?

Short attention span

When I find myself surfing the internet, I can't read a whole article without skipping parts and trying to get to the point of it, but then I bore myself and go onto another website. I can't hold my attention for much longer anymore. Same goes while reading a book. There are times in which I can't read a page without making a pause to check my cellphone or do something else, and this interrupts my reading and learning process. Somewhere (I owe you the source) I read that an arts teacher at an american university did the experiment to make his studentss stare at two paintings for three hours. I know for sure I would lose my concentration after five minutes. But the results of that experiment were a longer attention span and an eye to details that improved their performance and their perspicacy while analysing paintings. It makes you think about how now we find so many sources of distraction that we cannot concentrate on one, and we multitask so much to the  point of not being able to accomplish everything completely or to a high standard of quality.

Overworrying, Overanalysing

When it comes to people, I try to analyse them in order to find their traits and determine their characteristics. For some reason I'm amused in that, and sometimes that doesn't go as bad as other times does go. From time to time I find myself obsessing about psychological analysis and I start seeing things that are not there, things I want to see but that are not. Then comes the nervousness. I start biting my lips too much so that I end up with pretty horrible scars, I start being overly anxious and my heart skips too many beats for my health being. I think I'm experiencing something like that right now and I need to stop doing that.

Makeup and hair routine

As much as I like the girly routine of doing your makeup and hair, I want to feel comfortable in my own skin, showing my natural locks and wearing no makeup for the sake of a healthy and chemical-free skin. But I haven't reached that point (yet.) I really admire people that do not wear makeup and that feel comfortable just as they are, and I have it in my bucket list to reach that point sometime in my life.

Consumerism

Ideally, I'm an advocate of living life as naturally and peacefully as one can, thanking for the given things and not envying the things of others. I also reject consumerism, greed and the actual state of capitalism, which widens each year the gap between the rich and the poor, and almost doesn't allow poor people a chance of well-being. Sadly, as much as I hate to admit, I'm a follower of the consumer trend. I almost faint when entering a stationery shop, or going through all the clothing stores, buying innecesary things. That's something I want to change, but it'll be a difficult and slow change, for sure.

Be the change you want to see in the world