Butterfly Wings

When I am running, I have a very bad habit of comparing myself to the other runners. It comes from the self-conscious feeling that I am not good enough or dedicated enough to call myself a runner. My mom calls it impostor syndrome. Basically, I always feel like I am not "really" a runner unless I run more regularly, faster, or look like I'm doing a hard run. This, unfortunately, leads me to compare myself to the other runners I see on the trail with me, asking myself if they have been running longer than me, or if they are judging me for not going fast enough, or if they think that I am not wearing the proper clothing. What is absolutely hilarious about this thought process is that I have no way of knowing where in their run the other person is, so there is no way I can legitimately compare myself to them. Maybe they don't look tired because they just started. Maybe they are faster than me because they are only running two miles. Maybe they are slow and tired becaus...

Last Monday, I decided to change my major. I had been applying for the nursing program, a very competitive program at BYU, and had decided that I wanted to be a nurse. However, the more I worked on my application, the more wrong it felt. I have been volunteering for a lot of different things that have to do with mental health, and I love what I have been doing. I realized that if I did the nursing program I would have to stop doing almost all of them because the nursing program is very rigorous. I want to go to graduate school in mental health, and I realized that if I went through the nursing program and then became Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, I would miss out on a bunch of experiences that would prepare me for a career in Mental Health, and help me get into graduate school. Not only that, but it would take me a year longer to graduate. I realized that all I really wanted to do was become a therapist. I want to help other people in the way that I have been helped, and it is wher...

The older I've gotten, the more I am convinced that love is a choice. Everyone has beautiful and divine parts to them, and love is choosing to overlook the bad parts and see the good. I think too much in our culture we confuse it with a feeling, giving rise to the idea that one can fall out of love. But, in my opinion, "falling out of love" is simply seeing the bad in a person instead of the good, and using that as an excuse to stop communicating and stop trying in a relationship. That said, because love is not a feeling, it is possible to love someone and be annoyed at them. It's possible to love someone and be frustrated or mad at them. Love is not a feeling, so feelings can coexist with it. Just because you love your family doesn't mean that you are never going to be upset when your brother breaks something of yours or if your sister borrows something without asking. These kind of frustrations are normal in a relationship, but love is choosing to see the good...