Not All of Us Can Do Great Things

Hello, hello! How are you today? Today is the last day of Spring Break. I'm back at school, ready to face another busy week. It was a lovely time relaxing, spending time with family, and having little adventures though!

As I am preparing myself to get back into the swing of things, I thought about how small life can seem at times. I certainly have a desire to leave the world better than it was when I arrived, but when studying for tests, going to work, going to practice, and all these miscellaneous meetings--when everyday life comes into play--how is it even possible to think about helping the world? How can I possibly help someone else when my own life is such a struggle?

Have you ever had one of those moments?

I know this is kind of pessimistic compared to a lot of my posts. I am usually pretty motivational--you can do whatever you set your mind to do! Now, I still fully believe this one hundred percent, but this post is mostly for the people who maybe don't want to go do great things. After all, we're not all cut out to travel into third world countries, feeding the hungry, curing the sick, clothing the naked, spreading education, sharing wealth, and changing lives in that sort of way. Perhaps sometimes we wish we had the motivation and inspiration to do all of those things.

But our calling could be something more simple. Maintain a household, get a normal job, build a family. Or, our current place in life may not be where it will eventually be. Struggling artists, aspiring students, maturing young adults. It is even very possible that life has taken unexpected twists and turns so that we're just struggling to make our own ends meet--how can we bring change to someone else's life when our own lives are filled with so much hurt and pain?

The truth is, not all of us can do great things. Not right now, at least. In fact, a woman who is much wiser than myself said these words. But there is more:

quoteswave.com

We can do small things with great love!

Aren't those beautiful, inspiring words that just change your attitude on life? I am just reminded of all the little ways that I can help others, and of the wonderful impact that small random acts of kindness have.

What are some small things with great love that you can do? Let me know your ideas in the comments below!

Have a wonderful day!

Smile on,
smilesifyXO

Society's Serious Misconception of Pride

Good morning, everybody! Hope everything has been going well for you so far. I actually found this post in some old drafts and thought it'd be a good one to finish for today. In relation to the context I give about my life, it's a little bit outdated, but it is definitely one of those that I really want to finish. I hope you like it!

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I don't know if any of you guys have seen my vlog channel (there's some embarrassing and what I like to believe is funny/entertaining stuff on there), but recently I started doing a 365-Day Bible Reading Plan, which is the highlight of the vlog below:

A special friend and I have started a Bible Reading Journal together to hold each other accountable and to also keep track of our discussions. Reading the Bible has become a part of my routine that I've started looking forward to a lot and I've been getting so much out of meditating on God's word. So if you've thought about reading the whole Bible but never got around to doing so, please check out the video above for a solid reading plan that's been keeping me on track so far!

Anyhow, my friend and I read a section in Isaiah that I just haven't been able to get out of my mind and heart:

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" (Isaiah 5:20-21, New King James Version)

It's easy to look at these words and think, "Okay, this is sort of melodramatic and Bible-sounding" and go on reading, but if that was mild, the rest of that night's reading took a sharp turn for shocking intensity.

God says to Isaiah the prophet: "Go, and tell this people: 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.' Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed" (Isaiah 6:9-10).

Uhhhh, God say what?

This was something that we wrestled with because it shows a side of God that is ostensibly contradictory to what we know about him. But after a bit of research, we see that it's basically a prophecy that foreshadows what'll happen to the prideful.

I feel like this can often conflict with what we're taught in society these days. Society tells us to have pride in our work, pride in our actions, pride in our nation, pride in our kids, pride in our achievements. Especially while in college, as there is so much competition among peers, I've found myself taking pride in my own accomplishments, too.

But, pride is blinding.

If you are proud in your work, how will you be humble enough to try to improve? If you're proud in your achievements, what is truly the motivation behind your actions? If you're prideful in your nation, how do you know if problems are arising, or not being solved?

Pride makes our hearts dull. It closes our ears to that conscience, and shuts our eyes against what is right.

Swallowing that pride is what we need to do before we can truly wise and discerning.

There should be a distinction between pride and love. You can show love through what you do, and you can love doing what you do. 

When I contrast these two things, love is giving your talents to share with others, whereas pride is holding your talents for yourself. Love is everything that pride isn't: patient, kind, pure. Pride is blindness.

Have you ever been in an argument where you've been in the wrong? If you apologized, why did you? (And if you didn't apologize, why didn't you? Haha.) When you apologize, it is admitting that you did something wrong. Really, you're putting your pride aside because you are deciding that your relationship is more important. In a way, when you express apology and/or forgiveness, you're choosing love over pride.

So if you're harboring resentment against somebody, or if there is any tension, think about the causes. Has another person seriously harmed you. Is pride too big for forgiveness?

And I suppose that we can also consider our motivations for doing what we do. Is it to share our talents with others, or to only uplift ourselves? When we are prideful, what else in life are we missing?

Just a bit of food for thought for this week. Please let me know all your reactions and insights in the comments below!

Smile on,
-Riley XO

Health in College Part 4: Exercise

Morning! Hope you had a fun time last week! I had my first week of school, so life has been busy and good to say the least.

For me, health--while not crucial--definitely helps contribute to happiness, so that's why we are continuing today with the fourth part of our series Health in College. We've talked about body image, sleep, and diet. As you may have guessed, I am a big fan of exercise--being active and moving around is a hobby that I enjoy so much!

Why is exercise so important? Well, it improves circulation and breathing, it provides stress release, it challenges the mind in a different way, it keeps your body strong, and it's fun! These are some of my favorite reasons to exercise, but even more can be found by clicking here.

Despite all of these benefits, researchers have found that younger generations aren't as strong or active as previous ones despite the fact that workouts are more accessible than ever. (There are millions of workouts on YouTube that you could do in your own home!)

I'm actually working in a health psychology lab now and wanted to share a possible recent finding. Researchers have found that if they compensate people for exercising with a certain amount of money, those people were more likely to continue exercising far into the future even after they are no longer paid. There are multiple hypotheses as to why this occurs, but one of the top ideas is that it is because while they are being paid, people realize that they are physically able to work out. What? That's a little weird. Please allow me to go further into depth.

Society seems to think of fitness as a hardcore thing. Like, you need to be a dedicated bodybuilder or athlete in order to frequent the gym. We hear about High Intensity Interval Training and Crossfit, and when you visit any fitness center of sorts, you see people in expensive workout clothes, sweating buckets, and benching at the very least seventy pounds or running ten miles. It's a lot to take in as a student, who just wants to scrape by with a C in the first hard semester of Calculus.

But that's where our perception can deceive us.

Exercise can be performed in a huge variety of ways, with a huge amount of varying commitments and intensities. You don't really even have to go to the gym in order to get good exercise--a brisk walk in the morning before lunch is still getting some circulation flow.

And although running a mile sounds intimidating at first, it really isn't that much when you realize that it's only ten minutes of very slow jogging.

So, when people try going to the gym for about two or three weeks just so they can get paid by the psychology researcher, they realize how capable they actually are of doing what is good for their bodies and then the habit sticks.

Unfortunately, I can't pay all of you $1 for every time you go work out to help motivate you for a month, but I hope that this post has helped you see that you don't have to be the "gym type" to be healthy.

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Smile on,

-Riley XO