once there was a tree.

“Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it"

The thing about change is that it takes a very long time. I thought that I had made so many positive changes throughout last year, and trust me I really did, but I am still learning and building and totally re-writing my story. I look at myself today, at this moment in my life, and there are still so many things that I have a desire to strive towards.

Being a people pleaser is difficult, and as I examine myself and who it is that I want to be and how it is that I want to be seen, I've realized that pleasing others is not going to get me on the path that I want. I have to do things for myself, and I can't worry about how that might effect other people. It sounds selfish, but really there is nothing selfish about only putting your heart into things that are true to you. There is nothing selfish about removing yourself from relationships that do not allow the true you to shine and be cherished. So that is what I have been doing lately.

The biggest problem in my life was social media, because in all honesty it was bringing up a whole cloud of negative emotions that I hadn't noticed before. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram became a place where I tried to brag about my relationships and make my life look picture perfect. It also became a place where I noticed that the majority of the people in my life were not real friendships, and with that realization became feelings of betrayal and anger that started fogging up my mind and forcing ugly words and gossip out of my mouth. So I deleted these sites from my phone, stopped checking them at work, and disabled my accounts. What I've found is that I have a whole new outlook on who should be given the label ''friend'' (not everyone is there for you when you think they should be) and more importantly, my life has a whole lot less drama in it and my feelings aren't hurt quite as often.

I like how I'm spending my time much more than I did when I was always checking social media sites. I'm volunteering, focusing more on the relationships that I do have, working out and finding new interests. Simply put: I'm living life rather than writing about it. I like it so much that next month I'm getting rid of my Iphone and trading it in for a more simpler version where I just call or text.

So while it may be extremely hard to change, the process is a journey and I feel like things are getting better (even if they challenge me) each day.