Today has been a little of a struggle since my first class this morning. I've tried to get it out of my head, but I just can't so I thought why not share my experience, and hopefully maybe some people will take it to heart as much as I did. A Minnesota State Trooper came and talked to my Intro to Criminal Justice class today to talk about drunk driving, texting while driving, and not wearing your seatbelt etc. I know we've all heard this over, and over again before, but once again I'm reminded how much a tragic car accident could become a reality in my own life. The trooper showed a video called "Young Forever" which had really tragic car accidents with teenagers from Minnesota caused by texting, drunking driving, and not wearing your seatbelt. It had actual pictures from the accidents (ones where the dead bodies are still in the car), and interviews with some individuals who survived the accidents and how much it has affected their lives.
The drunk driving one really hit home to me because of a few personal experiences I've had. It brought back past pain and anxiety. It just goes to show how hard it is to heal from tragedies like that. It reminded me how PRECIOUS time is. How no one is invincible, I don't care how much you think you're a good drunk driver, or texter while driving, I don't care how cool you think you look when you don't wear your seatbelt. I can't say I'm not guilty of the texting while driving, I still do it from time to time, but it has changed drastically in the past 2 years. Keep it in your pocket. Put it in your glove department. Put it anywhere but in your hands. I don't care if no ones on the rode, or how good of a driver you are. Texting while driving is just as dangerous, or more dangerous than driving while intoxicated. People need to understand how real death is. Death doesn't care if you're only 16, death doesn't care if you are just the passenger in the car, death can come at any time. And as for the driving while intoxicated, I know many people who drive places after 2 ish beers and don't think anything of it, but it's still stupid. I don't care if you had one shot, 1 beer, or half a beer. Don't go behind the wheel!!! I don't care if you're driving 3 miles to your cousins house, or how many times you've driven drunk. Do you have any idea how much risk you're putting yourself in?!? Also, wearing a seatbelt has saved SOOO many lives, and not wearing it has killed SOOOO many more. Just put it on. Take the 2 seconds to do it. Another small part that the trooper talked about was speeding. I know I'm guilty of this, but it is about to stop. If you get in a car accident while speeding the chance of death increases dramatically. The speeding limits are not a suggestion, they are laws, so follow them. They aren't there so the gov't can be jerks, and make us get to places slower than we'd like, it's for our SAFETY!!!!
It honestly scares me to death, I'm still shakey. Imagining my friends, or my brothers all of sudden dead from one of these accidents is just unfathomable. I can't stress enough how you need to listen to this message. Your life is so precious. Your time here is so precious. Life is sooo short as it is, we never know when our time is up. I feel like I could sit here and literally beg forever for people to stop doing these things, but obviously I can't make decisions for people. Death is so so real. I tried for a long time to find the video we watched online, but it basically is only a presentation for State troopers to give so it isn't on the internet, but I found a found a video from a news station on a video by State Troopers called, "How to save a life" which basically has the same concept as "Young Forever", it isn't nearly as powerful, but it will have to do. I hope whoever reads this, if anyone reads this, please take 7 min out of your day to watch the video. Just please think before you text while drive, get behind the wheel drunk, or choose to not where your seat belt. Is a text worth dying for? Is it worth getting behind the wheel drunk because "you always do it", or "I'm just driving 3 miles to my house", this could be the one time things go terribly wrong. Is your life worth dying over a piece of leather (or whatever seatbelts are made of) that you are to lazy to put on? Think about your family and friends, all the people you love. Would you want to leave them behind and have them deal with all the pain of losing you forever over your mindless decisions? Or how about possibly killing a complete stranger because you were driving drunk, or went over the center line while texting? Would you wanna live with that guilt forever? Would you want to have to apologize to the family that you changed forever? I never ever want to get a phone call saying someone I love has died (again) from one of these decisions. I never want a state trooper coming to my house to share the news. I never want to have to go to the scene to identify the body, or see the car after it has been totaled. Please, just please consider your own life, and your loved ones. Put the phone away, don't drive with even a drop of alcohol in your system, and just click that little belt that takes a second to put on. Save yourself and the lives of many others..... The news broadcast video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0ucTYTSDI0
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Sunday, November 4, 2012
S l o w D o w n
I cannot believe it has been two months since my last blog post (I should be writing a paper right now, but I'm forcing myself to do this because I NEED to). There has been so many times that I've wanted to blog, but this semester has been absolutely CRAZY. It's been quite the roller-coaster ride between school, my friends, and just taking time for myself. I originally had a blog post planned at the beginning of the semester to write about the things I've learned about myself over the summer (just like the post I did at the beginning of the summer), but life kept getting in the way, and every post I had planned since this semester began had gotten pushed out of the way until they became irrelevant. I swear I barely give myself time to breathe. I really like to have my own personal down time, and just relax, but that's something very rare in my life now-a-days.
I'd love to be able to talk about all the new things I've learned about myself, how much more I've learned to love myself, and how great my faith is right now, but honestly, those things are so jumbled right now that I really don't have too much good to say. This semester has been so different from all the others. I never realized how coming back to a new school year would feel so different in college. I live with different roommates, some friends transferred schools, and some things just aren't like they use to be, and I've struggled a lot with it. I mean, I'm use to things now, but right away it really bothered me.
I use to think I had my head on straight, and knew the type of person I was, but right now I'm so back and forth. I honestly don't even know what I define as right or wrong choices anymore. I just don't want to care to be honest. I just want to enjoy life, and do what I want. That probably makes me look like a hypocrite to some people, but honestly to those people, shut up, your hands are just as dirty as mine. I'm really struggling right now with my depression issues, they are really trying to creep up again, and it quite frankly sucks, a lot. My self-esteem is very up and down, and I've sorta lost the path I was going down towards loving myself. This semester I've taken more part in a social life that I didn't do so much before, and I'm really torn between two different sides of me. I don't know if it's just a phase or what, but I just really don't care. I want to be able to do what I want without feeling this guilt and shame I feel all the time. Like I said before, I can't decide what is right or wrong for me. My faith has been a huge part of this roller-coaster. Some days I do really well, but others I fall, a lot. I've given in to a lot of things of this world, a lot of lust, and things I know God probably isn't proud of. I want to be happy and have my relationship with him, but I'm caught in the crap of this world that shouldn't matter to me, but it does. I don't want to feel so wrong for living in this world. I can't put to words how I feel about all of this. I'm not making up excuses for my decisions to make them okay, I'm just living.
Another thing is that I was over-hearing a conversation of a friend talking about all the things he wants to do with his life, and it all sounds phenomenal. Acting, being in movies, dancing, doing his passion 24/7. It really struck in me that I think I've stopped dreaming. There's no reason to limit your life to a desk. I love that I'm going to be helping so many people in my career as a social worker, but what about my passion? What about dancing for as long as I can? I also feel like I've given up on my bucket list that I have so avidly keep adding to. A lot of it is going around the world, and seeing amazing places, but honestly, I don't see myself actually being able to do it. It would be great, but that's a lot of money to just be flying around the world all the time. I want to live an extraordinary life. I don't want to ever have to shut down my dreams because "I need to be realistic". That's b.s. to me. I think everyone should never lose the spark of the dreams you had as a child. Your life is really what you make it, and I do want to make it more than ordinary.
I need more me time. I need more nights where I just sit here with myself. I need more God in my life, but I'm fighting between two worlds. I'm really hoping next semester is easier, I know my course load is lighter so I'm really hoping things will be different, but we will see. There are certain things that are really hard for me to wait for right now, one being that I'm sick of being alone. Somedays I love that I'm single and enjoying life, but with everything so on edge right now it's really hard.
There's probably so much more I could complain about in this post, but I'll save ya'll the negativity. On one positive note, this song does put a little hope in me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEyes40uG6w
I'd love to be able to talk about all the new things I've learned about myself, how much more I've learned to love myself, and how great my faith is right now, but honestly, those things are so jumbled right now that I really don't have too much good to say. This semester has been so different from all the others. I never realized how coming back to a new school year would feel so different in college. I live with different roommates, some friends transferred schools, and some things just aren't like they use to be, and I've struggled a lot with it. I mean, I'm use to things now, but right away it really bothered me.
I use to think I had my head on straight, and knew the type of person I was, but right now I'm so back and forth. I honestly don't even know what I define as right or wrong choices anymore. I just don't want to care to be honest. I just want to enjoy life, and do what I want. That probably makes me look like a hypocrite to some people, but honestly to those people, shut up, your hands are just as dirty as mine. I'm really struggling right now with my depression issues, they are really trying to creep up again, and it quite frankly sucks, a lot. My self-esteem is very up and down, and I've sorta lost the path I was going down towards loving myself. This semester I've taken more part in a social life that I didn't do so much before, and I'm really torn between two different sides of me. I don't know if it's just a phase or what, but I just really don't care. I want to be able to do what I want without feeling this guilt and shame I feel all the time. Like I said before, I can't decide what is right or wrong for me. My faith has been a huge part of this roller-coaster. Some days I do really well, but others I fall, a lot. I've given in to a lot of things of this world, a lot of lust, and things I know God probably isn't proud of. I want to be happy and have my relationship with him, but I'm caught in the crap of this world that shouldn't matter to me, but it does. I don't want to feel so wrong for living in this world. I can't put to words how I feel about all of this. I'm not making up excuses for my decisions to make them okay, I'm just living.
Another thing is that I was over-hearing a conversation of a friend talking about all the things he wants to do with his life, and it all sounds phenomenal. Acting, being in movies, dancing, doing his passion 24/7. It really struck in me that I think I've stopped dreaming. There's no reason to limit your life to a desk. I love that I'm going to be helping so many people in my career as a social worker, but what about my passion? What about dancing for as long as I can? I also feel like I've given up on my bucket list that I have so avidly keep adding to. A lot of it is going around the world, and seeing amazing places, but honestly, I don't see myself actually being able to do it. It would be great, but that's a lot of money to just be flying around the world all the time. I want to live an extraordinary life. I don't want to ever have to shut down my dreams because "I need to be realistic". That's b.s. to me. I think everyone should never lose the spark of the dreams you had as a child. Your life is really what you make it, and I do want to make it more than ordinary.
I need more me time. I need more nights where I just sit here with myself. I need more God in my life, but I'm fighting between two worlds. I'm really hoping next semester is easier, I know my course load is lighter so I'm really hoping things will be different, but we will see. There are certain things that are really hard for me to wait for right now, one being that I'm sick of being alone. Somedays I love that I'm single and enjoying life, but with everything so on edge right now it's really hard.
There's probably so much more I could complain about in this post, but I'll save ya'll the negativity. On one positive note, this song does put a little hope in me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEyes40uG6w
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