Breathing is Easy, it's Easy to do

"Living is Simple" by Switchfoot is one of my favorite songs. The tune as well as the meaning of the song itself just relaxes me and makes me feel less stressed. When I think about the lyrics, I begin to realize myself that there are bigger problems out there than mine. In this song Switchfoot is singing about the fact that simply living is so easy to do, like breathing it's just kind of an involuntary motion that just happens. And maybe it means that living a bigger more meaningful life is harder, but when they sing the part about how they've "made their choices" and "chosen today" it just kind of puts everything into prospective for me and I realize that I can't dwell on little troublesome things that make me feel as if "I'm falling apart" because the truth is... I'm really not. Everything will be okay as it always is and God will take care of me, because everything happens for a reason and I just have to put my faith in God to make things happen for me. The "gravity" that they sing about will take me where I'm supposed to go so there's no use stressing and feeling down about little things.

Here's the lyrics:

Living in simple
Living is simple

Living is simple
It's gravity; gravity isn't so hard
Living is simple
It's entropy; entropy, falling apart
I'm falling apart again

Living is simple
And breathing is easy, it's easy to do
Living is simple
And losing is easy; I'm losing my cool
I'm losing my cool again

All will be made well
Will be made well
Will be made well
Will be well

Is this fiction?
Is this fiction?
Hope has given himself to the worst

Is this fiction or divine comedy?
Where the last of the last finish first

Living is simple
Living is simple
Living is simple

Living is dying
Your mercy, Your mercy is how I believe
Living is dying
I can't understand it
I'm down on my knees confessing my needs again

I've had my choices
I've chosen today
I've had my choices
Choices remain

Is this fiction? Is this fiction?
Hope has given himself to the worst
Is this fiction or divine comedy?
Where the last of the last finish first

Living is simple
Living is simple
Living is simple

$$$

Upon entering college, most teenagers find themselves making their first financial decisions of their lives. By becoming more and  more responsible for paying for necessary things, the money choices are in their hands now (whether they earned it or get a set allowance from their parents) and with that newfound freedom, some teenagers tend to go a little overboard with spending and don't make the best decisions and that seems to be a very potentially harmful problem.     

I had never thought that I would ever take out a loan before I entered college. The idea of having to borrow money for something I want later seemed like such a bad idea. However, I found the choice to come to Southern Methodist University despite the extremely high tuition fees, dorm costs, and meal plans to be a wise investment. And even with all of the scholarship money and grants I got from the school of music there was still going to be a relatively small loan that I would have to take out. 

So I made my choice to come here because I wanted to and took out a very demanding job over the summer. I became a baker with some friends and was working about a 30 hour week (while attending a music conservatory at the same time because I wanted to keep improving as a musician in order to be competitive in college). And even though my friends went out all the time to shop with their big pay checks, I made my first financial decision (beside the one to actually take out the loan) to have my checks directly deposited to remain untouched by me all summer. This was a great benefit to me and a great life lesson.

And now I see others in college that are always buying new things and making financial decisions that are not always in their best interest and then I found out that their parents are paying for the college education entirely. I think that is not a very wise decision and potentially very harmful to the student later on. They will not know that feeling of devotion necessary for working hard now and not getting all the little things they want now, but getting the big things that they ultimately need later. This is a very essential life skill in my opinion and not obtaining that since of frugality in college at the least can lead to a not so prosperous future.  

"'Til Death do us Part"? Hardly...

There are tons of variations of what relationships are, what they mean, and how real they really are. The main point I'm bringing up that is in question to me right now is a boyfriend/ girlfriend relationship. 

I had been dating the same person for almost two years now and it suddenly all ended last night. I thought our relationship would be forever and so do a lot of people my age and even younger, but the truth is that nothing is set in stone. I looked back and realized that my feelings had changed and then I thought how could I have felt this way one day and another way the very next day. 

Then I thought about little kids in middle school and even elementary school that break out the "L" word without even thinking twice, they even go so far as saying that they're going to marry that person. It's insane. 

However, I have come to the conclusion that no one can really know all these questions for sure 100% of the time even if they're wiser with age. Some people get married and say "I do... 'til death do us part" but then get divorced within so little as a year. Relationships questions are kind of something that are unanswerable. However, I also feel that I may just be ranting because I felt so secure in my relationship, but then ended it myself and now I am miserable. I do not feel happier than I was by any means. Unexplainable.

If I am so sad now how could it be the right thing. Friends keep telling me "It'll be ok" and "you'll feel better later". But why go through it? It hurts my grades, my skill level as a musician, my sleeping and eating patterns, and even other relationships (as in ones with other friends). Any insight anyone?  

Comment

I attempted to post a comment on Paris Hilton's "Taking Attendance? Back to High School" back when we were doing that trial run for posting comments in class, but it didn't work so I emailed the comment to myself:

From:   Sloan, Rochelle Catherine  Sent:   Fri 9/5/2008 10:43 AM  To:   Sloan, Rochelle Catherine  Cc:     Subject:   Blog Comment  Attachments:  View As Web Page

A friend of mine that attends UNT told me on his first day that he had a class with 315 people in it and that they do not take attendance and I was shocked because the largest class I am in contains around 30 people and the teacher calls my name out everyday. So I agree, it is ridiculous that SMU actually checks daily to see if you're in class. And the truth is that it should not matter whether or not we attend class or not to the professors because we are paying thousands of dollars for our education, so the choice of how we plan to utilize our very expensive education should be up to us.

And then reposted it today! I hate technology sometimes...

A Consuming, Forbidden Love

I thought I would make a different kind of post today because of some random inspiration that stirred up some thoughts earlier this week. As I was sitting in a practice room I heard from the room next door one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard. It just made me so emotional upon hearing it I just couldn't help thinking of what the inspiration for this deep consuming song was. So I knocked on the door and complimented the musician and asked her what the name of the song was. She called it Moonlight Sonata. 

I looked it up online and found the meaning and researched a couple more songs upon finding this one. And it turns out you can find so much about a piece of music by just looking at how the composer lived. That's so interesting to me and I wanted to just share this song with everybody after sharing the underlying meaning of it:

Basically this song was written about the love shared by thirty-one-year-old Beethoven and the seventeen-year- old Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. The two fell in after only a few piano lessons together.  Their love continued to grow stronger as time went on, and Beethoven became so entranced with this woman that he wrote a love song to her.  After dedicating the piece to her, Beethoven proposed.  She accepted;  however, one of her parents did not consent to the union so the marriage never commenced. Although the ending to this love story does not end as we would want, the love that they shared inspired one of the most inspiring piano works of Beethoven’s career.  

This was the only recording I could find of it, but the song is truly gorgeous as you can hear: