val·i·date

I cannot ask others for validation...

So I have to learn to be secure in myself and leave the rest to god...

I am on the same playing field as the rest of the world, so letting someone else with their own lesson to be learned, define: my worth, place in life, and who I am is absurd. I'm not gonna let that stay as an option anymore.

Raise Your Weapon -DEADMAU5

Messed up, so I'm starting back at the beginning...

But like I said, "Living a reality, chasing a reality, but heading towards where I'm meant to be...".


So,

"DAY 1

Tips for the First 30 Days

Read a message a day for the next 30 days.
If you miss a day, just pick up where you left off.

“To make the changes we want, we need to let go of unhealthy but comfortable patterns that we’re stuck in, the way the trees let their colors change, and finally let go of their leaves altogether.”

-Marie Lindquist

Today is the beginning of your decision to quit. The first month off any substance is the most important. Taking it one day at a time is the easiest way to get there. Don’t worry about tomorrow or the next, just stay with today. Take each urge and situation one step at a time. Each time you get through the urge and craving you are closer to success.

By reading these messages, you can keep your commitment to stop using. With the information and support in these messages, you’ll have a very good chance to make your success last.

For today:

• Be proud of each success through a craving or urge.
• Remember the positive payoff for success.
• Reward yourself at the end of the day.

Now imagine you find yourself in a situation where you suddenly feel like getting high. Nothing you do seems to help shake the urge. Rather than give in to it, give yourself a chance to think it over. Sometimes, all you need is a little time to think it over — to give yourself the chance to let the urge pass and to remember it will pass whether you use or not.

Today, make sure to keep doing those things that have worked so far. If need be write down what worked best so that you can use it again tomorrow.

Good Luck!!!" -http://oade.nd.edu/educate-yourself-drugs/marijuana-or-cannabis-sativa/marijuana-manual/

Didn't miss you, but I guess we were meant to run back into eachother

How did I get here again? How?

I really don't know.  Freshman year, I suppose I didn't really know how to deal with everything so I started lying, letting things spin out of control, never really representing the truth. But I accepted the story I had woven, owned it, and decided to move on... or at least be done with what had been going on. I guess it took about a year to fuck me up, so it'd take a year to put me back together- sophomore year.

But after all of that, I really thought I had been done. Like I finally had built a foundation that would take me to my life's purpose, my freedom, my faith. 

And yet, I'm back to being that person who I can't seem to leave alone. The slight hollow feeling, sunken confidence, caustic disposition. This is the person who has comforted me through it all- when I didn't know who I was, I always could slip into this.

Now, I'm working towards 30 days of consecutive sobriety (in particular to weed), I stole a beer from my aunt and uncle (which I promptly admitted- something that arose no problem at the time), and they're now convinced I snuck in while they were away, pilfered their liquor (x_x) cabinets, and are on a quest to see my demise via my parents.

Now to be honest, I'm a hot mess I have room to grow as a person. I understand and admit that. And a part of me thinks that th!s is just displaying that divine encouragement. Not that I did do all that stuff they're accusing me of, but I have a feeling that this stuff usually happens after putting off living in your authentic life for so long.

We've all been there, or are waiting for our turn...
But ruin is the road to transformation...
and I thank god for the opportunity. 

I am beyond sick of :

smoking pot, owing everyone money left and right, being owed money, being bombarded by people to buy from them all the time, missing my friends who don't smoke pot, believing that everything is better high

Being a fatty, not exercising, feeling like shit, relying on anti-depressants that aren't even working, not  learning how to help the world, not having my permit, being tired and sick all time.

I want to write about interesting things, think about ideas that have little or nothing to do with any inebriation, learn languages, experience cultures...

Live the stories that I'm waiting to tell.

I need a job that:

-Keeps me busy
-Challenges me
-Allows me to interact with people as much as possible
-Helps me grow as a person
-Pays enough to start saving for independence
-Is interesting to me


Just some beginning ideas...
Barnes&Nobel
Starbucks
Whole Foods
Community Market

:}

Time to say goodbye I think...at least for now.

Waste of Time

"Anybody pretending to be anything other than who you real are- you will never, ever reach your personal potential." -Oprah Winfrey

Today I watched, "Master Class: Oprah Winfrey pt 2", and there was a part in which I realized something. I was about to type "learn"... but I realize that this wasn't a notion foreign to me, it was just a hidden truth.

She said, 

Anybody pretending to be anything other than who you really are—you will never, ever reach your personal potential.

—Oprah

This message has found me a thousand times over, and I'm starting to think I can actually start living my life in accordance to this.

...

Now who am I?

Reconnecting to my authentic-self

It bothers me that I formed a notion that affected my world so powerfully.

It's over now, and it's odd. It could seem like I waited until the storm had passed, but I realize that I just learned to dance in the rain.

It is this shift in my thinking that is opening the doors to my future.

Inspiration

So whats mine? 

I wan't to change the world.

I want to be a light.

A blessing in someones life.

A rainbow in someones cloud.

Someone who made the world a better place.

Someone who changed a life.

The problem is, I don't know what I'm passionate about yet.

I love children.

So maybe I could volunteer abroad in an orphanage.

Or work with Save The Children Foundation. 

I could go to the JC and become an R.N.

I could work with Nurses Without Borders.

I see a different world and I want to be a part of it.

Boundaries.

This is something however, that I have had issue defining in my own life. For me, whether it be with my "best friend" who I was madly in love with since I met him in kindergarten, or telling people others business... I hadn't really perfected my definition. Currently, I am in a situation in which I can learn even more (and although I find it humorously painful to say so, "Thank you for this opportunity to grow as a being God ;).  

Now I've always seem to have found boundaries like this- Talk with person; Keep talking until I eventually tell them something that they react strongly too; After multiple encounters with this same person and same reaction, I might decide to stop talking about whatever. 

Here I find myself again, confiding in some one in a search for validation. Now that I'm validated, I can continue on with my life. But now this person is stuck life a broken record, fixating on an issue that was overcome with some conversation, human connection, and affirmation.

I need to start loving myself. haha, seriously. I get myself into these situations that would've never culminated to that point if I had an unwaivering strength. Instead I indulged a self-pity that made me look like a pill-popping addict when in reality, I was apathetic and restless.

I have a lot to learn, I know that. And all of this is a part of a lesson plan. But there is more I can be doing and maybe I had to get this restless, to this point I've been in, before I decided I had enough and needed to be better. I am better. 

Now that I am back in control of my life, I need to set-up healthy boundaries. I am learning how to pick myself up after falling down, and now I'm just dusting myself off.

Sorry G#####. You really got me through this year to where I am today. But now that the year is over, and I am okay- I realize that most of what you said was just your reality projected onto me. And as I'm sure you'd agree, I crave attention. Attention that you could give me. So why need I validate myself when I can have others do it for me. I am sincerely thankful for what you did for me, you got me through a lot and presented ideas to me that I needed to be exposed to. But I have bigger fish to fry and so I'm respectfully pulling away from you. You were one of the many teachers I have and will have encountered in my life and I am deeply appreciative for that. But I'm shedding my skin, really breaking into who I am, and you're no longer a part of that. 

bound·a·ry

 

[boun-duh-ree, -dree] 

–noun, plural -ries.

1.

something that indicates bounds  or limits; a limiting orbounding  line.

2.

Also called frontier. Mathematics . the collection of all pointsof a given set having the property that every neighborhoodof each point contains points in the set and in thecomplement of the set.

3.

Cricket . a hit in which the ball reaches or crosses theboundary line  of the field on one or more bounces, countingfour runs for the batsman. Compare six ( def. 5 ) .

Clean up time.

Someone who had seen my blog told me that he enjoyed it, yet there was a hesistent breathe waiting to say something. After I had gave him permission to speak his oppinion, he told me that he didn't see the point of it. Not thatI shouldn't continue it, but he didn't see it's direction, it's cause and proposed effect.

So I'm skimming through, editing old stuff, putting in new stuff, and making it to shape my truth.

Just :}

I was told I couldn't be A Maya Angelou; and the truth is, I couldn't. But I can be Joshua Cobb. And I can be amazing. :} I can make the world a better place, and I'm going to do it.

"Try to be a rainbow in someones cloud." -Dr. Maya Angelou

Important to remember

I was going back and reading some of my older post, and reflecting upon where I've been, where I am, and where I'm going. I cannot believe I didn't hold onto this notion more closely. So here it is again:

"Every time I feel like I'm moving forward, someone reminds me I'm still the dork with glasses and braces.


Yeah but those braces are coming off any day now.


But what if nothing changes, then I'll have nothing to blame


Honey you got to stop, somehow you got it in your head that this is your story..But you got to let that go. It's time to come up with a whole new story for yourself- you are who you are. The sooner you are okay with that, you see what I see, you'll be happier.. I swear to god." -Ugly Betty


:) Important to remember

This is my bliss.

 "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", or "I am a man, I consider nothing that is human alien to me." -Terence

This summer I want to read each and everyone of Maya Angelou's books. I really want to be great, but until I learn, I cannot influence the world the way I want to. So I want to start with one of the most inspirational teachers ever, the one and only, Maya Angelou. 

I have the coolest parents ever! :}

My Mom was voted most religious in a Catholic high school down in L.A.. But then when she graduated, she moved up north the middle of no-where, lake county, to run a motel/bar with her mom. There, she became a drug-crazed bad ass. Getting in bar fights with other girls, Riding a motorcycle, she was sick. But then she had two little boys, ran away from her abusive husband, and become a police officer.

My step-dad is also pretty sick. He grew up in a family of a million (haha, just kidding.. it was like 13 or 14). Then he went to Chico (party town), became a Simon&Garfunkel roadie, and smoked lots of pot with them. He is a total liberal hippie dippy forest man. He became a clown, and now he's a plumber that puts in the pipes in crazy new buildings (so it isn't so gross).

They had a sadistic littler girl together, and I love her.

Oh..and my brother is autistic (so he's really sensitive to every little thing..things people dont even notice, can set him off). My step-sister is the bestest friend anyone could have (so suck it). She got suspended because she got smashed drunk, blacked out, and got in a fight with the police. Bad ass.

So I have an amazing family. :P

oh! and my "biological father", is probably in prison, schizophrenic, and loves drugs and hitting people..oh and stealing. again, badass.

haha

♥

Been on the same bus for the last 2 hours (kinda got lost).

And the bus driver, after 27 years of working as a driver only had one thing to say about it.

"Driving the bus is the easy part, but people..."

:} a bit of wisdom always makes me happy

It is a sympotom of the problem, not the problem..

But what a symptom to have

Last night I posted a picture with the caption, "On the edge...". This worried me. Being on the edge isn't something that would ever seem to be a good thing. I just keep imagining falling off, thats what comes to mind with the word edge.. in fact, everytime i've fealt "on the edge", i've always felt like i was going to fall off.

but then this song found me.. "The Edge of Glory"

I never thought of it like that. But maybe, just maybe.. I'm on the edge of glory :}

one can hope.

one can believe.

faith.

REINVENTION

It exist.

So what if I had cancer...

Preface: I keep censoring my blog.. I keep feeling like that it is too much to put out there or that I should edit it like I would my Facebook..but that is exactly opposite from why I created this page.. I needed to blindly put everything out there, and know that I had processed it.. so that's why I'm not going to mind that this question is insensitive to cancer patients, survivors, casualties, and their friends and family. This is a valid question.

"What if I had cancer?". But more so, "What if I had a clear time limit on my life?". Would I really be sitting here blogging? Would I still be in school? Would I still be friends with the people I see daily? Maybe I would...That's something I can't really know. 

But I do believe there is too much to learn in this life to be wasting it with menial time fillers. There's too much to experience to be so locked into a set schedule, a set life, a set mind.. I wan't to explore! I want to breathe, I want to love and I want to even experience some hurt. But empty journeys, fear-filled decisions, and this "GO GO GO, NOW GO, GO!!!!" lifestyle is too much. 

I don't mind working hard, I really don't. I love enthralling every last drop of energy into a meaningful project, or mission. It's just when I am lost, left catching my breath, and looking around... that I realize the truth- I've worked so hard for the anti-thesis of fulfillment. What I've acquired is nothing more than opened eyes, and a hope that things will change sooner, rather than later.

It seems so obvious on the outside

...but only because you aren't here