The stages of my life

So, up until this point of my life, I am finding there are a few definable stages I have been through which largely make me who I am. I want to take a look at these and examine where I have been, where I am, and where I am heading.

First stage: Martial arts. I started MA when I was very young and continued for a good 6-8 years. That is where I got the fighter in me to come out. This is where I learned discipline, hard work, and dedication.

Second stage: Music is born. The next stage I hit was listening to heavy music. This will be the biggest influence on my life I think, I always looked up to my brother and definitely copied whatever he listened to, haha, but I did truly like what I was listening to.

Third stage: Guitar. The music stage actually didn't lead me to learning the guitar. I saw my brother come home with a bass guitar and I thought it was soooo cool so I just decided to buy one myself.

fourth stage: Social anxiety starts to take its toll. I think I had social anxiety way prior to this, but by this time I was well into high school and it had a huge affect on me then. I didn''t really know it or wanted to admit it. I was always confused by my feelings. My social anxiety led me to alienate myself from others (thus exacerbating the effects of it), and always being alone in what I do. This also loed me to a lot of depression which in turn led to a lot of creativity

fifth stage: The positive stage. This is when I saw the website positivefeelingsrule.com The fact that there was a website dedicated towards things being positive changed my whole outlook on life. I think that website is ultimately what made me able to, later on, subjugate my depression and anxiety.

sixth stage: Practice practice practice. At this point in my life, guitar was no longer just an instrument. It waas my way of speaking, not verbally like most (social anxiety). I spent hours and hours practicing and playing''', I miss those days

seventh stage: College stage. I am not sure how college really helped me develop. I was still socially anxious, and my limiting group of friends seemed to somewhat understand that. I guess what I learned from being in college was to meet as many people as I can, something I greatly missed out on and think ahead.

eigth stage. Extreme change. Bodybuilding and full gear towards creating an album. I started bodybuilding and that changed me completely. It gave me a new found confidence as well as strength other than physical. It was another outlet and another way to separate myself from people as well as connect with others. For most of the two years that I have been bodybuilding, I have put it before making music because I feel it was something I had to seriously work on.

ninth stage: Undermind and The Beckoning Lake. This stage is the story about all the tension and anxiey I have had over the years and learning, twisting, changing, from it and letting it go. Subconsciously, that is what The Beckoning Lake is about. However, it is also about so much more

tenth stage: The fighter returns. i then got into martial arts again, but in general I just started fighting. I constantly had battles with myself as well as other people. I would make everything a competition so that I can strive to be better and better. This REALLY showed in bodybuilding, and at the present time, well my results compared to others, speak for themselves.

eleventh stage: Exploration. This is my time to start learning so many new things and getting absorbed into everything that I missed out on, such as reading, dancing, new music, connecting with people, being friendly etc etc. I am now heavily into music, bodybuilding, connecting with others, dancing, reading, etc etc. I am finally learning who I am to become.

Where am I going from here?

reading, humor, and more

For a long time, a lot of my life I have not been reading. Only now am I realizing how bad that really is. I do enjoy reading, but I usually don't make the time for it, partly because it takes so long to do. Reading not only will make you more knowledgable, but it will help you connect with everyone else. I am not going to break down the benefits of reading because I feel they are fairly obvious. However, what I will do, is state that I really need to get my ass in gear and play catch up!

Another issue that has been coming up is my lack of humor. It's not that I am completely bland and unfunny, its just that I tend to laugh at things that not everyone else does. I need/want to change that. Humor is another great way of connecting with people, and just like everything else I believe you can develop and build a sense of humor. I laugh at a lot of sarcasm, and that is also my strength when it comes to humor. I feel that so many jokes are dumb and not thought out, but so many people seem to laugh at them and well, may be I should learn to do the same. I find that when I am rested and not so stressed, I can laugh a LOT more and joke way more than when I am. I tend to get too rigid with myself and I think I confused that with maturity. I will learn to always remain a mature kid. I think that is the best balance possible.

For the first time, I am feeling like I should keep my blog a little more private (its not like I have a huge audience anyway). For some reason, I don't know if I am feeling vulnerable or what, I feel like I shouldn't or don't need to be sharing all of this with other people...lots of thinking to be had