The Path to 2020

The road is long, with many a winding turn.

Blah blah blah.

We are all, every one of us, a product of our environment. Who controls that environment changes through at least three stages of life, but for the most part, it is the Self that runs the show, makes the good choices, makes the bad and deal with the results of each in their turn.

I think I've said before that I have lived a life full f more opportunity that any one person deserves, and I have squandered a lot of it because of and not limited to:

1.          Fear
2.          Stupidity
3.          Lack of information and being too lazy to find shit out.
4.          Prolly under the above banner but I'll list it by itself, Lack of care.

Lost friends, lost love, lost jobs, lost money, lost myself because of any and /or all of the above. Abandoned people I shouldn't have for most of the above reasons too.Not pretty, not pretty at all.

(If anyone tells me to get over it, its in the past, forget it, etc etc, be aware its not. It's a cold, person who can just forget stuff.)

Moving on ...

There are many things I have wanted to do that fall outside of my comfort zone and for many or all of the above listed reasons I've not done them.

I wanted to write books and stories since I was a little kid. took me to my 30's to start, my 40's to get real about it. And when I got real about it, first thing I submitted was accepted and printed in a collection by one of the largest printing houses in the world.

As I said when I hung up the phone after a 2:00am phone call from NewYork that I had been accepted:

FUCK YEAH!!!

Or in the Marvel Universe Norse God speak: Fornicateth yea!!!

 (Sorry Steve, but yeah, I still swear a lot. Supposedly the sign of a high intelligence. Who knew... )

But ... did I follow up with that, as others also in the collection did??

No.

Wrote more, put together a couple dodgey versions and self published. Made a few enquiries but never really followed up. Many people who followed along helped me sort some of that stuff out ( Thanks Russell, Noel, Rob and Ali M) along with a few other supporters, but I didn't really give it my all. I just fluffed the chance and let nature take its course.

Built a TV show but let others tell me how it should have been done, not what was on TV ATM etc etc. I didn't push hard enough, now there are versions of what I want to do every-fucking-where. I might have been early, but I should have been first.

Nature, BTW, doesn't give a shit. You stop moving, you become food for something, even if it is your own lack of inertia.

Funny, but when I started to care, all of a sudden things start popping. A producer liked my concept and offered to help. We got along, we started to build it again. Currently on hiatus because he got an offer he couldn't refuse (I'd whack him if he did) the new TV show is awaiting our attention when we're back on the same page.

Then there's After the Flood, what started as a little short horror story about a river monster that eats a few citizens is now 500 pages of story with all sorts of things in it to attract attention.

And i'm rewriting it, coz I don't love it yet, but I will, and I have a new editor to help in the first instance (thanks Leisa) to get it through my head and onto paper. It's also spawned an accompanying volume called RAIN (Before the Flood), a short subject that saves dumping a lot of exposition in the main book.

There's also been a commissioned piece I've been invited to work on. Can't say much on that, but its exciting and a huge project that will be demanding and fun at the same time.

So now:

ANNOUNCEMENT Number One

Restarting my old

NITEWRITER MEDIA 

label, to get into marketing and pushing this monster along. Already have had positive feedback that's helped propel it through some early hiccups so onward I think.

This alone is big news, for me at least.

Moving on ...

I hate my job, my day bill paying job, that is. I no longer care who knows. 35 years and its boring. repetitive, full of people I'd rather not have in my life, even for a few minutes let alone years. There are many things I've thought of doing, many involving effort and pain but ...see above reasons.

I was offered a job that would now see me as the owner of successful business. didn't take it coz I needed to run away from a situation that was not as bad as I imagined, though still bad enough to a place I have grown to despise. Lost some of my finest people in the doing so. Have got a couple back but and I love them dearly, but it's years later and not the same because, years.

ld have transitioned a coup,e of times but out of my comfort zone, so didn't.

A quick aside, if I may:

FUCK YOUR COMFORT ZONE.

If it feels uncomfortable, it's prolly the right choice at the time. If it feels really dangerous, think a bit harder, but man, have a go. The rewards are massive. How many people do I now that stepped out, in the face of doubt and disbelief into their own thing, struggled a tiny bit but are now happier than they have ever been, doing stuff they love and getting the rewards due.

They took the risk.

It paid off, too many times to be a fluke.

Back to the story:

Always wanted to cook, even as a kid. My aunty was the doyen of Maltese cooking. My mum wasn't too bad either. When I was 12 I started working on what has become the worlds best rumballs. Almost perfect, still got a bit until they're perfect perfect. Along the way, I learned heaps from professionals and amateurs alike. I developed my own things, recipes and flavours but

Yup, didn't follow thru.

Until a couple months ago, when out of the blue, from a source - several of them - I had never considered I was encouraged to have a go, and I thought to myself

FOOD TRUCK.

Smoking beef and pork and chicken, making sauces and flatbreads all in real time. Put a lot of effort into that, learned heaps more, planned and set up the whole thing. Its a viable business, but do you know how labour intensive it is?? It would kill me. So, over the past few weeks, have scaled it back to something more manageable

Met a loverly young lady in Queensland who gave me a hint. Took her advice - so against my nature its not funny and now its doable.

Over the past couple of years I've developed a couple of sauces, BBQ sauces that are a dream. Lots of flavour, a little heat, great as a dip or as a marinade or as a sauce.

They work. Added in an apple jelly only able to be made a few weeks of the year from wild grown apples. (I used to love apple jelly as a little kid, then it just sort of disappeared). Have a coupe of more ideas to flesh out, but that brings me to

ANNOUNCEMENT Number Two

 A while back I started a foodie type blog that  add to occasionally. Not nearly enough, but its fun. Started out as a way to abuse fast food places that pissed me off, but morphed into a wild-food/cooking/ideas thing. It's called

BIG RIVER COTTAGE

and that's it. A new boutique label of sauces and accompaniments that will do selected markets and mail order. Currently in negotiation to market a range of honey as well, specially produced by a friend that has amped up the health and wellbeing factor a hundred fold based on Manuka Honey. Again, and i'm sorry, but details need to be kept close for the minute, but its a big one. Big River Cottage will handle some distribution and sales. This honey is special. Each frame has a different flavour, so startlingly different it will amaze you. Citrus, flowers, fruit. Macadamia favoured honey with nothing added but what the bees put in. Yeah.

Other things in the pipeline as well. in the process of building a website and setting up some infrastructure to get this running smoothly. I'll announce when its up and open, hopefully a couple of weeks, say end January, but dependant on other factors like writing and stuff.

And all ebing equal, we will be on the move again. Grown tired of this place. It's a pretty place in places, and we've met some truly wonderful people, but on the whole, its the people outside that small band that ruin the place. It's a place that is capable of anything, with the potential for so much, but apathy, maybe something along the lines of corruption and greed have all but killed its spirit. opportunity wasted. And that same apathy is seductive. If not kept on a tight leash, it invades your mind and you become like the very people you once despised.

Fuck 'em. Onward, Upward and outtta here. I'd like to say it's been fun, but I can't. Looking to a new brighter future somewhere else.

That's all for now. There will be more. Thanks for staying if you've reached this point. Comments always welcome.

HAPPY NEW YEAR. 

Welcome 2020 and all the promise you bring with you.

Bz

A New Start

Let's hope.

I started this with the intention of it being a sort of spiritual type deep and meaningful blog full of sensitive thoughts and wise words and all things like that.

That was the intention.

The reality is/was that I let myself drift too far from that ideal. I lost my connection to myself due to many environmental hassles as well as being time poor (or so I thought) and letting things rule my life rather than the other way round.

And thus it has lain idle for many a year (5 of 'em, count 'em. Five!!).

Of late, things have changed. This is the true dawning of Aquarius it seems. Drama - ever my enemy - reared its ugly head and held me captive for a long long time.  had to be everything to everyone, rockstar engineering support, super father, super husband, attentive friend. I took on problems I had no business dealing with, and I made sure everyone got through their hassles, surmounted their problems and walked away happy.

Everyone but me.

Five odd months ago and I get a phone call, the details of which will be spoken of soon, maybe not this post but soon. Suffice to say that things happened, things I was no prepared for, and in the course of dealing with them as best I could, found myself overwhelmed. The past - my past, that I had thought safety contained and controlled - was brought back into the light in a sudden and shocking way. Things I thought - if not forgotten, at least dealt with - became a monster loose from its chains and roaming wild in my mind, breaking other thoughts I'd covered and buried out of their confnes and allowing them to ride roughshod across my life.

I began to relive past mistakes, and they are many.

Too fucking many.

And for a minute, just one, maybe a few more, I lost the one thing I have always held dear.

I lost control.

I wrote something a long time ago that became part of a reasonably popular book optioned for a movie that didn't eventuate.



Time doesn't heal all wounds. Sometimes it just covers them with scar tissue.



It's funny, at 57 years of age, having endured some stuff as we all do in our life of collecting experiences, how easy it is to let those experiences just turn into a fucking disaster. You know its not a disaster, because here you are, 30 odd years after it all went wrong, having processed and worked through anger, pain, misery sadness to acceptance that its over and that is that, so it can't be bad, can it?

Here to tell you buddy, you might think you've done the work and set it all aside, but I'm willing to bet all you've done is cover it up or even buried it. That fucker is still in there, waiting for something to trigger its release.

It's not pretty.

Heart racing at an unhealthy level, unable to sleep, especially when you're a bad sleeper at the best of times, can't eat, want to drink all the wrong things. Pain for no other reason than you need to feel something. Panic. an overlying sense of doom.

All it took was a phone call.

On the surface, an innocent thing. ld friends catching up, a comment made, a disaster unfolding and your away.

The details will come out soon. I promise. It may be boring to you, I don;t know. Given my level of investment, it was life of death to me. It still is, but with a little luck, a lot of management and love from some unexpected sources, I might just turn this monster around and either kill him off, or just get him locked back under a tonne or two of new memories.

So yes, there will be some soul searching. There will be some stories. There will be some spirituality, some sense of spirit at least, a little numerology, astrology and just pouring from the heart rather than the mind. it will not be the blod=g I wanted, but it will be the one I need. In time it might go back to that loft ideal it started at, but for now its my diary, or maybe my journal.

It will be told in the style of parables, along with just flat out prose as I unburden my mind, and perhaps my heart. I'll probably cry as I do it at points along the way, but unless I tell you, you'll never know. There will be times when I break the fourth wall and converse with anyone out there that wants to talk back, sometimes it will just be free-form shit as it flows from my mind to my fingers.

There will be spelling errors, and punctuation mistakes. Get used to them now.

Tomorrow, at the end of the year, as the new moon begins its course across the sky, I think I'll begin. Until then, I'll go read a book.

Comments welcome. Be nice. Peace and love people.

Keep this in mind

Borrowed from:

Mindfulness Coach

http://www.mindfulnesscoach.com.au/

Doesn't take much, dies it??

Peace.

take what you need, there's always more.

Stolen from Lifebuzz. This is brilliant. Take what you need to get through the hard times.

30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself. #10 Is An Absolute Must.

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Marc and Angel, two passionate writers, life-hackers and “admirers of the human spirit,” have come up with an amazing list of 30 things to stop doing to yourself. If you like their list, make sure you check out their site and sign up to their amazing newsletter.

#1. Stop spending time with the wrong people. – Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you.  If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you.  You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot.  Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth.  And remember, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.

pongboy

#2. Stop running from your problems. – Face them head on.  No, it won’t be easy.  There is no person in the world capable of flawlessly handling every punch thrown at them.  We aren’t supposed to be able to instantly solve problems.  That’s not how we’re made.  In fact, we’re made to get upset, sad, hurt, stumble and fall.  Because that’s the whole purpose of living – to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time.  This is what ultimately molds us into the person we become.

#3. Stop lying to yourself. – You can lie to anyone else in the world, but you can’t lie to yourself.  Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult chance we can take is to be honest with ourselves.

aberrantbeauty.tumblr.com

#4. Stop putting your own needs on the back burner. – The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.  Yes, help others; but help yourself too.  If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.

pinterest

#5. Stop trying to be someone you’re not. – One of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that’s trying to make you like everyone else.  Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you.  Don’t change so people will like you.  Be yourself and the right people will love the real you.

#6. Stop trying to hold onto the past. – You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.

Max Rossi / Reuters

#7. Stop being scared to make a mistake. – Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing.  Every success has a trail of failures behind it, and every failure is leading towards success.  You end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.

#8. Stop berating yourself for old mistakes. – We may love the wrong person and cry about the wrong things, but no matter how things go wrong, one thing is for sure, mistakes help us find the person and things that are right for us.  We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past.  But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future.  Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.

#9. Stop trying to buy happiness. – Many of the things we desire are expensive.  But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free – love, laughter and working on our passions.

#10. Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness. – If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either.  You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else.

Andy Hutchinson

#11. Stop being idle. – Don’t think too much or you’ll create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place.  Evaluate situations and take decisive action.  You cannot change what you refuse to confront.  Making progress involves risk.  Period!  You can’t make it to second base with your foot on first.

betterphoto.com

#12. Stop thinking you’re not ready. – Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises.  Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means we won’t feel totally comfortable at first.

cajamediterraneo

#13. Stop getting involved in relationships for the wrong reasons. – Relationships must be chosen wisely.  It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.  There’s no need to rush.  If something is meant to be, it will happen – in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason. Fall in love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely.

budi ‘ccline’

#14. Stop rejecting new relationships just because old ones didn’t work. – In life you’ll realize that there is a purpose for everyone you meet.  Some will test you, some will use you and some will teach you.  But most importantly, some will bring out the best in you.

#15. Stop trying to compete against everyone else. – Don’t worry about what others are doing better than you.  Concentrate on beating your own records every day.  Success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.

claudio campa

#16. Stop being jealous of others. – Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own.  Ask yourself this:  “What’s something I have that everyone wants?”

Stuface

#17. Stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself. – Life’s curveballs are thrown for a reason – to shift your path in a direction that is meant for you.  You may not see or understand everything the moment it happens, and it may be tough.  But reflect back on those negative curveballs thrown at you in the past.  You’ll often see that eventually they led you to a better place, person, state of mind, or situation.  So smile!  Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.

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#18. Stop holding grudges. – Don’t live your life with hate in your heart.  You will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate.  Forgiveness is not saying, “What you did to me is okay.”  It is saying, “I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.”  Forgiveness is the answer… let go, find peace, liberate yourself!  And remember, forgiveness is not just for other people, it’s for you too.  If you must, forgive yourself, move on and try to do better next time.

Jessica Trinh

#19. Stop letting others bring you down to their level. – Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.

#20. Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others. – Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway.  Just do what you know in your heart is right.

shibazo

#21. Stop doing the same things over and over without taking a break. – The time to take a deep breath is when you don’t have time for it.  If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.  Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.

Milan Dimitrijevic

#22. Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments. – Enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things.  The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.

Mike Killian

#23. Stop trying to make things perfect. – The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists, it rewards people who get things done.

CARF

#24. Stop following the path of least resistance. – Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile.  Don’t take the easy way out.  Do something extraordinary.

#25. Stop acting like everything is fine if it isn’t. – It’s okay to fall apart for a little while.  You don’t always have to pretend to be strong, and there is no need to constantly prove that everything is going well.  You shouldn’t be concerned with what other people are thinking either – cry if you need to – it’s healthy to shed your tears.  The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again.

Thomas P. Peschak

#26. Stop blaming others for your troubles. – The extent to which you can achieve your dreams depends on the extent to which you take responsibility for your life.  When you blame others for what you’re going through, you deny responsibility – you give others power over that part of your life.

sergei gladyshev

#27. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. – Doing so is impossible, and trying will only burn you out.  But making one person smile CAN change the world.  Maybe not the whole world, but their world.  So narrow your focus.

zephurr

#28. Stop worrying so much. – Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy.  One way to check if something is worth mulling over is to ask yourself this question: “Will this matter in one year’s time?  Three years?  Five years?”  If not, then it’s not worth worrying about.

Chris A

#29. Stop focusing on what you don’t want to happen. – Focus on what you do want to happen.  Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story.  If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.

Sarolta Bán

#30. Stop being ungrateful. – No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life.  Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs.  Instead of thinking about what you’re missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing.

Credit: marcandangel.com

This is such a beautiful list, and we all are guilty of some of these. The best thing to do is just remember each day to appreciate and reflect a bit, even if it's only a few minutes. Share this amazing list by clicking below.

Success is

This is an extension of a conversation I was involved in earlier today (though I guess most of these posts are, really)

I live in a smallish town. Even in today's modern world where travel is available to nearly everyone, I know so many people who have lived their whole lives in about a 150km (100-ish miles) radius of where they live right now, and have no desire to expand their horizons any further than that. For a few more, their biggest trip would be one of the major beaches to the north or south, extending that radius by maybe another 100km.

This is not the point, though we are heading there. There is nothing wrong with staying close to home. Whatever makes you happy. If that's what you do to feel safe and happy and confident in yourself then great. That's kinda what life is about.

The earlier conversation:

One friend of mine was flicking through Facebook, just checking through updates. I do it. If you're reading this you probably do it too. Said friend was flicking through pictures of friends old and new when up came a picture of an old schoolfriend, sitting on a camp chair in (I'm assuming from some of the things said) in his backyard. The long shot showed a nice beach stretching away to the horizon. The house to the left looked relatively new, big, comfy. To the side of the house was a big boat on a trailer, and next to that was a large (huge was my comment) RV. The guy in the picture was holding up a can of beer, a big grin on his face. He looked happy and I said as much.

My friend looked a little sad. Not really understanding (I don't do subtle that well) I asked what was wrong. The response:

" I wonder why I wasn't successful like that."

That's one of the things about not being able to read the subtlties in conversation. You never really get to pick up on all the hidden undertones or secret hints in comments. I tend to take things a little more directly, literally even.

The guy in the picture looked happy. I'm hoping he worked hard and achieved all he could achieve to gain all the cool stuff he had rather than juts have it handed to him, but hey, if luck favoured him one day via Lotto or one of those magic "rich aunties" with few relatives then cool as well. That's the way the Universe works. No matter how he got it (unless he stole it, in which case look out buddy, you may not have it all that long) he intended it and the Universe handed it on. Maybe it was pat of his karma, and he was on a high, about ready to drop into a well of despair. Whatever, at that moment it was aces for him.

I looked at Friend and asked what was so wrong with his life.

Do you ever have one of those days when you've asked just one question too many, when you have inadvertently show just a smidge too much interest and the response just catches you and drags you off into territory you didn't really want to travel in?
The following is not an exact transcript, but you'll guess the tone and timbre as you read along ...

" When we were in school, he was just an average bloke, not great in school. Kind of a clown. No one really liked him. But look at him. He's got everything. What have I got?"

So many thoughts just explode it's hard to keep them all in and in order.

The first point I managed to get out was the fact that he had a lot of toys but I didn't see anything personal about: no wife, no kids/grandkids, not even a dog. Maybe he's got them, but hey, maybe not. True, someone had to take the photo, but that could have been a mate,  neighbour, whatever. Might have been one of those cameras you ca delay the shot until you make it into the frame jobs. I was new to the relationship, no back-story.

The tale continued:

But what have I got? I work a crappy job, my missus doesn't sop complaining, the kids don't listen. My house is a dump that's falling apart ...

The list went on. Friend was getting more upset about his "failure" in life and just sort of wandered away, muttering to himself about the unfairness of it all. I was a little taken aback, because, as far as I knew, until that moment Friend looked like he was way happy with his lot. His kids are wonderful, around me at least, his missus is a nice girl who does as much as she can for just about anyone. His house is old, but nice, dry and warm. He's got a pool, a job that - I agree - is probably not the best, but in a rural town that is slowly collapsing in on itself, having a job and keeping it is a kind of success in it's own right. I wondered, and at one point actually exclaimed aloud (scaring the shit out of a couple of people innocently standing nearby)
what the fuck his problem really was. (Remember what I said about subtle earlier?)

Thinking and ruminating on this for a few hours, here's what I came up with on the topic of personal success.

1.      The notion of "he who dies with the most toys is bullshit. I you die you ain't playing with them, someone else is, possibly someone you don't like.

2.      If you're alive, you are successful, because nothing spells FAIL like dying early, not matter how pretty a corpse you leave behind.

3.      If you've got or had someone in your life that you can honestly say you love or have loved, you are a winner. Not too much beats the fact you have someone who means more to you than anything material in your life, except for

4.      If you have, or have had someone in your life who loves/loved you. Sorry, but that's the ultimate goal, isn't it? Knowing that someone out there thinks about you, cares about you as much or more than themselves, or pretty much anything in this world.

5.      An extension of the last two points: friends. 

6.      Kids; yours, your kids kids (grandkids, hopefully I live long enough to see them), even friends kids. The energy of children is amazing. No matter how down or tired you are, sit for a while and watch a one year old just live life. If you don't walk away with a smile you're possibly dead from the neck up.

7.      If you have a house to live in, and food to eat, a warm place to sleep and some personal time, you win. There's a lot out there that don't. If you can read and write you're one step further up the success ladder, because there are many that will never get the opportunity to learn, and the day you stop learning is the day you start to petrify.

8.      If you have some material things you like, then great. If you've earned them in your endeavours, enjoy them. Don't be greedy, share if you can, pay forward your good fortune if you can.

9.      If you've never been physically, emotionally or spiritually hurt, you've had a big win. In that, if you have and you learned a lesson that stopped it from happening again, then you've won there as well.

10.    If you like where you live, what you do, where you are and who you're with, who gives a rats arse what others think. Maybe that's true success; being satisfied with what you have, happy with who you are and something exciting to look forward to.



As always, I may be wrong, but I don't think so this time. Do me a favour (If you're reading this, Friend and I think you might be), this is directed at you,

Go out and enjoy the life you have. Anything more is a gift. What you have is the best present you've received so far, so have fun.

Enjoy your day.

People, just think about it.

Had an email from a young lady friend of a young male friend of mine the other day. On the face of it she seemed a little wild and random, but polite and nice when face to face. I was a little surprised at the message.

Basically, she was thanking me for being "nice" to her in our conversations during her relationship with my young friend. I told her I tried - though sometimes didn't succeed - in being nice as much as I could.She explained some of her background (I didn't think of it as being bad) and how so many people she knew kept putting her down because she believed in really odd and old fashioned things ie; fidelity in relationships, honesty, abstinence until marriage, really heavy concepts like that. Some in their circle called her wierd, a fruitcake and other rude things and made her feel less than worthy.

Sorry, in my book she is a hero.

Someone willing to stand up for they believe in despite the peer pressure, despite the negativity being thrust their way. This young lady had/has a plan for her life; education, finding a job she enjoyed enough to spend her life working at, loving her partner when the time came to settle down, being honest in all relationships. Sorry, thinking like that is becoming a rarity these days.

Right at that point I would have adopted her.

But her stand had the negative effect of making her put different masks over her personality so she could "fit in". She changed herself to suit the group, because she thought she was powerless to change the group.

The best you can do is hold on to your truth. Be yourself, so long as it is HONESTLY yourself. You will suffer the slings and arrows of others not so far up the evolutionary ladder as you, but if you are honest about who you are and what you believe then you are a winner.

Don't change to lower yourself. Don't try to change others (that trick never works!).

And don't change to please others.

As Popeye said:

And he didn't mean a root vegetable.

In today's more enlightened language, you are a GURU.

Break it down ...

Gee, You are you!

Be the You you want to be.