What Do You Say to Taking Chances?

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered in failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer because they live in a gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." -- Teddy Roosevelt

In other words, don't play it safe.  That was Judge Gil Self's main message to us this past week.  Have the courage to step outside of your comfort zone.  Have the courage to be the person you were always meant to be.  Have the courage to do what's right, even if that means failure.  Have the courage to accept the talents with which you were blessed and change the world with them.

I know that sounds extreme and nearly impossible, changing the world.  I mean, the world is a really big place with billions of people and creatures and problems, and the thought of changing it is to large to grasp.  But you can.  Look at Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Helen Keller, Rosa Parks.  All of these people changed the world.  All Rosa Parks did was keep her seat on a bus, but that one action set an entire tsunami of change in motion.

I guess what I'm really saying here is that no matter your background or plans or anything, you can change the world.  At least a little bit.  But you have to have the courage to do it.  You may not be the next Martin Luther King, Jr. or Bill Gates, but you can still make a difference in this world.  You can still have a positive effect.  You can still do what's right.

I've always said that I know that I've lived a successful life when I'm 95 years old with hundreds of amazingly adventurous stories to tell my grandchildren.  So, go out into the world.  Take advantage of the gifts with which you've been blessed.  Use them to be the best version of yourself.  Use them to make a difference.  Go out and have adventures.  Dream your big dreams, and then go out and take them and make them real.  Live life the best way you can so that when you're old and gray your grandkids will say that they have the coolest grandparent in the entire world.

Carpe Diem.

"Plans change sometimes."

"Don't talk yourself out of finding out who you are."

Both of these are quotes from our most recent speaker, Dr. Thomas J. Calhoun.  I couldn't agree with either more, and I love how much they relate to one another.  One of the biggest problems I think that we as college freshmen have is that we have decided what we should be, and that might not always be exactly what the universe thinks we should be.  We have this idea of what life is going to be like and what we'll do and who we'll be, but the whole point of college is to explore all the options and opportunities presented to us.  Because of these predisposed ideals we close our minds to whatever other options might be out there.  We talk ourselves out of exploring who it is we actually are, and then ten years from now when it is completely inopportune, we'll decide that who we've been pretending to be is not at all who we actually are.  So, we need to take the opportunity now to go out and have adventures and explore and create and live and discover who we are meant to be.

Honestly, plans change all the time, and there's a 99.9% chance that any given situation won't turn out as expected because it's practically impossible to predict what challenges, people, and manic things life will dish out.  You can meticulously and obsessively plan out any scenario, but things will almost always go differently than you expected because that's just life.  It happens, and it's fleeting.  When your plans change, the best thing you can do is just go with it and handle it the best way you know how.  Sometimes it's hard.  Sometimes it's easy.  Sometimes it's absolutely insane.  No matter what adjective matches with the situation at hand, you have to do the best with what you've been dealt and keep moving forward.  I think that Walt Disney said it best, "Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long.  We keep moving forward, opening new doors and doing new things, because we're curious... And curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."

"Values aren't buses... They're not supposed to get you anywhere. They're supposed to define who you are." - Jennifer Crusie

Value:  relative worth, utility, or importance.

This is the definition of moral values according to Merriam Webster.  Or his dictionary anyway.  Values are often the motivations we as human beings have to go about our days, our reasons for living. I mean, think about it.  Our values are the foundation of our very beliefs.  Without them, we have nothing because we have no basis for an opinion.  Now, of course values vary from person to person.  Some people find religion or spirituality to be of great importance while others find knowledge or wisdom to be more prevalent.

So without further ado, I give you, my beloved readers, my top seven values (in no particular order) and my reasoning behind each of them.

1. Independence.  I am a very independent person.  I hate being ordered and bossed about without a say in the situation.  I feel that every person leads his or her own life, and independence is what makes that possible.  Without the ability to decide for yourself where your heart and soul lie in any aspect of your life, life simply isn't worth living.  Maybe that's too melodramatic, but what can I say?  I'm a pretty dramatic person.
2. Courage.  This one's a biggie.  I personally am not a big risk taker.  I want to be, but I often get scared and wimp out.  That's where this thing called courage steps in.  When you watch any movie with adventure in it, Harry Potter, The Pagemaster, The Sandlot, the hero has to have courage to go through with it all, to save everyone and live happily ever after.  That's really difficult.  To stand alone or even with others and fight for something, whether it's your life, the lives of others, or just a baseball that's gone over the fence.  It's such an admirable thing when someone takes that risk, that leap into the unknown solely because they have to.  Without that leap, everything would be lost.
3. Love.  Okay, so I'm a sucker for love.  Give me a love story, and I'm a happy camper.  I've often said that love makes life worth living.  Whether it's loving your soul mate, family, pets, or passions, it gives life meaning.  My grandfather drove me around in my middle school days when I was not capable of doing so.  He had lost his wife several years earlier, and he loved her with all his heart.  In a conversation he had with my dad once he stated that my brother and I were his reason for getting up every morning.  Driving us around meant the world to that man.  He'd lost the love of life, but the love of his grandchildren kept him going.  The Beatles say it best.  "All you need is love."
4. Knowledge.  I was raised on Schoolhouse Rock, so I am a firm believe in their mantra, "Knowledge is power."  Knowledge grants us the ability to question things and feed our curiosity.  In a way the gift of knowledge and the thirst for more keeps the earth turning.  It keeps life moving forward.
5. Creativity.  Passion.  To me these two values feed off of each other.  Passion fuels creativity.  Creativity discovers passion.  One does not exist without the other.  My passion for dance feeds the fire of creativity within so that I can create choreography, and this creation furthers my passion for dancing.  With the help of passion and creativity, I am able to express myself.
6. Dedication.  In order to achieve anything in this world, one must be dedicated.  This also ties into responsibility.  If you are dedicated to something, you are more likely to take responsibility for it. If you want to make it in the big time of whatever business in which you're interested, you have to dedicate yourself to it.  You have to sacrifice things to reach your goals.  
7. Growth.  This is something achieved through all the values listed above.  Through finding yourself, taking risks, loving others, striving to know more, creating through passion, and dedicating yourself to your cause you grow as a person.  And honestly that's when you know you've achieved your goals.  When you've grown enough to see that everything you've ever done has happened for a reason.  When you can look back on your life with no regrets, that's when you've grown to your potential.  

There you have it folks, an in depth look at the values of Katie Lindsay.  These are the motivations behind my actions; these are what define me.

Memphis - Where All the Streets Are Paved With Soul

To begin with, I must explain that I love musicals and music in general.  Earlier this summer, I found the musical Memphis, which is a fabulous tale of a dance and music television show in the 1960s and of course so much more.  While watching this show, I fell in love with the city of Memphis, even though I'd never set foot on Beale Street.  So, imagine my excitement when I was told that I would get to visit this amazing and unique city.

Roaming around Memphis our first night was incredible.  Beale Street with music floating around, conveying the entire spectrum of emotions, a trolley ride that stranded us ten blocks from our hotel, the coolest bridge in a quaint park.  The entire city mesmerized me.  Everything about it just made my heart sing.

And of course, how can I forget the Brooks Museum or the Memphis Zoo!  The Brooks Museum of Art was the most spectacular art museum I've attended.  It's collection The Soul of a City was so powerful and fascinating, and I loved the little exhibit in which patrons could create their own artwork.

The Memphis Zoo.  The entire time we were there I turned into an eight year old.  Everything is interesting and marvelous to me.  I love animals.  I mean, some of my favorite movies are Flipperand Alaska, you know those 90s movies about children saving these endangered animals from poachers and the like.  I especially love polar bears.  And I got to see polar bears, so I can honestly die happy.  But really the Memphis Zoo is such a good zoo.  It's well kept, and it has big habitats for its animals, which is something that most zoos don't have.

All in all, I love Memphis.  I will definitely be making many more trips to the River City throughout my lifetime.