Answering Dawn’s Questions :)

I come home stressed from work and turn on the news to see nothing but troubling and negative headlines. Sometimes it seems like there’s nothing but bad people in this world, then someone like Dawn comes along to remind you that that just isn’t true. I’d like to thank her personally for being so up-beat, enthusiastic, and most importantly, genuine. Please be sure to checkout her blog 🙂 journalofdawn
So, she has requested that I answer the questions from her Blue Sky post, and after reading them, I became quite eager.

1. Is your Life, today, half-empty, or half-full?
   As much as I hate to say it, I spend most of my days inadvertently feeling half empty. I fight it though. It’s not the way I want to feel, but I think that’s just the way my brain is wired.
2. How have you found goodness from the bad situations in your Life? Example, please :))
   All the time. Every time. One of the ways I try to fight that half-empty feeling is by searching for the silver lining in every gray cloud. Me and my adoptive-father used to get in bad fights on a nightly basis. When the dust had settled, we’d talk it out and reflect. Every fight brought us closer together.
3. Which relationships have been the most challenging for you, and what strategies have you created to improve them?
   I like this question. Relationships are something I struggle with, so I’m always looking at everyone else’s from the outside, trying to learn. Romantic relationships are the toughest for me. I’ve started doing a couple things though:
   1. Empathy. I’ve been trying with everything to put myself in the other’s shoes.
   2. Thinking before I speak. Though it feels like I’m constantly walking on eggshells…
4. What causes you angst, and how do you overcome it?
   Failure. I let it beat me up a little so I can remember the feeling, then I move on and work harder with hopes of avoiding it in the future.
5. Have you ever written your own jokes???? Memorized them, and tried them out in a long, boring line at the Post Office . . . Did anyone chortle??? (ie — do you have a good joke ready for a sour circumstance :)) (I had a lot of fun writing my Cow Jokes.)
   Sadly, I’ve never written any jokes. I do a lot of writing, but never anything comedy-related. Perhaps I should start…
6. What challenges are you facing in your Life right now?
   Myself. I am, without a doubt, my own biggest challenge. I can’t stop my own way of thinking, my own self-destructive behavior…no matter my efforts. THEY ARE FUTILE! NOOOO! lol, sorry, a little over top there.
7. What do you obsess over? How do you rein in your obsessions?
   Writing. In case you couldn’t tell. I want to be a novelist so bad. Everyday the desire somehow grows stronger. I’ve written 2 books and several short stories, and I have no intentions of ever stopping, regardless of how many rejections I get. Maybe I’m wasting my time dreaming but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
8. What strategies do you employ for stress relief?
   Writing, drawing, cleaning, Starbucks, going to a hotel, music, music, music.
9. What other-worldly phenomena have you experienced? (Intuition, dreams, deja vu, ET, communication with lost loved ones, etc.) What have your learned from them?
   I’m not a big believer in that sort of stuff. Maybe because I’ve never had any “other-worldly phenomena.” I have lost a lot of family, so if I could it’d be nice.
   When I was a kid I had a nightmare where I was left alone in a car at night in the middle of the woods, unable to get out. Then a robed shadow emerged from behind a tree with a scythe and killed me. Lol, I suppose I feel like that’s a pretty strong metaphor for my life right now.
10. How do you make new friends, or strike up a conversation with a stranger?
    This is the anti-social part of me I don’t like. I never strike up conversation. Small talk bores the hell out of me and if I have no reason to talk to someone I usually don’t. I want to want to talk to people, but conversation just doesn’t entice me. At all.
11. What do you love to create? How do you motivate yourself to do more of what you love to do???
    I love bringing to life characters, places, scenarios in writing. Keeping myself motivated isn’t hard when the urge to create is more like a need. Honestly, if I’m ever doing anything other than writing, I feel guilty and extremely anxious, restless. I feel like I’m in a race against time to get as much done as quickly as possible.

Dawn, I see you too are a fan of the thought-provoking questions! Loved them! It’s nice when someone asks you something you didn’t know you needed to be asked, or something that really makes you think. Thanks for participating! It really has been much more enjoyable than I had anticipated.

Until next time!

Sincerely,

MrHush 🙂