It's all about you

Like many others, growing up I was always taught that you should put others before yourself and that is how you become kind and generous. As the years have passed, I was taught that you should put school, extracurricular activities, and many other things before yourself. They said, "that is how you'll succeed." If you ever do anything else, you wouldn't amount to much. For the longest time, I went along with what I had learned from those people. However, I've come to realize how false those statements are. The most important thing I've learned was not taught to me by someone else; but instead it was something I had discovered myself. It is okay to put yourself first.

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It doesn't make you selfish, lazy, nor less than anybody else. Putting yourself first is quite the contrary to that. You learn many things that allows you to grow as person. You find that you can control many things that contribute to your happiness. You become a better person when you're happy with who you are and when other things in life doesn't hold the reins that control you. I've come to understand more of myself like...

1)  Life is a lot more relaxing when you let a few things go and you're no longer anchored by unwanted weight.

2)  I've become happier by surrounding myself with positivity.

3) Not every moment maybe the best, but it doesn't mean I should be constantly reliving it. Move on.

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Although, focusing on yourself is one of the most important things you can do in your life, there is a fine line that shouldn't be cross. That fine line separates those who are putting themselves first for the benefit of themselves and the things around them, and those who put themselves first because they lack concern for anything else that really matters. Cross that line and you are no longer a person who is putting themselves for the benefit of growing, but the lazy, self-centered person that people never wanted you to be. I emphasize the importance of finding balance, because without it, life is a mess and you're stuck in chaos.     

Find time in life to put yourself first and you can realize that life is a million times better when you're not stuck in the middle of losing yourself. While focusing on yourself, just don't become the person who's in it for themselves in a way that is selfish and indolent. Otherwise, you can find yourself maturing into something much more that is bigger and better. 

Thanksgiving has been lost to retail

        Every year during the Thanksgiving, families gather around the table to celebrate the wonderful things in life that they are thankful for. Joy, love, and warmth flows through the air. Other than Christmas, this has been my favorite holiday for most of my life. The holidays gives my family a reason to put aside their lives and come together to enjoy the presence of one another.  The tight-knit feelings born from these moments is what makes me fall in love with Thanksgiving every year. However,  this feeling that I adored so much seems to have faded away. This year, Thanksgiving was not thanksgiving. It felt different; it felt distant. I blame black Friday for this.

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            My aunts and uncles decided to move Thanksgiving dinner at 6PM to 2PM so that they'd make it to the frenzy of the year a.k.a black Friday . This year, Black Friday wasn't black Friday, it was black Thursday! Sales were starting at 6PM on Thanksgiving! This made me a little crazy and raged. My reasons being that my family has put sales in front of spending time with one another.
            It seems as if greed has taken away the Holidays. Consumers are to blame for the misfortune of Black Friday. In this struggling economy, I could see why Black Friday appeals to so many people. I too love and see the beauty on "great deals" like many others, but is it really worth giving up time with your loved ones? Every year, there is a rush of people coming through the doors. This results in chaos and violence. Retailers hoped to ease this problem by opening their doors much earlier. However, chaos will always follow no matter how earlier. Whether earlier or later, shoppers will always be lined up, ready to fight their way through for the best deals of the year. That's why it's up to people to stop doors from opening up on the day of Thanksgiving. Companies would probably stop opening earlier than they should by lining Black Friday with Thanksgiving Thursday if people stop showing up when the time changes. If companies see that opening up on Thanksgiving is different from opening on Friday, then maybe they would leave Thanksgiving to be a time for families and friends.  

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            In the end, I'm not against Black Friday. I'm against Black Friday turning in to Black Thursday. It's just ironic that Thanksgiving, a day for people to be thankful for what they have, is being slowly replaced by people's desire for a "great deal" on things they want. Thanksgiving shouldn't have to compete with sales to keep its meaning. Retailers shouldn't completely erase Black Friday from the books, because like many others,  I would be saddened by the lost of saving money. Both consumers and retailers should let Thanksgiving be the day it is meant to be and push back the hours that the sales start at. Save it for Friday; not Thursday.  

Finding a Place For My Future

      "Look at your tummy Mommy! It looks like a watermelon! I can't wait for the baby! I'm going to push her out for you!" I exclaimed with a smile plastered across my face at the age of 4. All I wanted to be was a "baby pusher" a.k.a an OB/GYN for the longest time ever. As I grew up my list of careers would only change about a million times. Veterinarian, teacher, zoo keeper/amusement park owner/animal trainer, pediatrician, astronomer, and etc. The list never ends.

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      My heart heart beats faster as it is anchored down by anxiousness and only continues to get worse the more I think about the idea of growing up and getting a job. Here I am at 15, only getting closer to being 18. In other words, that means on the road to college and my future career. Recently, I've started to think more about my path; what I want to be. I used to believe that you should pick out your job according to how much it pays, then I started imagining what it'd be like to do something you didn't enjoy. It'd be like being stuck in the world of grey. It'd be boring and sad.

          I've known this since I was little, but never realized it until not long ago. I remember when I was little I would strut in my mom's heels in the hallway as if it were a catwalk, pick out all my sisters' outfits for school, and tell my mom she shouldn't wear something if I didn't think it was appealing. I wanted to work in the fashion industry, specifically as a fashion blogger. It combines all the things I love like...

·         Photography/Video

·         Social media

·         Fashion

                                                  Sincerely Jules

            Every day I sit on my bed, scrolling through glamour, beauty, dreams. I aspire to be the girl who gets to sit front row during fashion week, travel all around the world, collaborate with legendary companies, and most of all, live in her passion. Like Confucius said, "choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." 

Song of Style

            Like most dreams, mine comes with a risk which is my blog failing to make a name for itself especially as the competition becomes stronger and more difficult. The "what ifs" instill fear in me as much as the thought of growing up does.

            I think about safety nets; like taking on a different role in this industry and putting time aside to blogging as a hobby. If it grows and becomes something major, I would take it on full-time and if it doesn't, I would keep on doing what I'm doing. The one thing I wouldn't do is click the delete button on my blog. It's my passion; a place to express myself, find comfort in, and make me happy. Something I love isn't something I quit on. 

Too Young to be a Bride

            After reading such an inspirational speech given by Malala Yousafazi to the youth of the United Nations about education, it has sparked me to write about my own ideas on the struggles of child marriages.

            What is marriage? Marriage to many may mean a million different things, but most will share the idea that  it is the union that represents the love that two legal, consenting adults share. For others around the world, marriage is the opposite of what it should be; especially for young children who are being forced in to loveless relationship. It is a business transaction, religious mean, societal norm, and/or financial profit. It is not love. In the United States, child marriage is not a common crisis we have to deal with, so we look at the idea of such a thing with shock. While we may find it to be horrifying and inhumane, others find it to be customary and expected.

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            Girls, some as young as 5, are losing their innocence, happiness, childhood, and most of all their rights in just one ceremony. What is like to have all these things taken away from you right before your eyes as you sit there helpless? What is it like to grow up with out of these things? I couldn't even begin to imagine what it'd be like; the struggles these girls face day to day. Children having children. Children being expected to act as grown women. Children becoming objects instead of humans. Children sitting there silently under the tyranny of their husband.   

            I read stories. There are girls who grow up, only to place their daughters into the same cycle. Growing up, what surrounds you influences your beliefs and thinking. When girls are married at such a young age, they grow up around people who consider this action to be a norm. They don't really have others to tell them different. It is only common for their minds to develop the belief that is what has to happen. There's not much more than that to them. However, there are girls who are lucky enough to be able to fight these influences. They see the errors, cruelness, and shame in child marriages. Then, there are those who are even luckier to escape and speak for this issue with personal experiences. They voice their pain and fight to shed light on the reality of these nightmares.

                                  Nada-Al-Ahdal, a child who escaped marriage.

            All around the world, people have become advocators in this issue. Countries in the United Nations worked together to create Article 19, one of the thirty basic rights in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This article protects the rights that each and every human deserves to have. These laws can help protect some, but they don't have enough power to stop this matter where it stands. Like Malala said, people have to unify together and fight issues as one. We are the voices that need to speak up and educate the world about the errors of child marriages. We take a stand. We teach. We fight. No one is nothing. Big or small, we are all a voice who can fight to right that wrongs that have been made. 
To Learn more about child marriages

Community Post. Response to "Exposing Hidden Bias at Google"

"It's a man's world", or more specifically, "it's a white man's world."  For many years, white men have been dominant racially and gender wise. It has come to be a place where women  and minorities have to work a little harder if they want to succeed . It would seem that this problem would've have disappeared; especially because so many things have been put into action in order to erase inequality ─ The Emancipation Proclamation, Civil Rights movement, women's suffrage, the 19th amendment that constitutes a woman's right to vote, and etc. This leads to the bigger question; why is that there are still biases existing in this day and age

 Nearly everyone has a belief that they are unbiased ─ that they aren't discriminative towards race and genders. People choose to see that being biased is only "being biased" when others commit obvious red flag behavior that display prejudices. However, this issue extends out further than the man in the office who makes sexual slurs or the woman who believes that minorities should leave America. There are hidden biases that people can't escape.

(To learn more about hidden biases click the link) NY Times: Exposing Hidden Bias at Google

Success can come from creating a more versatile workplace. People grow when their mistakes are revealed to them. They come to a revelation that  motivates a series of actions in order to fix what is wrong.  Not only is a company growing and achieving things by decreasing racial and gender disparities, but also setting down the building blocks that will not let unconscious  bias behavior dictate our culture.

It is  great that many major corporations are bring the inequality within their companies to light and are choosing to do something about it. For many years, when people tried to expose things or make a change, they were hushed by domineering figures in society. It was considered erroneous for someone to speak against the norms. By doing this, Google is extinguishing the things that have been left alone and unsaid. These large and influential businesses are no longer bystanders in this situation, but a voice that is speaking out and building a world where gender and race do not create limits.

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