Part II: Time is Love (aka "The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." ~ Henry David Thoreau)

Ironically, I would not have heard the story of "The Magic Bank Account" had I not learned, and eventually internalized, its message earlier in my life. For me, the learning and the internalization were two very separate events and times in my life. I'd like to take the time to share these moments, and the journeys I went through, with you.

In what seems like a previous life, though this was just five years ago, I pursued my Ph.D. I was in my second year of my Ph.D program and, as such programs seem to necessitate, my life was imbalanced and skewed towards constant work in academia. I had a long term partner at the time-we lived together and his mom and I were close, although she lived out of state.

Near the end of summer (2009), she'd been in the hospital dealing with an infection after a polyp removal and we had just been to see her a couple of weeks earlier, after she came home from the hospital. At the beginning of the fall academic semester, she called me and left a message to call her back-she'd been thinking of me. I felt I was "too busy" to talk at the time and put off calling her back.

Less than a week after she left that message on my voicemail, my partner called me in tears, telling me that his mom, my close friend, who filled motherly roles for me in my life, had died that morning. It was completely unexpected-her hospital stay had not been serious-and there was no indication her death was imminent. Words cannot express my heart wrenching grief, my sense of loss, my anger and my feeling that an unfair amount of time that had been stolen from her and me. Reading back over these words-they seem so impersonal and unexpressive but I know no other way to write them.

It was a long time before I could answer the phone when one of my family members called without feeling panicked and anxious that someone else I loved had been taken from me. She was the first person in my life to die who I was truly close to. I'd experienced death before but not the death of someone close.

I felt like I had emotionally had the wind knocked out of me. The fragility of our human lives became vividly stark. I returned to my Ph.D program and academia a different person-I had learned a lesson. For me the lesson was that there was nothing in my life more important than the people I loved and my relationships with people. There was nothing more important than living my life and loving the people in it, whatever that meant for me at the time and moment I was in. There was nothing more important than relationships and love, period. Of course, this is always tempered with constraints-let's just acknowledge those here and move on. My point is that I had learned what was most important to me and I couldn't go back to being "all in" academia 24/7 at the expense of everything else I cared about. Turns out, this made me a pretty crappy Ph.D student-I didn't care more about academia than my relationships and living my life and it was eventually why I left my Ph.D program with the status ABD (All But Dissertation).

So, like I said earlier, I learned the lesson at this point...and I did make life choices and decisions based on this lesson. I feel I did not truly internalize this lesson (or maybe I needed a reminder) until this spring. I didn't leave academia until Spring 2013. I tried my best to be balanced while I was in academia (this will likely be the topic of another blog or possibly a scathing book) and I truly think this is an impossibility as academia exists today. I still missed trips and weekends with my family and friends.

After I left academia, I was disillusioned and a little in limbo. I patched four part time jobs together and went from there. I ended up doing the same thing to myself. I was so busy being anxious about having enough money (because I was working part time jobs) and running around getting to and from all of my jobs that my life again became imbalanced. Same score, different game.

I was miserable and I was not the person I knew I was. There were times I acted like an asshole to the people I love. I didn't love myself much anymore and I certainly couldn't very well love other people. After what was probably one of the biggest asshole moments of my life, I decided something had to give and it wasn't going to be me or my relationships or the love and beauty I carry inside of me.

I quit two of my part time jobs-I kept my jobs as a barista and a server at a wine bar. Those two jobs allow me to give time and love to people and I receive it in return ten-fold. I have so much more time for myself and the people I love, the people who bring joy and support to my life. I am one of those people-I need time from myself, for myself, too.

I still worry about money sometimes-when those times come, I tell myself that worrying is also depriving me of my precious time here on earth. I

f the time comes that I can't be financially responsible for myself and my wants/needs, I'll figure something else out. I've made it this far.

What I do know is that there are things I won't sacrifice and time for myself and my relationships is one of them. I truly believe the most precious gift we give people is our time and undistracted attention. "The Magic Bank Account" is an impactful and forceful reminder about the two most precious commodities we have-time and love. For me, time is love and if I forget, I hope (I know!) the universe will be there with the proverbial 2x4 upside the head to remind me.

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." ~ Henry David Thoreau

It is all too easy to get caught up in the rat race of "busy" and "stress" and measuring our wealth in dollar signs instead of minutes. Changing my perspective and the units I measure wealth in has been positively life changing. We are all richly blessed with the only wealth we truly have-TODAY. This post is dedicated to all of my relationships-no matter the length of the encounter- and the time and love, the veritable wealth, I have given and received. Thank you all for making me blessedly rich.

Part I: I'm Rich, Bitch!!! And So Can You!!!

Ok...first of all, I have to credit Stephen Colbert (please pronounce it right while reading) and Dave Chapelle for the title of this post. I love them both. Secondly, this is a two part post...part one is a little bit thug and the second is a little bit gangsta. Jk-if I can't fuck around in a blog post, where can I? The first part is a little bit of a parable/story. The second part is a little more personal....and I think if you read this first part, you will have your own very personal second part. I was fortunate enough to take the time to talk with a man who shared this with me....it was very powerful for me and I want to share it with you and what it makes me think of in my own life (Part II). So here we go...once upon a time...

The Magic Bank Account

Imagine that you had won the following PRIZE in a contest: Each morning your bank would deposit $86,400 in your private account for your use. However, this prize has rules:

1. Everything you don't spend during each day is taken away from you.

2. You may not simply transfer money into some other account.

3. You may only spend it.

4. Each morning upon waking, the bank opens your account with another $86,400 for that day.

5. The bank can end the game without warning; at any time it can say, "Game Over!". It can close the account and you will not receive a new one. What would you personally do?

Think about it...right now. Just pause everything...maybe for minutes, hours, a day and think. I know I've thought about it almost every day since I heard this story...what would you do?

Could you spend that much on yourself? Would you want to? Would you spend it on others?

Maybe you would even spend it on people you don't know (because, day after day, could you possibly spend that much on only YOURSELF and feel okay about it or have that many things to spend it on?). You would try to spend every penny because you knew it would be replenished in the morning, right?

ACTUALLY, THIS GAME IS REAL...

Each of us is already a winner of this *PRIZE*. We just cannot see it sometimes.

The *PRIZE* is *TIME*.

1. Each morning we awaken to 86,400 seconds of life.

2. When we go to sleep, any of the remaining time IS NOT credited to us.

3. What we haven't used up that day is lost forever.

4. Each morning the account is refilled, but the "bank" can dissolve your account at any time WITHOUT WARNING.

So...what will YOU do with your 86,400 seconds?

I will end here...because I want you to think about what this means to you before I post my own thoughts on this (stay tuned for Wednesday!!!)

. I love any comments you want to leave thus far in the journey of this post. Remember, we're rich, bitch. (Also, I love cats.)

Reality Bites...and that's okay!

The world, myself included, was shocked by Robin Williams' suicide. News reports revealed he had privately struggled with depression and the early stages of Parkinson's disease.  What he chose to show the public, of course, was quite different. To the public he was a comedian, an actor, and a celebrity. How could this funny man have such a drastically different private life we found ourselves asking in the aftermath of Williams' death.

I have thought about Williams' suicide a lot since I first heard about it.  I believe it is indicative of a larger problem in society.  Specifically, what we choose to reflect outwardly often contradicts our internal selves. Think about it. How many times does anyone answer the question,"How are you doing? " with an honest answer? How many times do we project to others something that is far from the truth? The problem, then, is that there is a real tendency to start to think everyone has it better or that there is something shameful about not always having your shit together. We create cognitive dissonance within ourselves by projecting an image instead of our authentic selves. This in itself can crush one's soul. It becomes even more dangerous when a person fails to recognize that others are doing the same thing because in that instance the person begins to think, incorrectly, that she is the only one who is faking and that there is something wrong with her.

As someone who has stared into the dark abyss of soul crushing depression, it is not helpful to feel like it has to be hid from the world. Suck it up. Life isn't so bad. You have so much to be thankful for. These comments are not helpful to someone with clinical depression and trivialize the absolute blackness that this mental illness cloaks the soul with. It also sends the subtle message that others don't want to truly hear about it which only serves to reinforce depression's dark wingmen--isolation and rejection. Telling someone to count their blessings is like telling a blind starving man without a fishing pole to be happy there are millions of fish in the ocean. It does little to abate the hopelessness because a person with depression, much like a blind man who is starving, can't even see the fish in the ocean, much less see how he can catch some even if there are fish out there. What inevitably happens, though, is that people get irritated and annoyed with a depressed person because we don't want authenticity. Deep down, we want to maintain the illusion that we are all happy because the hard truth is too scary to face--the truth that many of our relationships are built on a foundation of sand.  Eventually this sick disease results in a self-fulfilling prophecy as the depressed person does find herself isolated and alone.

I dream of a world where authenticity will prevail over image; where truth will reign over self-created falsehoods; where reality is lauded over fiction even if it's fucking painful; and where faults are valued over perfection because mistakes and failures are nothing to be ashamed of. I dream of a world where we will stop putting up walls of illusion around us because if we keep doing so we will one day wake up to realize we have created our own prisons. Some of us, like perhaps Robin Williams, have already realized this. I dream of a world where it is okay to be depressed if that is our genuine state of mind and that we don't have to hide behind a smile simply because others can't be bothered with the truth. Reality may be stranger than fiction and it sure is a helluva lot more raw, too. But I guess in my weird, often unpopular world, I would prefer to know a few people for who they really are than to know millions of people for what they are not.

Shine Bright Like a Diamond

I'm a big, okay, huge, fan of the rugged Individualism that the U.S. was built upon. Be yourself, be different and be unafraid this ideology screamed. It was sort of the wild west equivalent of modern day diversity. This mindset fostered great inventors and great dreamers and I love it. But in modern times I wonder if we have warped this concept. It seems we are all searching for a way to distinguish ourselves, sometimes to the point of insanity. For example, people used to eat what they had available. Now, people are vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, paleo, raw food, low carb, and the list goes on and on. Don't take me wrong here, I'm not saying these diet choices are bad or good. I'm using this as an example, only, of how absurd and complicated our idea of individualism has become. I could do the same thing with body art (tatoos, piercings, tongue splitting, etc) and sexuality (lesbian, gay, bisexual, swinger, transsexuals, etc). Again, I repeat, I have no problem with any of these lifestyles. Zero. But, they don't tell me much about who someone is as a person so I don't count them as true individualism.

What do i mean? Well, what you eat, doesn't tell me anything about who you really are. To me, these identities are walls that we put up to hide our true selves behind. Being a vegetarian doesn't tell me if you are a creative person or what your goals in life are (other than to not eat meat). It doesn't tell me if you are a caring person or if you are going to try take me down on your way to the top. These are some of the things I want to know about people. I could care less about some of your other life choices. What you eat or don't eat, isn't individualism. Who youbscrew or dont screw isnt individualism in my book. Yet, we often push these agendas to the point of being offensive, sometimes I think because we are so afraid to truly shine bright like the diamonds we are all. What do I mean? If I'm having people over for dinner, it seems the focus has become less about breaking bread together and more about what it is we are serving. I don't care what you put on your plate. I want to know the people.  I want to share ideas and dreams and talk about issues. I long for true interaction not conversation about whether you eat dairy.  I would like to share a meal, without the focus being on the food.  Honestly, if I went to someone's house and they were serving Big Macs I would eat it. Not only out of gratitude for the work the host put into the meal, but also because getting together should be less about the food and more about the discourse in my opinion.

We were all made as individuals. Trust me, we are all unique just as we were created. We don't need to improve upon the creator's design by creating the illusion of individualism by clinging to our random lifestyle choices and hiding behind those choices at the expense of revealing who we really are. I challenge each and everyone of you today to work toward being more comfortable in your own skin. Be a true individual,  be who you were made to be. Make your own choices but don't confuse those choices with your identity or push those choices to the point of selfishness. Don't hide your true colors behind some category invented by the modern day desire to distinguish your own identity. Go, shine bright like a diamond today, in your own skin, just as you are.

An Unsolvable Equation

I'M BACK EVERYONE!! So, as some of you may have noticed, I have not written in the blog for quite some time; however, I did not abandon posting and I DO have some legitimate reasons for not doing so. This summer has been pretty eventful for me. A couple weeks after my classes ended, I was given the opportunity to study abroad in Spain for 6 weeks (It was the time of my life, unfortunately, I am not posting about my experiences there for this post). Upon my return from Spain, I only had one week of freedom and then I had to head up to Fort McCoy, WI for annual training for the National Guard for two weeks (We did lots of army stuff). Needleess to say, I have had a busy summer and really did not have much access to a computer, much less the internet. Anyhoo, I am finally back in Iowa City and finally have some down time to prepare for my upcoming semester (It's my last year at Iowa!) Because of my exciting summer, I have many options I could write about, but one event in particular sticks out to me and even though it has been about a month since this event occurred, it is very much still fresh in my mind and forces me to reflect about it and its conseuences every single day.

A few days after my return from Spain, my friends and I were casually playing beer pong and having a good time in our apartment parking lot in Iowa City. This was pretty much the first time I had seen them since school ended, so we wanted to celebrate. My phone was dead of course, so I had left it in my apartment to charge. I decided I wanted to snap chat a picture of my friends' and my festivities, so I went into my apartment to go get it off the charger. I knew something was a little off right when I looked at my phone and saw I had approximately 10 missed text messages and a couple missed calls, so I decided to sit in my room and see what was going on.

"Dakotah Collins passed away today in a motorcycle accident."

This was the first text out of the ten that I read. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, I simply just sat on my bed staring at my wall in shock and disbelief. I honestly could not even tell you what I was thinking at that exact moment in time. Dakotah was a boy who went to high school with me and was a couple of years younger than I am. I  had also dated him (kind of) for a few months, but that's beside the point. After blankly staring at my wall for a few minutes, I was able to snap back to reality with memories and thoughts crowding my head. Someone, younger than myself, whose snapchat story I JUST looked at the night before, was no longer living. Someone's parents, who woke up that day thinking they'd see their son and hear the sound of his voice again, wouldn't. And the many people who interacted with Dakotah in school, sports, parties, etc., would never get to live another experience with him. My tears began to pour out of my eyes.

This incident was all I could constantly think about for a solid week. I was scared, frustrated and most definitely confused. It was very hard for me to grasp why God would take such a young soul and what was even harder for me to grasp was that as all of Dakotah's peers grow up and live to be 40, 60, and 80 years old, he would forever be 19. He would never get the opportunity to experience marriage, graduate college nor experience the pain and beauty that come with growing old. It just didn't make sense to me and didn't seem fair. It was also scary and mysterious to me why his unlucky experience resulted in death, when in reality, it could have been any single one of us. Why did God not decide to take me at age 18 when I was driving home from a Morningside college visit and I wasn't paying attention to the road, which caused me to swerve into the other lane as a truck was coming? I don't know.

Death is such a painful thing to deal with and I think that it's partially due to the uncomfortable thoughts that come with it. It was very uncomfortable for me to think about how it could've been one of my sisters or close friends that got called home that day, and it was even more uncomfortable to think about the mystery of the after life because truly, we are not certain what happens to people after they die. I didn't like the consequence of Dakotah's accident and I surely did not know how to deal with all of my questions and uncertainties that came along with it. I still don't. However, I do not think that this is all bad. I think that when an unfortunate event like this happens, it forces us to reevaluate our own lives and the people in it. It forces us to reflect on whether or not we show our loved ones our appreciation for them enough and also forces us to think about, had we been in Dakotah's postion, could we have said we were content with the life we had lived and had no regrets.

I think that the bigger picture of every life experience is that we are only humans and just don't know. And what we do know is so very minute to the unknowns of the universe. We don't know why some individuals get called home sooner than others, but we also don't know why Steve got the job promotion and you didn't.We simply don't know why things happen the way they do and that's scary to us. Do things just happen or is their purpose behind everything that happens? That's the age old question, folks, and I cannot tell you that I have the answer because I don't. I'm just as simple minded as the next human being trying to grasp the very intangible concept of "why." What I do know, though, is that within every negative experience there is some beauty and that in the greater scheme of things, everything seems to work out one way or another. We don't know how or why, but it does. We know so very little about our universe and heck, we may never know. We can only hope for the best and have faith that everything will work out in the end. We can keep questioning and wondering, but we also need to keep living and experiencing new people, events and ideas because this may be the closest we come to ever knowing anything.

I would like to dedicate this blog post to Dakotah Collins, along with his close friends and family. <3