Compare Yourself to NO ONE

How hard is it NOT to compare yourself to anyone??? 

 VERY!!! 

 Realistically, it's a bit ridiculous how much time we waste in doing so, yet, we ALWAYS want what we can't have.

LIFE in general, with co-workers and piers, we either have the type of people that are happy for us when we succeed, or we have the jealous type that just want to keep us low to the ground who won't allow us to grow, instead, have them grow for us. 

Being negative and jealous is very infectious, and it can really wither away friendships and relationships all around. At times we might not even know that were feeling these negative thoughts until someone brings it up to our attention. By then, it might be too late. 

So by being negative at times, your flow can change, your goals, your outlook, and even wrinkles can appear a lot faster on your facial structure...it has been PROVEN y'all!

Why be jealous of the person to your right and/or left? 

Why compare your achievements to those of your siblings? Why compare yourself to yourself and make YOURSELF the bad guy as you stare at your image in the mirror?

Everyone in this LIFE has struggled, cried, hurt, bled, and have submitted themselves to shame at some point in their existence. Nothing has come easy and on a silver platter without having there been consequences and hoops to jump in and out of. 

If and when you see the person next to you have a happy moment, ENJOY their smile and FEEL their excitement. It's so beautiful to see and feel what another person is so excited about. When you hear that one of your siblings has great news, GLOW with them and let them know how their growth and determination has really made them stronger. When you see yourself advancing to the next level of LIFE and actually enjoy the ride, be PROUD of yourself and walk PROUDLY for every sacrifice has met it's match. 

With the sibling rivalries, know that you're there for eachother and you'll get farther in LIFE by teaming up as a unit rather than try to compete against one another. Live your lives according to what YOUR goals are, not to how you can upstage your fellow brethren, EVEN if your parents are being biased, let them be, YOU ARE YOU and allow them to know that about you.

YOU have your own goals, YOU have your own mind, YOU have your own way of LIFE....

YOU OWN YOURSELF and compare yourself to NO ONE!

Keep You, Love You, Cherish You

Words cannot express my wish for everyone to acknowledge these 6 words....

and to take them on a great ride while experiencing LIFE and other comforts along 

with the downfalls.

Keep You

Everything you're about, the way you think, the way you look at the world, the way you believe in certain things, the way you speak and even the way you treat others, look at all of it as a whole and know that this is YOU. Many decide to fluctuate and change when they're in romantic relationships in order to please their partners, and ultimately see their demise in their individuality and persona. When having lost oneself, draw back and see what's making you blurry in your path. Nevertheless, it's O.K. to venture into other options and see what works for you, key word here is YOU.

Love You

There is only ONE of YOU. Many have the same characteristics, they have the same likes and dislikes, they may even have the same upbringing and mentality as you, yet, they're not YOU. Everyday that you wake up you are given the opportunity to offer the world what you have inside of you. Yes we get our days where were not feeling great, were crabby and moody, and even then, it's YOU. The happiness, moodiness, sadness, and the act of taking precaution, all that you release in the world only ONE person can come out in the end and make out what it needs to be, 

that person is YOU. 

Cherish You

Often times I hear people cry for the fact that they're loved ones have called them difficult or that they're just impossible to get along with. Believe me when I say this, if 4 of us kids were able to survive Mommy Dearest in her prime and still genuinely LOVE her, there's nothing difficult about loving your neighbor unconditionally. Yes I'll admit, there are people that drive others up the wall and simply don't want to deal with them. Although, know that they're who they are for a reason, without them in your LIFE, you wouldn't be learning what you're capable of learning about yourself. Cherish those around you for the greater good, even if their attitude stinks from the ground to the sky. Most importantly, CHERISH YOU for your efforts in loving yourself as well as being able to genuinely love others for who they are.

Stay TRUE to who you are, 

for without YOU the world wouldn't be what it is today...

Diverse.

Lessons of the Neverending Past

Many of you out there I've had the pleasure of helping you out in more ways than just your hair and/or your make-up makeovers. You've been able to trust me with the most inner demons you tend to face on a daily basis, you've allowed yourselves to become vulnerable and let your heart do the talking instead of your mind. 

I can definitely say that ALL of you, and you know who you are, have TRULY risen to the occasion of every obstacle put forth in your path since I've been involved, and with that, whether you've faced them head on or have faced them in other routes and other ways, you've allowed yourselves to become better people, better at knowing what works for you and what doesn't.

 Whether you agree with me or choose to disagree, you've surpassed some of your greatest fears, even though you might believe that you've taken a step backward and/or failed, you haven't....you're learning to ACCEPT...and ACCEPTANCE is very hard to take in, at ANY age.

There's a reason why our PAST stays so vivid in our minds...there's a reason why looking ahead sometimes can be very difficult. There's a reason WHY the word WHY exists. 

We are meant to question the UNIMAGINABLE, the INEVITABLE, the UNEXPLAINABLE. We've experienced every single one in our past, learn to ACCEPT in our PRESENT, and prepare for our FUTURE.

I've learned to dig myself out of my own darkness day after day and year after year. A lot of what many of you are experiencing now in your lives I've gone through it myself in my younger years. Every piece of advice I have to offer is that of an answer I've had to dig up on my own. Not to say that EVERYTHING I say is valid and should be taken into action by yourselves, simply it's a door that I've gladly opened for you to see what can become of your future DEPENDING on your course of action.

I will say this though, and if I may:

I say this in person, on Facebook, in the blogs, on Twitter and ANY outlet there is out there....LEARN to LIVE for yourselves. Focus YOUR energies on YOU. Only YOU can make yourselves happy and glad to say that you've won a battle. The so called "WAR" is non-existent, if anything, it's self inflicted...I learned this the HARD way and suffered many years in a jail cell of my own mind, the one I created for myself. Living in the "What If's" and "Maybe's" will guarantee you pain and thorns that don't belong in your heart, although, if you choose to take one of the "What If's" or the "Maybe's", ACCEPT what outcome you receive, whether it's the answer you were looking for or not. ACCEPT YOU first and foremost.

Our 

Lessons regarding our unknown Future 

are the casualties of our 

Lessons of OUR Neverending Past

Rain

For the longest time, I've always found RAIN itself to be purifying and have the ability to wash away any negativity that's inside us, even if it dampers the mood a bit because it get's us wet, it's only water...and if anything, it's cleansing.

I was 10 years old when I saw the video for "Rain" by the Queen of Pop herself, Madonna. In 1993, MTV was actually playing music videos during the day and night and the second season of The Real World: Los Angeles was being shown in half hour show fragments, meanwhile, this was by far the EXTENT of any reality show on the music video channel.

"Rain" became a bold statement with Madonna as she was wrapping up her promotion to her "Erotica" album and "The Girlie Show" tour. It was a different vibe, a different look, and a different sound that really showed how eclectic and what a chameleon Madonna could be not only in her music, but as an entertainer.

Her soft harmonies show her peaks throughout a song that has momentum at the right time when all the old negativity is ready to flood away from the soul. The cleansing of the rain also shows the ability to bring new LOVE when it's mostly needed. 

Usually in this world, as previously discussed, the shadows that belong in the darkness tend to overshadow the light we naturally possess. When it is so dimmed that we can no longer see our path we want a way out, we look for the next possible open door that allows us a glimpse into what can become of us if we CHOOSE to go through that open door. 

Stay dimmed or wash away the darkness?

  When I've gone outside and there's nothing but water coming down from the skies and the scent of the wind has a fresh and crisp sense of smell and sensation you can actually inhale and exhale, it gives me the vibe of "All will wash away" all over my body and frame of mind. What else do we have to do and think about especially when our worlds have had enough to petrify and plague our days with?! 

When we've felt the beauty of cleansing, the beauty of purification, we stand out in such a way where we know that this feeling can be pursued in many instances, yet, by having the earth's natural ability show us the way of it's curable sensation, we crave the day we can actually let our hearts and souls reach that level of happiness. 

Crave for your happiness and you'll see that what comes your way will be nothing less short of a miracle door waiting for you to feel the rain on your skin ready to wash all that darkness away and bring you to new LOVE!

Creatures of Change

It seems easy to let things go and spiral out of control especially when the world around you seems to be changing at a rapid pace. When you think, 

"Oh I give up! What's the point?!"

That's really when everything shifts into it's new position. Now the question is, 

"Did my giving up make everything change and take it's new course?"

In my belief system, which is that of a realistic based thought process, whatever we DO or therefore DON'T do, our actions will speak volumes and we will retain an outcome that we are truly ready to live, yet NOT ready to face and come to terms with.

Some will say that Failure is the culprit for these actions and lack there of, yet in my book, it's the reality of the next level of change, of what needs to be taking place 

so that growth is infused and ready to take action.

CHANGE is just that...GROWTH

After all that we do to keep it going, to keep ourselves alive and keep up the momentum in our lives, there comes a point in time where it's just time to throw our hands up and just let things be. There's only so much we can do in such a short time span to make things be the way WE want them to be. 

YES we can fight and act like were 5 years old to let the world know how unfair the UNIVERSE has been to us and how it's just not fair to always have to prove ourselves....until we finally see that it's time to move on, and it's time to learn, grow, and look forward to the next level of what our lives are to become.

We are really Creatures of Change...

if we weren't, then we'd just be the same 'ol bores and never really mount to

 anything above our potential.

Celebrate Change!

Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)

Hahahahahaha! Sorry, just had to get a laugh out there! I know what you're thinking:

"Oh here BLQ goes again with his somber story

 about lost loves!"

Actually, it's quite the opposite in this entry. Believe it or not I actually love this song by the Pop/Alternative group Vertical Horizon.

 

"Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)" dates back to 

Vertical Horizon's first album, Everything You Want, which was with their first major record label (RCA Records to be exact) in 1999 (right before Y2K!) This song actually was their 3rd single of the album and by then, in 2000, they were everywhere from Leno to Letterman, to my 16 year old bathroom radio boom box on repeat.

When my high school friends found out about me liking this band, they were saying everything from, "What??? Really???" to "But you're mexican!" to "Whoa you're a real white boy now!"

Little did they know that one of my favorite bands are The Cranberries...imagine that!

Even Mommy Dearest caught me listening to this album over and over again and she happened to pass by my room one night and said, 

"How can you like these songs with so much noise?!" 

Then I actually played her this song in particular, and by the look on her face, I thought she actually liked it when in reality she said,

 "Great! Now you're in a sad mood?" 

 It really sounded funnier when she said it in Spanish!

Yes, unfortunately, "Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)" is a very sad song, which actually brings me somber memories, and at the same time, it was because of this song that I was able to move on all at the same time. Due to what it says in the chorus:

But it's not so bad,
You're only the best I ever had,
You don't want me back,
You're just the best I ever had.

I really started to think that if I really had the best I ever had in my heart, and it wasn't for me, 

why would I want it back and vice versa?

I fought against it for so long until it just clicked in my thick head that plain and simple,

 the best I ever had wasn't for me in the long run, and it didn't mean that it was the end of the world, 

it just meant I had to accept WHAT WAS and WHAT IS.

Love, emotions, crushes, fantasies NEVER GO UNEXPLAINED, 

they simply have a beginning, middle, and an end.

Now looking back and having gone through the patch work I had to go through,

it was ALL worth it...

Leaving me to do nothing but LOVE 

the best I ever had and LOVE the Grey Sky Mornings as well!

What ELSE is to be said? SELENA VIVE!

I have to say that the following subject that I'm about to talk about is surely one that should be laid to REST once and for all...unfortunately, will the world EVER be satisfied with the answer that they're being given and/or are receiving FROM THE MEDIA? 

No.

Ever since the world lost one of the most beloved recording artists, Selena, who was a daughter, sister, aunt, friend and wife, all the media is able to focus on is what really happened in her personal life...

What were her last days on earth like? Was she really happy? Was she leaving her career for another path? Was she hiding anything from her family? Was she in love with someone else?

The answers to these questions have ALREADY been given by her most trusted loved ones and closest inner circle in the very short months after they lost her back in 1995. Yet,  17 years later and counting, people STILL keep giving interviews and continue to come out with obscure and dark stories about what Selena "really" lived during the last years of her short life.

Ultimately, these interviews, statements, stories are ALL invalid. 

 

Selena herself is NOT here to set the record straight, and tell her side of what the tabloids and "specials"are accusing her of having done with her own actions. Her family have ALL given interviews on every aspect of who she was and who she continues to be in their heart and soul.

 That's ALL that matters.

The world will unfortunately ALWAYS want to spread lies and milk the story for ages to come. 

The TRUTH of the matter is:

 Selena Quintanilla-Perez was as REAL as anyone else here on this earth is, she accomplished MANY goals in her life including that of having fallen in love with her art of music, fashion, her family and her husband. In reality she was allowed to feel whatever she wanted to feel whenever she wanted to feel it because she was human. Frustrations, tears, sadness, and frowns were also part of her somber days, just like any one of us. She was also happy, delighted, fearless, hard working and strived to be the best person she could be not only to those around her, 

but to the WORLD. 

She continues to LIVE on through her music and through her family, which whom allow US, the fans to have access to see who Selena came to be, especially as the TRUE artist she grew to become and the INSPIRATION she continues to be for millions around the world!

What ELSE is to be said than....

 SELENA VIVE!