If I could talk to my teenage self, the one thing I would say is be intentional. Intentional in all aspects of your life; from your daily interactions, to your job, to your relationships and family – absolutely EVERY aspect of your life.

What do I mean by being intentional? In simple term, is it necessary. Is where you are putting your energy and allowing it to stress you necessary? What are you allowing people to know about you? It can even be used when you waste money on something and then put it in the back of the closet or under the bed; only to find it a year later and trash it because you never needed it. What if you were intentional that day at the store and asked yourself, what will I need this for?

These questions can save you a lot of time and keep you from questioning your actions and decisions. I think I’ve said it before whether in prior posts or not… I used to love that I went with the flow and lived in the moment. Now as a vieja (old woman) I know that it isn’t ideal, my life has passed so quickly because I didn’t live it with intention.

Intentionality brings greater quality

Now to talk to the 2019 humans… think about it when you just start scrolling on social media – is it mindlessly or intentional? Are you in a kind frame of mind and really want to see pictures of your friends or are you just wasting time by scrolling; not liking, not reading the caption and avoiding? Isn’t social media to connect? For example, I see a sunset and I double click to like it because damn those ombre colors and the wave crashing and shit I can’t ever get a pic like that. So I like it and keep scrolling but then it comes up later that day and I take the time to actually read the caption. I now know that the person drove to the beach at 5am because they couldn’t sleep all night and wanted to get there fore the 6am sunrise and see if that would help the “funk” they were in. Now I know shit it wasn’t just a dope picture; they are going through something, so maybe reach out to them in a dm or even if you know their number in a text.

We could even go deeper – let’s not live just to pay our bills or have a lot of friends just to say you did instead of quality friends that know your heart and soul deeply. What are you passionate about? What are my priorities?

Understand your why.. and remember it’s fluid.

Let’s stop with instant gratification when we all know prolonged gratification is the icing (cream cheese or buttercream for me) to life.

xx- JC