Happy 2014!

Happy 2014 Everyone! Here's the first post of the year, on my new blog.  Enjoy! :)

In the last year of my life in Beijing, I felt stress for the first time in my life.  It wasn't the kind of stress from an upcoming exam, or having too many drinks to make at the bar; it was the kind that felt like continuous weight that I HAD to be doing something every second of every day because I was running out of time.  I thought it was Beijing's fast-paced environment, that the excitement and life in the city was too fast for me--I was wrong, as I often am even though I prefer keeping that to myself.  (Pardon the run-on!)

Everyone has 24 hours in everyday.  Everyone gets the same amount of time each day.  Some may lose a few days, and some may gain some.  If you look at it on a micro level, we all get 24 hours, 1440 minutes, 86,400 seconds every day. (Thank you motha & fatha for sending me to mental math class ).  Or, if you want to look at it on a macro level, the seconds, minutes, and hours you get in a day don't really amount to anything because we're going to die out eventually probably before the sun goes out.  However you choose to look at it, or choose not to, enjoy it.  Find that bit of peace everywhere you look, and then the seconds stop mattering.  The best part is you end up doing much more when your heart and your mind have agreed on tea time.

 We are all a work in progress, and here I am one year later.  For the first time in my 24 years, I am starting to understand what it is to take the time to stop sometimes and just think.  As Winnie the Pooh would say,

"Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

Thank you for all the support to everyone back home, to everyone I've met here, and everyone I've yet to meet.  

Here's my favorite shot from NYE 2014, which was the first I've experienced without a count down ;)

Wishing you all a happy new year!

Love,
Daze

Sublevel NYE 2014, Los Angeles