Simply Sawyer

Have you ever considered what you would be doing right now, at this very moment, if things worked out the way you have originally intended? Your life expectations are set to a high standard. You are actually continuously paving a road to your future constantly. You are projecting your expectations into your future experiences. Your past is your experience, the present is an experiment and the future is full of expectation. What we must do is to use our experience in our experiments to achieve our expectations. But sometimes, it does not always work out how we plan (or hope). For the past four years, I have set a very high bar for myself. With that bar, came extremely high standards that cause me to place a large sum of pressure on myself. Four years ago to this day, I decided that I wanted to take up writing as my newest hobby. Why? Because writing is a form of therapy. It is an escape mechanism. Something that lets me create an alternate ending to an unfinished story. It was als...

You know it already. You know you shouldn’t compare yourself to others. Yet, that’s often easier said than done. Job titles, income, grades, house, and Facebook likes—the number of categories in which we can compare ourselves to others are infinite. So is the number of people we can compare ourselves to. Comparison is generally the fast track to unhappiness. It’s a recipe for misery. All it does is keeping you focused on what you don’t like about yourself and your life. Ever since I made the decision to choose to live for me, I’ve tried to focus on my new path. I’ve pictured myself as a horse with blinders, because I knew that looking too much on the sides would only keep me side-tracked. It worked for a while. While I was out traveling for a year I kept my eyes on the prize, so to speak. But, when I came back home again, it wasn’t so easy anymore. I caught myself glancing over to what other people had, and I didn’t. Where they were in life and I wasn’t....

As human beings, we’re kind of selfish. This is a quality that I have recognized in myself many times, but don’t do anything about. Look at the world today; we’re not doing great with the whole peace and love idea that was so popular in the sixties and seventies. However, maybe we can change that--just start small. First off, this idea is pretty simple. Stop being rude to people. Especially servers, waiters, etc. They can only do so much, so how about you relax? Yes, your order will come. Stop shaking your leg and aggressively sighing to show them that they are wasting your precious time. If you are so short on time, then maybe you don’t need to be ordering a tall nonfat latte with two percent foam at precisely 120 degrees during the morning rush. The people you see walking around everyday have just as complex lives as you do. Maybe they are having a bad day already. You certainly do not need to add to it by being rude. Relax, my fellow human being, relax. There is no need to exert ...

In a previous blog, I wrote: 'The best present you could give yourself is the "present''. The past no longer exists and tomorrow never seems to come. All we have is now.' Even though I still believe this to be true, some recent events have changed my outlook on how to spend our time in the present.  We often let ourselves believe that we are defined by our circumstance, our family history, our environment or more. The truth is, we define ourselves by that, no one else does. When you finally get sick of reading the same shitty story over and over again, and you can recite the words by heart, you begin to wonder if there is more to life than that. I have come to this realization when the social bubble that I lived in burst. I tend to stick to my own little world. I was on my way home from my adventures downtown when I was approached by a man who appeared to be (stereotypically) homeless. I rarely ever turn away a chance to learn something new, which for m...

“Life should be lived with a little more GRATITUDE and a little less ATTITUDE.” Gratitude leads to greatness.  It can literally turn what you have into more than enough, jobs into joy, chaos into order, uncertainty into clarity, and bring peace to an otherwise chaotic day. The easiest way to make your blessings count is to count your blessings.  Acknowledging the good things you already have in your life is of the essence, because whatever you appreciate and give thanks for will grow stronger in your life. Over my short time of realizing how lucky and blest I am, I have created a few rules to live by. 1.  The more you are in a state of gratitude, the more you will attract things to be grateful for. Be grateful for what you have, and you’ll end up having more. Focus on what you don’t have, and you’ll never have enough. 2.  Being happy won’t always make you grateful, but being grateful will always make you happy. It’s nearly impossible to sincerely a...

Life's greatest teachers are heart-breaks, emptiness and failures.  We come across things in our lives that - at the time - can become obstacles. Sometimes we take one over another, and sometimes they come all at once. I have noticed recently that I have fallen into a slump. I take these "obstacles" and pile them up. I even take an obstacle and twist it to make it seem worse than it actually is. In my head, it is that bad. I've recently had a few events happen that felt like my heart was breaking and have created this slump. Does that happen to anyone else? Something you care about so much doesn't pan out in your favour and it ends up hurting so badly? Heartbreaks Everyone knows what rejection feels like. It’s a universal (and universally disliked) experience, but it’s one that we each experience differently. For the most part, people are pretty good at moving on with their lives — even better than they might guess. Sometimes, though, getting rejected hurts...

Hello, my name is Mariann and I am fat. Yes, fat. I mean overweight, perhaps even obese to most. No, I am not writing this to gain sympathy, attention or hate. I am writing this for me, and every other person who struggles with self confidence. As someone who has always been a 'plus sized girl', this was never news to me and that's okay. That being said, I never knew it was okay until recently. Fat is a word that has been taken and twisted by a majority of things. Media, society, science, and even family and friends. These influences have always come and go from our daily lives and contort what we know and believe. Fat is just a word. A word with three letters. One word, that does not define WHO I am, what I do, or even what I plan to be. So, with this being said, let me start over. Hello, my name is Mariann and I have fat. I also have two blue eyes that tend to change colour every so often. I have curly hair, and a lot of freckles. I have two hands and two feet. ...

I have decided to take a break from my current writing projects to do a steam-of-conscious exercise. I think I may have a new thriller/horror idea... This is an unedited free-writing piece. It was just meant to bring in some fresh ideas. This is my outcome, and my current work in progress. Darkness has no weight, and its smile is as empty as the air. Watching it taunt me, prancing, I figured it had a purpose. If I left it long enough it would go away: But the moon dripped with a sinister side; A face – that was mine – determined, Lips that curdled into a snarl, A prance, stomping. Darkness became my prison; Trapped inside, buried and burned, I prayed for the call of twilight, For the soft glow that awaited, For the new beginnings of the shadows. Behind these walls, the city was alive; I took no part, but gazed out as a stranger would gaze upon a new world. Who would confine me from my fate? No one, but me; My only hope, light. Sleep occurred; but my dreams were...