What Money Can't Buy

I feel like everybody wants to be rich and famous and it is something everyone wants. Their main focus in live is based on earning a sufficient amount of money to buy all their needs in life. They think that will earn them happiness. I once asked someone what they wanted to be when they grew up and they said "I wanna be rich and famous" so I responded out of annoyance "that isn't a profession". Then I started to think. Everybody wants money so you would think that it is the most important thing in the world, but its not. Money can give you many many things but if all you have is money, honestly, you don't have much. Here are a couple things money can't buy.

1. Love

Love. I’m sure you have heard of a few people who marry for money and try to convince themselves that they love someone rich. However, that is not true love. True love is feeling you get when you want to be around someone constantly and it is priceless not to mention hard to find. But if it is bought it is not love. You can’t pay someone to love you because it just comes. I’ve never been in love but I have seen my parents and how in love with each other they are. They have an unbreakable bond and they truly are the best of friends. Looking at that it shows me that simply cannot be bought. It is something that is found and something that is developed overtime.

2. Friends

True friendship is someone who will stick by your side under any circumstances or when you are nothing. They are always there for you and you can’t pay for someone like that. I met most of my friends last year in 8th grade and we immediately bonded. They are still my friends and they mean the world to me. They stand up for me and make me feel better when I’m down. They always know how to make me laugh and I can trust them with anything. I love the time I spend with them and they make me happy. All of these things my friends do for me is not based off of money. It is just true friendship.

3. Time

Time. As you look back on your life it seems like it has gone by speedy quick. Time is precious so you never want to waste it. Don't think about the past and don’t think about the future. Live in the moment. This also brings me to worrying. Worrying is such a waste of time cause you just focus on what you could have done better or what you didn't do but it is often something you cant change so it is time gone to waste. You have to spend your time wisely because it will flash right before your eyes. The thing that made me think of this example is once I was with my family but I got invited to somewhere by my friends. I really wanted to go but I couldn’t. That whole day I focused on what my friends were be doing without me and what I could be missing. But doing that caused me to miss fun opportunities with my family. That night I realized I had done nothing all day and I wasted the whole day thinking about something I couldn't change. I guess what I am trying to say is stay in the present and don’t worry.

4. Laughter

Laughter in my opinion is something that represents having a good time. Sure you can buy a ticket to a comedy show or something but thats not what I am talking about. I am talking about an experience or memory that you had with someone like your friends. When I think of laughter I think of the times with my friends when we were all laughing on the floor until we were crying or where we could laugh anymore because our stomachs hurt and most of the time it’s because of a joke or looking back on a memory. We are laughing at something that is not bought and that there is an experience you can’t buy.

5.  A good family relationship

Family relationships develop and sure you can buy someone in your family stuff and you may think is makes them like you more. But I'm talking about the fun times spent with family and using experiences to develop those relationships. I came up with this example by thinking o my family. My family sits at the dinner table together every night to talk. My family makes me feel comfortable and does stuff for me that I don’t think anyone else would do. For example, Many people are like “oh I hate my siblings” and “they’re so annoying!” But personally I love my sister and the time I spend with her is often very fun and she makes my laugh and she is always there for me and always cares about me. That relationship that we have can’t be bought.

Here are some additional things money can't buy (Image from chibird)

I'm not advising people to stop trying to be successful and not care about money because it is a necessary thing in life. I'm just telling you why you shouldn't base your whole life around money and how money isn't everything. The things that money can't buy are way more valuable than money.

I Hate Phones

I sit here staring at the blinking line on my computer screen with a blank mind and a blank page. Pure and white with no text written down. Nothing going through my brain and no ideas. Watching the time tick away. Then eventually, I become bored so I reach over about two inches and pick up my phone. Its a natural instinct. I go on Twitter, Instagram, Phhhoto, Vine, and Snapchat and I scroll through every new post and jump from app to app. It's not even fun but for some reason that's my main way of passing time. Eventually, I look at the clock and a couple of hours have passed then I realize how much time I have wasted and hate myself for it. But for some reason that's the pattern that I go through daily, forgetting what I had just learned the day prior. This post isn't about social media and how screwed up society is, It's about how we have become so dependent on our phones. I hate it. Everyday I come home from school with loads of homework and a bunch of studying to do but whenever I walk through the door at 3:00 pm, I end up just sit in my kitchen staring at a screen. I do it for hours on end and don't get any of the important stuff done. It's like an addictive drug that everyone is hooked on. Nowadays, relationships consist of only texting each other and never actually talking to each other. But they don't realize the person they are texting could be totally different from them in real life. Although, they wouldn't know that because they never actually talk to them.

Relationships (image from gif wave)

It's kind of ironic actually, I was on Instagram the other day and I was laughing at a post I saw. The post was of someone who was too busy on their phone they missed to see something really cool that was right infront of them. But in reality I am just laughing at myself because I am doing the exact same thing while looking at the post. I look around at parties and see everyone sitting on their phone and no one is talking to each other and think about what a shame it is. But I guess I can't talk because I do that as well. It's like our whole lives are held within our phone. They make us blind to the real world and less active and social. So what would happen if we didn't have it? Would people not know how to pass time? Would people finally communicate to each other by actually talking? And all these things just makes we wonder what the future is going to be like. Technology is going to advance and it may be for the better but it also could be for the worse. If we are tremendously addicted to our phones now, it's just going to get worse. As a result people are way too dependent on their phones. The need to put them down and have a real conversation.

PS. Shoutout to Martina Nedakovic for being the inspiration of this post by her social media post :))
PPS. While writing this post I subconsciously went on my phone 9 times (I counted).

Volleyball :)

I started dancing in 5th grade and right away was in love with it but after a couple of years I started to loose interest in it. It became boring for me so I decided I would find a new sport. Volleyball tryouts were coming up in a bit for a club named elevate, so I thought I might as well tryout. When I got to tryouts I was really nervous. It being my first time to ever play I obviously sucked at it but somehow I made it on. I played with that club going to tournaments and different places with my team. We won no games and I am not saying this as an exaggeration... we actually did not win a single game. So in that first season of playing I liked the sport regardless of how little I learned in those three months and how often we lost so I wanted to keep playing.
During the summer I played beach volleyball for a month. It was okay but I didn't like it as much. After that, I went to summer camp then came back and went to another camp for volleyball. This camp was at BYU. I went there for four days meeting new people and playing volleyball all day. At this camp everyday we woke up, ate breakfast, went to practice, ate lunch, went to practice, ate dinner, played in a tournament, and lastly went to sleep. Except for one afternoon where we went to Seven Peaks. It was a lot of volleyball and I had a blast and ended up liking it even more than I did before. I also ended up learning more than I did in those three months I played club volleyball.

Me and my friends at Seven Peaks

A week later I tried out for the high school volleyball team and I made it on. Everyday after school for the first quarter of the school year, I would go to practice for three hours and I loved it. I loved all of my coaches and loved how much they taught me. They taught me how to play volleyball and also how to be a better player. One thing the taught me was commitment. They taught me what the steps are too fully commit to something which leads to improvement. They also taught me how to be mentally tough by getting rid of panic and thinking of positivity. We finished sixth nationally but its not about winning its about improving and putting out your best effort.

My high school volleyball team and coach

At this point in volleyball I fell in love with the sport and playing it made me happy. After the season was over I was a little unsettled because I knew that even though I went to school with all of the girls I played with, I wouldn't be as close with them and wouldn't see them everyday at practice anymore. They became my close friends.

Two weeks later I tried out for a club named Club V. At tryouts everyone was super good and I thought I wasn't going to make it on to a team but turns out I did. I made it on to a team with three other girls for park city and I'm pumped to being playing with them. The season hasn't started yet but I am super exited for it. My whole volleyball experience has taught me that if you work hard enough at something you can achieve it.