When I think about the New Year and resolutions, I think about shame. I think about how every resolution I want to make is born from being mad at myself, for shaming myself into submission, for holding a measuring stick above my head and noting that I have not reached it yet. I focus my attention on what I haven’t done, what promises I made to myself which I promptly broke. Gym memberships discarded. Vegetables left rotting in refrigerators. Money spent recklessly. Routines and schedules scribbled in Moleskine’s. Writing schedules. Exercise schedules. Food plans. I am a work in progress whose progress is never recognized. And, it never ends. It spins and spins. Perfectionism isn’t a feverish need to be perfect, but is a paralyzing force that stops you from trying, because if it’s not going to be done perfectly, why do it at all?

I find that most of the grandeur in which I approach a life change is fueled by shame. The sequence of events is usually the same. Something will trigger a shameful feeling within me. I will get that sort of tightening in my chest which signifies I have completely gone into feeling ashamed of myself. I will quickly devise a plan which will start the following day and will exterminate this shameful feeling. The plan will be ostentatious, something I am certain I will fail at, but I will craft it without even thinking rationally about this sort of thing. (Shame is not rational, but I will completely forget that.) Shame will be soothed momentarily as I fantasize about myself carrying out this plan. The next day, I might follow my plan. Maybe I’ll stick to it for a week or two, but there will be a constant simmering of panic that will dictate my every move. And, soon enough, I will eschew my plan, convince myself I am rightful in my shame, and fall into a dip of depressive tendencies. Hopelessness. Frustration. That voice which tells me all my pain and suffering lies on the other side of my ability to follow through! Stick it out! Never give up!

The alleviation of shame is not a motivating factor. That’s the thing. That’s the only thing. I keep thinking it is and that’s my issue here. I make these grand plans only to find that I am not particularly motivated by getting rid of an emotion I no longer want to feel. It is not energizing at all. And, it puts me in a position where I am behind on myself already, trying to catch up. When I am fueled by shame, I am trying to outrun it. On the other hand, when I am fueled by love, I am empowered by it.

There is nothing particularly joyous about trying to outrun or escape a feeling. It’s like trying to not be in last place as the only goal. There is nothing triumphant about knocking yourself down long enough that it propels you to change just enough to get you back to normal. I find that shame keeps me down enough to pull me back to where I started in the first place. There is no growth. There is no forward movement. There is just getting back to where I once was before I assumed shame into my identity.

What I’ve started to do when that cheek-burning shame comes creeping back into my mind is I stop it directly in its tracks. I question it, rather than take it as fact. I look deeply into it, rather than take it as this surface-level admonition of my failings. I reveal it, rather than keep it hidden and thus lessening its power over me. And, then I say to myself, “How would I see this differently if I radically loved and accepted myself?” And truly, that changes my entire view of whatever triggered the shame. It’s like being afraid of the dark because you keep assuming there’s something lurking. You are too afraid to see what is creeping about. Then, you shine the light, you look around, and see there was nothing to fear at all. Just an assumption of fear. Just the fear that there is something to fear.

Shame will do that. It will take all manner of reason and rationalization away from you and let you fumble around in the darkness of your fear. It will tell you that you must be good enough. Not great. Not brilliant. Just good enough. Just acceptable enough.

So, as you go into 2015 and you resolve yourself to grand plans, remember to ask yourself whether your resolutions are being dictated by shame in yourself or by love for yourself. Because, you will never be brilliant if you’re too busy trying to extinguish shameful feelings. You can never truly step into the light if you’re too busy avoiding the dark. And, whatever you resolve to bring into 2015 better be that which is fueled by love for yourself. I know that’s what I will do. And, when we can resolve to start our new years with love, we are already beyond what we know we’re capable of. We are stepping into an unknown, a growth, a new frame of mind. Cheers to big things. Cheers to a life fueled by love.

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I never thought I would be the girl to have fallen into relationships where I allowed myself to be lost. I never thought that I’d be the girl to continue to date the wrong guy, despite friends warning me he was bad news. I never thought I would be the girl to fall madly and hopelessly in love with a boy who would end up dropping me like yesterday’s news.

I always thought I’d meet the man of my dreams and be married by 23. I certainly never planned on going to 3 different colleges, setting me back from graduation an entire year. I was convinced I would graduate in 4 years with a double major and a minor, and go on to get two doctorates.

Everyone believed I could do it, I believed I could do it. Even if I had lost my entire identity, I knew that I could count on being good in school. But, I did not count on absolutely hating my first college, or transferring to a community college. I will be honest, I looked down on community colleges, that was where people who had no ambition went. Where people who were not good at school went, where people who were happy with an associates degree went. Those things were not descriptors for me. Yet, that is where I ended up for my second year of college. I definitely never thought I would move across the entire country to attend a school in a state I absolutely hated. I never thought any of these would be elements in my life, this is not what I thought my life would be. Yet here I stand, and I am ok with it, here’s why.

Even though I have lost myself to relationships, been cheated on, emotionally abused, been told “You’re not good enough,” and given my all into something that was not reciprocated, I also learned a lot about myself. When something like that happens, when you are broken down, completely crushed and shattered, you are given two choices. The first, you can remain battered and broken, and play the victim, constantly blaming everyone else for everything that is going wrong in your life. Or, you can pick up those tiny shards of yourself, and slowly piece yourself back together.

I’ve never been one to play the victim, my parents taught me to take responsibility for myself, so I had no choice but to do the latter. In losing myself, I found myself. I came back stronger. I am not the same person I was in those relationships, I am not soft, I refuse to play games, I will confront a significant other when something feels wrong. I know who I am, and I refuse to let a man redefine that, I do not need someone else to define who I am. Will that scare off potential boyfriends? I have no doubt, but I am not interested in a man who cannot handle my strength.

I have always wanted to get married. I have always wanted to skip over the whole dating scene, and just meet that one guy that made me believe in that true old-time, life-long lasting, love. Yet, here I am, 22 and still single. Which, I understand, is still incredibly young when it comes to the grand scheme of everything. However, I always thought I’d be the girl to have that incredible love story they write books about. But, because of those broken pieces I have forced back together into an improved me, I refuse to rush into anything. Which is why I do not see myself getting married by my deadline of being married by age 23. I have been single now for almost three years, I have gotten used to it, I like my space, and not having to let someone know what I am doing and when or why I am doing it. I answer only to myself, which is an amazing and liberating thing. Do I love being single? No, not necessarily. However, I do LOVE the aspects of being single.

It is a funny thing, the dreams people have for themselves, before they get to know the pressures of the world. Before they know what it will actually take to reach those dreams. Before I knew anything about how much money it would take to finish my schooling with multiple degrees. I knew it would take time, a lot of time, but I was fine with that. Like I said, I was good with school. School was that one thing that I could count on having the answers for. But then I grew to be somewhat financially responsible for myself, I found out the approximate amount it would take to get all of those fancy degrees. I do not come from a wealthy family by any means, but because of what we do have, I do not qualify for much aid from the government. Unless I won the lottery, there is no reasonable way for me to pay for that much schooling. Which is why I whittled down to just 1 degree. But, I am 100 percent passionate about that degree, I love everything about it, and I am completely and totally happy with my decision to focus myself to one thing to excel at.

This decision regarding school was also aided in the fact that I have attended three schools in the past five years. I had a professor tell me last semester, “You are truly amazing. Usually students just drop out after transferring one time, yet here you are, doing very well after transferring twice.” I did not know what to say to her, not finishing school was never an option for me. After my first year of college, I was pretty discouraged, so I went to a community college.

At first I was not enthralled with the idea, however it was probably the best thing to happen to me in my college career. The professors I had there were better than the ones I’d had at my fancy university, they knew my name, they took the time to actually teach, and it re-energized me. So, after a year, I moved across the entire country. I transferred to a very small university with a very large agriculture department, with professors that could rival any bigger university. Even though I absolutely abhor the state I am currently in, I know it is only temporary, and this school is really what is best for me. I am graduating in about 6 months, with my one degree, in the one area of study that I am completely enthralled with.

So, this is not the life I saw for myself, at all. I have not met my prince charming, I have had prince pretenders completely strip me of who I thought I was, I have moved away from everything I know to start over in a place where I knew no one, my dreams have changed drastically; my life is nothing like what I thought it would be. But, along my journey, I have rebuilt a better me, discovered what my real dreams were, and learned that all that has happened to me has made me who I am. Even though this is not what I thought my life would be, I have so many doors opening up, and am excited to see where the twists and turns that is life takes me.

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1. If you hand your phone to a sales associate, and they have to “take it to the back” for any reason, there is a good chance they are looking through your photos at an attempt to see you naked. Sometimes they don’t even bother going to the back, they’ll just check while doing “diagnostic tests”. This sucks, but let’s be honest, if you have that shit on your phone, what are you doing just handing it to a random stranger without moving the photos?

2. Wireless employees make more than you think. The experienced sales associates (“consultants”) made $40,000+ a year. The REAL good ones could push $70,000+, and the store managers in the LOWER volume stores came close to $50,000. Anything above store-level flirted with or exceeded 6-figures.

3. The payment machines you see in the stores are cashed out nightly, and regularly bring in $5,000-$15,000 cash daily. Some stores have 2 of these machines.

4. A regular practice in the wireless industry is to call customers and ask about their last “in-store experience”. The employees in the store actually get rated on this, and it’s part of their commission. The downside is they get paid on the store level, so one obnoxious asshole can affect everyone’s pay.

5. Every wireless employee thinks every customer is an idiot who knows nothing about what their phones are capable of. 99.3% of the time, they’re absolutely right. On the flip side….

7. A good amount of wireless employees (myself included) know a lot less about these devices than you would first believe. Good customer service and sales skills go a long way. Sell the sizzle, not the steak.

8. Wireless accessories are RIDICULOUSLY marked up. That $40 car charger you bought? That cost the company less than a dollar. Naturally, the consultants push these HARD.

9.  Store employees get hit on ALL THE TIME. Seriously, you guys offer up a lot of shit to keep yourselves connected to your Twitter account. And a lot of times, it works.

10. We like to flirt, too, sometimes. Please reference point #1; we may have already seen you naked, so why not, right?

11. You know how you go to access your account and forgot your PIN, so I need 37 ID’s and your first-born son’s left arm to verify your identity? I once personally spent a week helping a lady whose 12-year old son had his identity stolen and had 50+ DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS opened up and $1,000’s of dollars billed on EACH ACCOUNT making calls to the D.R.. We are legitimately trying to protect you when we ask for that shit, so calm down.

12. People threaten violence on wireless employees all the time, and sometimes the violent acts are followed-thru on. In my time in the industry, a T-Mobile employee was set on fire by her ex, an AT&T employee shot and killed. I’ve been threatened with everything from guns to bombs. Funny thing, though……

13. Store Managers, in partnership with their Corporate Security team, have the power to turn off any cell phones on your account permanently and make sure you never get it back. I had to do this twice. So, again, calm your shit.

14. The demo phones in the stores get stolen a TON! Sometimes, the genius thief will return to the store several days later and ask us to activate their new phone on their line. Hey, man, thanks for bringing my phone back, the cops will be here shortly to help you with that!

15. Due to shared stress, store employees become family, and like to have fun. It was not uncommon for me to set alarms on the store’s demo phones to go off right at opening time the next morning on my off-day. Seriously, it could make for a decent reality TV show.

16. Stores that do their job right maintain their inventory meticulously. They count each and every phone in the store, including returns and demo phones, by serial number, WEEKLY. The busy stores have 800-900 serial numbers at any given moment.

17. If you buy a phone at Best Buy, Radio Shack, or the like, don’t try to return it to me. The answer is no. If you are having an issue, we can try to fix it, but if you buy it there, return it there.

18. There are stores that are called “dealers”. They look exactly like corporate-owned stores, down to the dress code. Their policies can be a lot different, and even though you bought our service, there’s very little we can do if they screwed you in some way.

19. It was not terribly uncommon for refurbished phones to not have all their data erased before being sent back to stores. Meaning not only did the employees see your nudes when you traded in your phone, but some other lucky customer (or, for added fun, lucky customer’s child) saw your genitals as well. Enjoy that.

20. The management team in a store will truly do anything they can to help you in any situation, but if you’re an asshole about whatever the situation is, PARTICULARLY if nobody in that store caused said situation, what they can do will become SEVERELY limited. They get paid commission for good customer experience ratings, not for bowing to douche-nozzles.

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