This post is serious.

I have so many thoughts.

My husband and I often talk about what we want to accomplish. What we want the real aim of our lives to be. Is it money? Is it family? Every day what is it that I am waking up and feeling passionate about? I must have a greater purpose than school, this blog, or Pinterest right? Who am I influencing? Who am I building up with my words? Do I improve myself everyday? Do I live my life to its greatest potential?

All of those questions leave me feeling inspired to live better.
Cause shouldn't that all be what we are doing?
Living life each day more passionately?
More fully?
More joyfully?

Sometimes we have set backs. I recognize this. And sometimes we feel like we can't go on. But we do. And it all compiles into this journey each of us gets to take.

We are on the earth.
We have a God who loves us!
We have moments of joy that couldn't be bought with money.

I by no means live a perfect life in which everyday I increase my capacity for kindness. Sometimes I get grumpy. And heaven knows I snap at people. My poor husband. I can do better. I can be nicer. I can love more. This is what I want my life to be. I want those around me to feel lifted.

This semester I am in my Senior capstone class for advertising. We are working with a really tricky client. With a group of 7 sometimes we feel unmotivated, but there is one boy in our group that somehow leaves every single one of us feeling better than when we got there. He lifts us. Encourages us. Motivates us to produce work that we thought we were incapable of.

I want to be like this. I want to leave people better than when I found them.

Every year before the start of a new school year I would get "the lecture." My Dad would always say the same thing. Here I am in college and every time before a new semester starts this conversation plays itself out.

Dad: "And what are you going to do this year?'
Me: "Be nice to everyone."
Dad: "That's right... because everyone needs a friend."

I was reading blogs the other day and a fellow blogger was personally attacked on a forum. I would put the link here, but it doesn't deserve any more traffic. It wasn't even me being criticized, but I was completely crushed.

There is so much unkindness in the world. I remember when Mean Girls came out in theaters. My mom took me to see it at the age of 13 because Dr. Phil told her too. As funny as the movie is there is so much truth.

So today. I am going to be a little nicer. Gossip is officially not a part of my vocabulary because surely there are better things that I could be doing.

I might even do the dishes when I get home.