About a year ago, I was struggling with an overuse of social media and the internet. I was spending way more hours on the computer than I wanted to be and wasting so much time and energy on the silliest of things, like “Can We Guess Your Mental Age? – Take the Quiz!” or “The 24 Cutest Animals of All Time.” I felt discontented with my life and overwhelmed by all the excess of information constantly flooding into my head. How could I even focus on trying to do the right thing when all my extra time was spent online? Deciding it was time to do something about it, I started severely controlling my computer time – forcing myself to use sites like Facebook or Pinterest only once or twice a week, for a limited amount of time. I actually set timers to alert me when my time was up. With my newfound free time, I started falling back in love with activities I had always enjoyed, such as reading, crafting and cooking. I suddenly had so much potential to be useful to more people, because I was no longer wasting hours of my life away on the computer.
Continue reading The Simple Life →

As a performer, I am no stranger to praise, and attempting to stay humble has always been an important part of who I am. Because I started dancing when I was four, I was taught from a very young age how to receive compliments gracefully and how to always make sure I thanked people for coming to see me. Since then, my performances have expanded to include theater and voice and the same rules still apply. What I discovered as I grew older, however, is that praise is a very difficult thing to deal with. If you let it go to your head, you become prideful; if you deny it, you become ungrateful…not quite so glorious as it may seem. I think praise can be very useful, but only if you know how to handle it.
Continue reading Praise: Is it My Gift or His? →