Mistake #8: Watching Really Really Really Shitty Movies

Ding! Popcorn, done. Pop! Soda, check. Plop! Couch, occupied. Flick! TV, on. Click! Movie, start. It's Friday night and these are your only concerns for the next two hours. You have a date with a year's worth of production, sweat, blood, and money. Also, your significant other decided to join you. You know because they like you  and want an excuse to cuddle. Yes, this applies to both females AND the manliest of males. Anyways, your main mission. This movie. 120 minutes of patience and undivided attention. Dramatic moment after moment, followed by bits of action, with a dash of comedy. MISTAKE. Your movie had none of this. You lost interest halfway through and brought you bundle of frustration. Total waste of time. You even rejected your significant other feeling you up a little you were so distraught. Just kidding. You gave in. But you tried to watch the rest of the movie after you're focused. Still just as shitty. Great start to the weekend right? Wrong. The best start.

You repeatedly bang your head against a concrete wall second guessing your original judgement on why in God's name did you lose two hours of your life. Metaphorically speaking of course. But really why did you watch that shitty movie? You can usually tell a movie will suck something awful after the first 10-15 minutes. You keep watching though. Sitting, Waiting, Wishing that it will progressively improve. Hoping you'll be happy with your choice. But in the end it's just another shitty movie.

Warning: Shitty will be used repeatedly throughout this creative process and life. Get used to it.

This is just another mistake you have made. Add it to the list. I would stop counting too. You're eventually gonna run out of numbers you're counting so high.

Another mistake you're making is worrying about your mistake. You're wasting time. Time that could be better spent writing a blog as honest as this one, or saving lives, or making me a sandwich. Anything on wheat and I'm the happiest of clams.

Shitty movies get you down. I'm sure if you're aware of life past the age of sand boxes and snack packs that you can guess where this is going.

Shitty movies are life. There are those directors out there that spend their whole lives waiting for the moment to have their prized desires and dreams projected on the big screen. It's really is cute how misguided some of them are, yet you can't deny their ambition. Reality check: we are the directors. We have a whole crew of people supporting us financially, creatively, and emotionally. Sometimes literally holding us up so we don't crash on the pavement. We spend our whole lives directing ourselves. We write a story based on the material we have experienced in life. We painstakingly type our fingers to nubs in hopes of painting a majestic vision that others can enjoy with us. We come across a road block and erase a little or a lot then trudge along trying to piece together a new script. We go on. Enjoying life's beauty and romance along the way. The you come across what you believe is something that entices you to your core. It is your masterpiece. Your statue of David or Starry Night. Could be a relationship, project, job, idea for the next big thing. Then you risk your heart and money and chuck out to the public and await your moment of fame. MISTAKE.

Welcome to your personal shitty movie. You've been criticized, tormented, and publicly mutilated in the most embarrassing fashion. Most likely something to deal with having a nervous breakdown and there's a video of your outlash on youtube. Pretty shitty huh? This is a mistake because you're human. Life happens whether it's  at 24 frames per second or a blink of the eye.

You could wallow in your own humiliation and bask in your own depression as your shame cakes on making it damn near impossible to shake it all off. Or you could man/woman up and accept life as it comes at you. I choose to survive and thrive rather than subside.

One notion of advice one should take away from a young 21 year old aspiring filmmaker, who has a lot to say without a character limit. "You're gonna direct a million shitty movies. You're going to be mocked and laughed it. Life is all about the people who share the shitty times with you so that one day when you make your marks on this life, you all can laugh at how shitty you once had it. Remember, life could always get shittier. At the same time it can ALWAYS get better." These are words to live and die by. You choose.

This little bit of self help casserole is meant to help you think of life positively while you're busy screwing up. You'll always be busy. You'll always have the worst days or weeks. Just realize, you get what you want out of life or anything in general. If you want to bury yourself in a coffin of covers and have a swan song orchestrated for you at your young age, then by all means you have my permission to never read a word I say, erase my number, and continuously set your future on fire fueling it with disappointment.

Go on. Walk on. Limp if you have to. Hell crawl and I'll give you a friendly piggy back ride to pick you up again. Make shitty movies and I'll be there to cry along with you and figure out whatever else we're not supposed to do. Friday nights aren't wasted unless you waste them wasting away being wasted on negative thoughts.

Life sucks until it's awesome. Respect beauty. Respect balance. Respect.

Sorry I'm not sorry if I kept you. Stay true. Sleep truer.
Kyle-Neighborhood Superhero/Baristo

Mistake #7: Drinking Coffee Once...Turns Into Forever

It's 6am. You haphazardly pimp slap your alarm clock. Your eyes close. Your eyes open. It's now 8:13am. Class at 9am. You judge if five more minutes of sleep is necessary and possible. Your eyes close. Your eyes open. You look at the clock. It's 8:49am. You have a mini-heart attack, but you're too panicked to worry about it as you're out the door with enough time to make a cup of coffee. You get to school six minutes after class begins. All of the "What a slacker" and "Asshole can't set his alarm" and of course "He won't amount to anything" looks are adamantly glared at you. You sit down in the middle of the row after you stepped on a plethora of toes and flip flops as you made your way. Now that you're comfortable you finally take a gulp of your "fresh" coffee. You wince quietly as a hundred and ninety degrees of hot coffee cover the surface of your tongue. You try your ultimate hardest not to let out a sound. Consider your day started.

The previous paragraph is how a lot of college students' days begin. Especially if they are not used to how hot coffee is or are half awake when drinking it. This is probably the mistake when it comes to drinking coffee. Burns are expected. Wear an oven mitt on your tongue if you're feeling weak just reading this.

Coffee could be the worst mistake you ever made. It's like heroin, but better tasting, mostly legal, and of course usually less blood. It's the perfect start to your day. Slowly, but surely it gets your gears turning. Your mind is awake and you don't have that full stomach feeling that soda gives you. Also you won't become diabetic if just drink straight coffee. However, side effects when you've over dosed include anxiousness, migraines when on withdrawal, coffee breath, spills, hot, fire, addiction, and you see spots sometimes. No matter how much it helps you, it will rope you in and entice you with it's mesmerizing aroma and overall warmness, but then out of no where it runs cold. Then you hate it. Then you want it. Badly. So you jog(drive) to your nearest coffee shop(insert big corporate coffee giant here) and get your fix. Everything is right in the world, until you need another damn cup of coffee. I have fallen victim to this curse, I mean heaven. I do not oppose.

I appreciate you reading the mumble jumble I have previously mentioned. I mean it I really do. If you really want to make a long lasting mistake, then go to your neighborhood coffee shop and stay a while. This is where it starts. You go a few times to get coffee on the go and that's it. Then you go in a few more times and the employees start to recognize you. Then you start to have conversations with them. You learn their lives and vice versa. Then you start to go when you have nowhere else to go. You come to enjoy the scene, environment, or experience. Whatever reason you choose, you enjoy it. It brings you back. At first you thought it was the coffee you were addicted to. You might be right. But now, now it's something way more meaningful.

You're addicted to the feeling a coffee shop injects into you. You earn a sense of belonging. A sense of friendship. You love the vibrant environment. Everyone's always doing something in there. Whether it be studying, catching up, hanging out, a business meeting, a date, or by god if they drink coffee while there, you're attached. You can't fight it. Why would you? Everyone wants a place to come to that their name is known, and not just because they're one of "those" customers which is usually followed by a negative connotation. This is your Cheers. You can escape for a little bit and watch a thousand lives pass in front of you for a little bit. It's quite the experience.

You see this is a mistake because you're constantly spending yours or your mom's money drinking coffee. When that's not even the half of it. Some people I've met think it's a mistake to get attached to a person or place for whatever reason. They say you're only setting yourself up for pain. You know what if the shop closes. Now you have to go out of your way to make more friends and find a new shop that serves quality coffee. What a tragedy. Now you have the opportunity to make more friends. As a human being, yes I'm getting profound, it's such an achievement to let oneself become attached to something. It does open one up for pain or failure, but bloody hell if you get hurt. Life's tough, get a helmet.

I may push a tough love mindset on to people I meet, but it's necessary so they can understand the seriousness and humor of life. They can and do mix. No one gets out alive, so you might as well be as sarcastic and jolly at the same time. Get attached. Hurt a little, Learn a lot.

All in all this is my coffee shop shpeel. Make a few mistakes every once in a while. Go to a coffee shop and embrace the environment. Surgeon General Warning: May Happiness and Smiles.

Let the day begin...wait my coffee just went cold...bitter taste in mouth...death stare at mug. It can only better from here right?

Over and Out. Good Morrow. I'm done. Please stop reading now.