September 18, 2005
I did so many things in San Francisco this weekend! Louis was in town and we drove through the Haight and Castro districts, we sampled foods at the Farmers Market on the Embarcadero… we ate lunch at Fisherman’s wharf, we walked around the Marina District, we hiked around Golden Gate Park, we had dinner in North Beach and we partied at the Lion’s Den in Pacific Heights…and that was just on Saturday!
While I was born in San Francisco, I was raised in Sacramento. I moved back to the city ( without knowing a single soul) after I graduated from UC Davis. It was awesome showing Louis a city that I had grown to love…a city that exactly two years ago, was a stranger to me…because I was a new girl discovering the beauty of an unknown, unfamiliar place.
Living as a single, young, and independent woman in a big city was a dream I had ever since I was little. So while I didn’t know anyone in the city after college, I did what I always do whenever I want something that is outside my physical reach: I created an Action Plan. I first began with the skills I already possessed and knew how to use…. and so after college, I decided to take my pageant shoes out of a four year retirement and join a pageant in San Francisco. My pageant experience allowed me to stay in the city for a two week period where I networked with new friends and acquaintances…While I met many people and experienced a successful pageant win, parades and parties….it was the quality experience of a single friend, whose personal love for a city he grew up in, that elevated my transition to a city that was once foreign to my heart.
Today when I played hostess to a visitor in town, I realized that in the last two years…or en the last two months…I had changed. It’s like reading the same book or watching the same movie and reading or seeing something new about it every year. The book didn’t change, the movie didn’t change…and San Francisco didn’t change: I changed.
You are the artist of your own painting…you are the writer of your own book…and you are the hero of your own battle. You control your destiny.
The first step in completing any life journey is to utilize the most powerful energy in the world to move you: the energy of Love. I learned how to write from a passionate English teacher, I learned how to exercise from a passionate Aerobics Instructor, I learned business from a passionate CEO, and I learned about San Francisco from a passionate native resident, Brian Woo. Passion means Love…and Love manifests itself through Service…and Service is an unselfish, caring action given to another being without thought of immediate reciprocation. These people and heroes in my life do what they do, because they love it…and they want to share their joy with you. Sharing their joy and having others experience the beauty of the joy their passions bring to them, is an internal reward that creates eternal happiness.
Passion is what created this journal entry. Passion is what moved me to San Francisco, what motivated me to compete and what lead me to meeting Brian and Louis. Passion is what makes me write the way I write and think the way I think. Passion is a focused, loving and intense energy directed towards a person, place or thing. All we want in life is to be able to tolerate a hard and difficult life with a steady flow of happiness. The people who are happiest are the people that have a passion for what they do.
Allow a passionate energy to drive you to jump higher, swim farther, run faster…..and dream bigger. Let Love lead you to perceive, believe and achieve a world of happiness, a world designed by you…a world that was lost and now found in your personal dreams. I know that as long as I live, I will have fun dying a little each day… trying to test my human capabilities, to see how far love will take me.