Cassie's Main Points

1. If you stay away from McDonald’s long enough, you’ll forget about the hamburgers.
2. She was probably going to buy drugs.
3. Just because it’s easy does not mean it’s good for you.
4. Awkward is a belief, not an action.
5. The stop-light approach/ red flag

Sarah’s Version:

In our lives there are many sayings, phrases and words of advice that often steer the ship of our everyday lives. These sayings can be universal, or told to you from others in your close circle of friends and family. At first, these mottos seem cliché, and you often think to yourself “When will I ever actually live my life by these sayings”. Its funny how life works because eventually you find yourself relating back to these little words of advice – even if you don’t know it.

If you stay away from McDonald’s long enough, you’ll forget about the hamburgers. Really this saying is a clever way of saying “Out of sight out of mind”. This philosophy has been uttered to me in many ways from friends and family, especially when overcoming an addiction or heart break. If you ignore him, you’ll eventually get over him! At the end of the day we as humans often want to cling on to the people that may have once provided us happiness. When they turn out to not be good for you in the end, we have difficulty disconnecting them from our daily lives. The whole idea of staying friends with ex boyfriends boggles me. Is it even possible? Without digging up old feelings and falling back into old patterns? It then can be said that to truly forget about “the hamburgers” of life – the events and the people who blind side you and turn out to be bad for you, you need to stay away, and cut off all ties to those events, or those people.

Just because it’s easy does not mean it’s good for you. This one I had to learn on my own the hard way. Growing up in a small town, with parents who had very set ways in terms of how they saw me growing up – I was more than often encouraged to take the “easy” way out. To them this meant going to a university in a practical and reliable program that would make me good money. The thought of taking the year off to travel and see the world never even occurred to me. It wasn’t even an option in my parent’s eyes. However, looking back, I cannot imagine what that could have done for me. While university is useful, it often feels like an imaginary prison, full of people who so desperately want to be free, but somehow feel tied to the institution by their own expectations for themselves. The point is that most times in life the situations or decisions that make our heads pound, usually end up being what we learn the most from. In the end, it’s the easy ways out that may leave us feeling like we are floating through life, letting it pass us by.