Dione Surdez Oliver was born in Santa Ana, California in 1969. She moved to Crooks, South Dakota when she was four years old. She grew up on her family’s small dairy farm. At the age of eighteen she moved back to Southern California. She worked in the music industry for some time as well as a legal assistant for a number of years. In 2003 Dione decided to pursue her educational endeavors and began studying at Santa Monica Community College. She transferred to the University of Southern California in the fall of 2006 and was granted the Norman Topping Student Aid Fund Scholarship. In 2009 Dione graduated with her Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative writing and a minor in Cultural Anthropology. She graduated with honors and received the Order of Troy. She currently resides in Manhattan Beach, California and where she is the director of CrossFit Zen and is working on entering the Masters of Professional Writing program at USC.
You know, you can’t see the forest for the trees.
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My friend, Dione, told me this when I was complaining to her about how overwhelmed I was feeling one day. I asked her what it meant and she told me I had to figure it out myself. Well, after a lot of digging I realized that I truly cannot see the forest for the trees. I get so overwhelmed about what is immediately around me and what I am dealing with immediately that I cannot visualize the big picture of it all; it takes me time to realize that this is just the small piece of a much bigger puzzle. Since our conversation, I have been using this proverb and applying it to others around me.