An Idea About Nothing: forgetting to be yourself

—2/18/16: Below is a draft of something I wrote, saved, and never bothered to look back on. That was just about 4 years ago. For some reason, back then, I made a subconscious decision and stopped writing altogether. Well, I say ” some reason” but the truth is, I know exactly why I quit. I stopped writing because I have the incomprehensible need to be the best at things. All Things. And now, 4 years later, 4 careers, 3 cities, and I’m still not sure why I constantly feel the need, and desire, to be perfect. I desperately enjoy the feeling of success, and I get a sick sort of enjoyment when I’m good at things, and people notice. I enjoy praise, much like the rest of my generation; however, I also find myself feeling complacent far too often in all my current affairs. Maybe that’s why I give up on my passions, like writing. I want to be great and I strive to succeed for a while, then I realize I’m shit, so I give up.

Why can’t I just sit down enjoy writing, rather than criticizing myself because “this” isn’t the greatest work of penmanship. I’d love to be able to just sit back and let words spill out all over the screen, and paper, because I still do that sometimes, you know-write on paper. To not re-read it over 80 times and change the punctuation, or the flow of a sentence to ensure both the satire and sincerity in my voice is enjoyed and understood by a reader. Alright then, enough blabber, on to the good stuff, the old stuff, 21 year old me, in full swing, passively aggressively writing about my life…(See what I did there?)

—One day back in 2012:

Recently I’ve been doing an excessive amount, recently, of turning my life completely upside down for the fun of it.

Maybe not on purpose, be definitely by choice. It’s made me come to terms with things I never even knew were issues. I just, recently, ended a relationship because, among other reasons, I didn’t want to settle down and start a family. I feel as though I’m too young for all that. However, in the past 72 hours, I’ve nearly ruined another relationship by worrying about starting over and whether or not I’d be able to start a family with this person. “Woman Logic”: it complicates things.

All in all, the conclusion that I’ve been coming to is that I have utterly no idea as to what I’d like to accomplish in life, or where I want to be in 5 years.

I’ve noticed more than half of my “friends” have all been getting married, having children, and settling into lives that almost seem not their own. It has started this trend of wonderment as to whether they’re doing this because they genuinely want to, or because society has pushed this ideal on others–marriage and, to be blunt, insanity. These aren’t typically people in the world who are settled into life and are financially set and prepared for having children. I would never tell a person they aren’t allowed to start a family or settle into a life because of my own feelings, but I can’t help but wonder what made them think they way they do.

For starters, Facebook. All the advertisements on the right-hand side of my screen revolve around being with another human being. Whether it’s, “Let me help you find a new guy,” or, “I’m only a computer generated advertisement, so I don’t know that you hate diamonds, but this engagement ring is pretty, you should click me.”

Back to Today—-Dear Glob. Listen to me go. I was 21, blatantly admitting that I have no idea what I wanted for myself. Yet, I go off on tangents about other people’s lives and what they should and shouldn’t being doing  based on financially stability. I didn’t realize I was such a closet Republican.

But let’s be real for a moment, shall we, digest what I tried to tell myself back in the day. 4 years ago I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and today, guess what? I’m still in that same boat. I changed my major every year that I was in school, 4 majors, 4 years, and I still somehow managed to graduate on time. Then, when it was time to graduate, I wanted to be a Marketer/Advertiser for video games to international suppliers. Basically my dream was to find out why games sold so well in some countries and not well in others, and how to market them in a way that they would sell more productively. I found myself stuck. “Can’t get a job without experience, so how the hell am I supposed to get experience without a job.” My life has been a well-rounded, constant, rotating vicious cycle, if you will.

When I wrote some of the text above, and re-reading it now, it’s clear that I blamed my indecisiveness on youth. Now I feel like I have no one to blame, just myself, and all those paths I didn’t take. But I’m older and wiser now, right? I should know what I want to do with my career. I should know what I desire and where I’m going. Instead I’m taking those Buzzfeed quizzes “What should you do with your life,” and the Career Personality test to try and figure out where I went wrong, and let the internet decide what I should be doing. Jesus Meme Take the Wheel!  But the truth is, like my passion for writing, I gave up on my dream a long time ago because it didn’t work out the first time. Surely that means it wasn’t meant to be.  Shouldn’t every twenty-something year old, grow up and have that “ah-ha!” moment and realize that the job they’re in is perfect for them, or if not that, then at least realize the direction they’re supposed to be going?.

It seems like everyone else around me is hitting that cold hard stride. They’re in 5th gear coasting along, and I’m babbling behind incoherently and panting, trying to get someone’s attention about a exit ramp I saw but didn’t take 2 miles back. Because this path I’m on, this race I’m a part of, keeps going straight and doesn’t veer to the left or right-ever. So here I am, trying to write again. Trying to break that cycle and maybe walk for a change, instead of running through life. Maybe I’ll stop in the bar off to the right, and let them serve me a glass of water and 2, who am I kidding, 10 beers while I re-calculate what path I’m on. I’ll get a destination update from Google Maps, and let it tell me how long it’ll take to catch up to those who were so quick to leave me behind. In fact, maybe some of those folks who are even further behind me will stop in for a drink. Follow me in, and chat with me about where they in the race, and how they fell behind. Maybe we can all talk about how we still feel like we’re falling. Almost as though there really isn’t a ground beneath us all, and we’re floating continuously waiting for our purpose to magically appear below our feet. To ground us.

I remember why I loved to write. Even if no one reads this, I know that I’ve read it, albeit, 80 times over to proofread. But these are my words, my path, and that’s something that can’t be snatched away. So while there’s people who are more successful than I am at the moment, I don’t have to feel sorrowful, or regret that I’m not there yet. I’ll always be envious of those who are on “their path” and can actually answer when people ask “What is it that you’re doing with your life?” Because, for once, since a time I can’t remember, I’m not feeling complacent. I’m feeling optimistic. Which is still a little weird to say out loud.

If you are reading this, I hope it reminds you of something you love. I wish for “whatever reason” you gave up, that this gives you the drive and desire to pick it back up again. Even if it’s just for a day, remind yourself that passions still exist in this life. Because the world’s kinda crazy, maybe we’re not the wrong ones for trying to feel sane.

 

Be Clearly, and Obviously Obscure

Recently, I’ve noticed a trend in society. The “up-voting” of popular things, the “liking” of Facebook statuses, the “re-tweeting” sensation that has made us grow closer together as a nation, and in some cases, a world. It’s all “oh-so-magical” to quote Princes Jasmine from the Disney movie Aladdin, but I can’t help but feel a little cynical about it all. Doesn’t this constant need for affirmation and positive re-enforcement remind anyone else of high-school? I think my ideology branched from when I went to see my little, 9-year-old, sister play her first soccer game of the season. My father and I were the only two people in the crowd keeping score. The rest of the “soccer moms” and dads were chatting quickly while I yelled commands to my sister across the field when she strayed too far from the goalie box.

Not only was this “strange” it was also, apparently, “uncouth” to the rest of the soccer community. I continued my yelling and arbitrary noises, ignoring the crowd: my little sister was not going to be the cause of her teams’ loss. Needless to say, at the end of the game the coaches didn’t declare a loser or a winner, they simply gave everyone snacks, told them good job, and named a player from each team the “most valuable player.” I was stunned, shocked even. I wouldn’t be surprised if my jaw was a little unhinged at the sight of things. I couldn’t help thinking about what it was like growing up in the 90’s where the loss of a game of “cops and robbers,” or God forbid,  the loss of “fight club” game, gave the rights to the winners to make fun of, and or ridicule you for weeks, or until you won the next game. Then the rights fell to you, it was a constant checks and balance system, I mean honestly, what happened to the democracy of winners and losers. Doesn’t losing make you want to be better at something?

Which brings me back to my original point, are we handing out “participation medals” to those people who are “losing” at the internet? Maybe I’m becoming too much of a virtual hipster, or maybe it’s all the Hunger Games hype and product placement that’s being shoved in my face that makes me want to take a break from the interwebs and the people that demand to be noticed here. Yet, here I am writing a blog about it. I guess no one is perfect. I still can’t help but feel the pull to drop everything and go backpacking across parts of Europe; however, knowing me, I would take the opportunity to check-in everywhere I went on Foursquare, and post pictures of the beautiful scenery on Flickr, just to show people what they were missing out on. But hey, I never said it was a bad thing, just that all these social media sites have a hint of drama-filled-Facebook to them. Then again, what part of society now-a-days doesn’t.

http://tinyurl.com/7grzcdd

I find myself “trolling” the internet, going to places like Imgur and Pinterest to laugh at ridiculous comments put forth by a community that either lives down the road from me in their mother’s basement, or across the country in their mother’s basement. But in all seriousness, I spend nearly 12 hours a day on the internet and I’ve never stop to ask myself where these people, that I anonymously interact with, live, what I would be doing with my life if I wasn’t attached to my computer 19 hours out of the day, either doing homework, writing papers, blogs, designing newsletters and the rest. Where I would legitimately be without spell check?  And the most important questions of all, whether or not I’d be as A.D.D. and less focused than the rest of my…oh look someone just walked into the room that I can talk to about all these random things, like juice!

http://tinyurl.com/7l7thpx

Back to being focused. I do often sit and wonder what the 90’s would have been like if we had Facebook and Twitter and WordPress and Tumblr. I wonder if the Twilight and Hunger Games hype would have been replaced with Fern Gully, Peter Pan, and the holy of all that is wholly, the Power Rangers (get it, it’s a play on words). And where did all the people from the 90’s disappear to during that terrible Avatar movie. It was clearly a rip of of Fern Gully and other 90’s ideology about saving the world. It was practically Titanic meets Fern Gully meets Captain Planet, and no one noticed? The 90’s was a great time for kids, at least it was for me. Yes, every generation has it’s problems, and it’s achievements, but this newly found sensation where everyone is a winner is getting kind of old. Prime example: I play disc golf. I play it because I’m extraordinarily competitive. When I don’t do well, I push myself to do better. I want first place, chances are I won’t achieve that goal in the near future, but you can bet that I wont quit until I do. After playing for three weeks, I received  third place in my first tournament. Most people would praise me and tell me “great job,” but honestly, I didn’t do great, and I knew in my heart I could have done better, which drove me to alter things and learn to better myself.  The same is true of writing, mathematics, and other extra curricular activities such as rock climbing, and skiing. ESPECIALLY WRITING.

http://s3.hubimg.com/u/2517386_f520.jpg

I’m just a little frustrated at the hype of popular literature now-a-days. I mean, I’m all for creative ideas and trying to appeal to the social media age group with things like Twilight and The Hunger Games, but I’ve read both of them as a whole, and honestly, the quality of the writing in both of these cases is mediocre; however, I’m not stating that my writing is any better or worse, for the record. I won’t beat the Twilight horse to death, but I do have to say that I got halfway through the last book, Breaking Dawn, and threw it across my room and left it where it laid until I packed up and moved to college. However, The Hunger Games has its problems too. Like, for example, when Suzanne Collins writes a sentence. She abruptly stops. For no apparent reason. Just to finish Katniss’ thought process. In the next sentence. Drives. Me. Nuts. Not to mention that the majority of the novel is just a rip off of Battle Royale, with a little bit of a triangle-love-story, which we’ve never seen before. In any movie. Ever.

I guess, I’m being a little too cynical. I understand that we learn through our mistakes, but I feel like I get more embarrassed than anyone I know when I make a mistake, and I really may just be too hard on society, and therefore, too hard on myself.  So, internet sensations, keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll give everyone a participation medal, but don’t you assume for one minute that everyone is a winner, because we’re not. We may be lucky, and we may be so fortunate enough that our only worry of the day is when our internet, or our cable, goes out and we can’t finish our favorite show, but…you know, heck, maybe we are all winners. But if we are, we better start acting like it.

Spoiler Alert: This is Satirical

So, I feel like recently I’ve seen a lot of people on the interwebs complaining about being “friend-zoned,” which, besides being grammatically incorrect, is incredibly irritating.  The “friend-zone” is a term our socially awkward crowd has determined as what happens when males and females are rejected after feeling like they are perfect for someone. The catch to this whole thing is the person they like, ends up dating a “douche-pickle jerk-asaurs-rex,” or a “slut-bag with a jacked-up nose and an annoying voice” and after a horrific breakup, the love of their life comes crawling back complaining. Sounds like the rest of the material garbage that is shoved down our throats due to societies inability to cope with its own problems. We seem to be creating new and improved ways of feeling sorry for ourselves.  

I disagree with this terminology and most of this ideal wholeheartedly. I’m convinced that the only reason this ideology of “friend-zones” exists, is because men and women have lost their “much-ness.” Human beings have lost the guts that we once had. We can no longer tell people exactly how we feel or what we think, and I blame the internet. We’ve created this “safe-zone” and safety blanket, that has proved to be about a useful as a closet full of toothpaste during a zombie Apocalypse. Which is yet another social oddity that my ranting will have to wait to indulge in for another blog. 

The point is, I think if you like someone, stop waiting for the “perfect” moment to tell them, because honestly, there’s no such thing. Perfect doesn’t happen in reality TV and it sure as hell doesn’t happen in shows like How I Met Your Mother, or that new dumb show with Zoe Deschanel, what’s it called, oh, that’s right, New Girl. (Now, before you go crazy on me, I’m not upset with the actors or the precious humor that you find so distracting by these shows. I don’t watch them just out of a lack of interest, not because the shows are dumb or anything). My point is, perfect doesn’t happen in fake life, so it doesn’t happen in real life either.

That being said, girls…stop expecting everything to be perfect. It’s not going to happen. When you get mad, and storm out of your man’s house, chances are he’s not going to follow you out. Not because he doesn’t love you, or care about you, but probably because you moved out from being in the way of the TV and he was trying to play Modern Warfare 3 or watch New Girl. Life is only bland and boring and dull and upsetting if you make it that way. If everyone could stop getting upset and blowing up over trial things and actually talk to one another without the worry of upsetting people, well, we would probably get into more fights…but the point is that we would be happy in the long run because we wouldn’t be caring around 30 pounds of worry and wonder and what-ifs over our head. 

So, get out there and tell someone that you like them. The worst thing that could happen, well they could feel the same way and you could end up getting into a relationship, getting married, having kids, growing old, but hey, that’s the worst case scenario. 

A Quick Wish for Confidence

Unfortunately, tomorrow May 21, 2011 is the projected death of the world as we know it, and although I’d like to be strong and believe that nothing’s going to happen, I can’t help but feel a little paranoid about all of this.  I don’t know if anyone else if feeling the way I feel, but if you are, this blog is for you.

I wish that I had kept my computer away from websites that persuaded me to read about the “nearing rapture.” Every since I saw the first meme based joke about the rapture, I must admit that my heart has been beating unusually quick. Part of me wants to be really strong like some of my friends and just forget about all of this; however, I can probably predict that I’ll be up all night worrying about other countries, other families, my family, my friends and loved ones, and selfishly, i’ll worry about my own wellbeing. I wish that I could stand up and just stop my heart from pounding in my throat as I write this…

I know my plan for the evening is to stay up late…into the wee hours of tomorrow playing Call of Duty: Black Ops with my friends having a good time, forgetting about the world around me and just letting the happy times take over me.  I’ve been watching my favorite TV shows, listening to my favorite music, doing things that I love just to make sure that if the world does end that I’ll be as prepared for it.

I wrote this hoping to ease my thoughts about this hysteria, but I’ve realized that there’s nothing I can do to change anything. I’ve lived my life the best way that I know how and I’m happy. Legitimately. So, come what may….

An Odd Day

Today, April 6, 2011 was A Day Without Shoes to help raise awareness for the millions of children across the world that live their lives without shoes. Naturally, today I went without shoes, and I found the reactions to my bare feet to be shocking so I thought that I would share them with you. As I was walking around in the 40 degree weather this morning, I noticed the funny looks at my bare, freezing cold, feet. At first I thought nothing of it, besides; I was the only person on campus walking around without my shoes on after a horrific thunderstorm the night before.

Despite the pain and throbbing my feet were enduring I ventured on to class. Once I walked in, however, I noticed people glancing at my feet in disgust and glaring at me as though I had lost my mind. None of my classmates even dared to ask me why I wasn’t wearing shoes, they simply went along their merry way. Walking back to my dorm room after class a group of people walked by me, and once they thought I was out of ear shot they snickered “It must be ‘no shoe day’” and then began laughing to themselves.

Normally things like this wouldn’t faze me. However, today, it just ran me the wrong way. I couldn’t understand why people were so enthralled with my bare feet, and why they felt the need to judge my reason for not wearing shoes without even asking me. I guess I’m having a cynical kind of day, but I didn’t realize that men and women at a very liberal college could be so materialist and judging.

Sorry that this post isn’t as funny, but the turn of events from today really had me disgruntled. I bet half the people that looked at me funny couldn’t walk around outside in 40 degree weather barefoot for the whole day anyways. 🙂

Dear Facebook, This is Why I’ll Never be Able to Leave You.

So every day I get on Facebook before I start anything. As a college student I wake up in the morning, sit up on my twin-sized bed, rub my eyes, turn off my phone that has been vibrating for the past 3 minutes attempting to wake me up, and I open up my computer. I subconsciously sign into Facebook and read about people’s morning that I rarely talk to. I “like” the statuses of people who will feel that I’m ignoring them if I don’t, and then I close my laptop and get ready for class.

This is the reason I don't eat breakfast...

This has become a routine that millions of people around the world subject themselves to everyday, sometimes multiple times a day. Yet somehow, we just can’t stop. Facebook is both our society’s prized possession and the bane of our existence. Facebook is no longer just for college students, it’s for the mothers of children, who are still in grade school, so they can play things like Farmville with their offspring and feel like they’re connecting with them. It makes people, like my mom, feel hip. It’s for family members across the world to feel more socially acceptable when stalking your every post about where you went to breakfast, and what you plan to do with your weekend.

True, such an extremely creepy truth

It’s also for those wonderful awkward moments like  BAM! out of nowhere an ex-lover appears requesting to be your “friend,” and it never runs through anyone’s mind that maybe it’s a little creepy that someone you haven’t talked to in 5 years has found you specifically on a website where at least a dozen other people have your exact name. But maybe I’m just being a little paranoid…

However creepy or anti-social Facebook has made me, I know that i’ll never be able to quit it. It’s like a bad drug that’s damaging to a social life while ruining people’s ability to converse in a face-to-face fashion, so meth is a comparable drug.  Yet, it doesn’t matter how “actually bad” it is for your self-esteem or personal hygiene, what matters is that you can connect to anyone in the world at anytime, ever; which is legitimately extraordinary. I find myself more impressed with the expansion of the social media opportunities that Facebook has opened than its new photo features.

With all of that said, in my lifetime there has been Xanga, MySpace, and now Facebook; all of which have been revolutionary in their own separate ways.  I’ve been thoroughly impressed with all the different social media websites that have emerged over the past years. I’m interested and highly anticipating what’s next. My only complaint to the world, is that with all of this technology, including web-browsers that check your spelling and grammar for you, why can the world not tell the difference between there, their, and they’re; or you’re, and your; or my favorite its, and it’s. But I suppose the grammar-nazi will have to wait for another blog before she’s allowed to emerge…