Getting Old? No way.
After working a 9-5 job this summer, between my first and second year of college, I've started to realize some things. When I was doing the same thing two summers ago I didn't worry about much because I had plenty of friends around and I could always go off and hang out with them, even easily take vacations. But now I find myself slowly slipping into old age. I get up in the morning, go to work, eat lunch, go back to work, come home and laze around.
But after this year of college the one thing I've realized is that I can do things I want to do while still balancing the things I need to. I don't want to grow up. Along with old age comes a lot of complacency, stubbornness, and overall pessimism. I mean we're usually happy when we're over the "hump" and half-way done with things—everything except life. So yeah, who wouldn't be upset? But this is why I don't stop at the end of the work day. In college, after I was done with class for the day I'd go hang out with friends and go party or eat or dance or something. Now, after work, I go hang out with friends or go see a movie or go to a concert like I did last night—even if it keeps me out till 12 (or 2 in my case). Some breakfast and a vitamin in the morning gets me going just fine, no matter how many times I hit the snooze button. And this is where the balance comes in. Because I could easily wake up five minutes before I had to leave for work and just run out the door (I'd want to sleep some more). On the other hand, I need to be able to stay productive (not to mention awake) and I want to be able to be relaxed and have some "me" time before I have to give my time to someone else. It just seems like many people lose track of doing the things they want.
My point here is that keeping these things we have in our youth seems to be the only consistent way to remain happy—at least for me. I know I'll never be able to simply roll over and accept my fate as someone whose life used to be great and one worth living but has become a waiting game for a magical retirement age or the soon-to-come man in a black cloak. But it took a lot to get to this point. Somehow I'm not afraid to die and I've truly accepted and internalized the fact that I'm going to at some point in my life. When you're that sure about something and only that something, I guess the only thing left to do is take advantage of and milk every bit of enjoyment out of the situation you're currently in.
Staying Busy
I like the days where I have a bunch of running around to do. Just some simple mindless tasks such as running to the post office or somewhere else to pick something up. It's nice, because it gives me little goals that are easily accomplished. And then I feel good about myself. And that's pretty damn awesome if you ask me.
I'm plugging away. I actually stayed up last night to do some work-- whereas normally I would've simply gone to bed. I pretty much tanked it this semester, especially compared to the last, but I've explained why. But I'm pulling whatever I can out of whatever orifice possible to not have this be a completely wasted amount of time (which it wasn't by any means possible to me, but grade/system/workingfortheman-wise it was).
And I'm getting less distracted by cool things I used to do like developing FlashStuf and making games and such. [Wow, that's a depressing thought.] But now I stick with my Facebook/Twitter/Latenightfiction/making music, as far as recreation (on the computer) goes. Speaking of music, just last night I rediscovered a song I created a few months ago and how awesome it was. The song is Sleep (you can download it on the Late Night Motion site, here). And then I saw-- I need to keep making damn awesome music like that. So I decided I will. And that's where I'm at right now.
Why I Decided to Go Find Myself
Now I haven't even been through two semesters of college yet. But I can tell you why this one has been the worst out of the two.
It started with winter break. Two days in, I started hanging out with a girl who until then I only knew as an acquaintance, basically. I liked her, we became close, it made my month off of school a good one. I got back to school and that relationship just kinda stayed in the background, but we talked a few times a week at least. I started talking a philosophy class on wisdom, reality, and the human condition (I believe that's what the class is called). Then I started thinking about who I was. And both the lady friend and external stimulus from that class factored into my going down this path.
For one thing, I wanted it to work with this girl. But I had noticed near the end that it wasn't really going where I wanted it to go because of how I was acting. I started playing it safe near the end and that made it boring for the both of us--something I know shouldn't have happened. So I grew the desire to know not only the reason I acted that way, but also how I could make the things I wanted happen. Then during my class (the only I've yet to miss once) I saw that other people had been working on these sort of things. They opened me up to some new ideas different from my own.
But then I started obsessing over this whole idea--not because I needed it so bad, but because new questions were coming in faster than I was receiving answers. I simply ran out of solutions to the problems I was having. I knew what I wanted; I knew a lot of the things that I wanted to improve with myself. But I couldn't find the cause to all of them so easily anymore (this was after about a week of finding answers). After resetting myself by taking a deep breath and basically forgetting my problems multiple times (after the surplus of problems had overcome me), I decided to not worry so much. I wrote about this before. But I've realized that this is the way I should be living. I only have so much that I can do by myself.
It's been working. Even though it might be coincidental that just last Friday I met and talked with someone about all these things (which helped) and many more good things have started to happen for me, I think that it's been easier for me to acknowledge and take advantage of those situations when I come across them, now that I'm "taking it easy." For one thing, I've been in a better mood and that's made me much more sociable so that I'm more encouraged to open up earlier when I meet someone new (like I've been aiming to do).
So right now, hell, things are working out. And even though I would like to know now, I have my whole life to figure myself out. And, ironically, it seems much easier to do that when I'm not looking so hard.
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