Screw it. I’m in a writing mood today. I should be using this time to get some schoolwork done. This masters isn’t going to finish itself. The truth is, I wondering if I’m just doing the degree to feel like I’m not wasting my life aat a dead end job. The answer is…more than likely. Otherwise, I would see no point in driving 45 minutes each way every day to a job I cannot stand. I think the ultimate quest in life is to find some meaning. I read the other day that married people and people with a religious faith are statistically happier than single agnostic people. It made me really wonder. Maybe the only way to truly be happy is to escape yourself.
Both scenarios give your life a sense of purpose. If I had a child to care for then I’d have a reason to get out of bed and go to work each day. Kids need things like food, clothes and braces and it is the parent’s role to provide for their needs. If you have an unfaltering faith, then your life has meaning. All life’s hardships become a training ground for the afterlife. God is testing you. This life doesn’t matter, because no matter how good it is it will pale in comparison with what’s to come.
The truth is I don’t find solace in either scenario. I actually and truthfully contemplated becoming a priest. I’ve revisited the issue time and again. There was a time in my life when my faith was so solid and so unwavering that I would have given up the chance at a “normal” life to serve God. Perhaps I missed the boat by not making that leap, because somewhere along the way, the connection got pretty fuzzy. I still pray and I still have faith, but something is missing.
I think we parted ways sometime back with I betrayed my inner dialogue and headed down a path in life that was very wrong for me. I got involved with the wrong girl, I suppressed my beliefs, and I never traveled like I planned. When the dust settled, my dreams where crushed. I tried teaching (which I always thought I would love) and ended up having that dream blow up in face. I opened my heart up and instead ended up feeling very used, controlled and alone. I took the path of least resistance in life and found myself right where I began.
Just once I would love to be able to come to decisions without spending weeks in advance planning out every worse case scenario. Just once I’d like to look someone in the eye and tell them how I really feel or what I really want. The truth is that about the time I manage to grasp either concept, they slip right out of my hands again. I’m starting the suspect the answer is not inside and it definitely isn’t found outside. Maybe the quest itself is what gives this entire journey its meaning.
I was talking to a coworker yesterday about life. She’s in her 40s and divorced. She seems to be terminally happy. She told me her life stinks, but she remains oblivious to it. She just doesn’t think about how bad it is. So maybe it’s the over evaluation that makes the miserable so miserable. Ignorance is bliss I guess. She did provide me a nugget of truth though. I asked her her secret and she said, “never open your heart to anyone, because they will only use it against you or to hurt you.”
I was already wise to this plan, because I had been using it as my mantra for a long time now. I suspect that it is in sharing your heart that you grow and change and become who you are. Lately, I’ve been wondering what choices I would make if I could go back 10 years to high school and decide all over again how to get adulthood off on the right foot. The truth is I would rather not have to go back, because the choices I have had to make thus far in life have mostly been difficult and are almost always exhausting. I would rather just live with the consequences.
So I sit in my latter youth wondering what lies ahead. I have been pretty lucky so far in life, because I am an introvert surrounded by great friends. They really bring me out of my shell and they are a blessing. Otherwise I would probably be drowning in a bog of uncertainty right now. I wonder what I would do differently in life if I had the power to control it completely. We all posses this power, but I feel the weight of it as too much for my fragile psyche to bear.
I could easily wake up tomorrow and become an alpha male who lists getting laid or getting drunk on the top of his list of daily duties. I could be a captain of industry and crawl my way to the top running over everyone who gets in my way with my gas hogging SUV. I suspect this is what the world wants and expects from a man. The women I meet seem to grow bored with an introspective and self-aware partner. They want a guy who’ll defend them in bar fights and is predictable to the point where he can be broken and tamed.
The whole sensitive weepy artist guy routine is played out. It is so 1995 (minus the grunge rock scene and wispy goatee). Maybe I’m stuck in another time or maybe I’m full of crap and not as self aware as I like to think so I’m too blind to see the forest for the trees. Maybe I’m over analyzing life and using this medium as an excuse to spin my wheels. Maybe I’m hoping a therapist will read this and provide the key to all my problems. Maybe I’m hoping some woman will read this and fall for the kind sensitive man they all say they want to meet. Chances are, she would call the whole thing B.S. Maybe she would be right. I don’t know where the real me begins and the one I’m willing to share ends.
Both scenarios give your life a sense of purpose. If I had a child to care for then I’d have a reason to get out of bed and go to work each day. Kids need things like food, clothes and braces and it is the parent’s role to provide for their needs. If you have an unfaltering faith, then your life has meaning. All life’s hardships become a training ground for the afterlife. God is testing you. This life doesn’t matter, because no matter how good it is it will pale in comparison with what’s to come.
The truth is I don’t find solace in either scenario. I actually and truthfully contemplated becoming a priest. I’ve revisited the issue time and again. There was a time in my life when my faith was so solid and so unwavering that I would have given up the chance at a “normal” life to serve God. Perhaps I missed the boat by not making that leap, because somewhere along the way, the connection got pretty fuzzy. I still pray and I still have faith, but something is missing.
I think we parted ways sometime back with I betrayed my inner dialogue and headed down a path in life that was very wrong for me. I got involved with the wrong girl, I suppressed my beliefs, and I never traveled like I planned. When the dust settled, my dreams where crushed. I tried teaching (which I always thought I would love) and ended up having that dream blow up in face. I opened my heart up and instead ended up feeling very used, controlled and alone. I took the path of least resistance in life and found myself right where I began.
Just once I would love to be able to come to decisions without spending weeks in advance planning out every worse case scenario. Just once I’d like to look someone in the eye and tell them how I really feel or what I really want. The truth is that about the time I manage to grasp either concept, they slip right out of my hands again. I’m starting the suspect the answer is not inside and it definitely isn’t found outside. Maybe the quest itself is what gives this entire journey its meaning.
I was talking to a coworker yesterday about life. She’s in her 40s and divorced. She seems to be terminally happy. She told me her life stinks, but she remains oblivious to it. She just doesn’t think about how bad it is. So maybe it’s the over evaluation that makes the miserable so miserable. Ignorance is bliss I guess. She did provide me a nugget of truth though. I asked her her secret and she said, “never open your heart to anyone, because they will only use it against you or to hurt you.”
I was already wise to this plan, because I had been using it as my mantra for a long time now. I suspect that it is in sharing your heart that you grow and change and become who you are. Lately, I’ve been wondering what choices I would make if I could go back 10 years to high school and decide all over again how to get adulthood off on the right foot. The truth is I would rather not have to go back, because the choices I have had to make thus far in life have mostly been difficult and are almost always exhausting. I would rather just live with the consequences.
So I sit in my latter youth wondering what lies ahead. I have been pretty lucky so far in life, because I am an introvert surrounded by great friends. They really bring me out of my shell and they are a blessing. Otherwise I would probably be drowning in a bog of uncertainty right now. I wonder what I would do differently in life if I had the power to control it completely. We all posses this power, but I feel the weight of it as too much for my fragile psyche to bear.
I could easily wake up tomorrow and become an alpha male who lists getting laid or getting drunk on the top of his list of daily duties. I could be a captain of industry and crawl my way to the top running over everyone who gets in my way with my gas hogging SUV. I suspect this is what the world wants and expects from a man. The women I meet seem to grow bored with an introspective and self-aware partner. They want a guy who’ll defend them in bar fights and is predictable to the point where he can be broken and tamed.
The whole sensitive weepy artist guy routine is played out. It is so 1995 (minus the grunge rock scene and wispy goatee). Maybe I’m stuck in another time or maybe I’m full of crap and not as self aware as I like to think so I’m too blind to see the forest for the trees. Maybe I’m over analyzing life and using this medium as an excuse to spin my wheels. Maybe I’m hoping a therapist will read this and provide the key to all my problems. Maybe I’m hoping some woman will read this and fall for the kind sensitive man they all say they want to meet. Chances are, she would call the whole thing B.S. Maybe she would be right. I don’t know where the real me begins and the one I’m willing to share ends.
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