Endless Opportunities

In our last year of school, we're constantly pressured to choose ONE profession for the rest of our lives, encouraged to send in many college/university applications, and most of all, we're told to make something of ourselves.

We don't have to do that.

I am so sick of people telling me what they think is best for me, and I should do with my life. If I don't want to become a doctor, I won't become one. If I want to listen to a specific type of music that makes me happy, I'll do just that. If I don't want to go out during the weekend with friends, how does that affect your life in the long run?

For me, most often of times, it's my teachers and/or parents telling me what I should do, or what my strengths are. Having someone thinking they know what I want to (should) do and myself thinking of what I actually want to do are two very different things.
Wouldn't you think that I would know what I want to do with MY life and what my strengths are? 

We have to make one choice out of a possible 600 or more possibilities of a career choice, and be happy with it for the rest of our lives. How can I start to make a choice like that when I don't even know who I am? They're millions of different choices of what we can do with our lives, and I'm terrified of making the wrong choice. Who wouldn't be?

Freedom is a wonderful thing, because we get to decide what we want to do. We've have complete control over our lives. We're independent minds that can do whatever we can dream of doing

That's my freedom is my biggest fear.

When you come to realize that you have complete control over your life and that you're responsible for your own happiness, it's terrifying because it means that we have to make choices in our life. We have to make choices that could be minor, you completely change our lives forever. We have the freedom to decide what we are doing with our one, terribly short, life.

What if you make the wrong choice?

You don't want to spend the majority of your life doing something you're not even all that passionate about.

If you feel remotely the same, remember that there ARE endless opportunities out there in the world.

I'm not going to say to quit your job, but take a vacation when it becomes too much, go back to school to change to a career that you are passionate about, play video games, listen to music, watch videos online, go for a night out with friends, have a night in with an important someone. Do whatever it takes to make you happy. Do whatever it takes to make you happy now and do what will make you happy in the future. 

With great freedom comes great responsibility. You're responsible for your happiness, so make it count. If you're not happy with something at the moment, there's always an opportunity, a good one, for you in the future. No one deserves to look back on life and to have regrets about not doing something they knew deep down that they always wanted to do but never thought they could achieve. Give it a shot! You have nothing to lose.  

Be sensible about your choices, but make it the best life you can with the goal of being happy. Of course you can't be happy 100% of the time, but you do have rights to feel good about your life and to not have to think that you messed up for a big part of it.

I'm not sure about you guys, but I have one shot at this thing we call life, and I'm going to make it count right until the end.


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So Many People, Yet So Alone

In my first blog post One More Blog On The Internet, I said that I deal with my emotions by covering them up and trying to make them end quickly, and that I tried to maintain a diary although it never worked, and I'm writing on my blog in hope to reach out to other people who feel the same way that I do, sometimes.

Today is more of a diary post type of entry.

I do have a few friends at school, but sometimes, I just hate being around them.

I've never been the "go-to friend", meaning that I was always considered as the less relevant friend. If something really cool or exciting happened to one of my friends, I was never/am never the first to know. Usually, I'm the last to be told or informed of something.

If I get to class and put my stuff down on a desk, I, quite often, have my stuff moved to the end of the row of desks or to a completely different row so that my other friends can talk. I'm usually left on the end, not really invited or necessarily wanted in a conversation. Plans that I'm never invited to join are constantly being made in front of me.

I remember back in December, my girl friends made plans to go dress shopping for a school dance, realized I was there and they said they'd text me about it. It got to the next day and I didn't receive anything, so when my best friend that is apart of another group of friends asked me to go to the mall, I didn't hesitant to say yes. I wasn't going to sit around all day for these girls to text me.

We walked right past the girls that originally said that they were going to text me and the only thing they did was give me a small smile, and they kept on walking. Not even a "Hi," or anything. It's not because they didn't want to spend time with the friend that I ended up going with, because at this rate, they talk to her more often then they talk to me.

Some friends, right?

Whenever I try to tell a story, I'm often talked over and then forgotten or just flat out told that no one cares. I make a small joke and they say it was stupid and carry out a different conversation, yet if someone makes the same joke a little later, everyone laughs.

These are the people that I call my friends, yet I wonder if I should associate myself with them at all.

With all of that said, I am a very eccedentesiast person. I fake smiles, I don't let people know that what they say to me or how they treat me hurts me. I always have this small smile on around them that keeps on getting less and less genuine.

There's undoubtedly this feeling of loneliness even though I'm surrounded by all these people.

If anyone can relate to what I said in the slightest, let's do this together.

Let's talk to more people. Let's talk to someone that we feel comfortable around and someone who makes us feel good about ourselves and that make us genuinely happy to be around.

If you want to do this but are too scared to leave your "old friends", please remember that they do not own you and you don't own them anything. You can do whatever you'd like to do to make yourself happy.

It would be awesome if someone went out to find someone that makes them happy after reading this post because they got inspired and share a little bit of their story in the comments. That way, it's proof to someone else that it's not only one person feeling this way, and that we can all share stories and help one another. I know that I'll share mine when it happens.

I will say that this was something quite personal for me to write about, so I really do hope that there's something you can take away from this.


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Impressing People

As humans, we feel the need to impress people, to make them love us, to be hated by no one, and to leave a legacy of some sort on this earth for years after we're gone.

Why do we all crave this feeling? Why can no one be happy with who they truly are anymore?

We should not be worrying about impressing people, because honestly, the people that are worth impressing deserve to know the true you. As the old saying goes, its better to be loved for who you are then to be loved for someone you're not. We have to stop comparing ourselves to others to be more "impressive". 

If you're trying to impress someone with the intentions of a good friendship or dating them, there's no need to feel like someone you're not to be able to get them to like you back. The right person will come along for the right role, someday.

These days, I feel as though at school, it's a competition for who has the most likes on, Instagram, who has the most followers on Twitter, the most friends on Facebook. Why does it seem like people are competing over stuff like this?

In the long run, it's almost as if they picture life as a race, as in who's the most "loved" by people over social media. 

It's almost as if everyone is in a drawing competition, and everyone is desperate to finish first so that they can say "Look at me! I'm done! I did it!" The truth is, you don't get happiness from finishing first, you get it while drawing something your proud of.

We have to let go of the insane thought about proving to everyone else that we're better in some aspect, and then we could be free to accomplish the dreams we never go the chance to imagine because we were so busy trying to impress others for no reason.

If we break down all the situations that we weren't ourselves because we wanted to impress the people around us that were in our lives for only a certain amount of time, and not for the long run, I can honestly say that I feel like I've wasted a lot of time.

I'm going to change that about my life, and if some of you also decide to do the same, feel free to comment and say how you're going to do so, and we can do this together.

No more impressing people, it's finally time to be me. If people don't like it, to bad. I'll know that hey aren't meant to be a permanent figure in my life.

That's also kind of why I like posting on my blog. I find that because it's anonymous, you know that there's truth to what I'm saying, I'm not making up scenarios in my head because this is the only place I can be myself. I'm not worrying about writing to impress you guys, I'm just writing about something that happened in my life and could be relatable or helpful to someone else.

Let the world see you as who you are. Stand tall, be proud.


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The Old Man And The Bucket

There's a story I heard about a month ago, and it's one that I would love to share with you guys.

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Long ago, there was this old man that lived far from the nearest village. He would have to walk two hours along a dirt road to get into town and fill his buckets up with water, and then walk two hours back to his house. He brought home the water in two buckets.

One bucket was old and leaked water. The bucket felt bad because every time the old man would arrive home with him, he would be almost empty.

One day, the bucket finally decided to speak up and talk to his owner. "Master," he started with. "Why do you keep me? I am not as useful to the other bucket when it comes to transporting water. By the time we get home, I'm almost empty. I am no longer of any use to you."

The Master looked at the bucket and replied with "Tomorrow when we go to fetch water from the well in the village, I want you to look around you and see what you can."

The bucket agreed, and then next day, they went into town and the same thing happened on the way home. He was almost empty by the time that the other bucket, his Master and himself arrived back at their home. Once again, he felt less then helpful to his Master.

His Master sat down next to him and asked him what he saw. The bucket said "Well I noticed that on my side of the path while walking back from the village, there were many flowers. There were flowers and grass, it looked green and full of life, while on the other side, there was only dirt.

"That's correct," the Master smiled. "Although you see no use in yourself for transporting water, you were more than useful when it came to helping the flowers grow. Because you leaked over the dirt, you helped the flowers and the grass grow from the dirt. Although you are almost empty every time we arrive home, you helped to create something beautiful without knowing it. The other bucket couldn't have done it, it was only you that made the path beautiful. Because of you, we no longer see a boring dirt path, we see something wonderful."

*

Although you feel like you're not doing anything good, or that you're wasting time doing something,you never truly know how much of an impact it can have on something or someone else. It's important to remember that although you may not be the best at something or feel like you're making an impact, you could be.

You could be helping to create something beautiful.


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School And Cameras

I've never been one for being in pictures. I would always try and find a way around it, such as stalling for as long as possible, volunteering to take the picture, anything to avoid being in the picture itself.

I love taking pictures, though. As cheesy as it is, I love the idea of a story, a moment or a memory being captured in a single frame for the rest of eternity. Cheesy, I know, but it's true. It's an amazing thing.

Something that I don't think should be allowed is that teachers at schools have the right to decide to put the "No taking pictures at all" rule aside and make us, the students, film ourselves on iPads to record something for the class even though we clearly don't want to be.

Earlier on during the school year, my math teacher wanted us to film ourselves, and whoever else was in our group, reviewing a subject that we learnt and solving a problem that we made up on our own, related to that problem. She also stated that EVERYONE had to be in the video so that everyone could get marked fairly on it, even if you only see a person for a few seconds. Although she didn't say it,she implied that if you didn't talk in the video, you would lose points,

What happened to the no filming/picture rule? Why can teachers defy it? How did other people like me feel, being forced to partake in a video they don't want anything to do with?

I was lucky enough to have a doctors appointment at the exact date and time that I was supposed to be filming this video in math class, so I was able to avoid it.

Although I knew I could manage to avoid it, the idea still of having to do it still bothered me.

Another thing that my school does, it could be described as an end of the year banquet, where some students are recognized for academic achievements or their impact on a sports team.

For that event, the school wants pictures of every student to put in a PowerPoint slideshow, and I remember that last year, there was a teacher in the doorway that would stop the students that they didn't have pictures of. You had to go through that doorway, because it was the only one that lead to the locker area and all the classrooms. She kept stoping students to get a picture, and yes, I was one of them.

I simply refused to have my picture taken and I walked away to no longer be in the camera shot.

This year, they started doing it sooner, so during the math class before we started to film (the one the day before), my math teacher was going around and taking pictures of all the groups.

Once again, I really didn't want to be in a picture, so I got up and moved to the side wile she took the picture.

Because of that, I got called a buzzkill and boring by a guy that was in my group, and my teacher agreed.

At what point are you allowed to say that to a student who's uncomfortable with you taking a picture of them?

Why do teachers get to break this rule and not respect the decisions and privacy of a student?

It makes them hypocritical.


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The Perfect Text

Do you ever send a text to someone, most times a friend, and the minute that you hit the send button, you're already imagining what the other person might respond with or what you hope that they'll reply with?

A few days ago, I had one of my few good friends text me and asking why I wasn't in school, to which I replied saying that I was sick.

I could already imagine the possibilities of what he could text back. I was picturing it saying "Oh man, how are you doing?" or "What are you sick with?" or anything along those lines of asking how I was doing, but in reality, all I got was a "That sucks."

I can't say that I was over the moon to read that text, but what could I have done? He cared enough to ask, and that was already sweet of him.

When you're talking to someone through a screen, they can't see you, can't see how you look, let alone see how you react to a certain text. Even in person, they can't climb into your head and see the perfect response that you could be picturing in your mind.

I do feel, to an extent, that I'm more confident over text for those exact same reasons. You don't have to see the person while texting them a specific thing, you don't have to see their reaction, you can easily stop talking to them if things go wrong, it could be a little easier to open up to a person under those circumstances.

There's a very slim chance of you receiving the perfect text that you could be imagining, but does that mean it's bad to think about it? Are you just setting yourself up for disappointment? Can you get a text better then what you've imagined?

There's always a chance that you might get the text that you've always wanted to read. It could be a small serendipity, who knows?

I just know that I'm still waiting for mine to happen.


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Fiction Is A Drug

I have this problem where I get so engrossed with the fictional world, that I forget my responsibilities of the real world.

Over my winter break (which today, is sadly the last day of before going off to school tomorrow), I've read some books and I've watched quite a few movies, which were all fictional.

I watched almost all of the Harry Potter movies, some Marvel movies, the new Night at the Museum movie, along with a few others. Literature wise, I mostly read parts of Looking For Alaska by John Green.

Having been surrounded by all this fiction over a span of two weeks, it made me feel…like I’m not living my life to the fullest in a certain type of way.

Knowing I couldn't survive in a dystopian universe, I can’t help but feel like I’d have a higher purpose than sitting at school for at least 17 years of my life, and then having a job that I’m not completely in love with.

In a world like Harry Potter’s or The Avengers, sure there’s a lot of danger, but wouldn't it be so much better than our normal lives?

Even reading a book written by John Green; they aren't considered violent, but to slip into a story that he writes, it would be amazing to have a love story like that. Even to witness two people in love with so much passion as he writes the characters to have, it would be an amazing sight.

I find that fiction is one of the cruelest drugs out there because it takes you from the real world. It makes our universe look like nothing compared to what different universes that we see or watch that’s all created from someone’s imagination.

Sure it’s fun to get away from the real world at times, but all things must come to an end. There’s going to be a final war, a final “I love you,” and a final goodbye. After it ends, people have to stop thinking about how that period of their life is over and how their lives suck compared to what they witnessed, and start thinking about how the universe we’re stuck in is actually alright. There’s no reason as to why we can’t make ourselves who we want to be.

We should all do whatever we want with our lives, we shouldn't have anyone telling us to do! Fiction is just the greatest, and possibly the fastest, way to escape our world for when it gets too much, or when it’s not good enough.

Let me know what you guys think and maybe we can share dystopian universes that we probably couldn't survive in, but still want to live in anyway.

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