Fatmanonice
Banned via Warnings
Link to original post: [drupal=3750]Sunshine, Rainbows, and Unicorns: Pessimistic Optimism and the Joys of Youth[/drupal]
*This essay pretty much wrote itself in about two hours as one giant rant. This was not only fueled by how I still feel but my friends, both in college and out, who had been telling me about their problems and how they weren't happy with where they were in life either. Despite it's rant-like nature, I still like how this one turned out mainly because of the discussions it sparked with some of my friends.*
I hate being twenty two. I feel useless most of the time but, oddly enough, it’s not driven by depression or anger, just annoyance; ongoing annoyance that’s like a bug bite on top of your foot. It’s kind of like pouring milk into your cereal and finding out that you only have enough milk to fill about a ¼ of the bowl. For some cereals, like Frosted Flakes, this isn’t the end of the world but for cereals like Raison Bran and Grape Nuts, it’s the equivalent of opening the fridge and having a dwarf punch you in the crotch. The cereal’s already wet so you can’t put it back in the box and going hungry until lunch (or dinner in my case) is a worse option so you chew away. You might as well be eating mulch but you eat it anyways. This is how I feel like I’m dealing with life right at the moment. I don’t love it. I don’t hate it. I just tolerate it and chew away with glazed half open eyes because my options are so limited.
I want to be doing more with my life. Granted, just about everyone else in college probably feels like this too but I can’t speak for those other people; I can only speak for myself. I want to help people. The grand irony is that I’m a zoology major and two semesters from graduating. I wanted to go into the Peace Corps following college but, because I would be gone for 27 months, that would create a financial crunch for my parents who would have to handle my insurance while I was gone in some country I could hardly pronounce. To say that I’m back to square one is a gross understatement because to say that would imply that I even started which, of course, is yet another problem in my expanding grocery bag of annoyances. If anything, that’s the main thing I want right now, to start on something. I could burn out on it in a few years but at least I could say I started on an endeavor instead of sitting around in the terminal waiting for my flight.
At times I feel pinned under my own ignorance of the world at large. If there is one thing I envy about the old, it’s their knowledge of the world and experience. In my field biology classes, I become transfixed whenever one of my teachers can pluck a random plant or insect off the ground and then rattle off what it is down to its scientific name and the defining characteristics that separate it from similar species. Even when I don’t entirely understand what he’s talking about, I love to hear my dad explain things too. Whether he’s talking about economics or how a car works, it’s become such basic knowledge for him that he only pauses to ask if I’m still following along. That’s the voice of experience and I crave it like crack. I don’t feel stupid, not in the least, just ignorant. Plato once basically commented that the beginning of wisdom of was knowing that, in comparison to all the knowledge out there, you know nothing and never will. Disheartening, if not a little saturnine in nature, but it still holds true. I will never know 1% of all the knowledge out there and neither will anyone else but, compared to people older than me, I know even less. It’s like mountain climbing and knowing that you’ll never get higher than the base.
I also don’t like that I’m still dependant on my parents especially when I have friends who live independently on their own or are already married. Maybe it’s the thought that’s continuously on the corner of my mind that most of the money I spend isn’t even mine to begin with and that the only reason I’m not a cadaver in a morgue is because each parent is cranking out 40-60 work hours a week to pay for the classes that are questionably applicable to the “real world.” Maybe it’s, as a biology major, knowing that most animals, if the parents even raise them at all, are on their own within a year after they’re born. I feel useless because thinking about this makes me feel like a man child. My mom has come to endear this phrase but it grates my conscience whenever I have to ask my parents for money despite having a job myself. I’ve never been much of a fan of charity. I like to give it but receiving it is a different story. I often receive it begrudgingly and my parents are almost exclusively the only people I ask for anything from. Maybe it’s the idea that even when put in the kindest vernacular I’m still a leech on my parents. I want to ease the problems of other people, not have people even think about mine. I’d like to think that I’m strong enough to handle my own but I keep running into the giant stone obelisk called reality that keeps me from deluding myself for too long. They say responsibility is overrated but, right now, there is something powerfully alluring about “being my own man” and paying back my parents for what has been 22 years of extended babysitting.
I’d like to know where to go from here. I personally think that’s the worst part about being young: not knowing what’s going to happen next when it comes to the big things in life. It’s unnerving to say the least: will I succeed or will I fail and, even then, what will I succeed or fail at? Inside every man is a little boy who is scared to death of failure and, regretfully, I’m no different. What I fear worse than failure though is mediocrity. I don’t believe I have to excel at everything, just what’s important and, that’s exactly it, I don’t believe I’m doing anything of any particular significance right now. I have to say what I fear most is waking up ten years from now, finding that I’m not too far away from where currently I am in life and being perfectly content with that. I don’t want to settle for less. I don’t care if I ever make as much as my dad or live in a house that was the size of the one I grew up in, I just to have the simple satisfaction of knowing that I’m helping people. Although a life size statue and a museum dedicated to me would be pretty sweet, I can reasonably put my ego and my (debatably) languidly competitive nature aside and say I don’t need any grand reward for doing what should be second nature by now. Chances are I’ll fade into extreme obscurity within 30 years after I die but I’ll be able to let that go for the most part if I know I’m doing something worth the world’s time. Simply put, I don’t want to disappoint the world. Varying standards and apathy among the general populace aside, I think I can do great things but I just need to find a way to start.
My whining aside, I know I’m not the only person going through feelings like this right at the moment. When people say to me “I’m not where I want to be in my life right now,” it hits a chord inside me and then bounces around my guts for the rest of the day. I want to say “I can relate” but, wholly, I can’t because everyone comes to wherever they are in life with their own unique experiences. It hurts if only because it’s like the pain is radiating off them and I’m only feeling a small fraction of it. Some people I know have watched their friends get married and have kids and feel like there might be something wrong with them for not being in the same situation. Some people I know are in dead end jobs where the glass ceiling has been paved over completely with cement. Some people I know are still beating themselves up for mistakes made 5-10 years ago, thinking that they dun goofed and that the consequences will never be the same. Some people I know find themselves almost literally killing themselves with stress while studying for classes 4-5 hours a day and finding themselves wondering “Why am I even doing this?” Some people are sick of being single and being constantly alone. Some people are sick of being constantly broke. Some people are sick and tired of being sick and tired. It kind of kills me to know that I can’t personally fix all these peoples’ problems but to do that would be to presume that these people don’t have the inner strength to make their own lives better.
Am I feeling hopeless? No if only because I’ve come to view the word “hope” as spectacularly overrated over the years. To me, it’s the same as wishing which, in turn, suggests little or no work on the person’s part to make things better. You might as well as call it aggressive optimism and the equivalent of repeatedly head butting a slot machine, praying to eventually get triple sevens. Be realistic but not pessimistic. Be steadfast but not implacable. Be indignant but not irritable. Be happy with what you currently have but don’t feel that you “have” to settle if you are hurting on the inside. Every cloud has its silver lining but sometimes it’s hard to tell apart from smog. Life doesn’t have to be sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns to be good; it just needs a clear path even if it’s overcast every now and then.
Fatmanonice, September 18th, 2010
“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”- William Faulkner
“I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.”- Aldous Huxley
“Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.”- Florence Nightingale
*This essay pretty much wrote itself in about two hours as one giant rant. This was not only fueled by how I still feel but my friends, both in college and out, who had been telling me about their problems and how they weren't happy with where they were in life either. Despite it's rant-like nature, I still like how this one turned out mainly because of the discussions it sparked with some of my friends.*
I hate being twenty two. I feel useless most of the time but, oddly enough, it’s not driven by depression or anger, just annoyance; ongoing annoyance that’s like a bug bite on top of your foot. It’s kind of like pouring milk into your cereal and finding out that you only have enough milk to fill about a ¼ of the bowl. For some cereals, like Frosted Flakes, this isn’t the end of the world but for cereals like Raison Bran and Grape Nuts, it’s the equivalent of opening the fridge and having a dwarf punch you in the crotch. The cereal’s already wet so you can’t put it back in the box and going hungry until lunch (or dinner in my case) is a worse option so you chew away. You might as well be eating mulch but you eat it anyways. This is how I feel like I’m dealing with life right at the moment. I don’t love it. I don’t hate it. I just tolerate it and chew away with glazed half open eyes because my options are so limited.
I want to be doing more with my life. Granted, just about everyone else in college probably feels like this too but I can’t speak for those other people; I can only speak for myself. I want to help people. The grand irony is that I’m a zoology major and two semesters from graduating. I wanted to go into the Peace Corps following college but, because I would be gone for 27 months, that would create a financial crunch for my parents who would have to handle my insurance while I was gone in some country I could hardly pronounce. To say that I’m back to square one is a gross understatement because to say that would imply that I even started which, of course, is yet another problem in my expanding grocery bag of annoyances. If anything, that’s the main thing I want right now, to start on something. I could burn out on it in a few years but at least I could say I started on an endeavor instead of sitting around in the terminal waiting for my flight.
At times I feel pinned under my own ignorance of the world at large. If there is one thing I envy about the old, it’s their knowledge of the world and experience. In my field biology classes, I become transfixed whenever one of my teachers can pluck a random plant or insect off the ground and then rattle off what it is down to its scientific name and the defining characteristics that separate it from similar species. Even when I don’t entirely understand what he’s talking about, I love to hear my dad explain things too. Whether he’s talking about economics or how a car works, it’s become such basic knowledge for him that he only pauses to ask if I’m still following along. That’s the voice of experience and I crave it like crack. I don’t feel stupid, not in the least, just ignorant. Plato once basically commented that the beginning of wisdom of was knowing that, in comparison to all the knowledge out there, you know nothing and never will. Disheartening, if not a little saturnine in nature, but it still holds true. I will never know 1% of all the knowledge out there and neither will anyone else but, compared to people older than me, I know even less. It’s like mountain climbing and knowing that you’ll never get higher than the base.
I also don’t like that I’m still dependant on my parents especially when I have friends who live independently on their own or are already married. Maybe it’s the thought that’s continuously on the corner of my mind that most of the money I spend isn’t even mine to begin with and that the only reason I’m not a cadaver in a morgue is because each parent is cranking out 40-60 work hours a week to pay for the classes that are questionably applicable to the “real world.” Maybe it’s, as a biology major, knowing that most animals, if the parents even raise them at all, are on their own within a year after they’re born. I feel useless because thinking about this makes me feel like a man child. My mom has come to endear this phrase but it grates my conscience whenever I have to ask my parents for money despite having a job myself. I’ve never been much of a fan of charity. I like to give it but receiving it is a different story. I often receive it begrudgingly and my parents are almost exclusively the only people I ask for anything from. Maybe it’s the idea that even when put in the kindest vernacular I’m still a leech on my parents. I want to ease the problems of other people, not have people even think about mine. I’d like to think that I’m strong enough to handle my own but I keep running into the giant stone obelisk called reality that keeps me from deluding myself for too long. They say responsibility is overrated but, right now, there is something powerfully alluring about “being my own man” and paying back my parents for what has been 22 years of extended babysitting.
I’d like to know where to go from here. I personally think that’s the worst part about being young: not knowing what’s going to happen next when it comes to the big things in life. It’s unnerving to say the least: will I succeed or will I fail and, even then, what will I succeed or fail at? Inside every man is a little boy who is scared to death of failure and, regretfully, I’m no different. What I fear worse than failure though is mediocrity. I don’t believe I have to excel at everything, just what’s important and, that’s exactly it, I don’t believe I’m doing anything of any particular significance right now. I have to say what I fear most is waking up ten years from now, finding that I’m not too far away from where currently I am in life and being perfectly content with that. I don’t want to settle for less. I don’t care if I ever make as much as my dad or live in a house that was the size of the one I grew up in, I just to have the simple satisfaction of knowing that I’m helping people. Although a life size statue and a museum dedicated to me would be pretty sweet, I can reasonably put my ego and my (debatably) languidly competitive nature aside and say I don’t need any grand reward for doing what should be second nature by now. Chances are I’ll fade into extreme obscurity within 30 years after I die but I’ll be able to let that go for the most part if I know I’m doing something worth the world’s time. Simply put, I don’t want to disappoint the world. Varying standards and apathy among the general populace aside, I think I can do great things but I just need to find a way to start.
My whining aside, I know I’m not the only person going through feelings like this right at the moment. When people say to me “I’m not where I want to be in my life right now,” it hits a chord inside me and then bounces around my guts for the rest of the day. I want to say “I can relate” but, wholly, I can’t because everyone comes to wherever they are in life with their own unique experiences. It hurts if only because it’s like the pain is radiating off them and I’m only feeling a small fraction of it. Some people I know have watched their friends get married and have kids and feel like there might be something wrong with them for not being in the same situation. Some people I know are in dead end jobs where the glass ceiling has been paved over completely with cement. Some people I know are still beating themselves up for mistakes made 5-10 years ago, thinking that they dun goofed and that the consequences will never be the same. Some people I know find themselves almost literally killing themselves with stress while studying for classes 4-5 hours a day and finding themselves wondering “Why am I even doing this?” Some people are sick of being single and being constantly alone. Some people are sick of being constantly broke. Some people are sick and tired of being sick and tired. It kind of kills me to know that I can’t personally fix all these peoples’ problems but to do that would be to presume that these people don’t have the inner strength to make their own lives better.
Am I feeling hopeless? No if only because I’ve come to view the word “hope” as spectacularly overrated over the years. To me, it’s the same as wishing which, in turn, suggests little or no work on the person’s part to make things better. You might as well as call it aggressive optimism and the equivalent of repeatedly head butting a slot machine, praying to eventually get triple sevens. Be realistic but not pessimistic. Be steadfast but not implacable. Be indignant but not irritable. Be happy with what you currently have but don’t feel that you “have” to settle if you are hurting on the inside. Every cloud has its silver lining but sometimes it’s hard to tell apart from smog. Life doesn’t have to be sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns to be good; it just needs a clear path even if it’s overcast every now and then.
Fatmanonice, September 18th, 2010
“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”- William Faulkner
“I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.”- Aldous Huxley
“Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.”- Florence Nightingale
