Desiderata

I stumbled my way onto this poem (written in prose) and after reading it a few times, I feel like it summarizes my life philosophy. I'm very glad I stumbled my way onto this poem and I wanted to share it with you guys because this blog is where I can share longer things that I can't on Facebook or Twitter.

Desiderata (Latin for "desired things") was written by Max Erhmann in 1927. Any and all rights belong to him and his estate.

Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its shams, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. 

I know this probably isn't the most accurate format, but I've run into so many different formatting styles for this poem and I went with the one I felt best fit the poem.

So yeah, this is a neat little poem; I'm glad I stumbled upon it.

And with that, g'night and sleep tight.

Direction[less]

"Not all those who wander are lost;"
Never have I felt a quote, even one possibly taken completely out of context, so accurately describes the something resembling a life that is mine. And to the uninformed bystander, it looks like I am some lost soul.

I'm not. 
But I am.

It really all depends on the day for me.

[Before I get too far into this post, let me just say that this could possibly be a pretty confusing post . . . because I'm confused about the whole thing too. As seen by the comment above.]

Most days I believe I'm just taking a detour, finding my own way to my own goals. I believe I'm forging my own path and carving out my own place in this world. I'm not comfortable with the idea of someone emptying a niche for me to fill because they think it's best for me. However, if someone wants to give me a pro-tip on something, awesome, I'd take it into consideration. Will I do what they tell recommend? If I think it will benefit me.

Then there are days when I really think I have no idea what I'm doing. At all. I feel like I'm floundering about in life, barely getting by. I look at other people who seem to know exactly what they're doing with their lives and I look like some buffoon in comparison who can't get his act together . Days like this are when I wish someone would lay out a path for me to follow, with step-by-step instructions on how to get to a predetermined endpoint for my life.

And I know I'm definitely not the only person in the world who has ever felt like this.

Part of why I feel like I'm floundering kind of stems from taking a semester off and the resulting mixed reactions I got from people. For the most part, people were cool with it. But then there were the people who didn't understand. At all. They didn't seem to understand I was tired, frustrated, and I just didn't want to be there at this point in my life. But that's already been covered in another post. I was prepared for people not understanding it, but when people mocked my decision, I was not expecting that. 

Another reason why I feel like I'm floundering and have no direction in life is because I feel like I've let people down and didn't meet their expectations of what they wanted to do with my life. Which makes me think they think less of me as a person. Which brings me to a nifty anecdote from my youth. So, long before I settled on my chosen life path, I aspired to take over my family's farm. Yeah. Anyway, back when my great-grandmother was, well, dying, my family all kind of came together to say our good-byes and all that fun dying relative stuff. When we weren't inside the apartment, we were out in a gazebo just distracting ourselves with whatever - chess, random little challenging puzzles, etc. Well, after people had asked the eight year old me what I wanted to do when I grew up and was all "Oh, I want to take over the farm," Apparently, when I wasn't present one of my great-uncle's said to other family members that he really hoped I didn't get the farm because I was such a smart kid and if any of our family was going to get out of here, it would be me. And I'd be off doing great things with my life instead of wasting my time down on the farm. 

My head almost imploded when I had heard that little story. It sucked. And I felt like I was failing at that.

But when I feel like I'm not failing at life and trying to figure it out (or if I need to remind myself I'm not), I remind myself I'm only nineteen (I'll be twenty in ten days after this post goes up). I'm still growing up. I'm still learning, I'm always learning. I am finding my own way in this world. I just have to remember that. I also need to remind myself I'm not alone, there are so many others out there who are going through what I am. 
Taking this time off is honestly one of the best things I've done for myself. I generally feel better about myself, I'm not as frustrated with things, I've discovered parts of myself I knew were there, but never really had time to fully embrace. If I had stayed in school, I would have been very unhappy and I wouldn't have been able to grow as a person. 
No where does it say I'm required to have my life planned out by a certain age. And I've accepted that there are some repercussions, if you will. I will be stressed and anxious about it at various times.  Life is an adventure, why does there have to be a goal? I'm going to explore this world and go wherever I feel called. No goal. No endgame. My only goal I have is just to be happy. 

Good lord, did this post decide to take it's title to heart . . . I went all over the place with this one. I'm honestly tired of writing this post. I've spent far too long it. So long. I need to work on maintaining a steady stream of thought when working on posts that involve me explaining something. I think too far ahead and lose any ideas I have when I go back to the point at hand.

Anyway, I'm going to try and get some sleep.
Until next time, g'night and sleep tight. 

Bragging

Okay, so, I never really do this. Like ever. But I feel like it's a very needed thing as of late. I'd like to consider myself a humble person, I dislike talking myself up because I don't want people to think I'm some self-centered idiot who can't see past my own greatness.


With that in mind, let me just talk about how awesome I am. 

First of all, I'm a smart kid. I may not have a genius level IQ, but I'm not some caveman eating mud. I can pick up certain things pretty quickly. I'm generally a quick learner. I also have common sense. Which is something I've noticed a bunch of people I know lack. I'm not oblivious to the way the world works. I keep myself pretty informed in what's happening in the world. 

I'm a good person. I'm not a massive jerk. I generally go out of my way to help people. I will drop what I'm doing and go help that person. I generally like putting people first. As an extension of helping people, I'm a really good listener! People will come to me, tell me about whatever it is that is burdening them, and I will listen without passing ANY kind of judgement on them. I've been called a "really good active listener." If people want my advice on something, I'll give it,  but I don't expect them to follow it. I realize people are people and can make their own decisions. In fact, I would probably question anyone who repeatedly came to me for advice and followed to the T. 


I'm a pretty attractive guy. I mean, I'm not ripped or built, I'm actually pretty skinny, but I still look good. And I've gotten better with age. I'm pretty sure the beard helps. The words adorable, hot, attractive, cute, and handsome have all been used to describe me. And they're all right. 

I mean, look at me

Let's not forget the fact that I have TWO birthdays. Yes, it's a minor technicality, but you know what, I'm embracing it! The only other people who can say they have more than one birthday either have had a similar thing happen to them or they were born on Leap Day. For those of you who don't know what happened, it's basically all one giant typo. The hospital I was born in accidentally put that I was born the day before my actual birth. The time was right, just not the day. So that's that story. 

I have excellent taste in music. I don't limit myself to just one or two genres, I listen to ALL the genres. Well, almost all the genres. I can't do heavy, heavy metal or listen to bands that excessively use screaming as their preferred method of "singing." It's cool every once in a while, but not for an entire song. Anyway, I could be listening to something like Flyleaf one song and end up listening to something from a musical the next and then swing all the way to Skrillex and finally settle on something by The Civil Wars. I think that's actually happened, by the way. I know those aren't necessarily the best examples for my point, but it still makes my point.

Another thing I'm particularly good at is acting. It's something I'm good at, something I love to do, and hope to pursue in my future. Someone said something to me after a show I was in in high school and it happened to be A Midsummer Night's Dream. We were standing in the receiving line for the audience to come congratulate and thank us on a show well done and this one woman came to me and said she thinks I would do very well in and should do more shows by Shakespeare. I took this as a very high compliment because it's Shakespeare.

I'd like to stop and take a moment to let all of you reading this to know that this post is taking far longer than I'd hoped it would take. I'm kind of dying on the inside writing this much about myself like this.

Speaking of writing (see what I did there?), I'm a good writer. Sure, I don't always put quality posts on my blog, but that doesn't mean I'm a bad writer; I write differently for different things. If I'm writing a paper for a class that needs quality, I bust out my very best writing skills. If it's a paper that doesn't need that high of a level of quality, I'll adjust accordingly, but I still write really good papers. 


Okay . . . I think I'm done. I can't do it anymore. It's too much!!! I've bragged about myself as long as I can. I really don't want people to think I'm honestly this concerned about things. I wrote this so that way I can come back and give myself a nice confidence boost whenever I need it. To quickly summarize, I'm awesome and need to remember this more often. Sure, I will occasionally bring some of these things up, but usually when I'm joking about it. Oh, and I'm funny. I've heard people say that if you think you're funny, you're probably not. Well, shut up. I am.
Honestly readers, if you really think I'm this full of myself, we need to have a chat. And if you have a problem or disagree with these statements I've laid out about myself, don't bother. I won't listen. I mean that in the nicest possible way. I did this as a reminder to myself, I don't want to turn around and get bashed for it. 


Lesson of this post: be awesome, remind yourself you are, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. 


Until next time, g'night and sleep tight