The Brilliance of Life, Understanding it... and other Shenanigans

I seem to enjoy posting at the most awkward of times it seems like. I mean practically most of you must be in hibernation mode with your nose stuffed into books as if they were providing you with life giving oxygen. Still it's been a while so I thought why not. Since the final term of university is upon us and with year one coming to a close I thought I'd look back at some of the things I've learnt and draw upon why they mattered.

For starters, I know for sure that this year I lost nearly half of my high-school friends to the unfortunate passage of time which slowly eroded any relationship that I might have had with them throughout our teenage life. It seemed saddening at first but then I realised that it was a necessary change to occur. We as individuals don't realise that sometimes we make friends to maintain the social convenience rather than actual mutual interest with each other. The so called 'gangs' we had as teenagers seems as if a thing of the past. Truth be told there was a lot of tension within those gangs and it seemed natural that after a while the ties which held us together slowly started to fade as we realised the insignificance of them. What was that irritating line in frozen ? Right 'It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small'. So with all of us so far away, the stress of trying to always fix things didn't come to me and I felt liberated by the fact that if things were meant to happen this way... then they happened for a reason. Not that I don't miss each and everyone of them though, the friends I made in highschool were a great bunch so it does sting that we've grown so far apart.

Making temporary snow cones - Like a boss

Another thing I feel I must point out is that university is a lot about balance. Honestly this lesson took way too long to learn but it felt good when I eventually did. I mean in all honesty it's all about bringing as much of your life's old routine back into your university life. Be it as simple as a game of football with your friends, or waking up early enough to actually have breakfast and lunch. Balance is an important part of our life even if we don't realise it. Bring back what was once good for you, take on those that improve you and discard those that don't. Most importantly I finally found a place where I can truly relax and feel as if I'm not simply living in a place that I'm here for temporarily but rather the potential for a permanent home. In all honesty I did rob that last line from one of my history lectures wherein the countries that the British invaded either prospered or collapsed depending on whether or not the migrants wanted to settle or simply rob the place of its resources. Funny how education comes up in the weirdest of places

Finally I felt humbled for the first time in my life to be a part of something so large and brilliant. University truly gives you the channel within which you can witness the world from a safe haven. Honestly I can come across as cocky, arrogant and even downright crude sometimes, but I'm learning to change, and one of the most important factors that caused that it is realisation that without the desire to improve, you're always going to be bested by others who do. You can sit on your laurels of the past and gloat about your glory days, but I'd much rather fall down multiple times, dust myself off and get right back up and face any challenge. Whether through life's successes, or personal development in the case of me, humility through gain and most of all a desire to keep fighting, this is a journey that I have yet to even reach the fork roads of. 

What I do believe though is that there's a lot more left to learn and I plan on cherishing every moment of it that I can. Summer is nearly here and there's a lot left to do. Till then...

The Pursuit of Happiness

Been a while hasn't it? I'd say welcome back but we all know that no one is desperate enough to continue to come back to this site. So instead I'll start of with a friendly 'hello' and hope that what I'm probably going to write right now will seem interesting enough for you to spend a couple of minutes on.

So earlier this week results came out. Now these aren't your regular end of term 'next-time-I'll-do-better' results, this is the real life-deciding deal; and for many of us they weren't what we expected. So now how do we deal with that? I could stand here spouting all sorts of bull crap about how things will get better, and of how life has set you on a new better path, but we all know that I'll be wasting your time with complete and utter nonsense.

Let's face it. This sucks. Definitely if your future was suddenly taken away from you, you wouldn't want consolation. You'd want to smash things; curse the world for being cruel; maybe even go on a wild rampaging spree... anything basically besides listen to someone tell you that it's probably for the best.

As a person who's been on both sides of the roads I know how frustrating it is from either point of view. If you're the one being consoled, you're seriously considering ripping out the throat of the one consoling you. If you're the one consoling, you know that if it were you in the opposite person's position, you wouldn't even wait around to listen to your shit.

So now what? Well to me I feel there are 3 stages that people in this situation go through.

First is grief - The eternal sadness of not achieving your dreams has finally hit you. Waves of guilt, vulnerability and most of all pain overcome you. You seem lost for a few moments as you contemplate 'what now?'. The thing that hurts most probably is if you're a self conscious person like me, you will always wonder whether people will now view you as a failure. This is your biggest challenge that you'll face, and you have to overcome it if you even plan on moving on

Next is blame - You've finally accepted your current situation and now you're on the warpath looking for someone to blame for what has happened. Maybe it's your friends who insisted you keep on partying late into the night. Or your parents for taking you out constantly when you felt you should have studied. Lets be honest (say the first two words fast) you are the own freaking boss of your destiny. Do not forget that you agreed to most of these things whether knowingly or not. Call it peer pressure, family pressure or any other pressure, you gave into it rather focus on your goals and now you're paying the price. When you finally realize this, you'll seriously wish that the price wasn't so high.

Finally is revival - This stages could come frequently in-between the other two former stages, but you'll know it's real when you finally start to let go. When you decide that enough-is-enough and moping around won't help anyone, you've finally started the healing process. What is soon to follow is the desire to do better. Changes to your lifestyle could either be radical or they could be slow and progressing. Whatever they may be it is important to realize that these changes do not guarantee success in the future. They could be obliterated as you settle back into your old habits, or simply not strong enough to make a difference. However they are something you're willing to try out for the time being. Therefore you've opted to take a different path, preferably a brighter one as you move out of the shadows and back into the sunlight.

So now that I've basically written out my life-story in these few paragraphs I'm hoping you'll at least be able to relate with me and what I'm talking about. True, disappointment sucks but you're only making it worse by letting it take a hold of you. We're only human for god's sake. Mistakes are bound to happen but that doesn't me that we let them take us down. We simply get up, dust ourselves off, and get back on the trail to find happiness.

In all honesty, the 'pursuit of happiness' is a battle, and if you're not fighting, then it isn't happiness that you're looking for.