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...

Dealing with double sides

Ever wondered why you act differently when you're around people? No? Seriously does nobody think about these things at all? Ah well I do, and as long as I continue to do so, you're all suctioned into listening to what many people (nearly everyone) say is absolute bull crap. Still as they say, "Better to have some crap rather than none at all". Okay I have definitely broken the weird scale now. On with the post.

So lately (well basically right now) I've been thinking of how our attitude/personality/whatever the hell defines us, changes as we interact with different people. I've been the soft spoken, shy and inbound child; the over zealous and annoying boy wonder; the chilled out trophy kid; and most of all I've been the person no one forgets. Aren't I adorable? No I thought so. Just remember... I know where you live -_-

Moving on. I find myself wondering whether or not we have any control as to which personality we choose to first introduce ourselves with when meeting people. Like say you're like me and you're born with multiple personality disorder; what's your go-to personality? Frankly I tend to shift in between them depending on how the person I'm interacting with, appears

Now you've probably gotten the general gist of what I previously mentioned, but just for convenience sake, I'm going into this a little bit more deeper. They say that in the social circuit, there are four roles that are most common; there's the Alpha, the one with the prominent personality who takes the role of the leader; the Beta, who isn't respected by all but is valued by the Alpha as the person to go to for advice; the Sideliner, who are quite content being part of the group and find no need to jump positions, and finally there's the Bandwagon who loves to be around Alphas and will jump cliques if they find someone interesting enough.

After that rather complicated revealing, let me mix things up even further and see if you can take it. You know like I said we change our personality depending on the person we're interacting with... well that personality is one of these roles superimposed on us according to whether we think the other person is an Alpha, Beta, Sideliner or Bandwagon.

Take for instance the person you're about to meet seems charismatic, fun and sociable. Naturally you perceive them to be either an Alpha or a Beta and accordingly you decide whether you want to adopt a more outgoing role of the current social clique, or stay in the shadows until you feel comfortable.

See that's the problem. So many times I've met people who seem completely nice at one point of time, and the next moment when you're surrounded by different people he/she is a complete asshole. Not sure why that happens, and truthfully I've played the same role as these people many times. I guess it's just natural for us humans to change how we behave based on our perception of the other person. Hmm seems kinda pointless seeing as we're all part of the same washed up species. Ah well, we humans have a tendency of never learning. Maybe though in the future things will change. Till then here's hoping I don't adopt another random ass personality. I think 3 is enough.