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.

Friends, the weird glass cannon.

I swear to God this better not be a depressing post -_-. I'm tired of being all melodramatic so for a change I thought I'd write a bit more about reality and the important lessons to be learned from it.

Now I'm betting that 50% of you will have no idea whatsoever of what I'm talking about whereas the other 50% will get what I'm dishing out almost immediately. So for the modest 50% of you who have no idea what I'm talking about as well as the curious few of you who enjoy reading what I have to say (you're probably crazy), let me elaborate on why I've decided to link one of life's necessities to an awkward analogy of a weapon.

Okay so for starters what is a glass cannon? Clearly if you haven't gotten a basic idea by now, then perhaps you need some help. Still for convenience sake, I'll explain it all out. In essence a glass cannon is basically a metaphor for something that seems incredibly strong and powerful but yet breaks at the slightest touch. Now to me, friends and friendship is a lot like that.

Before you get ahead of yourself and automatically decide you've read enough and instinctively shut this link, let me at least explain what I'm trying to get at. As I was saying friends and friendship is lot like a glass cannon. Think about it, they've always been there for you, strong, everlasting and powerful enough to help see you through almost anything you encounter in life. Yet there are those moments where that tiny precise element that puts them at risk leads to the shattering of any link or concern they may have had for you.

Now as the saying goes ' it's every man for himself'. Clearly this should have been written as a rule of conduct when it comes to those you spend your time with. I mean trust me there are times when you're cursing yourself for being foolish enough to trust some people. So then why keep friends at all? The answer is quite simple, the human body hungers for interaction. Good or bad, love or hate, we need to interact with the rest of the world to function sanely. If not you might end up like me, lost in a world of your own thoughts, and trust me you do not want that.

So that's my take on this perilous topic and somehow I've turned one of nature's greatest gifts into a curse. Yeah I definitely have issues. Yet I weirdly enough have a lot of friends. Maybe opposites attract? The socially awkward teenager that can't seem to stop getting to know people. That would be an epic movie plot. Till then I'll just keep to myself, with writing keeping me company...

Disappointment... And why Imagination is better than Reality

Clearly I've realized that most of you have probably gotten bored with my whole 'depressing post' syndrome but this my blog so I'll say to you what I say to everyone else who criticize me, 'Deal with it'.

Now that we've got that out of the way let's move on with why I've decided to go all Devdas and write this ridiculous piece. Feeling disappointed is natural I guess, especially to teenagers who often complain about life not being fair. Truth be told some of us really don't realize how lucky we are because we choose to whine about the little things that we feel seem to matter. Now don't get me wrong, it's good to care about the little things, but making a big deal about a tiny problem won't solve anything. Someone once told me, 'Keep low expectations for everyone, cause in the end they're all going to let you down'. I don't think he realized how significant that one sentence would become or whether or not he too had played a part in it.

So now I'm going to take a slightly different route to this morose post and question why people get disappointed; perhaps the answer lies in the image we expect to be created, and the harsh reality that soon follows. To be honest (wow never thought I'd say that), a major contributor towards why we feel low is because of what we had hoped would happen.

These fantasies we devise, the scenarios we create and the pictures we envision are all grossly over exemplified and lack the discord that reality brings with it. Think about what I've said here (if you can understand it), haven't there been times when you were excited for something solely because of how you anticipated it would be, only to be let down when things didn't go the way they were planned? If that's the case then join the club, for everyone and anyone has at some point of time been deceived by their own imagination.

So now what? I for one really love immersing myself into the visions I can create inside my head, oblivious to my surroundings and free from all the negativity. Sadly though I can't stay in my dream world for very long, and sooner or later it's time to face to perils that reality brings with it. So from this I'll leave you with a piece of advice...  while imagination is good, and creativity is sometimes necessary to add a bit of mystery to your life, you should never let it take control of how you perceive life and how you decide to live it.