New Tracks

                It feels like my old friends that I see all the time, change all the time. The old friends I have and hardly ever see haven’t changed at all. I just have a feeling that everyone is on a completely different track than what they set out on. I may have a little bit more cargo than before, but I’m still that same 6:03am AMTRAK destined to arrive in Chicago at 9:30. Everyone around is on different paths now and I feel left behind.

                I guess resistance to change is what makes bigots, it’s what makes the ignorance that we scoff at in our history books. So am I any better for choosing to stay true to the person I decided to be when I was teenager? No. I think my morals are little stronger now, and that’s why I feel like I’m better. Maybe it’s just pretentiousness that makes me feel like I need to be the voice of reason with friends that have been acting different.

                In my eyes all I could see is old friends slowly ticking time off their life. Yet they only ever thought of it as an escape in troubling times. And I pressured them to shape up. Times were tough, and I made it harder. As I sit here staring into a framed picture with my best friend and the word “Family” written on the frame, I feel like that I’ve been anything but a brother.

                My point is, how far is too far in intervention? Am I over stepping my bounds and stopping my ever changing best friend from being who she wants to be? Everyone is inconsistent; it’s a  universal laws of personality and communication. I’m no better by pointing out inconsistency. I can’t stop people changing, but I can’t just change with them, how do I prioritize my identity with the people I love? Luckily, this time I wasn't really left behind, but that doesn’t mean I’m safe. Maybe it’s inevitable that old high school friends part ways, but I’ll never give up until the very last railroad tie.

Reasons to be afraid

                I’ve always been told that my writing was great, that I always had a way with the words I chose. Not once in my life has someone read something I put my heart into and told me “This is bad. I don’t like your ideas or writing style.” And that scares me.

                I know what a huge problem to have, no one has ever disliked my writing. Yet the more I think about it the more it eats away at me. Good writers get the readers to think. Great writers get readers to act. Lately I’ve been reading Hemingway, and all I could think about was how good it was, how involved in the story I got. I stumbled across a few negative reviews and spent the time to read them. The first thought of course was how ignorant and aggressive people like that are, but it can also be something so different. Even for the people spewing hate, Hemingway made them act. His words were so powerful to extend  past the pages and into life. I know I remember the books I hate just as much as the books I love.

                Where’s my haters? I don’t have anyone yet. There’s just a small chance that everything I write is eloquent and the reader is completely swayed by me. There’s a larger chance that everyone I know is so civilized they don’t want to attack my dreams. I don’t believe in either of that. The reason that runs through my head the most is lack of presence. That everything I say is “so nice” and calm that the reader feels just a little bit stronger than indifferent. Where’s the power? I’m afraid my writing is so “cookie cutter” that I’m not saying anything truly new. It’s not like cookies taste worse with a cookie cutter, but it takes away from the power of creation. Which is a shame, because this whole blog is about me saying something new, saying something important to someone and having it stick with them for life.

                Nothing important is ever agreed upon. That’s why there are so many power struggles. People shouldn’t be reading my writing and always think “that was interesting.” I want just once for someone to honestly disagree with what I have to say, that way I know my words hold power. Maybe like many others I’m just a little tired of excelling but not changing anything.

A long stumble

                It’s been a while since I’ve written in my blog. It’s been a while since I felt like I’ve done anything. I had some great times with my friends over the past few weeks but there’s almost no sense of accomplishment. I just always caught myself making excuses to not lift, or not study, or not work. It’s showing in everything I do, my performance on the two midterms I had this week was way under the prestige of my university and myself. I can see why there are so many students I silently shake my head at when midterm grades come in. It’s easy to not perform your best especially when you have the sense that you’re in a good spot. Complacency is a buzz kill.

                Why should I push myself harder? I’m already an honor student, I already landed an interview for another internship. I guess when I’m aspiring towards the top ranks, the only thing on my mind is that I need to be the best. When I’m in a position where I’m a head, I relax and let things pan out on their own. It’s so much easier to just give yourself a break because you think you deserve it.

You can’t finish a marathon if you’re happy running 25 miles. You still have 1.2 miles to go. 1.2 miles, statistically most Americans can’t do that by itself. Yet you just did it over 20 fucking times, how hard can the last one be?

That’s the thought process I need. I’ll probably never run a marathon, but I need to instill the idea that everything I do to better myself is amazing; pushing myself to the limit to get better is all worth it in the end. I can’t announce “I’ve tried my best, gave it my all, now is the time to quit.” I didn’t try my best, I didn’t give it my all if I’m still sane enough to quit.

I used to feel drive to read all my textbooks, do all the homework, workout, talk with friends  and I still got eight hours of sleep. Now, I see myself putting off everything, because I think “I perform better when I’m rested.” I know my body, I know my mind, and a good night’s sleep is more beneficial than a night of cramming, but I had time to sleep when I pushing myself too. Complacency seeps in so quickly, but you don’t always see the results instantly. That’s what makes getting back so much harder, you don’t see results of pushing yourself either. I’ve stumbled through the last weeks and had some fun, but it’s time to put my head down and run myself into the ground, or to the top, whichever I can handle. Looks like bloons tower defense 5 will have to take a backseat for now, because I have shit to do.

Law of Large Numbers

                I spent the weekend at a university sponsored leadership retreat. It was a direct result of me signing up for anything the university sends me. That mentality has given me some weird results but I don’t mind being out of my comfort zone anymore. At the very least I expected free meals for the weekend, but I came home with so much more.

                My first thought when we boarded the bus to Springfield was there were a lot of people and way too little time to interact with all of them. Especially since everyone else was cliquey. When the workshop started all the walls came down. We all had a common bond, interest in leadership and how to battle adversity while leading. It was good because social change was on all of our minds so we didn’t have to hide it behind small talk.

                There’s things the program leaders expected me to take away, but I think I sneaked in a lesson by myself. Sure they may have pressed the issue of inclusiveness but I took some free range on that idea. Forty seemed like a lot of people for just one day. At the end though, it felt like such a small amount. Communities make large numbers irrelevant. It’s not forty people, it’s one individual with the passion and characteristics of forty. Diversity in thought and background brings a community together, not tear it apart. I know it seems like I’m contradicting just to contradict, but really I’m just shedding light on misconceptions that have been internalized. Think of a community through the law of large numbers, the more people there are, the closer to the actual mean it will get. So through diversity on both ends of the spectrum, we can come together to truly represent the population, which is what social change is all about.

Getting an education

                Life is busy at college, that’s for sure. There is time for me to write, but I’ve just been so tired I don’t have words to say, but it is nice, not having thoughts pop in and out at moments. When I really need to just rest my mind, it just rests. There’s no anxiety that I’ll do bad, or I’m making the wrong choices, there’s just silence around and stillness in my mind. I enjoy not thinking. There’s no other way to put it.

                Today has been a little bit different. For one of my classes, “Intro to Insurance” we had a guest speaker talk about his professional experience as a “long term care” agent. It’s something not a lot of people put thought in to, “that won’t happen to me,” or “my family will take care of me.” The truth is, it has to happen to someone, and asking that much from family can put a lot of stress on relationships. So why avoid it?

                The guest speaker told his story, about how he switched from clinical psychology to the insurance game mid-life.  It’s listening to people like him that loosen the anxiety. Life doesn’t have to be set in stone, and a lot of the time you have to roll with the punches and change plans. His life was interrupted when his father became very ill, and the family was having a hard time providing care by themselves. He continued on about how the lack of preparation for his father’s old age started to change his life completely. I sat in class feeling like we shared a common bond. I saw in him that he moved to insurance to help others, not himself. It’s what drives me, starting my career so other college students don't have to go through what I went through. So other families don’t have to suffer too. It was good to know thirty years down the road that success to even higher-ups is first measured in personal satisfaction, which is best obtained by helping others.

                There are a lot of us, going into different fields for all the right reasons. All of us attempting to make the world a better place for others, not just ourselves. You can’t tell me that people are evil after that. I see the good, because it’s easy to see. Maybe so many see the bad in others, because when they look into the mirror they see bad in themselves. If we judge people, we’re really only judging our own perception.  

Journey's Beginning

It’s been a week since I’ve last posted, mostly because I haven’t had internet. I also haven’t really been writing, but the first week back at college is the busiest and most expensive. It’s been mostly like expected, sometimes duller, sometimes more exciting. Instead of having a last night in Macomb party, I had a first night in Champaign party (but with my Macomb friends). Which should probably mean nothing, but I like to overanalyze.

                Welcome home parties are the optimistic brother of the closet pessimistic going away party. Going away parties can be fun, and are there to honor all the good times that were had. So, is there any point in having a going away party where you’re only kind of happy? Or is a going away party just there to say “Congratulations on moving on to something better!” There’s clearly a reason to go away, but there’s not always a reason to celebrate it. So why say goodbye in such a large way? What’s wrong with saying goodbye privately? This could only apply to me though…

Maybe you can’t take the time to say goodbye to everyone if it’s at such an intimate level, but sometimes goodbye doesn’t have to be said. I am generally cold towards acquaintances. Why would I say goodbye or I’ll miss you, if it’ll only be true for the first week or so? I guess pleasantries have never been a huge part of how I communicate. Yes, I do hide behind words, but in a different way than small talk. Generally, if I said it, I meant it, and if I didn’t say it, I wasn’t thinking about it. Maybe that’s the cold side of me that my friends don’t see, that I don’t like to show.  I might just be a little bit broke, like I don’t meet people well, but I connect fast after that.

Welcome home parties seem so much warmer than going away parties. Everything old seems new, and all the embraces feel right. Everything new feel old, since they’re apart of where you live, they’re instantly apart of who you are. It’s great to be connected to all the new things at college; everything is another thing to be proud of. Yet, I may be connected to and proud of all the new students, but I don’t make effort to get to know them. I’m truly broke (in multiple ways, $). places I’ve been seem cold to me, but people I know are shining lights. New places give me new reasons, but new people keep me retracted. I need to take steps to reach out to people. I can’t rely on just my reclusiveness to get things done now. I guess I have about nine months until summer, but about nineteen years of brokenness and I better get a fixin’. My journey starts now.