Life

At 20 years of age I have my whole life in front of me, yet I’ve decided to take a step back and analyze my decisions thus far and begin to restructure my life.

When I was a child I, like many, saw the world through rose colored shades. I knew exactly what I wanted out of this short existence on Earth, I had this fantasy lifestyle mapped out for myself. I knew the type of career I was going to hold, the perfect guy I was going to fall in love with and the type of upstanding and exemplary citizen I was going to be. Well, I think it comes as a surprise to no one that life doesn’t care what you want out of it, it’s going to throw situations at you regardless of what you planned for. I know I’m relatively young, but I’ve seen and experienced my fair share of hard situations.

I believe the way you choose to respond to these situations is what shapes you as a human being, and that you can’t map out your life because you have NO idea what’s around the corner in this maze called life. I have an amazing life, I really do. It’s filled with wonderful people and incredible experiences that I wouldn’t trade for the world, yet lately I’ve been feeling empty and frustrated wondering why I’m not the person I so desperately want to be, the person that, as a child, I knew I was going to grow up to be.

I’ve had a few rough patches over the past few months, getting over a broken heart, dealing with school and everyday drama and all the while trying to figure out who I really am. It was at that point that it dawned on me, I am who I am, and only I have the power to change my life. I can’t keep trying to be the person I wanted to be as a child because I already am that person, I’ve just allowed these situations that have occurred in my life to affect me in such a way that I feel I’m drowning in my past, rendering me with this feeling of utter emptiness. But how to fix it?

I believe that everything in life happens for a reason, and believe it even more after an experience I had the other night. This guy that I go to school with and haven’t spoken with in a long while got a hold of me. We went through the typical ‘How have things been, how is school going’ etc. It was at that point that he asked me how I was doing, and I was completely honest with him. I let it all out, telling him what was bothering me and how I feel like I’m suffocating from all these issues. He listened to me before offering his thoughts. He’s quite an intriguing individual who lives every day through a philosophical perspective, reasoning things out before reacting. He also practices several Buddhism ideals about being at peace with yourself and everything around you. He reminded me that I’m in control of my conscious mind and can therefore control how I view past and present situations and can choose to allow things to bother me or get past them. I then pledged to myself that everyday I would take on this vantage point and view things in a different light. Every morning I’m going to wake up and think of all the wonderful things I have going for me and my future instead of looking behind me at the monster that is my past. Let me tell you, I feel as if a weight has been lifted. Instead of being bitter or disappointed about mistakes/situations that have happened to me, I’m letting go, I’m freeing myself from the chains of the past. I’m choosing to take the experiences that have happened to me and utilize them to my advantage; I’m going to view them as events that have shaped me, not as events that define me. Life is MUCH to short to live it in despair and disappointment with oneself, so I’m going to enjoy each day, free.