One Good Night

Today we went out to celebrate both my brothers' and Nav's birthdays. Coincidentally enough, all three of their birthdays are right after one another (April 5,6,7). Anyway, it was a fun night to be had with friends and family while we hung out at Lazia and back at Tom's house.

Personally, I thought it was a great night for me. Not just for the fun time involved with being around friends and chatting and laughing together, but it also really gave me a fresh outset on my current stage of life. I'll explain more.

See, currently I've been struggling with lots of different issues about the future in my head. Ie) Where am I gonna live? Can I afford a house? How long will it take to finish my degree? Is accounting really what I want to do? How has my relationship with my parents been changing? Am I ready for this stage of life? It really does feel like a huge crossroads of my life at the moment with so many priorities and worries pulling me in separate directions. Although many people say that it's high school that you do the most self-discovery and growing, I'd say that there's still way more to be explored at this part of life. I often find myself trying to define my outlook on life and the general direction that I'm going in, but I feel overwhelmed. It reminds me of an old story that me and my brothers used to tell everyone from our childhood:

"Back in the days when I was less than 5 years old and we lived at our old house, we used to always hang out with some neighbors that we had as friends. Well this one day the neighbors got a pet hamster from their parents. We somehow thought that the best place to keep this hamster was in the dark compartment of our coffee table. Being kids, we of course forgot all about it once placed inside, and went off to have dinner. Once we finished, we realized that the pet was still in the table. Just as we opened the doors to set it free, it bolted out the most immediate opening it could find, running madly and blindly to escape it's table prison. Of course, being in complete darkness for so long, this totally messed up the hamster's perception and it ran without any coordination or any general direction. Also, a quick look inside of the table revealed a whole bunch of hamster crap left from the pet in fear."

I know it's a weird analogy, but it somehow seems to fit the most right now to my life. I feel like I'm the hamster in my life and that I've been suddenly released from my former semi-prison of commitments. And like the hamster, I have no coordination or any idea of where I'm running to, I only know that I'm running the hell out of there. I feel like this because of the sudden freedom I'm experiencing from my parents to make my own choices and paths. With graduating year coming up, I'll really be stepping into the unknown right away with no idea of where I'm running to. All I know is that I'm just running AWAY from the school life that I've grown accustomed to. And much like the hamster, because I'm crapping myself ten fold right now because I don't know where I'm headed.

Anyway, to make a long blog short, tonight really helped me to see a lot of things. The first thing, after talking to people who are 4-8 years older than me, you don't always have to know where you're going in order to be ok in life. Their lives are living proof of this, and it eases me much more to see a practical example of this being the truth. And second, the satisfying parts of life really don't come down to all the things we normally associate with a 'great life'. For me, I've found myself in the cycle over and over again, endlessly seeking to impress others and to show my worth to myself through my actions. This includes the journey for popularity, fame, money, and power. Just by being in the same room with these friends, I can really see the happiness in their lives shining from completely different sources than these. This fills me with great joy, and relief.

Although I'm still scared as to what my future is going to amount to, I still know that things won't turn completely upside down if I'm uncertain about some of the important decisions of life.