Self-Help

Don't blame me for being so young. I know I oftentimes write about things as if I were older, and more experienced with them, and today is no exception. It's given as fact, that however old a man (or woman) is, they believe themselves to be old enough to hold an opinion on a matter--whether they know much about it or not. When I was in 8th grade, I used to rule the roost, as I like to say. I thought that my opinion might as well be written as eternal law, and mostly my opinion held that 13 yr old's should be able to see rated-R movies in the theatre unobstructed.

Again, in 10th grade, I believed I was old enough to support George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. I also believed that Weezer was the best band in the world, and that anyone who didn't use AOL Instant Messenger to convey vital information and gossip throughout the high school really wasn't apart of the "in" crowd. All this, I thought to be true. And that was in between me playing Halo 3-5 hours a day.

When I was a Senior in High School, I believed that the whole town rallied around the football team, and read in the paper every time a big prank went down. I believed it was absolute law that each of us in the graduating class would see each other again, over and over and over AND over again. In my mind, nothing would ever change. In my mind, everything was right as it should be, and I was in control of what "right" was supposed to be.

And now, at a ripe age of 22, I am encouraged to believe that nothing, no, nothing will be in my power to control. I'm encouraged to say, "I'm just another cog in the machine." I'm supposed to fall in love with Indy rock, and protest war for a short while, and read The Fountainhead, and fall in love with Tolstoy and Thoreau, and skip college classes for random road trips, and make mistakes in Vegas, and boycott Coca-cola and Walmart, and fall in love, and fall outta love, and break the law in small ways, and protest our parents for party money, and play fantasy football, and neglect responsibility, and get fired from our jobs, and do grunt work on a farm, and hitchhike at least once, and bowl a perfect game in ski-ball, and become a vegetarian, and fall in love and out again, and hang "Marley" posters in my room, and spend my entire paycheck on a combination pool table/ping-pong table, and steal music off the internet, and watch independent films, and vote, and not vote because there are no good candidates, and have a weird intellectual crush on a professor, and learn to play guitar and harmonica, and give blood, and save a stray dog, and finally, fall in and out of love again. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. And I'm fine with it, but after all THIS, we're supposed to fade into the working world and become a shell of what we were in our primes. MAYBE, some of us will climb the corporate ladder, and even fewer will come up with amazing ideas (snuggie) that will sell a ton, and they'll become millionaires.

But what of the rest of us? And maybe I'm using this blog as a rallying cry in vain. Maybe it's just the thing to do when I'm this age--write in a blog. Maybe my thoughts are fallen upon no one but my self, and those of you who comment are merely the last pillars of hope that stand with me. And maybe I'm just being emo, which we all know, is fading out of popular culture.

And maybe we aren't going to turn into nobodies. And I think my biggest fear is turning into a nobody. But why do I fear that? The world is still right. After all, Best Buy is still in business. America is still winning the Olympics. Young people are still swaying the votes. Books are still being read. And jobs, somehow, are still continuing to crop up.

Don't blame me for being optimistic about the future, even at my young age. Still, we own our share of opportunity. Do not relinquish it, no matter your age.