"You see, I was still looking for answers then. I still wanted to know why. As though somebody was going to answer that for me, as though any answer would be satisfying. Not then, but afterward, I started to think about time, and how it keeps moving and draining and flowing forever forwards, seconds into minutes into days into years, all of it leading to the same place, a current running forever in one direction. And we're all going and swimming as fast as we can, helping it along. My point is: maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there's a tomorrow. Maybe for you there's one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can bathe in it, roll around in it, let it slide like coins through your fingers. So much time you can waste it. But for some of us there's only today, And the truth is, you never really know."
This whole thing has really got me thinking. That makes me think of Wicked when Glinda says, referring to Fiyero, "He's been thinking, which really worries me." Yeah, thinking is a worrying thing I must say. But I shall not go into that. This passage above made me think of those phrases like, "Live every day like it's your last" etc. All those people telling you that you don't know when and how you're going to die so you should live every day to the fullest. I realised today that that kind of thing is a load of crap, to put in nicely. I mean, yes, it would be great if we could live every day as if it were our last. But, come on, you can wake up in the morning and think, "Today's going to be a great day! I'm going to be happy and nothing's going to get me down!" That doesn't mean it will happen. You can't control whether or not something awful happens to you that day. You may end up having a wonderful day, like you intended, being happy and content, but you could just as easily have an awful day.
I was thinking that maybe the point is, not to go out and have lots of fun and be crazy and tell everyone you love them, just in case it's your last day, but to do what you want. It got me thinking about why we do things. I am a self-confessed Goody-Two-Shoes, if you will. I really don't like breaking rules and throughout the entirety of primary school and, I have to admit it, early high school, I would be terrified if I got told off by a teacher. My face would go red, my hands would shake and I wouldn't dare talk (when I got in trouble, IF I got in trouble (rarely), it would usually be for talking) for the rest of the lesson. Now, not so much. I talk and don't want to get in trouble but, if a teacher tells me off, I laugh a bit and shut up for like, a minute and then keep talking, just a bit more quietly. I still am a Goody-Two-Shoes though. I always do homework and assignments on time. I read all the books we are told to read, by the date they are assigned. Lately, the quality of my work, especially homework, has declined massively, but I still do it. If it's not done, even if it's only half done, I freak out that this will be the one day my teachers will properly check homework. I often wonder, "Why do I care?" So many of my classmates don't do work, get in trouble and don't care. They honestly don't care and keep not doing the work. I often wonder why I don't just give up and stop being so good. I kinda realised why today. I guess it all comes down to happiness. That is the ultimate goal, isn't it? Everyone's idea of what brings happiness is different. Happiness is different for everyone. For me, at the moment, it's getting the heck out of school, dying my hair red, having an old bomb of a car and living alone in a small, old, quirky house surrounded by lots of overgrown plants in one of my dream inner-city suburbs. I drove through those suburbs today with my family and my whole insides just lit up, like they always do through there. Then I got upset because I knew it would be so hard to live that dream. It's such a simple dream, it's just a house in a particular suburb with an old car. I have no career aspirations. At all. I have no aspirations to start a family. I jut want to live independently, be able to go out with my friends when I want to. I guess I want to just start a fresh and all of that dream represents who I want to be then.
To me, the idea of getting in trouble with a teacher and not doing the work, doesn't make me feel good. I guess they way I've grown up and the people I've hung out with, and definitely my family, have taught me that if someone says, "Do this work by tomorrow" you do the work by tomorrow and the consequences are not something you want. For other people, it's not even slightly important. Their budding social life is more important. Now, I'm not saying that schoolwork is more important to me than my friends, that couldn't be more wrong, it's just that I guess I have such a different lifestyle to many other people my age.
Now, if someone said, "Live every day like it's your last," some people may go out and part, get drunk or high or hook up with people and then feel like they'd lived a fulfilled life. I'm not here to judge that because, if that's what is going to actually bring them happiness, then good, that's what they should do. Other people may go to everyone and tell them they love them and help people and spend time with family and friends. Other people, may actually just sit at home, eat some food and watch some anime, for example, or read a book or listen to music. From the outside that may seem sad and pathetic but maybe, honestly, that's what makes them happy and then, doesn't that mean they are living their live to the full? I guess I've realised that everyone tries to tell you that getting out and partying with friends is living life to the full, but everyone's life is different, everyone's tastes are different and everyone's ideas of happiness are different, so their idea of a "full life" is different. No one can really judge if you're living your life the best way possible except yourself, I guess.
I guess that at the start I was aiming to prove something, maybe about how my life of sitting at home and not doing much and then stressing over schoolwork isn't as sad as it sounds. It's not, as I said in the last paragraph, if it's what's making me happy. I can say, however, with honesty that, whatever I'm doing in my life at the moment isn't making me happy and I need to find some way to fulfill it more. That definitely won't be by partying and getting drunk and I can't move to my dream house yet. I know I need to figure out what's going to make me happy soon, so I'm not living in this rut.
Now, I am hoping to finish the book that inspired this post soon and, when I do, I am going to write a review on here because, I think it needs a review.
Also, I must thank the wonderful musical [title of show] for inspiring the post title :)
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| This post was just crying out for a picture. So there. |
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