Where do I start?
Is it the fact that I threw away almost all of my potential? Or is it the dramatic changes to my environment? I guess that it doesn’t matter, does it? I’m in this situation, at this very moment, regardless.
I guess that I can start with my freshman year of college. "Naïve" is the best way to capture the entirety of my life at this point. "Invincible" and "on top of the world" come close in second and third. Who wouldn’t, right? I went to high school in one of the richest areas in America. I lived in a gated community. What more could an incoming college kid need? Just writing this makes me cringe.
It’s being sheltered that shook my roots the most. I had a caring mother and still do have a caring mother. However, it's in all the wrong ways. See, I can say this factually. I was seen more of a trophy than a child and person while I grew up. For example, I was forced to play piano at the age of 5, although I do love the fact that I play piano now, I didn’t for a large majority of the road. I’ve played for close to 20 years now and it’s only recently that I finally appreciate this ability. I was entered into piano competitions and I practiced more for my parents' pleasure than my own. I think that this is what made me resent it so much. It was something that I didn’t want to do. I wanted to go and play as a kid. I wanted to stay out and play night games or hang out with friends. I wanted to be able to watch television. I just wanted to be me.
Going into middle school, and even high school, I was conditioned by my parents to seek out jobs and such that would reap in reputation and finances rather than to do something that I enjoy. I should be a doctor, a lawyer, etc. The list goes on and on and I’m sure you can relate. I don’t even blame my parents for this. The generations that they grew up in were programmed to believe that money was the only way to achieve happiness. We learn in school that all of the famous painters who we appreciate today, with paintings worth millions, died in poverty and alone. I actually disagree. In my opinion, they died without the consent of conforming. They stood true to themselves and refused to be bought out. However, why would schools want students to think freely? Wouldn’t it be better to train them to be cogs in the giant machine known as capitalism?
Then I go to college, with a transcript from a high school filled with rich kids and virtually nothing else. That's not to mention that my class was the first graduating class of a brand new high school that the state of Illinois invested millions in. Scratch that, that the paying citizens of Illinois paid for. Anyway, the conception of trying to make this high school the best of the best was inserted even before the school was finished. The rules, the restrictions, and the whole f*cking thing was cookie cutter and full of b*llshit.
Sometimes, I think about why people try and force the younger generations to fit the molds that the older ones couldn’t. Who knows?
I think that it took me two years of college to experience the epiphany that every parent knows is going to hit their child while at college. It's the realization that, after college, you’re on your own. People don’t care about you, plain and simple. You can have friends and family, sure, but aside from that, you’re a number until proven otherwise. Maybe that’s why so many college kids drink. No one wants to think about that. The solution is to kill your brain cells. Sexualize everything. Make it seem like becoming a millionaire is fairly simple.
The national student loan debt increases by 11 million per second, I believe. It's crazy, isn’t it? Maybe I could be wrong, who cares? The number is still ridiculously high and we all know that.
It’s actually a giant sinister and hilarious trap. You are told and essentially brainwashed as a young kid to believe that college is the most important thing and then, when the time comes to go to college, the system drastically spikes the price to a billion dollars in the eyes of a college kid and expects him or her to pay it back almost instantly after graduating in this economic disaster of a country. Is it irony or pure genius?
Now, there’s just one thing that I put on blast and wish that the millions could read and know. It’s actually quite simple. It doesn’t require the fee that almost everything nowadays does. It doesn’t have a subscription or a free trial. It’s a decision and life change that you can make right now, at this very moment.
It’s just to accept.
Accept people.
Accept who they are.
Accept that people will be different.
Accept that sometimes, things won’t go your way.
Accept that we are just people and that we make mistakes.
Accept that we just won’t do the things that you want us to do.
Accept that some people will like different things.
Accept your children for who they are.
Accept your parents for who they are.
Accept your friends for what they love.
Accept your neighbors for their motivations in life.
Accept the fact that you can make your life whatever you want.
Accept that you can be whoever you want.
Acceptance is the answer.
Spread it. Share it. Explain it.
Acceptance of life and everything that it entails will solve these made-up problems that we’ve created in life. The only issue in regards to humanity is that we aren’t being told to accept. We’re being told to hate and inspire division.
You and I, we’re both better than that. We can make a difference and all that we have to do is accept each other.