As far as I can remember, I have been told that the smartest people in life are the ones that ask questions. Since the first time I read those words on a poster of a picture of Albert Einstein, I began to question anything and everything. If you know me personally at all, then you may know that at times I can ask too many questions. I was always that annoying little kid that asked "why?" after everything. Not because I wanted to be annoying, but rather because I was genuinely curious. I loved learning how and why people think/act the way they do; so I would ask "why?". I wanted to know the answer to any possible "why" question my mind could conjure up.

Now-a-days, I still ask "why" for everything, but I keep it to myself. As I grow older and learn new things, I ask "why" to broader subjects. I have now realized that most of my "why" questions are unanswerable and tend to be more rhetorical if anything. Thus, I tend to keep it to myself because no one can adequately answer my questions; only offer insight. Although these questions are good conversation starters and allow me to dissect someone's brain and pull it apart to see how that individual thinks, they often leave me with more questions than answers.

Here are some questions not for you to answer, but rather to give you something to think about and/or offer some other perspectives on things.

Lately (and by that I mean for the past year or so), I have been distraught with how some things are in this world. To be extremely vague, I ask myself all the time: "why are things in life the way that they are at this point in history?"; I refer this question to they way people behave and/or think.

I used to think of myself as an optimistic person, but now I see that I was just being ignorant to everything else that was not considered "good". Ignorance may be bliss for an innocent child, but is certainly is not for me. I started watching the news more and saw how people reacted to things going on at a given time. I noticed that a lot of people have a much shorter fuse now and get mad at things because they feel like they need to or rather, because society is telling them to. I noticed that a lot of people are not themselves anymore because of the tremendous amount of influential factors that exist now in our everyday lives; myself included. I noticed that it is so easy for a person to lose who they are and what they stand for because the world pushes and pulls them in other directions. A lot of people are oblivious to so many things; as am I.

I notice most of all that there was a lot more anger and hatred in the world than love, and it is rather unfortunate. Unless people like getting mad, I do not understand why people are so quick to do so. I wish people could use their heads first rather than their words or fists. We live in a time where road rage is an epidemic. We live in a time where pride is valued more than a human life. We live in a time where it is more important to be selfish instead of selfless. We live in a time where an act of aggression gets way more attention than an act of kindness. We live in a time where people are enslaved to their jobs whether they know it or not. We live in a time where it is more complicated to apply for health insurance than it is to do your taxes.

All this makes me asks myself, why do people have to get mad? Why is it so hard to put pride to the side? Why do people have to be so hasty to act on things? Why does life have to be complicated?

All of these things occur in any situation because someone chooses for it to be that way. People decide to be angry. People decide to be prideful. People decide to be hasty. I do not understand why people decide to make things difficult when it does not have to be that way; perhaps I never will.

All this being said, it is still possible to be optimistic; but it is a more realistic optimism. There is still a lot of good in the world, but we must not forget what lurks in the shadows; not forget what lies behind the pretty picture of life that society has laid out for us; not forget what is underneath the gold paint. Knowledge is power, and ignorance is not bliss. In retrospect of it all, it begs me to ask the question: when did mankind forsake themselves?