Learning In Slow Motion

So... where do I begin? How do I start something I don't have together yet? I still have reservations about this whole spewing my life across the internet for the world to read. Fortunately for me I have been fairly successful at preventing people from discovering this. Those who have stay only long enough to read my warnings that there is nothing worth sticking around for, read on for a sentence or two, come to the brutal realization that the warnings were valid and never return. *whoa tangent* Back to the matter at hand -- where do I begin?

Dear Diary,

Oh where to begin. No... Nope we're past that.

I have spent a great amount of time lately thinking about life. Life in general but more specifically my life and the last several years of it. When you are growing up you have a plan. You have it all figured out. You know it all and you know how it is going to work out. You know where you are going to be at 24 and you know what you will have accomplished at that point. You have a list of things that you confidently say "THAT will never happen to me" and judge those who are there. As a kid you know where you are going to be and what is best for you.

Then, I knew it all.

Unfortunately for all parties involved I have gotten serially dumber ever since. Unfortunate that is unless the saying that 'the more you know the less you know' is true. If it is true then surely the inverse is true as well; the less you know the more you know. If that is the case I am a genius! Which takes us back to the saying that the more you know the less you know. *queue infinite loop*

They say the wise learn from others mistakes. Doesn't apply.

If the wise learn from others mistakes then normal people must learn from their own. Doesn't apply.

So what does that make those of us who fall into a third category? Those of us who spend nearly a decade learning something that countless numbers before us have learned and warned us of. All that time spent--wasted--just to learn something that could have been discovered in moments spent in conversation with them. Why? Pride? Arrogance? Plain stupidity? I think a combination of all of those... prigantity. New word. Describes those of us who fall into the third category. I have never been happier than I have been since I started to ask those in the position to help for advice. It's unfortunate that it has taken a quarter of a century for me to learn that parents really do know what they are talking about the majority of the time.

One thing I have managed to learn. I know nothing. When I start to think I do, I realize that in reality I don't. One thing I do know--life goes on. We can't control it. No part of it. We can't control what happens to us tomorrow. We can't control time. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come. Happiness is created, found in the present. Buddha said "Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." It is so easy to look forward to tomorrow, to the next holiday, the next vacation but its only once we can learn to enjoy life everyday that we can really be happy.

We can't control how we are treated by those around us. We can't control what they do, feel or want. We can't make someone do the right thing. We can't make someone love us. No matter how hard we try we can't make someone else happy. What we can control is ourselves. We can control our happiness, we can control what we do in response to our surroundings and we can control how we treat those who are important to us regardless of the way they act or treat us.

There is a story my dad used to tell me that relates. I can't remember all the details but the story roughly goes that there were these two boys. One was locked in a room with all the toys he could ever want. The other was locked in a 4' x 8' horse stable. They were left for a few hours and when the came back to check on them the boy with the toys had found dozens of things to be unhappy about. The boy in the horse stable was vigorously shoveling away the horse manure while cheerfully whistling with a grin on his face. When they asked him what he was doing he said "with all this horse manure there has got to be a pony here somewhere!"

I am about 99% positive that there is no one in existence who is truly that happy but the lesson is still there. We can control our happiness. Our surroundings don't control us unless we allow them to.

I am happy.

I could go on but shouldn't seeing as I have already spewed way too much useless ramblings all over the internet, subjecting millions of innocents to it.

Find happiness. Find happiness so others can share theirs with you.