Fundamental truths and why Wooderson was right

Today I thought of a quote from the character Wooderson(Matthew McConaughey)from the movie Dazed and Confused.

"The older you get, the more rules they are going to try and get you to follow. You just gotta keep on livin', man. L-I-V-I-N."

It is actually one of my favorite movies and favorite quotes.

It is kind of a personal motto to me.

And as I sit here and think of where I'm at in my life, and where I'm heading It makes sense.

I used to spend time thinking that I was a failure. In fact if you want to read about it just go back through my posts on here and read my xanga blog. What you will find is outright aggression towards my future.

I realized something this year, in order to find happiness, at least for myself, I must define my own successes. Because the fact is I can't live for other people and never will.

I think I have fought with that my whole life, the idea that I have to do the right thing, not for myself but for parents, family, friends, society, teachers, hell... anybody that is not ME.

I didn't try very hard in High School, and perhaps part of me regrets that but at the same time it is a blessing in disguise because it created such a unique situation for me.

I got out of high school and the last thing I wanted to do was jump right into college. And yet that was what I had been conditioned to believe. That was a stressful time in my life. My cousins had all went through Indiana University and it was as if I was "expected" to take the same path. My older cousin would call me periodically during my junior/senior year and make pitches about how I should go to IU.

I always said I was interested, and maybe to an extent I was, but it was always half-halfheartedly. I knew he just wanted to me to succeed and I'm really grateful for the caring thoughts I got from him and others but I couldn't help but feel like I was stuck being a product of the path my family had already created.

So when I didn't have an answer.. or a high school diploma worth a shit, I decided to take a semester/year off.

I fundamentally believe it was the best decision I could have made. It wasn't easy at the time. The system of friends/family/teachers that had been so supportive began to give me plenty of signals that I would end up nothing but a failure and that hurt a lot but I knew then and I know now that they just wanted the best for me.

What happened that summer and fall working at pizza hut cannot easily be explained without long winded poetic gobbledygook. Long story short I'm a big advocate for students taking a least a semester off before going to college. After going to Bloomington to visit Kim a few times, it was as if the comfort of living with my parents soon turned into a prison cell. I remember sitting in my room staring up at the ceiling one night with Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" still blasting in my eardrums and having a clear epiphany that I wasn't happy living with my parents anymore and that I was ready to move out. I had taken a few classes already but it was that moment that I knew I was ready to pursue an education for myself. It was a groundbreaking moment, and it was like it all made sense, I needed to do it for me and nobody else.

So I moved to Bloomington and took my first full time load of classes since high school and finished my first semester at with a 4.0 GPA. That felt pretty good, it felt good to be succeeding by myself like that. Somehow it just clicked for me, I tried hard in my classes and my effort was rewarded. I believe it made all the difference for me to be taking classes for myself, and not for some state mandated program, or because my family told me to.

I'm still finding my way.. and I don't pretend to know all the answers but one thing I have learned is that success in school comes from personal desire...one cannot force it. I see college students failing because their heart was never in it in the first place.

Parents and guidance counselors need to stop putting so much pressure on kids in high school to go to a 4 year college and get a degree as the only way to have a successful life, because it doesn't work that way. Times have changed. If they want a degree at a 4 year name-brand college let them decide that themselves.

One day when my mom and I were arguing about whether or not I would be a failure if I took a semester off I asked her "what happens to the kid who just wants to work after school, does anyone love him/her" It was a comment that came out of me while I was at the end of my rope but I stand by it. Seriously I think it is that bad at times that amidst the frustration parents don't see the big picture, In fact I had to print a web page off of the SAT government website that said "believe it or not taking a semester off is just fine!" I got so much flak for taking a semester off I can't imagine how bad it is for others. Society has to stop with the outright pressure and start offering more encouragement. Because the truth is not every person is built to succeed in the exact same way. We want to believe that every student has to go to a 4 year college right after high school, and it just doesn't work that way.

Right now I'm succeeding at a community college. I have an IVY Tech window sticker in the back of my car, and I might even buy a T-shirt from the book store. It makes me smile inside every time I see that sticker too because It reminds me that it is my school. Nobody else in my family except for Uncle (for a brief time) went to Ivy Tech. The experience is all my own, and the makes me extremely happy.

One of my bosses once told me something along the lines of "Only retards have to go to Ivy Tech" That used to linger in my mind and cause a lot of self doubt but what I have come to realize is that like I said before, if one learns to define one's own successes then happiness will follow, and in the end no matter what, the most important thing in life is to be happy.

and..All things considered, I think I'm pretty happy right now.



-Sam