Life is Like a Reboot of a Classic Film
It's the same stuff again, and it's either going to suck or be amazing or staggeringly average.
Do I look pretentious enough to make shitty similes?
Believe it or not, this is not an introduction to a review of the new Ghostbusters (haven't seen it).
I figured that since I'm finally set up in my new apartment (see last week for the harrowing details) talking about starting over would be a good topic as that is on my mind.
There are Plenty of Opportunities to Restart Oneself, and I Quite Enjoy Them
It's just a shame that I kind of suck at them.
Let me elaborate:
I always like to think I'm constantly changing (for the better, I would hope) and that I'm even a very different man from the one I was just a few weeks ago. As such, I always enjoy a chance to go - "ah-ha, I have officially entered a new segment of my life; this is the perfect time to start behaving the way I've always wanted to behave!"
By "new segments" I mean the arbitrary divisions we have set up for ourselves along the path of life; going from middle to high school, then college, then the real world, moving cities, getting a big new job etc. etc. the goal posts many of us use to mark large milestones. They tend to happen every few years and I know for a fact that at the end of each milestone (say, beginning to the end of college) I am a vastly different person to who I was when I started.
Generally, I like this new person quite a lot. He's much better than the old one.
Old Drew=Bad
New Drew=Good
Now, because of this, one would think the transition from one milestone to the next would sort of turbocharge the process and I would evolve and progress as a person at an accelerated rate.
One would be wrong because I always seem to regress instead.
And that... is frustrating. And not fun.
The first example I think of to vividly describe what I mean is my transition from high school to college.
Person I was at the end of high school - confident, easy going, relaxed; quirky and weird, but in an endearing sort of way.
Person I was at the start of college - human nuclear wasteland.
I started college with a few of the accumulated traits from high school, but it seems like a lot of them disappeared real quicklike. My confidence was stripped from me about two weeks in, my weirdness game was pushing people away from me and I was anxious about stuff that I'd never really been that anxious about before.
Congratulations Drew, you just turned back into that kid from the beginning of high school. You know, the one who nobody liked.
Tucking fanfastic.
And now that I've graduated college, it's back from the top of the pecking order down to the very bottom once again.
I am determined to maintain what I've gained over the four years of university and keep growing.
I may be at the bottom rung of the ladder once again and there is a very good chance I will not get higher for a long time, but that doesn't mean I need to snap and crumble under the pressure the way I did at the start of college.
How am I going to do that? I... don't know. I've never been great at handling pressure and there are some things that four years of constantly working on oneself can't make undaunting.
The only real plan I've got right now is to breathe, work hard and do my best to stride forward on that tightrope.
Here I am - with my body being held in the air by a thin string beneath my feet.
Let's go.
Sidenote About New Year's Resolutions
Fuck 'em.
I don't remember the last time I made one. I don't like them, perhaps because trying to set goals for myself at the beginning of the year feels too arbitrary and I have absolutely no drive pushing me to reach them.
I find I do a lot better at setting goals when something happens that forces me to make them. Yeah, it may be a stressful way to do it, but otherwise I don't have the motivation.
*drops mic like he just said something profound*