What we long for and what we can never obtain

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Everyone wants something. Whether they can have it or not is irrelevant. People will always want something, and sometimes the fact that it’s impossible to obtain makes whatever it is all the more alluring. Sometimes others have the things we want but can’t have, and we become jealous of them for it. This is known as envy.

Envy is defined as a feeling of discontented longing brought on by someone else’s possessions or qualities. It’s actually one of the seven deadly sins, but despite that everyone feels envy at one time or another in their life. Most people like to pretend that they don’t envy something or someone in their life, but that’s not good. If you can’t admit to jealousy, it will quickly turn into resentment.

On the other hand it’s just as dangerous to succumb to envy. People who do this often commit heinous crimes to pursue what they want. It’s in this sense that greed and envy work hand in hand. People will lie, cheat, steal, and murder to get what they want, and I think thats the scariest thing about envy.

People can direct their envy differently. Some people are envious of the material items of another, others are jealous of traits someone else might poses, and then there’s people like me. People who can’t obtain the item of their desires at all. The thing I want most in this world is impossible to get, because it doesn’t exist anymore. I’m envious of my past self.

People often times refer to nostalgia as ‘a bittersweet longing for the past’, which is actually a pretty accurate description of how I feel. It also closely resembles envy in the sense that one longs for something. Nostalgia has the power to make someone feel better in the moment, but it also has the power to give someone hope for the future and what’s to come. Not me though, it has the opposite effect on me.

When I think about the past all I can do is compare it to the present. I’ll admit, not the healthiest thing, but I can’t help it. All I can see in those memories is how happy and carefree I used to be, but now I’ve got commitments and responsibilities to think about. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for what I have, but I’m just so stressed that I can’t even enjoy what I’ve got, and it worries me.  I’m worried that I’ll never experience those happy, carefree emotions again.

Past me could role around in the mud with friends on a rainy day, dance around and sing along to her favorite songs from a movie when they played, and take long naps with piles of blankets and stuffed animals on her bed. She didn’t have to stay up till 2am just to finish her homework, she didn’t have to worry about people telling her that what she liked was stupid and childish, and she sure as heck didn’t have to worry about being told to suck it up because ‘it’s only going to get worse’. These things and many more are the reasons why I’m envious of her, because she could do these things without fear of being told that she was wrong.

 

There’s a song I found not to long ago that made me cry the first time I listened to it. I felt like it was not only talking about me, but to me. It expresses almost everything I feel when it comes to thinking about who I was back then compared to now. The song is called On the Borderline by Thomas Sanders. I’m not the best at communicating my feelings, I have a tendency to shut people out and burry the feelings, but music speaks to me in a way that nothing else can. Songs like Lauren Aquilina’s King and You Will Be Found from Dear Evan Hansen help me to reflect on what’s going on in my head. These songs put my feelings into words and help me to cope with my wish for the past. They can’t completely get rid of my envy towards my past self, but they help me to think about and sift through all of my thoughts and feelings.

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The big thing that I want you readers to learn from this is that it’s alright to feel envy and jealousy, but you can’t let it dictate your life. Everyone wants something, and sometimes we can have it, but that’s alright. You can’t always get what you want. It may hurt, and you might feel bad for a while, but it will get better in time.

Competition Throughout the Ages

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Throughout my life competition hasn’t played a very big role in everyday moments. I haven’t really felt the motivation one feels when faced against an opponent or rival, but I’ve seen the effects it has on other people. They seem to radiate an energy of anticipation. You can almost see the fire in their eyes. It does a person wonders. I’ve only felt this to an extent when I’m playing games with my sister.

Competition is defined as an event or contest in which people compete, it isn’t defined as good or bad. People seem to think that it needs a label, but I disagree. Things  aren’t as black and white as that, there are both good and bad qualities to everything. Competition brings out a determination in people that we wouldn’t get to see otherwise. It motivates people into action and they often times enjoy the thrill of going up against someone on equal ground as them.

On the other hand, competition can also bring out the worst in people. Those who can’t see past their own desire to win often times stoop to unsavory tactics to get what they want. Cheating, lying, and stealing. People stoop to all these in the per suit of success, and sometimes they get away with it. I’ve seen it so many times in the people around me and in some of my favorite shows. One such show is an Anime called ‘No Game No Life’. In the series, everything is decided by games, even disputes over territories are settled by games. The reason this can happen is because they take an oath to fallow the Ten Pledges, which puts a strain on the leaders of counties and races alike. Some of these leaders resort to cheating and trickery to win, but that’s because they’ll loose everything if they fail. Some people feel like loosing means that everything they’ve worked for will be lost, like in the Anime, and unfortunately that’s sometimes the case.

Either way, whether or not competition is good or bad depends on the person.

 

With Great Power…

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What separates the weak from the powerful? Is it physical strength? Cunning? Or is it something else? In my mind, knowledge is what truly separates individuals. It’s as the old saying goes, knowledge is power, but we’re not asking the right questions. The question shouldn’t be what makes someone powerful but why? How are people able to succeed even with impossible odds stacked against them? The answer is knowledge.

Say you’re fighting a battle in a war and you’ve just received word that the enemy has somehow gotten through your defenses. How do you think they did it? Was it luck? most likely not. They most likely had a plan, but for it to work they would have needed some information on your defenses, such as how many guards were stationed, or when shift rotation happened. Many military leaders throughout history seek information on their enemy in order to gain the upper hand, but it doesn’t always work in their favor.

An example of this that I encountered happened in my freshman year of high school. My friends had been really excited about lunch, she had made plans to go out with some of her older friends and get some pizza, but I was a bit confused. From what I had heard, only Juniors and Seniors could leave the school for lunch, but she insisted that it was alright. Her older friends had told her that the rule only applied if you went out alone, and that she’d be alright so long as she stuck with them. Needles to say she was caught and reprimanded for her actions, but that’s not the point. My point is that the whole situation could have been avoided if she had the right information. Misinformation can be just as harmful, if not more so, than no information at all.

Another thing to consider is how you use your knowledge. Power means nothing if you can’t wield it properly. Whether a blade is sharp or not doesn’t matter if it hits it’s mark. Think of knowledge as the blade, it’s useless if you miss your target. So if you’re writing a paper about Greek Mythology but have absolutely no prior knowledge on the topic, I suggest you start studying, because someone with the most basic idea about the topic will have more of a chance of succeeding if you don’t.

Another thing to keep in mind when it comes to this stuff is that in this day and age it’s rather easy to gain knowledge, since we have access to many sites, tutorials, and even YouTube channels dedicated to teaching certain topics and facts. I myself have learned so much from some such channels on YouTube, and I quite enjoyed learning about the things taught to me. For instance, There’s a channels on YouTube called Overly Sarcastic Productions which specializes in animations of famous myths and folklore. Another one is Crash Course which gives you quick and easy to remember history lessons. There are many more websites and channels out there, but these are some of my favorites.

At the beginning of this blog I said that knowledge is power, and I stand by this statement. Knowledge is a tricky thing that is sometimes hard to gain, but the out come is worth it. Just remember, with great power comes great responsibility. Good luck.

Childlike Wonder

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What’s your favorite holiday? Is it Christmas, where you get together with the family and open presents together? Is it Halloween, where you wander the streets in costume in search of candy? What about Easter? Thanksgiving? Some other holiday? Here’s another question, why is it your favorite holiday?

People say we all grow up at some point, that we grow out of childish things like cartoons and toys. They say that we’ll realize what really matters in life and abandon these things we once loved so much, but I don’t believe this. Once you think about it, the only real difference between an adult and a child, besides the obvious physical differences, is that adults have more experience than children. They learned how to do things for themselves. They’ve learned morals and responsibility.

Growing up is just gaining experience, so no matter what we’re always growing. I still watch cartoons, go trick or treating, and sometimes, in the middle of the night, I’ll watch an old Barbie movie just because. This doesn’t mean that I haven’t grown up, it just means I continue to do the things I love. I have a job now, but I still sign up for theater every chance I get, and I still fangirl really badly when a new episode of a T.V show I watch comes out. I also shouldn’t be left alone at home because I’ll turn my shirt into a ninja mask. Growing up is an important part of life, but that doesn’t mean you can’t keep doing what you love.

There are many songs about this, but there are two that I think of when the topic of growing up comes up. Those are ‘Ain’t it Fun‘ by Paramore and ‘Here’s to Never Growing Up‘ by Avril Lavigne. I feel that these songs show different perspectives on how people grow up. Some think that as soon as you enter ‘the real world’ your childhood is over, like in Paramore’s song, but others believe that you only grow up when you stop doing the things you love, like in Avril Lavigne’s song. The truth of the matter is that our interests will change over time, and that’s okay. We’re still us, just a bit different.

My Gender Misconception

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When you walk down the toy aisle in a store what do you see? What kind of toys are there? Are there dolls? Tea sets? What about costumes? Are there dresses and sparkly play shoes? Who do you think would play with these? Certainly not little boys right?

Growing up I always noticed the division between boys and girls. The toys, the clothes, even how they’re treated is different. Girls are thought to be dainty little dolls who love frilly things and shriek at the sight of bugs and rodents. They are treated like fragile beings and told to ‘act like a lady’ from an early age. On the other hand boys are thought to be tough and rowdy. They’re thought to love messy things, creepy things, and hate anything even remotely feminine.

In school these differences stuck out to me even more. When the boys pushed each other around, the teachers would look the other way saying ‘boys will be boys’, but the moment that same boy pushed a girl they would rush in immediately. They would scold that boy for being inconsiderate and explain to him why it was different. It infuriated me! Why should girls get special treatment? Why not reprimand him when he pushed the other boy? It made no sense to me! During the next few years I continued to notice how people separated us. I also noticed how people seamed to form into these stereotypes to avoid ridicule. I refused to do this though, I continued to love playing in the dirt and rough housing with the boys. I wore baggy clothes and even cut my hair pretty short. I thought nothing of it until I moved.

The first day of school is always hard for the new kid, but mine felt even harder that year. People kept mistaking me for a boy and seamed really surprised when I turned out to be a girl. It only got worse though. During recess everyone went outside to play, a small group of boys went to play football. When I asked to join, they told me I couldn’t play with them because I was a girl, and would probably cry if I got pushed, or fell. I was reasonably upset by this and stormed off. Throughout the day the other kids would say that I wouldn’t be mistaken for a boy if I had longer hair and wore girlier clothes. I didn’t like that. Why should I change the way I dress and act? I didn’t understand.

Eventually I did grow out my hair but I’m still not quite what you’d call ‘feminine’ exactly, but I don’t really care. Some girls and boys like frills and dolls, some like nerf and wrestling, and some like a combination of both. It doesn’t matter, but if people just assume all the time, then no-one will be happy.