Sunday, September 7, 2008

"I'm above the below and below the upper"


Whit jumped out of a plane today. Not in a suicidal attempt to end her life or anything of that nature (actually, she's loving life right now, so that's definitely not why). She totally went skydiving! We got up this morning really early and drove up to Ogden with Andy and his mom, and they all went skydiving. No, I didn't go with them. I wanted to, oh boy did I want to, but the money thing is a bit of a situation for me right now, so I decided to be more practical.

I also kind of came to my senses today about finding happiness in "just life." I realized that I am never happy with where I am in life. Things could always be better. I am never satisfied, which is not a very good trait. I had a conversation with my friend, Justin, about a month ago, and we talked about that. He was telling me how he was just taking life as it came to him in college, and not stressing too much about what was going on with school and all that. I told him I read in a book there are people who are always looking for something to make them happier. "I won't be happy until I have a new car." Once the new car comes, "I won't be happy until I have a new house." Once the new house comes, "I won't be happy until I'm married..." and so on. It just continues. I realized today that I am one of those people.

I found myself in a situation yesterday where that very thing happened. I wasn't happy with school, I wasn't happy with different personal situations I've been in, and things just seemed to be falling apart (and they weren't...I'm just overly dramatic sometimes). I wasn't satisfied with my life and I found myself thinking about "when I would be happy again." I stomped my way up the "stairs from hell" to get up to BYU (note: the "stairs from hell" are on the south side of the BYU campus, and it's about 10 flights of about 13 stairs...it's a beast to walk up everyday, although it's because of these stairs I'll probably prevent the infamous freshman 15) and walked swiftly through the BYU bookstore in the Wilkinson Center to get to the bowling alley to meet with my peer group from my writing class. It was while walking through the bookstore that I saw a book titled "14,000 things to be happy about." Miss Merrell, my favorite teacher probably throughout all of my public schooling, would read out of this book at the beginning of every creative writing class. The book itself is just a huge list of small things in life that make us really happy. Within five minutes, I found myself the new owner of that specific copy. I figured if someone needed to be happy, it was me. Well, after reading a little bit out of it, and getting my thoughts sorted out, I was able to find a little bit of happiness, although my situation is still the exact same. I still don't have a "home." I still have to take Physics. I'm still completely twitterpated (which has had more of an emotional effect than it really should have)...but I found a little bit of the happiness that I was craving. Some simple happiness I needed in a time of distress.

Now, I'm always coming to conclusions about life. I have a problem with actually practicing the conclusions I come to, but I guess that's all part of being human. I'll figure it out as I go.

One of my favorite things: a song on the radio coming on and having it fit perfectly with your life at that specific moment...that happened today, giving me a little bit of happiness despite my situation!

Try it. Find small things that make you happy during a really crappy day, and you might find that, although your day is still crappy, you'll appreciate those small happy things that give you a brief break from reality.

1 comment:

Whitney Leigh said...

little did you know, that jump out of the plane WAS a failed suicide attempt.

I've come so far.