There was a time, a time of bright optimism, oh where has that time gone too. I was once an optimist, believed that my horizons were limitless, believed that anything was in my grasp if I tried hard enough, believed that life well didn't suck. Now all that is pretty down the toilet.
It started in high school around the 10th grade. A part of my life was coming to an end faster then I could grasp the full consequence of it all. I realized that soon I'll be forced into the real world and I was nowhere near ready for it. I tried I honestly sort of tried, I tried to get my grades up, I tried to work harder, and tried to break old habits. It's just that old habits aren't really that easy to break or is it that I'm just so damn lazy.
I figure I had three choices, work in my dead end fast food job till I win the lottery, go to college and make a better life for myself, or join the army. The first and last choices are not the better of the three. So that leaves choice number two, something I probably fear more then the other choices I listed.
It was 12th grade by then the idea of the college life was getting ever closer and closer, but I still found myself too damn lazy to do a damn thing about it. I didn't even prepare for college until a month before my high school graduation. That pretty much left me with the only option to go to a state university. Which doesn't sound as bad as it does, it's actually a pretty respected university.
I really don't know why people put all the hype into college. People go to college and expect to leave and have a $60,000 a year job. When reality comes in and slaps them in the face that not everybody graduates from college just about 27% does. Not a very good statistic.
I for one am very intimidated by college; you pay all this money and hope you pass and get a better life for yourself. Even if the statistic that only 27% actually graduate from a four-year college is imprinted in the back of your mind, drive you to the point of insanity. You just got to keep on trucking. What if I'm not one of those 27% what then, will I face the forever shame by my parents that their son wasn't man enough to graduate from college? What job could I possibly get as a college drop out, will I be destined to work at fast food all my life trying to pay off all my college loans.
Do I have what it takes to succeed in an ever-competitive world, where job opportunities are ever shrinking right before my very eyes? What will my future be like for me, something I trouble myself almost constantly?
Fear, fear everything, and fear that your life in an instant can turn for the worst. That everything you dreamed, worked, and saved for can coming crashing down all around you and there is nothing you can do about it. The world is becoming an ever-intimidating place to live in, how long do you think that your luck will hold out before you get sucked in to the rut that is forming all around you.
Where has that boyish optimism gone, maybe it's best that optimism has died and pessimist has taken it's place. At least being a pessimist doesn't allow for naivety and it makes you work harder to keep what you do have. Like I always say fear the worst so that when something bad does happen you aren't caught off guard and ready to face whatever it is.