Link to original post: [drupal=4305]Make It Happen: A Story of Regrets and Progression[/drupal]
This is a very long, very personal story highlighting a specific piece of my life over the past year and a half. I tried to eliminate some unnecessary pieces of the story, but it is ultimately still very long. The reason I tell you this long story is to show you exactly how much I’ve changed in my attitude and outlook on life. As a fitting parallel, someone could explain to you the current situation in the United States, but without explaining how the country was founded and how it developed, it wouldn’t really mean much to you; you wouldn’t be able to understand how the country grew.
I could just tell you where I am now, but without fully explaining to you the foundation which allowed me to reach this point, this would not have much of a purpose.
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My life has always been anything but ordinary. Growing up, I was very close to my two older sisters, Erin and Jennifer, which in and of itself was somewhat unusual. Because the three of us were so close, I looked up to them, and my likes and dislikes were shaped by them to a large extent. I could explain in-depth how my interests developed and tell stories of the three of us dancing to the Spice Girls together as kids, but that isn’t necessary to illustrate my point. Ultimately, as my sisters’ tastes changed and matured, I continued to follow them, and none of us ended up being “normal”.
Erin was looked down upon when she changed her style of dress to “punk/goth” in 7th and 8th grade (because she legitimately liked the way it looked, not because she was a devil-worshipper as so many claimed) and Jennifer was constantly bullied throughout her school years. As for myself, in fourth grade my best friend turned on me – for a reason of which I still am unsure – and made fun of me with his “cooler”, more popular friends.
All of this left me very bitter towards anyone of the “popular” crowd, and I thoroughly rejected anyone or anything associated with being “cool” or “popular” throughout middle school, finally calming down by the time high school started. I realized that stereotyping “popular” people was hypocritical, considering how much I loathed people stereotyping me and others in the “unpopular” category.
However, gradually through middle school and my first two years of high school, I made a more significant internal change which I retained, even when I calmed externally. I’m not sure what happened, nor am I sure why it happened; I’m not even entirely sure what it was that took me over. All I know is that I became extremely negative and depressed. The depression was brought on by silly things – which makes me question if I should even be calling it “depression” – but it stacked up over time and I dug myself into such a deep hole that it didn’t really matter the reason for how I felt anymore.
At least part of this was perpetuated by the fact that I had no self-esteem. It started out with me joking about myself and trying not to become too self-absorbed, but by my junior year of high school (last year), I thoroughly hated myself. Stupid things I had done in specific instances remained in my head vividly, to a maddening extent; my lazy nature and quickness to hostility when forced to do work made me angry at myself, as no matter how much I told myself I would change, I never really did.
Worst of all, I felt the pressures of society constantly eating at me, and it left me feeling that I was truly screwed up. I’ve never enjoyed playing or watching sports, despite the fact that males are “supposed” to. I cry frequently (comparatively, at least), and men aren’t supposed to express emotions nearly as much as women by society’s standards – crying is pretty much taboo in all situations. Overall, I’ve never been the “manly” type. I also enjoy things which are supposed to be reserved for women for whatever reason – chick flicks and all sorts of music. At first, I pushed those interests deep within and pretended they weren’t there; eventually, I pursued them to a slight extent and kept it to myself.
All of these things also turned me into a huge nostalgist. My worries had become so heavy and my hatred of myself so thick that I wanted, more than anything, to go back ten years and stay there forever as an innocent child. This nostalgia wound itself through my entire life.
All of this built up to a new level in my junior year, expanding continuously even as the year moved; it was a major contributing factor in making the period from the beginning of my junior year (September 2009) until halfway through my senior year (January 2011) one of the most important, yet most distressing, periods of my life thus far.
One thing completely defined last year for me: my AP United States History class (henceforth APUSH).
It’s strange, because my reasoning for taking the class was lousy. My sister Erin had taken the class, being quite interested in history herself, and enjoyed it so much that she highly recommended it to me. She also told me that her friends in the Honors U.S. History course had just as much – if not more – work than her, but instead of rigid work such as tests and essays, they did projects and packets.
The fact that I would be doing logical work instead of fluffy projects and have an AP class under my belt rather than an honors course was more than enough reason for me to choose APUSH. I won’t say I had no interest in history, but I wasn’t as interested in it as any of the rest of my family, and despite Erin’s fondness of the class and Mr. Dasher, the teacher of the class, that played only a small part in my decision.
I found the class to be incredibly difficult, ultimately, just as my sister had found it to be. I’ve always been a pretty good student in school – not a straight-A student, but an A/B student – so struggling as much as I did in a class was not something to which I was accustomed. Mr. Dasher thoroughly taught us during class periods, but it was required of us to read the textbook to supplement this learning. All of our tests consisted of forty multiple choice questions, which is harder than it sounds; the questions were in-depth, and they were designed such that you had to learn “the story” (of U.S. History, that is), as Mr. Dasher puts it, rather than just memorizing a list of dates and facts.
I always remembered what my sister had told me of the class; I vividly recalled her recanting the tale of the tests on the summer reading and how she did increasingly well on the tests, going from a 55 on the first to receiving a 95 – the highest score of anyone in the class – on the final one. When I did similarly poorly on these summer reading tests (I read the chapters, but I didn’t effectively absorb the reading), I assumed that I would follow the same course as she did and end up doing better.
But change did not magically come. Mr. Dasher’s mantra was “Everything will be all right in the end,” which I found to be somewhat comforting, but obviously, effort was required to try and aid that. It took some work, but eventually I figured out an effective method for reading and absorbing the material, which was to take notes as I went along.
After succeeding with this method on two tests, I convinced myself that I had learned how to effectively absorb it to the extent that I didn’t need to be so thorough anymore. It only got worse when my friend – an incredibly intelligent person, mind you, but the most unmotivated and lazy person I have ever met – frequently talked about how he could do fairly well without reading at all. Of my own accord, I decided I was capable of the same.
I would say that I wasn’t, but what’s silly about that is that I actually did fairly well given the amount of effort on my part. My final grade in the class was a B, and I ended up with a 4 on the AP exam. I attribute achieving as such while minimally doing the reading to the fact that Mr. Dasher was an incredible teacher. You would think that teaching for 45 minutes straight four days a week would get boring, but it was quite the opposite; early on, my parents asked me on multiple occasions if I wanted to drop down to honors U.S. History. A handful of other things played into my decision not to do so, but I truly found the lessons both interesting and informative, and I didn’t want to relinquish the knowledge I imagined I would obtain from the class in the end.
So vividly recalling that moment my sister described where she had gotten the high score on the test, I promised myself that I would get the high score on a test at least once before the end of the year; due to my laziness, however, I never did. I created a goal, but I did nothing to work towards it.
When the bulk of the course ended on May 7th, after the AP exam, I expected to feel incredibly relieved, as my hardest class was essentially over. I felt little satisfaction at the time, however. The thoughts I had about the class over the next month are a complete blur to me, honestly. I don’t recall if I thought of the class much at all; during the class periods, we watched movies relating to U.S. History throughout the month of May.
All I know is that by the time June hit, I was a wreck. I was caught between things, completely undecided on my beliefs, and, even worse, I was stuck between who I knew I was, deep down, and who I knew everyone expected me to be. When I started to feel completely unstable because of this, I finally decided that I had to stop lying to myself.
I felt worse at the time after finally being frank about who I was, but had I not taken this step, I can’t even imagine where I would be. The past ten months of my life have been completely driven by my self-honesty. I’ve come to concur very strongly with something my AP Literature teacher said this year: “There are no lies more damaging than the ones we tell ourselves.”
At the same time, I started to realize why I wasn’t so excited about APUSH ending. I’d slacked off before, but it was different with APUSH; I felt that I could’ve gotten so much more out of the class had I not been lazy. As it is, I still felt I had learned and absorbed more from the class than from any other class I’d ever taken. When I’d done worse than I’d hoped to in the past, I’d blamed it on the course or the teacher (not necessarily incorrectly), or found some other excuse. With APUSH, I recognized that the only one at fault was me.
Furthermore, I respected Mr. Dasher more than anyone else in the world. He was an excellent history teacher, but he brought knowledge to the table from the real world, having had multiple other jobs before coming to teach. He was also very blunt and wasn’t afraid to say what he was thinking (which made for some entertainment as well, in addition to a number of marvelous quotes which I’ve included in my “quote compendium”). I wished he would think well of me and truly understand how much I valued his class, but I imagined that, as someone who clearly slacked as much as I did, I would not have a hope of achieving this.
I deeply regretted how lazily I had gone through the class, to the extent that I wanted, more than anything, to have a second chance. As I told Meta-Kirby once, the only thing which would have provided closure for me on the matter was “waking up tomorrow on September 3rd, 2009” – the first day of my junior year.
Our final project of the year was a research paper which I had heard was not graded harshly. Everyone else, ready to be done with school, was pretty content to slap something together. Feeling depressed and unmotivated myself, anxious to drown myself in music and video games, I intended to do the same. However, I realized that, as little as I could change the class as a whole, I had one last chance to prove myself. I recognized that I had to seize the opportunity, and I did. I was so concerned about writing a good essay that I ended up working on it until 5 AM the morning before it was due. I had a two-hour gym period the next morning, during which I was expected to be exercising constantly, and I could hardly even stay awake.
But that was one decision in that class I am proud of myself for making. In the end, I think the effort I put in paid off; I got a 97 on the essay, and he left a note on the essay saying, “I am more than a little proud of the progress you have made this year.” I even, despite my general inability to initiate any sort of conversation, managed to personally thank him for the class.
I had never imagined I would get that much, and I was ecstatic that I had gotten it; but I had less than a day of happiness from that. As I finished the remainder of my finals and moved into the summer, I spiraled into an even worse state than before. Despite the kind comments with which we had parted, I still felt that I had wasted the year and he would always see things as such. To my dismay, as I was left trying to work through these personal issues, my friends wanted to spend time with me constantly and made the issues worse. I mentioned to multiple people how important APUSH was to me and how much I was going to miss it, and they brushed it off.
During the summer, I was left to continue struggling with my issues while my friends bombarded me still, to such an extent that I, for the first time in my life, stopped worrying about being as nice as possible and said “no” when I wanted to be alone.
Despite the wallowing I did during the summer, I wondered if things might be even worse when I returned to school in the fall, since the problems from the end of the year would be brought to the surface all over again, being back in the same environment as before and seeing Mr. Dasher (at least occasionally) again.
I was correct, unfortunately. The first day of my senior year was, by far, one of the most miserable days I can recall; there was nothing physically happening to make it bad, but internally, everything fell apart. I arrived at school and it felt like junior year had never ended, only fuelling my nostalgia and regret; furthermore, as I attended each of my classes, I couldn’t help but realize that none of them were of the same caliber as APUSH. I was enrolled in three AP classes, but none of them felt like they could have the same kind of impact on me that APUSH did.
To make matters worse, I had to work after school that day and I had received a significant amount of homework despite it being the first day of classes. I didn’t even have time to sit down and think things out.
I grew somewhat numb to this as time went on, but the majority of the first half of the year was along those lines. I was adjusting to my workload, dealing with personal issues, and I still had to put up with a variety of annoyances from my friends. At lunch, I started off sitting with a friend of mine who’s a junior, and we ended up sitting with two friends of his who were also juniors. Two of them were in the APUSH class this year, and I frequently asked them about how APUSH was going in an attempt to quell my nostalgia.
Silly as it may seem to some, the first good thing I can recall happening in the school year was nearly a month into it, when I passed Mr. Dasher in the hallway and he recognized me and said hello to me. It may seem negligible, but I had an enormous amount of respect for him and I also wanted to feel like, despite my laziness in the class, I had accomplished something. The fact that, three months after the end of the class, he still recognized me, not to mention smiled and said hello to me, gave me some impression of such. By no means did this change my overall attitude – a day later, things were back as they had been – but it was the first bright moment I’d had in quite some time.
The following week was our school’s “Spirit Week”, a week during which seniors can dress up according to various themes. After my friend in the APUSH class had suggested the idea back in junior year, we both decided to dress up as Mr. Dasher on “Career Day.” (He has a signature way of dressing – 99% of the time, he wears a vest, a polo shirt, and khaki pants.) Being as timid as I tend to be, I had gone into the day hoping that I would run into him, knowing that I didn’t have it in me to actually show up at his room on my own.
Throughout the day, everyone loved my costume. Not too many people recognized it by themselves, but once I told them who I was, everyone thought it was great (including the headmaster). My homeroom teacher suggested that it would be cool for me to get a picture with him. I had brought my camera, but up until my homeroom teacher suggested it, the thought of getting a picture with him had not even occurred to me. Despite my timid nature, I decided that this was the one day on which I was going to be dressed up as him, and if I wanted for him to see and to get a picture with him, this was my one shot; I had to make it happen. I enlisted my two friends presently in APUSH to accompany me to his room after lunch and take the picture for me, and so it happened. Mr. Dasher seemed to find it amusing that I dressed up, and all went well (and that picture wound up as my profile picture on Facebook and has been since).
Reflecting on that day, it was an extremely important step for me. It was small in its direct significance, but I managed to be confident and, instead of waiting for something to happen, I went ahead and made it happen. Just as before, my happy mood quickly dissipated on the following day, but it was a very important step for me nevertheless.
Toward the end of October, I learned that my next assignment for my Journalism class would be a feature piece on a teacher in the school. I decided that the only teacher I could see myself doing a piece on was Mr. Dasher, and I prayed that he wouldn’t mind being interviewed for the piece. I asked him and he set up a time with me to be interviewed after school (he already stays after school three days a week so that kids can come in and look over their tests), but, being typically paranoid and lacking in self-esteem, I still felt like I was bothering him.
I owe a lot to Meta-Kirby here; the night before the interview, he told me that I would only be bothering him if I made the interview a waste of time – and I could avoid that by making it a good interview. Nervous as I was, I managed to compile a list of questions and I forced myself to listen to motivational, empowering songs throughout the day, because I knew I had to be positive and confident in the interview.
In retrospect, I would have changed a few things about the interview and the way I ended up ultimately writing the piece – for one thing, I kept to my list of questions too strictly and didn’t ask follow-up questions based on his answers when I wish I had, due to nerves – but things went well for the most part. After the interview was concluded and I packed my things up, we talked a little bit and he inquired about how the college process was going for me – overall, contrary to my worries, he seemed to have a positive opinion of me.
On a side note, I learned from this interview that Mr. Dasher loves country music. I didn’t really expect that, and I had never been into country myself – but I decided to look into it as a result of learning this, and with lots of help from Steel, country is now one of my favorite genres of music.
I worked hard on writing the piece and showed it to him when I was finished. He told me that the piece was very nice, and asked me to email to him so he could send it to his mother, saying that she was old and didn’t get much good news. I was ecstatic at this, but I dove back into my typical state of depression shortly thereafter.
The fact of the matter is it didn’t really matter what happened; my default state was a bitter, pessimistic outlook on life, and no matter what positive events took place, I was doomed to fall back into negativity eventually as long as that was true. Months passed, and January came with little else of notability. There was one notable thing in November; but I’ll get back to that in a second.
As the end of January and the end of the first semester came, that meant that my half-year Photography class was ending. Because no other class I wanted to take matched up with that period – period 5 – I would have that period free once the class ended.
From talking to my friends in the APUSH class in lunch every day, I had learned that they had the class during period 5. I eventually made the connection between these two things, but I didn’t seriously consider doing anything about it; what I wanted was irrelevant, because I knew everyone would doubtless think me insane to do anything with that, and I imagined Mr. Dasher himself would be part of that crowd.
When the prospect came up with my friends in late November, however, they were excited for me to join the class second semester. One of them even offered to ask Mr. Dasher about it for me despite my attitude of it being an impossibility. The day after we had that conversation, though, I ran into him at the end of school and he told me that he had asked Mr. Dasher if I could sit in on his class. According to my friend, he had said that I could, and that any former student of his was welcome to sit in on class.
I was incredibly excited initially and frequently told my friends how much I was looking forward to second semester so that I could be in the class again, but the closer the second semester grew, the more I felt that it was nothing more than a dream.
You may be confused as to why I would give up a free period to sit in on a class about U.S. History that I’d already been through; I cannot stress to you enough how great of a class I felt it to have been, how much I wanted to have another class with Mr. Dasher, and how much I felt I had taken for granted the original time I had in the class. To sit in on the class again would allow me to take it all in and be a part of the best class I had ever had again.
When the second semester was extremely close, I began to wonder if my memories and nostalgia had fooled me, and I started to retreat from the idea. I knew that I would be miserable during that free period if I simply sat there while the potential to be in the class existed, but by the last day of the first semester, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it anymore. Given that it had been so long since my friend had asked him, I decided that I would ask Mr. Dasher personally on the first day of the second semester if I decided to do it at all.
When I arrived at lunch on the last day of first semester, however, my friend who had asked for me back in November told me that next period was period 5 and I would be coming with them to ask about sitting in on class.
I panicked. Truthfully, there was no reason I actually had to do it then, but I recognize in retrospect that I really wanted to do it then, it was simply difficult for me to do so. (It may seem silly to you that that would be difficult, but I had serious confidence issues, most of all when it came to Mr. Dasher, and there was a lot riding on his response.) I had envisioned in my head a day similar to the day of the interview, listening to uplifting songs and forcing optimism on myself, but the event lay not a half an hour away and I had not even started to initiate such measures.
I spent the entire lunch period with my stomach in a knot, trying to figure out what to say. I was so overcome with nervousness that I couldn’t even think about what I was going to say, but I ended up following my friends to the classroom and, confidently smiling, explained to Mr. Dasher that I had that period free starting second semester and asked if I could sit in on the class.
Even though I had already technically gotten an answer from him, the fact that it was so long ago and the fact that I had not actually heard the words from his mouth made it seem less real; I expected him to say “yes”, but it still felt like everything rode on his response.
Smiling himself, he told me I could come in any time and participate to as much of an extent as I wished.
I had been sick with a cold on-and-off throughout the month of January so far. I know it doesn’t make any logical sense, but I swear to you I felt less congested as I walked out of the room, having received the answer I so desired, and that cold did not return. The only term I can use to describe the way I felt through that day and into the following weekend is “blissed-out”. I had been sure that I had completely wasted my one chance in the class; I had been sure I had taken for granted the best class I ever took. For seven months, it truly felt like I had. I can never go back and change my academic performance in that class, and that’s something I have to accept, for better or for worse. I’ll always regret the lack of effort I put into the class to some extent.
But a chance to be in the class again was so much more than I ever imagined I would have. To make matters better, I could simply enjoy hearing Mr. Dasher teach history – I wouldn’t have to worry about taking notes or studying for tests.
The story doesn’t end there, though.
About two weeks into the second semester – February 15th, to be exact – I began to fall apart all over again. Just when I thought everything was all right, pessimism took over again. I don’t know exactly what it was that was bothering me, but I felt like my existence in the class was too passive; Mr. Dasher hadn’t said a word to me since I asked him permission to sit in on class.
I had, with the development of this second chance, decided that I was a “realistic optimist” now, rather than the depressed pessimist I had been for so many years; but this seemed to show quite the opposite.
It was at work on that day, when nobody was in the store and I was walking around checking to see if anything needed to be stocked, that I finally came to a realization. I recalled the lyrics to the chorus of Natasha Bedingfield’s song “Recover”; “We will recover / The worst is over now / All those fires we’ve been walking through / And still we survive somehow”. In my mind, I remembered all of the times I had persevered; on Career Day, I made myself go to Mr. Dasher’s room and get a picture with him; for the “teacher feature”, I made myself be confident in the interview and write as good a piece as I could; at the end of first semester, I made myself go to his room and ask him about sitting in on his class, no matter how strange it was, and his sincere answer of “yes” left me “blissed-out”.
There were all of those “fires I’d walked through”; after months and months of feeling miserable, thinking my one chance had slipped through my fingers, it had come down to this. I realized that, if something was bothering me, I had to fix it. Rather than sit there and wait, I had to do something. If he wasn’t saying anything to me, the only option was for me to say something to him.
It was difficult to even imagine then and it still is now; for whatever reason, I have an impossible time starting a conversation unless there is an explicit purpose for the conversation, like asking for an interview or to sit in on class.
But the phrase which I used on Career Day came back, and it has become my motto henceforth: I had to “make it happen”.
And so I did. The following day, I brought in my own copy of our textbook – Inventing America – which I had received for Christmas after asking for it, and as per my family and friends’ advice, as well as my own personal desire, asked Mr. Dasher to sign it. He did so happily. I was rewarded even more the day afterward, when the class was discussing the documents for a DBQ (document-based question – a type of essay) and he not only offered me a copy of the documents, but called on me to answer a question, asking, “You don’t mind being called on, do you? I just can’t take any wrong answers today, I have a headache.”
That kind of a statement from him has a clear implication to me that he can count on me to be smart enough to give him the right answer. With all of my fresh worries, on top of my months-old concern of appearing to be nothing more than a slacker to him, that meant so much to me.
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The fact of the matter is I am incredibly happy with my life now. I still respect and admire Mr. Dasher more than anybody else I’ve ever met and I’m able to have some sort of interaction with him; APUSH has been just as enjoyable – if not even more enjoyable, since I don’t have to stress about a grade in the class – as I remembered it being; I feel like I made the best out of what I had and, rather than dwelling in regret, fixed it as well as I could.
As it stands, the bulk of the class has just recently ended for the year as a result of the AP exam coming and going. I intend to stick around and watch movies with the class, so APUSH hasn’t fully concluded yet; but even once it’s all over, I can move forward with some sense of closure, knowing that I “made it happen” while I had the chance.
However, I really feel that I have fundamentally changed, beyond the scope of APUSH. As per my expectations, a number of people think me to be crazy. One of my friends teases me every time I mention my presence in the class this semester in some way. She doesn’t mean it in a vicious matter at all, but she seems to think it’s quite strange. One day, both she and another friend of mine (who was with me in APUSH) questioned what sitting in on a class I’ve already been through accomplishes. They questioned whether doing my homework during that period would be a more efficient use of my time, something with which I disagree – I tend to be very unproductive during free periods.
I would say that I learned “the story”, but I was not as dedicated to the class as I should have been, so I do feel I’ve gotten more out of this second round. Furthermore, I’ve grown to enjoy the subject of United States History anyway – hearing about it, in an interesting manner no less, is entertaining to me.
What people truly fail to realize, however, is that I could not possibly be spending my free period any more productively than by sitting in on APUSH, because it is exactly what I needed. I am no longer inundated with regrets and self-loathing when I think of the class because of it. It doesn’t change the fact that I regret what I did, and I will live my life in an attempt to avoid such a situation in the future; but it gave me some sort of closure and allowed me to move on. To even suggest that doing my homework – which could be done any other time – during that period would be more productive is absolute folly to me.
Whether or not they realize it is unimportant to me, however. People might think it insane to “sacrifice” a free period to learn about United States History, and they probably don’t approve of the fact that I love Mean Girls and Legally Blonde, or that I listen to Lady Gaga and Ke$ha. Even my extended family seems sure that people who cosplay are part of some crazy geek cult.
Yet, despite all of that, I know that I cannot do any less than “make it happen” and live my life my own way, so that I have minimal regrets about the course of my life.
I know that the world can be cruel and harsh. I know that society is cold and not the least bit accepting of outliers. I know that going against the norm is frowned upon and punished with ostracism. But isn’t it worth fighting against? Isn’t it worth fighting against that force that tells you “no” in order to be your own person, affecting everyone else in no way other than bothering them by being different? If there’s anything I truly, firmly believe in, being as I am, it is just that. People can tell you “no”, and people can tell you you’re wrong, but at the end of the day, you have to shrug it off and be who you want to be. You may have to fight a metaphorical war to live your life your own way, but it’s worth fighting for.
The story of my progression has not concluded yet, nor do I think it ever will as long as I live. I’m constantly changing and evolving, and my life is most certainly not devoid of problems that I have to deal with. I still have serious confidence issues and trying to start a conversation with Mr. Dasher – something I’d like to be able to do – is still something incredibly difficult to me.
But I’m working through it. My default state is no longer depression; when I’m feeling down, I’m no longer content to stay that way. Instead, I try and determine what exactly is wrong and I try and find a solution.
I am, by no means, an authority on happiness or improving your life, but as someone who’s struggled a lot and found himself here, I offer this advice to you: find your AP United States History. It doesn’t have to be a class or anything even remotely similar, just something that can have the same effect. I can wholeheartedly say that that class and Mr. Dasher have changed my life so much for the better.
Once you find that thing, don’t just let it go, even if everybody around you thinks you’re crazy or strange. Do what you need to do for yourself, and don’t let the opportunity pass you by. I know it seems a strange source, but I’d like to cite an excerpt from the introduction in the booklet that comes along with Taylor Swift’s Speak Now album:
“In real life, saying the right thing at the right moment is beyond crucial. So crucial, in fact, that most of us start to hesitate, for fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But lately what I've begun to fear more than that is letting the moment pass without saying anything.
I think most of us fear reaching the end of our life, and looking back regretting the moments we didn't speak up. When we didn't say 'I love you'. When we should've said 'I'm sorry'. When we didn't stand up for ourselves or someone who needed help.
…
What you say might be too much for some people. Maybe it will come out all wrong and you'll stutter and you'll walk away embarrassed, wincing as you play it all back in your head. But I think the words you stop yourself from saying are the ones that will haunt you the longest.
So say it to them. Or say it to yourself in the mirror. Say it in a letter you'll never send or in a book millions might read someday. I think you deserve to look back on your life without a chorus of resounding voices saying 'I could've, but it's too late now.'
There is a time for silence. There is a time waiting your turn. But if you know how you feel, and you so clearly know what you need to say, you'll know it.
I don't think you should wait. I think you should speak now.”
Taylor Swift is far from an authority on how to live your life, but I think what she says there is incredibly truthful. If you know what you want, if you know who you are, and you know what you need to do in order to be happy, don’t just stand there and watch it get away from you. Never settle for less than you have to simply because it’s not normal; “make it happen” instead.
If you do that, I think you’ll find that “everything will be all right in the end.” Going forward in my life, I know that this is the case.
This is a very long, very personal story highlighting a specific piece of my life over the past year and a half. I tried to eliminate some unnecessary pieces of the story, but it is ultimately still very long. The reason I tell you this long story is to show you exactly how much I’ve changed in my attitude and outlook on life. As a fitting parallel, someone could explain to you the current situation in the United States, but without explaining how the country was founded and how it developed, it wouldn’t really mean much to you; you wouldn’t be able to understand how the country grew.
I could just tell you where I am now, but without fully explaining to you the foundation which allowed me to reach this point, this would not have much of a purpose.
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My life has always been anything but ordinary. Growing up, I was very close to my two older sisters, Erin and Jennifer, which in and of itself was somewhat unusual. Because the three of us were so close, I looked up to them, and my likes and dislikes were shaped by them to a large extent. I could explain in-depth how my interests developed and tell stories of the three of us dancing to the Spice Girls together as kids, but that isn’t necessary to illustrate my point. Ultimately, as my sisters’ tastes changed and matured, I continued to follow them, and none of us ended up being “normal”.
Erin was looked down upon when she changed her style of dress to “punk/goth” in 7th and 8th grade (because she legitimately liked the way it looked, not because she was a devil-worshipper as so many claimed) and Jennifer was constantly bullied throughout her school years. As for myself, in fourth grade my best friend turned on me – for a reason of which I still am unsure – and made fun of me with his “cooler”, more popular friends.
All of this left me very bitter towards anyone of the “popular” crowd, and I thoroughly rejected anyone or anything associated with being “cool” or “popular” throughout middle school, finally calming down by the time high school started. I realized that stereotyping “popular” people was hypocritical, considering how much I loathed people stereotyping me and others in the “unpopular” category.
However, gradually through middle school and my first two years of high school, I made a more significant internal change which I retained, even when I calmed externally. I’m not sure what happened, nor am I sure why it happened; I’m not even entirely sure what it was that took me over. All I know is that I became extremely negative and depressed. The depression was brought on by silly things – which makes me question if I should even be calling it “depression” – but it stacked up over time and I dug myself into such a deep hole that it didn’t really matter the reason for how I felt anymore.
At least part of this was perpetuated by the fact that I had no self-esteem. It started out with me joking about myself and trying not to become too self-absorbed, but by my junior year of high school (last year), I thoroughly hated myself. Stupid things I had done in specific instances remained in my head vividly, to a maddening extent; my lazy nature and quickness to hostility when forced to do work made me angry at myself, as no matter how much I told myself I would change, I never really did.
Worst of all, I felt the pressures of society constantly eating at me, and it left me feeling that I was truly screwed up. I’ve never enjoyed playing or watching sports, despite the fact that males are “supposed” to. I cry frequently (comparatively, at least), and men aren’t supposed to express emotions nearly as much as women by society’s standards – crying is pretty much taboo in all situations. Overall, I’ve never been the “manly” type. I also enjoy things which are supposed to be reserved for women for whatever reason – chick flicks and all sorts of music. At first, I pushed those interests deep within and pretended they weren’t there; eventually, I pursued them to a slight extent and kept it to myself.
All of these things also turned me into a huge nostalgist. My worries had become so heavy and my hatred of myself so thick that I wanted, more than anything, to go back ten years and stay there forever as an innocent child. This nostalgia wound itself through my entire life.
All of this built up to a new level in my junior year, expanding continuously even as the year moved; it was a major contributing factor in making the period from the beginning of my junior year (September 2009) until halfway through my senior year (January 2011) one of the most important, yet most distressing, periods of my life thus far.
One thing completely defined last year for me: my AP United States History class (henceforth APUSH).
It’s strange, because my reasoning for taking the class was lousy. My sister Erin had taken the class, being quite interested in history herself, and enjoyed it so much that she highly recommended it to me. She also told me that her friends in the Honors U.S. History course had just as much – if not more – work than her, but instead of rigid work such as tests and essays, they did projects and packets.
The fact that I would be doing logical work instead of fluffy projects and have an AP class under my belt rather than an honors course was more than enough reason for me to choose APUSH. I won’t say I had no interest in history, but I wasn’t as interested in it as any of the rest of my family, and despite Erin’s fondness of the class and Mr. Dasher, the teacher of the class, that played only a small part in my decision.
I found the class to be incredibly difficult, ultimately, just as my sister had found it to be. I’ve always been a pretty good student in school – not a straight-A student, but an A/B student – so struggling as much as I did in a class was not something to which I was accustomed. Mr. Dasher thoroughly taught us during class periods, but it was required of us to read the textbook to supplement this learning. All of our tests consisted of forty multiple choice questions, which is harder than it sounds; the questions were in-depth, and they were designed such that you had to learn “the story” (of U.S. History, that is), as Mr. Dasher puts it, rather than just memorizing a list of dates and facts.
I always remembered what my sister had told me of the class; I vividly recalled her recanting the tale of the tests on the summer reading and how she did increasingly well on the tests, going from a 55 on the first to receiving a 95 – the highest score of anyone in the class – on the final one. When I did similarly poorly on these summer reading tests (I read the chapters, but I didn’t effectively absorb the reading), I assumed that I would follow the same course as she did and end up doing better.
But change did not magically come. Mr. Dasher’s mantra was “Everything will be all right in the end,” which I found to be somewhat comforting, but obviously, effort was required to try and aid that. It took some work, but eventually I figured out an effective method for reading and absorbing the material, which was to take notes as I went along.
After succeeding with this method on two tests, I convinced myself that I had learned how to effectively absorb it to the extent that I didn’t need to be so thorough anymore. It only got worse when my friend – an incredibly intelligent person, mind you, but the most unmotivated and lazy person I have ever met – frequently talked about how he could do fairly well without reading at all. Of my own accord, I decided I was capable of the same.
I would say that I wasn’t, but what’s silly about that is that I actually did fairly well given the amount of effort on my part. My final grade in the class was a B, and I ended up with a 4 on the AP exam. I attribute achieving as such while minimally doing the reading to the fact that Mr. Dasher was an incredible teacher. You would think that teaching for 45 minutes straight four days a week would get boring, but it was quite the opposite; early on, my parents asked me on multiple occasions if I wanted to drop down to honors U.S. History. A handful of other things played into my decision not to do so, but I truly found the lessons both interesting and informative, and I didn’t want to relinquish the knowledge I imagined I would obtain from the class in the end.
So vividly recalling that moment my sister described where she had gotten the high score on the test, I promised myself that I would get the high score on a test at least once before the end of the year; due to my laziness, however, I never did. I created a goal, but I did nothing to work towards it.
When the bulk of the course ended on May 7th, after the AP exam, I expected to feel incredibly relieved, as my hardest class was essentially over. I felt little satisfaction at the time, however. The thoughts I had about the class over the next month are a complete blur to me, honestly. I don’t recall if I thought of the class much at all; during the class periods, we watched movies relating to U.S. History throughout the month of May.
All I know is that by the time June hit, I was a wreck. I was caught between things, completely undecided on my beliefs, and, even worse, I was stuck between who I knew I was, deep down, and who I knew everyone expected me to be. When I started to feel completely unstable because of this, I finally decided that I had to stop lying to myself.
I felt worse at the time after finally being frank about who I was, but had I not taken this step, I can’t even imagine where I would be. The past ten months of my life have been completely driven by my self-honesty. I’ve come to concur very strongly with something my AP Literature teacher said this year: “There are no lies more damaging than the ones we tell ourselves.”
At the same time, I started to realize why I wasn’t so excited about APUSH ending. I’d slacked off before, but it was different with APUSH; I felt that I could’ve gotten so much more out of the class had I not been lazy. As it is, I still felt I had learned and absorbed more from the class than from any other class I’d ever taken. When I’d done worse than I’d hoped to in the past, I’d blamed it on the course or the teacher (not necessarily incorrectly), or found some other excuse. With APUSH, I recognized that the only one at fault was me.
Furthermore, I respected Mr. Dasher more than anyone else in the world. He was an excellent history teacher, but he brought knowledge to the table from the real world, having had multiple other jobs before coming to teach. He was also very blunt and wasn’t afraid to say what he was thinking (which made for some entertainment as well, in addition to a number of marvelous quotes which I’ve included in my “quote compendium”). I wished he would think well of me and truly understand how much I valued his class, but I imagined that, as someone who clearly slacked as much as I did, I would not have a hope of achieving this.
I deeply regretted how lazily I had gone through the class, to the extent that I wanted, more than anything, to have a second chance. As I told Meta-Kirby once, the only thing which would have provided closure for me on the matter was “waking up tomorrow on September 3rd, 2009” – the first day of my junior year.
Our final project of the year was a research paper which I had heard was not graded harshly. Everyone else, ready to be done with school, was pretty content to slap something together. Feeling depressed and unmotivated myself, anxious to drown myself in music and video games, I intended to do the same. However, I realized that, as little as I could change the class as a whole, I had one last chance to prove myself. I recognized that I had to seize the opportunity, and I did. I was so concerned about writing a good essay that I ended up working on it until 5 AM the morning before it was due. I had a two-hour gym period the next morning, during which I was expected to be exercising constantly, and I could hardly even stay awake.
But that was one decision in that class I am proud of myself for making. In the end, I think the effort I put in paid off; I got a 97 on the essay, and he left a note on the essay saying, “I am more than a little proud of the progress you have made this year.” I even, despite my general inability to initiate any sort of conversation, managed to personally thank him for the class.
I had never imagined I would get that much, and I was ecstatic that I had gotten it; but I had less than a day of happiness from that. As I finished the remainder of my finals and moved into the summer, I spiraled into an even worse state than before. Despite the kind comments with which we had parted, I still felt that I had wasted the year and he would always see things as such. To my dismay, as I was left trying to work through these personal issues, my friends wanted to spend time with me constantly and made the issues worse. I mentioned to multiple people how important APUSH was to me and how much I was going to miss it, and they brushed it off.
During the summer, I was left to continue struggling with my issues while my friends bombarded me still, to such an extent that I, for the first time in my life, stopped worrying about being as nice as possible and said “no” when I wanted to be alone.
Despite the wallowing I did during the summer, I wondered if things might be even worse when I returned to school in the fall, since the problems from the end of the year would be brought to the surface all over again, being back in the same environment as before and seeing Mr. Dasher (at least occasionally) again.
I was correct, unfortunately. The first day of my senior year was, by far, one of the most miserable days I can recall; there was nothing physically happening to make it bad, but internally, everything fell apart. I arrived at school and it felt like junior year had never ended, only fuelling my nostalgia and regret; furthermore, as I attended each of my classes, I couldn’t help but realize that none of them were of the same caliber as APUSH. I was enrolled in three AP classes, but none of them felt like they could have the same kind of impact on me that APUSH did.
To make matters worse, I had to work after school that day and I had received a significant amount of homework despite it being the first day of classes. I didn’t even have time to sit down and think things out.
I grew somewhat numb to this as time went on, but the majority of the first half of the year was along those lines. I was adjusting to my workload, dealing with personal issues, and I still had to put up with a variety of annoyances from my friends. At lunch, I started off sitting with a friend of mine who’s a junior, and we ended up sitting with two friends of his who were also juniors. Two of them were in the APUSH class this year, and I frequently asked them about how APUSH was going in an attempt to quell my nostalgia.
Silly as it may seem to some, the first good thing I can recall happening in the school year was nearly a month into it, when I passed Mr. Dasher in the hallway and he recognized me and said hello to me. It may seem negligible, but I had an enormous amount of respect for him and I also wanted to feel like, despite my laziness in the class, I had accomplished something. The fact that, three months after the end of the class, he still recognized me, not to mention smiled and said hello to me, gave me some impression of such. By no means did this change my overall attitude – a day later, things were back as they had been – but it was the first bright moment I’d had in quite some time.
The following week was our school’s “Spirit Week”, a week during which seniors can dress up according to various themes. After my friend in the APUSH class had suggested the idea back in junior year, we both decided to dress up as Mr. Dasher on “Career Day.” (He has a signature way of dressing – 99% of the time, he wears a vest, a polo shirt, and khaki pants.) Being as timid as I tend to be, I had gone into the day hoping that I would run into him, knowing that I didn’t have it in me to actually show up at his room on my own.
Throughout the day, everyone loved my costume. Not too many people recognized it by themselves, but once I told them who I was, everyone thought it was great (including the headmaster). My homeroom teacher suggested that it would be cool for me to get a picture with him. I had brought my camera, but up until my homeroom teacher suggested it, the thought of getting a picture with him had not even occurred to me. Despite my timid nature, I decided that this was the one day on which I was going to be dressed up as him, and if I wanted for him to see and to get a picture with him, this was my one shot; I had to make it happen. I enlisted my two friends presently in APUSH to accompany me to his room after lunch and take the picture for me, and so it happened. Mr. Dasher seemed to find it amusing that I dressed up, and all went well (and that picture wound up as my profile picture on Facebook and has been since).
Reflecting on that day, it was an extremely important step for me. It was small in its direct significance, but I managed to be confident and, instead of waiting for something to happen, I went ahead and made it happen. Just as before, my happy mood quickly dissipated on the following day, but it was a very important step for me nevertheless.
Toward the end of October, I learned that my next assignment for my Journalism class would be a feature piece on a teacher in the school. I decided that the only teacher I could see myself doing a piece on was Mr. Dasher, and I prayed that he wouldn’t mind being interviewed for the piece. I asked him and he set up a time with me to be interviewed after school (he already stays after school three days a week so that kids can come in and look over their tests), but, being typically paranoid and lacking in self-esteem, I still felt like I was bothering him.
I owe a lot to Meta-Kirby here; the night before the interview, he told me that I would only be bothering him if I made the interview a waste of time – and I could avoid that by making it a good interview. Nervous as I was, I managed to compile a list of questions and I forced myself to listen to motivational, empowering songs throughout the day, because I knew I had to be positive and confident in the interview.
In retrospect, I would have changed a few things about the interview and the way I ended up ultimately writing the piece – for one thing, I kept to my list of questions too strictly and didn’t ask follow-up questions based on his answers when I wish I had, due to nerves – but things went well for the most part. After the interview was concluded and I packed my things up, we talked a little bit and he inquired about how the college process was going for me – overall, contrary to my worries, he seemed to have a positive opinion of me.
On a side note, I learned from this interview that Mr. Dasher loves country music. I didn’t really expect that, and I had never been into country myself – but I decided to look into it as a result of learning this, and with lots of help from Steel, country is now one of my favorite genres of music.
I worked hard on writing the piece and showed it to him when I was finished. He told me that the piece was very nice, and asked me to email to him so he could send it to his mother, saying that she was old and didn’t get much good news. I was ecstatic at this, but I dove back into my typical state of depression shortly thereafter.
The fact of the matter is it didn’t really matter what happened; my default state was a bitter, pessimistic outlook on life, and no matter what positive events took place, I was doomed to fall back into negativity eventually as long as that was true. Months passed, and January came with little else of notability. There was one notable thing in November; but I’ll get back to that in a second.
As the end of January and the end of the first semester came, that meant that my half-year Photography class was ending. Because no other class I wanted to take matched up with that period – period 5 – I would have that period free once the class ended.
From talking to my friends in the APUSH class in lunch every day, I had learned that they had the class during period 5. I eventually made the connection between these two things, but I didn’t seriously consider doing anything about it; what I wanted was irrelevant, because I knew everyone would doubtless think me insane to do anything with that, and I imagined Mr. Dasher himself would be part of that crowd.
When the prospect came up with my friends in late November, however, they were excited for me to join the class second semester. One of them even offered to ask Mr. Dasher about it for me despite my attitude of it being an impossibility. The day after we had that conversation, though, I ran into him at the end of school and he told me that he had asked Mr. Dasher if I could sit in on his class. According to my friend, he had said that I could, and that any former student of his was welcome to sit in on class.
I was incredibly excited initially and frequently told my friends how much I was looking forward to second semester so that I could be in the class again, but the closer the second semester grew, the more I felt that it was nothing more than a dream.
You may be confused as to why I would give up a free period to sit in on a class about U.S. History that I’d already been through; I cannot stress to you enough how great of a class I felt it to have been, how much I wanted to have another class with Mr. Dasher, and how much I felt I had taken for granted the original time I had in the class. To sit in on the class again would allow me to take it all in and be a part of the best class I had ever had again.
When the second semester was extremely close, I began to wonder if my memories and nostalgia had fooled me, and I started to retreat from the idea. I knew that I would be miserable during that free period if I simply sat there while the potential to be in the class existed, but by the last day of the first semester, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it anymore. Given that it had been so long since my friend had asked him, I decided that I would ask Mr. Dasher personally on the first day of the second semester if I decided to do it at all.
When I arrived at lunch on the last day of first semester, however, my friend who had asked for me back in November told me that next period was period 5 and I would be coming with them to ask about sitting in on class.
I panicked. Truthfully, there was no reason I actually had to do it then, but I recognize in retrospect that I really wanted to do it then, it was simply difficult for me to do so. (It may seem silly to you that that would be difficult, but I had serious confidence issues, most of all when it came to Mr. Dasher, and there was a lot riding on his response.) I had envisioned in my head a day similar to the day of the interview, listening to uplifting songs and forcing optimism on myself, but the event lay not a half an hour away and I had not even started to initiate such measures.
I spent the entire lunch period with my stomach in a knot, trying to figure out what to say. I was so overcome with nervousness that I couldn’t even think about what I was going to say, but I ended up following my friends to the classroom and, confidently smiling, explained to Mr. Dasher that I had that period free starting second semester and asked if I could sit in on the class.
Even though I had already technically gotten an answer from him, the fact that it was so long ago and the fact that I had not actually heard the words from his mouth made it seem less real; I expected him to say “yes”, but it still felt like everything rode on his response.
Smiling himself, he told me I could come in any time and participate to as much of an extent as I wished.
I had been sick with a cold on-and-off throughout the month of January so far. I know it doesn’t make any logical sense, but I swear to you I felt less congested as I walked out of the room, having received the answer I so desired, and that cold did not return. The only term I can use to describe the way I felt through that day and into the following weekend is “blissed-out”. I had been sure that I had completely wasted my one chance in the class; I had been sure I had taken for granted the best class I ever took. For seven months, it truly felt like I had. I can never go back and change my academic performance in that class, and that’s something I have to accept, for better or for worse. I’ll always regret the lack of effort I put into the class to some extent.
But a chance to be in the class again was so much more than I ever imagined I would have. To make matters better, I could simply enjoy hearing Mr. Dasher teach history – I wouldn’t have to worry about taking notes or studying for tests.
The story doesn’t end there, though.
About two weeks into the second semester – February 15th, to be exact – I began to fall apart all over again. Just when I thought everything was all right, pessimism took over again. I don’t know exactly what it was that was bothering me, but I felt like my existence in the class was too passive; Mr. Dasher hadn’t said a word to me since I asked him permission to sit in on class.
I had, with the development of this second chance, decided that I was a “realistic optimist” now, rather than the depressed pessimist I had been for so many years; but this seemed to show quite the opposite.
It was at work on that day, when nobody was in the store and I was walking around checking to see if anything needed to be stocked, that I finally came to a realization. I recalled the lyrics to the chorus of Natasha Bedingfield’s song “Recover”; “We will recover / The worst is over now / All those fires we’ve been walking through / And still we survive somehow”. In my mind, I remembered all of the times I had persevered; on Career Day, I made myself go to Mr. Dasher’s room and get a picture with him; for the “teacher feature”, I made myself be confident in the interview and write as good a piece as I could; at the end of first semester, I made myself go to his room and ask him about sitting in on his class, no matter how strange it was, and his sincere answer of “yes” left me “blissed-out”.
There were all of those “fires I’d walked through”; after months and months of feeling miserable, thinking my one chance had slipped through my fingers, it had come down to this. I realized that, if something was bothering me, I had to fix it. Rather than sit there and wait, I had to do something. If he wasn’t saying anything to me, the only option was for me to say something to him.
It was difficult to even imagine then and it still is now; for whatever reason, I have an impossible time starting a conversation unless there is an explicit purpose for the conversation, like asking for an interview or to sit in on class.
But the phrase which I used on Career Day came back, and it has become my motto henceforth: I had to “make it happen”.
And so I did. The following day, I brought in my own copy of our textbook – Inventing America – which I had received for Christmas after asking for it, and as per my family and friends’ advice, as well as my own personal desire, asked Mr. Dasher to sign it. He did so happily. I was rewarded even more the day afterward, when the class was discussing the documents for a DBQ (document-based question – a type of essay) and he not only offered me a copy of the documents, but called on me to answer a question, asking, “You don’t mind being called on, do you? I just can’t take any wrong answers today, I have a headache.”
That kind of a statement from him has a clear implication to me that he can count on me to be smart enough to give him the right answer. With all of my fresh worries, on top of my months-old concern of appearing to be nothing more than a slacker to him, that meant so much to me.
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The fact of the matter is I am incredibly happy with my life now. I still respect and admire Mr. Dasher more than anybody else I’ve ever met and I’m able to have some sort of interaction with him; APUSH has been just as enjoyable – if not even more enjoyable, since I don’t have to stress about a grade in the class – as I remembered it being; I feel like I made the best out of what I had and, rather than dwelling in regret, fixed it as well as I could.
As it stands, the bulk of the class has just recently ended for the year as a result of the AP exam coming and going. I intend to stick around and watch movies with the class, so APUSH hasn’t fully concluded yet; but even once it’s all over, I can move forward with some sense of closure, knowing that I “made it happen” while I had the chance.
However, I really feel that I have fundamentally changed, beyond the scope of APUSH. As per my expectations, a number of people think me to be crazy. One of my friends teases me every time I mention my presence in the class this semester in some way. She doesn’t mean it in a vicious matter at all, but she seems to think it’s quite strange. One day, both she and another friend of mine (who was with me in APUSH) questioned what sitting in on a class I’ve already been through accomplishes. They questioned whether doing my homework during that period would be a more efficient use of my time, something with which I disagree – I tend to be very unproductive during free periods.
I would say that I learned “the story”, but I was not as dedicated to the class as I should have been, so I do feel I’ve gotten more out of this second round. Furthermore, I’ve grown to enjoy the subject of United States History anyway – hearing about it, in an interesting manner no less, is entertaining to me.
What people truly fail to realize, however, is that I could not possibly be spending my free period any more productively than by sitting in on APUSH, because it is exactly what I needed. I am no longer inundated with regrets and self-loathing when I think of the class because of it. It doesn’t change the fact that I regret what I did, and I will live my life in an attempt to avoid such a situation in the future; but it gave me some sort of closure and allowed me to move on. To even suggest that doing my homework – which could be done any other time – during that period would be more productive is absolute folly to me.
Whether or not they realize it is unimportant to me, however. People might think it insane to “sacrifice” a free period to learn about United States History, and they probably don’t approve of the fact that I love Mean Girls and Legally Blonde, or that I listen to Lady Gaga and Ke$ha. Even my extended family seems sure that people who cosplay are part of some crazy geek cult.
Yet, despite all of that, I know that I cannot do any less than “make it happen” and live my life my own way, so that I have minimal regrets about the course of my life.
I know that the world can be cruel and harsh. I know that society is cold and not the least bit accepting of outliers. I know that going against the norm is frowned upon and punished with ostracism. But isn’t it worth fighting against? Isn’t it worth fighting against that force that tells you “no” in order to be your own person, affecting everyone else in no way other than bothering them by being different? If there’s anything I truly, firmly believe in, being as I am, it is just that. People can tell you “no”, and people can tell you you’re wrong, but at the end of the day, you have to shrug it off and be who you want to be. You may have to fight a metaphorical war to live your life your own way, but it’s worth fighting for.
The story of my progression has not concluded yet, nor do I think it ever will as long as I live. I’m constantly changing and evolving, and my life is most certainly not devoid of problems that I have to deal with. I still have serious confidence issues and trying to start a conversation with Mr. Dasher – something I’d like to be able to do – is still something incredibly difficult to me.
But I’m working through it. My default state is no longer depression; when I’m feeling down, I’m no longer content to stay that way. Instead, I try and determine what exactly is wrong and I try and find a solution.
I am, by no means, an authority on happiness or improving your life, but as someone who’s struggled a lot and found himself here, I offer this advice to you: find your AP United States History. It doesn’t have to be a class or anything even remotely similar, just something that can have the same effect. I can wholeheartedly say that that class and Mr. Dasher have changed my life so much for the better.
Once you find that thing, don’t just let it go, even if everybody around you thinks you’re crazy or strange. Do what you need to do for yourself, and don’t let the opportunity pass you by. I know it seems a strange source, but I’d like to cite an excerpt from the introduction in the booklet that comes along with Taylor Swift’s Speak Now album:
“In real life, saying the right thing at the right moment is beyond crucial. So crucial, in fact, that most of us start to hesitate, for fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But lately what I've begun to fear more than that is letting the moment pass without saying anything.
I think most of us fear reaching the end of our life, and looking back regretting the moments we didn't speak up. When we didn't say 'I love you'. When we should've said 'I'm sorry'. When we didn't stand up for ourselves or someone who needed help.
…
What you say might be too much for some people. Maybe it will come out all wrong and you'll stutter and you'll walk away embarrassed, wincing as you play it all back in your head. But I think the words you stop yourself from saying are the ones that will haunt you the longest.
So say it to them. Or say it to yourself in the mirror. Say it in a letter you'll never send or in a book millions might read someday. I think you deserve to look back on your life without a chorus of resounding voices saying 'I could've, but it's too late now.'
There is a time for silence. There is a time waiting your turn. But if you know how you feel, and you so clearly know what you need to say, you'll know it.
I don't think you should wait. I think you should speak now.”
Taylor Swift is far from an authority on how to live your life, but I think what she says there is incredibly truthful. If you know what you want, if you know who you are, and you know what you need to do in order to be happy, don’t just stand there and watch it get away from you. Never settle for less than you have to simply because it’s not normal; “make it happen” instead.
If you do that, I think you’ll find that “everything will be all right in the end.” Going forward in my life, I know that this is the case.
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Thanks for taking the time to read it, and I'm glad you guys enjoyed the blog. I hope you guys were able to get something out of it.
