Needs

The universe is boundless, yet we are not. Although I often joke about living forever, reality says otherwise. You and I one day will cease to exist as we are. Everyone has a belief to cling to. Some are still searching. The fact remains that we must make all that we can from each moment we have.

Much has happened in my life since starting out from my first days in college. The failures outnumber the successes by orders of magnitude, but we all experience failure. I'm still searching for ways to overcome them. I have hope that I will discover what it takes to make peace with my failures, learn from them, and move on to successes farther down the road.

My perception of the universe has expanded immensely from what I once knew it to be. In actuality, the universe has expanded while we have remained the same size. By the same model, when compared with the universe, we shrink smaller and smaller each second.

We forget the roles we are playing while pursuing the bigger, the better, the shiny, and the new. We are defined no longer by our actions, but by what we own. We buy that which we think paints portraits of the "individuals" we think we are, but we are really all the same. We are really all alone.

We want acceptance. No person ever goes through life fearing he or she will be accepted. The fear is that we won't be accepted. We are all the same in that we're all different. Why is that so difficult for most to accept? We waste no time placating each other for our differences yet we use our deceptively calming words to convert each other to our own causes. When did acceptance become an object we could buy and sell with our words? We want unequivocal acceptance, or at least I do.

We want to love and be loved. We see the potential for a connection with another and often prevent that connection out of fear for our vulnerability. We want not to be hurt yet we cannot live life without some pain. We want to be able to share our existences with others who truly care about the individuals each of us are. We want to know that whether or not we seem to have anything emotionally valuable to offer that we are loved and that we are wanted. We want to fall asleep knowing others love us. Each of us wants to share a bond more lasting than stone with another who feels the same. We want to be loved, or at least I do.

We want to be needed. Every person wants to know that his or her life has meant something to the grand story that the world continues to write. We want to know that we have a role - a purpose - and that the world can't exist as it is without us. We want vindication and validation. We want our lives to increase the short supply of beauty in the world. We want to be needed, or at least I do.

And in the final flickering moments when we are breathing our last exquisite breaths, we want to be remembered. We want not to be forgotten. We want this because there is no guarantee that we exist in another form after we die. No amount of "divine" books can guarantee that we pass on to another realm. We are human and it is in our nature to hope for this. We want to be remembered, or at least I do.

It is my greatest fear that I'll never be accepted, loved, needed, or even remembered. I wake up most mornings and wonder if my actions each day will make me worthy of these things. I have lived in full devotion to a deity that I now feel has forgotten me, so I must do all that is within my power to find these things I want - the things we all want.

I can't make you accept me, love me, need me, or remember me, but my heart breaks at the thought that I may never earn these things from you.

I have discovered in my search to find myself that my self is all alone. It's a desperate and terrifying feeling to have.

If you don't see me today, at least do for someone else what I hope will be done for me. It is the least we should be doing for each other.

I love you all.

Too Much

As far as I know, I'm pretty screwed up. Most people know that about me.
The thing is, I hate being told what to do. I have pride issues. I need more humility, but not so much that I become a pushover. I really need to figure out who I am.
So, when people tell me I have to figure out who I am before I'll have a chance to achieve what I'm in college for I disregard what they say and continue on, averagely.

I know that I don't fully understand who I am, but I am trying to. I find out new things about myself all the time. This is where my need for humility comes in. Not only do I hate being told what to do, but I hate getting help from others. I hate it when people pay for my meals or simply buy me things they think I would like. I don't want to be thought of as poor or inept. This completely contradicts my thinking on getting an education. My thoughts have been "Hey, I'm paying for it. I should get a good grade because this is what a good grade costs," or "They should understand I have an attention disorder and offer me extra help." See my contradiction?

The thing about the brand of freedom that Americans are offered is that they have to work orders of magnitude harder according to their disabilities or inequalities in order to get what they want. There are no free rides. I've always thought that the United States was the land of opportunity, but one's level of "opportunity" is determined by one's personal wealth. There's no wonder why poor families can't rise out of poverty. "Opportunity" is another word for how much money one has in the bank.

Now, I don't believe in luck. The whole concept of some mystical balance between success and failure that hands good fortune out to the deserving or takes it from the wicked is lost on me. Keep in mind the phrase "only the good die young." Although that is a generalization, it negates karma. If luck truly exists, then it exists as Seneca said it exists: "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." To me, opportunity will not come unless it has been prepared for. So, if I am to achieve this dream I have of being a doctor and prolonging lives, I'm going to have to face my fear of dangerous debt as well as my fear of failure. I'm going to have to find a way to pay for medications that will allow me to manage my "difference." I'm going to have to take risks. Risks scare the hell out of me, but they make success that much sweeter. In order to get what I want, I'm going to have to do things I don't want to do.

That's all for now.

I've been busy lately

My trip to Kansas was incredible. I never thought I would have enjoyed myself as much as I did. Lawrence is a gorgeous town. Downtown Lawrence puts Norman's Campus Corner to shame. While the people in Kansas are just as nice as those in Norman, Lawrence's atmosphere is more welcoming because it offers a small-town appeal. Norman is quickly becoming a corral for the big-box stores, the corporations, and the low-quality get-rich-quick stores. Instead of using Norman's natural appeal to draw respectable Mom and Pop businesses it has played the game of the corporations and sold off its identity. KU won their men's basketball game against Villanova while I was in The Granada at the Explosions in the Sky concert (which was incredible). When I walked out the door there was a sea of blue shirts celebrating the win. Total strangers joyfully clinked their drinks together while yelling at the tops of their lungs. Now, imagine OU had made it as far as KU did (KU ended up winning the National Championship). What would the scene have been in Norman? It would have been quiet, boring, and business as usual. Sooners don't have much school spirit outside of football. Any day besides football Saturdays is painfully mundane. This is supposed to be a college town. If anything like what happened in Lawrence had happened in Norman I can guarantee that "the law" would have shown up to disperse the crowd.

That's what happens in a state where it takes less training to be a police officer than it does to be a beautician (nearly 5x more training for a beautician - and not all beauticians are good at what they do). Chew on that.

Change of subject.
Last Friday I went to Tulsa to the OSU Center for Health Sciences where the OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine is located. The medical school there is small and everyone knows each other. That's the kind of medical school I want to go to. I have hope of getting in also. My options are narrowed down to two medical schools right now: OSU and Guadalajara. I may be offered the option of attending medical school somewhere else, but I will go there only if I can't get into my top two. I had an incredible day in Tulsa. The medical school is top-notch, yet hometown. It's a D.O. program, which means there are more areas of treatment offered to help patients. The approach is whole-body and focuses on fixing the problem rather than medicating the problem. I'm ready to go to medical school! Let's hope Oklahoma State takes me. If not, see you in Mexico!

This summer I'm enrolled in weight-lifting and Spanish as well as a certification course at MooreNorman Technology Center that will allow me to work closely with patients and hospital staff. Not only will it help prepare me for future interaction with people needing health care, but I will be building relationships with doctors who have gone through what I'm about to go through in medical school. It's funny, but I will have earned 185 college credit hours by the end of the Fall 2008 semester and still won't have what I need to graduate with my two degrees. All I can say is that I wouldn't have made it this far had I not learned to enjoy school so much.

That's all for now.