Ch-ch-ch-changes

    I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again. 

- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button   

            I've been contemplating the idea of faking one's own death. Not meaning I want to fake my own, but the overall idea is quite intriguing if you think about it. (It's actually the topic of a book I've considered writing for awhile now.)
            Lets think about it: you get out of all the crappy parts of your life without the burned bridges and bad feelings. Granted, everyone you're associated with will no longer be in your life anymore, but hey, you'll finally get to see who comes to your funeral.

       For a person with my personality - one who hates being disliked or hated no matter what the personal consequences - it's the ideal situation when it comes to trying to leave a job. When I really despised one of my jobs, I formulated an entire situation in which I would fall down the stairs whilst "on my way". I had the entire episode panned out. I honestly believe the only reason I didn't go through with it was because my Mom works there also, so that would provide for some awkward conversations for her come Monday. 

      Above all, I just really like the idea of starting over. I would like to wipe the slate clean and begin again. Unfortunately, our world basically forbids such things. You can't quit your job and hope to get a new one without putting the former on your resume. You can't erase your bills and get away scotch free. You can't really start over, can you? Your baggage and your history will follow you everywhere. I guess the best we can hope for is that we learn to grow from it. We stop learning to define ourselves by what happened to us and instead by what we did about it. Only then can we really change our situation.

Great Expectations

       I've really been struggling lately with living my life by certain terms. There are people I work with who continiously tell me they live vicariously through me whenever I travel. Whenever I see them their faces light up when they ask "Where are you going next?" They tell me they wish they had lived this way when they were my age. My peers praise me for my courage and bravery, and it's my parents' bragging right.
      But I don't like travelling by myself. I hate it, actually. My dad can attest to the fact that whenever he drops me off at the airport, I'm incospiciously begging him to let me off the hook. And while I've been preached to numerous times recently by the aforementioned people about how I should live my life the way I want and not worry about what other people think about it, I never believed any of them until I spoke with a friend who actually lives that way.
      So now the question remains: what do I want to do? I can tell you a few things I don't want to do: I don't want to go to Asia. I don't want to go to South Africa alone. I don't want to spend all that money and time on a cruise to Antarctica without even knowing if I like cruises. What I want is to go to Disneyworld. I want to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and I want to see London covered in snow on my birthday. I want to make music videos and movie trailers and I want to write stories that stir something in people.
       I want to have a YouTube channel and not worry about people I know IRL teasing me for it. I want to eat the cookie and not worry about caloric content (that one will take time) and I don't want to answer phone calls for a living. I want to be proud of the work I do. I don't want carpel tunnel and if I must have it I want to aquire it writing the next Chronicles of Narnia, not stuffing envelopes. I want to quit wasting away my time in a mediocre life waiting around for the extraordinary one to come.
      Steve Jobs once said, "Every morning I look in the mirror and I ask myself, if today was my last day on Earth, would I want to spend it the way I intend to spend today? If the answer is 'no' too many days in a row, I know something needs to change". Well, then it looks like it's time for a change.