A lil' introspection

I drove by the house I grew up in last week.. a bit nostalgic to say the least. The neighborhood might as well be swallowed up by the city, my treehouse and old four wheeler trails were demolished by new houses, and well it was just weird in general. I started remembering how many times I rode my bike around the entire neighborhood everyday after school and trying to catch those little dust tornados that can practically lift all of ya off the bike (I was a runt growin up.. 5'6 120 lbs when I graduated high school to be exact). Also remembered having leaf and stick racing tournaments throughout our neighborhood ditches with occassional encounters with water mocassins and snapping turtles.. I could go on and on about all that.

The point is that it should every adult's obligation to tell kids to enjoy every minute that you can because to be honest things only get worse. Our society is structured that way - why I have yet to figure out. Think about it how many of you mapped out your perfect life when you were a kid.. I'm sure it looked a little like this:
1. Graduate high school popular and close to the top of your class
2. Go to College
3. Find your 'soul mate' or whatever the hell you want to call it
4. Graduate College
5. Get a Job
6. Get Married
7. Have Kids
8. Die
Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

BORING!!! God just looking at those things makes me want to ram my head directly through the monitor.
1. Graduate high school popular and close to the top of your class
If I'm not a living example of how overrated and stupid this little dream is. Although it's not like I tried all that hard in high school but I sure as hell could have had a lot more fun. Haha I even remember explicitly quitting football so I could 'concentrate more on my grades'. High school did absolutely nothing to prepare me for college not to mention going from 600 people in your school to 45,000 is sort of a big jump.
New goal: Have as much fun in high school as possible without acting too much like a dumbass teenager, play as many sports as you can (you'll regret not doing it later), and don't worry about any kind of drama or any other BS you're going through - you'll probably only keep in touch with 3% of the people after school anyway.
2. Go to College
I will have to say that in the world we live has pretty much made this a MUST and some people are finding that out the hard way. Having a high school degree now is the equivalent to dropping your pants, signing your name in the snow ,and calling it a degree. You'll be stuck doing grunt work the rest of your life unless you get lucky. Saying that, college was not for me at all - I could have done without it but gotta follow the crowd ya know.
3. The 'Soul Mate'
Hahah my personal favorite.. the neverending search for somebody else to 'complete' you - pass the tissues, chocolate and tampons. Why why why is this engrained in our society?? We have become a bunch of dependent pansies. There are lots of people I know who can't spend one moment alone without being bored or missing the company of another. I personally enjoy my own company - in fact I might just marry myself. Now I'm not saying I'm not looking to find somebody or whatever because I am but there are HUGE differences between the way my mind works and the way society says its supposed to work. If I do find somebody I will stand independent from them meaning that if they left my life it would be no big deal because I would still have myself. This is contradictory to the way a lot of other people function b/c they just become dependant on that other person and if that person left they woudln't even know what to do with their life. Face it, people get tired of each other.. have you seen the divorce rate lately?!?! Also, there probably is someone better for you out there and if my partner found that person and has exhausted everything out of me then I would be the one pushing them to go for it - with absolutely no hard feelings (people don't believe me when I say that either but I'm 100% serious). On the other end of the spectrum, if somebody becomes excess baggage then it's time to drop them off and move on to bigger and better things. To sum up, connections and relationships you form with people can help you become a better person and can teach you a lot about life but most people tend to drag things out when they have died many moons ago just because society says they're supposed to. If I meet somebody for a moment in time, awesome, if not there will always be me in the end and that's all that matters.
New goal: Learn as much about yourself as possible by meeting new people and experience new things but also letting go of exhausted relationships when the time comes.
4. Graduate College
Hey, I'm about to do this and it can't come soon enough - Leah I'm extremely envious!! I don't really even remember anything I was supposed to learn looking back. I mean if I saw it again it would be familiar and would come a little faster but all in all college is mainly designed to once again 'weed out' the supposed weaker ones. I'm surprised I made it through, I mean I really suck up the multiple choice tests just because I overanalyze everything. I mean life and its choices are MUCH more complicated than just A, B, C, D, or my favorite mental torture E none of the above. That being said how in the hell do they expect you to even pick your major without even learning anything about half of the majors in high school. I sure as hell didn't take an architecture or psychology class in high school. They just expect us to know this crap - I didn't even know there were seperate colleges when I came here. Although that's not saying much because I also didn't know how to wash clothes, operate an oven, or change a flat tire - wait I still don't know how to do that one.
New goal: ehhh if I had to do it all over again I would probably go to college but would more than likely major in Architecture, Landscape Architecture or go to Film School (which I still might do anyway) but Management is a decent major - can't complain for now.
5. Get a Job
Wow, how exciting is this... rotting in a cubicle from 9 to 5 every single day for practically the rest of your life until you are old enough to retire which by then you'll be too old to enjoy the money you've made by going out and partying or climbing Mt. Everest or whatever makes you happy. Kind of backwards right - shouldn't we have our free time and happiness when we are young and can enjoy it to the fullest?! Although I for one will not be rotting away in a cubicle or any other lame office job I can assure you that.. now I just gotta figure out how to go about doing that : (.
New goal: Do like Ricky Williams move to an island, live in a tent, and smoke weed while saying I'm searching my soul or something. Well minus the weed part because I'm on this seriously psychotic health kick of late.
6. Get Married
Ah this one is fun also. Not only legally I can not do this but I wouldn't even be doing it til I'm at least 35 or so anyway. Also see number 3 for more. If any of you have taken notes on me I don't like to plan nor do I like to be tied down to anything. I like to live for the moment and who's to say at the time I'm not going to be in the mood to do something or something better comes up which is why marriage does not look so appealing. Also now looking back at number 3 I think I forgot to note that it is a VERY VERY good thing to have people in your life who negate your faults, notice I didn't say accentuate or point them out. For example, I have always had a huge problem with getting motivated or pushing myself to the limits with anything and so it is good to find people who can help to negate that even though I have really only met 1 or 2 who have been successful with that (bear in mind only 1 person has ever 'figured me out' completely so don't feel bad if you haven't yet - there are plenty of others out there with you - maybe you can form a support group or fan club).
New goal: See 3's new goal.
7. Have Kids
Some say this 'want' is engrained in all of us... the need to procreate. Maybe it is but there are some people out there reproducing who really don't need to be. I mean if you know you are an idiot.. wait better stop myself there, because if you are an idiot you probably won't know you are one - either way don't have children if you have any doubts. Will I have kids - yes more than likely and as a matter of fact when the time comes I'll have some surrogate mother applications ready to be passed around and will choose a lucky winner. But yeah kids can be a pain in the ass and thats one thing I don't need within my near future.
New goal: Send Reese Witherspoon a surrogate mother application in a few years.
8. Die
Hey guys, it's gonna happen - the inevitable. Scared yet?
New goal: Reincarnate.

So that about wraps up this novel of a post and also I think I broke my rule about not getting a little personal but oh well rules were made to be broken. Another note I think I fixed it to where anyone can comment so if you disagree with anythin I said and would like to intellectually banter with me or tell me I should be hung and speared with a sharp object then go for it .. ironically I should have used this time to write my resume' and all that good stuff I keep getting yelled at for not doing, damnit where's my motivator when I need em'.