There was a point in my life where nothing could make me happy. This was from, say, birth... until I was in High School. Maybe not every single day, or every hour, or every moment in time... but overall, when push came to shove, life sucked.

Now, I can hardly remember.

I tried so hard to be happy. I tried to do everything in my power to become happy. But it felt like every thing I did... nothing mattered. When the results of something I'd spent so long working on would come to nothing... when my attempts to pull myself out of a hole would not come to fruition... that was normal. That was every moment for nearly 20 years of my life, starting from the second I was born.

I'm not like that anymore... not by a long shot. Now I really have trouble being sad (at least constantly, that is). During my High School years, I changed something about myself and I started to get away from all the unhappiness that had followed my existence from day one. I'm really glad to be in this place I am now. I can look back on that point in my life and realize that I was a completely different person back then than I am now.

The reason I ponder this so deeply at this time is because I have this friend. She is unhappy. She has days or hours of being happy, but they don't last. She goes back to being unhappy. She has reasons to be happy, much like I once did, and I realize that this tells me once again that she is like I once was.

I hated that person... that old version of me.

The thing is, I did so many changes to my life, so many things to get myself out of that rut... that I find it difficult now to explain how I did it. I want her to be happy, but I have trouble putting into words what it took for me (which might not even be the same thing), so that I could tell her what she might do.

Realizing I have three female friends (four if I saw Krista more to count her), I might as well clarify that it's not =guyver47, nor is it Cissie... For everyone who knows me (including this nice lady who I am speaking of), you'll know who I'm talking about. I just want her (or you, as I know you read my Journal) to be happy.

An Example: At one point in my life, I wrote a story. It was a classic werewolf story. That means the main character gets messed up by a werewolf, lives, finds that he's begun to kill people, and has the only option left for that kind of character: Accept the life that has been dealt to you, and be destroyed by those who kill your kind... or, not wanting to hurt anyone, kill yourself.

The main character was me. And no matter how much I think venting and having the main character go off and start killing more of the people that I didn't like in real life... because I couldn't bring myself to think like that for real, I just couldn't do it. The story ends just after the character makes it to the seventy-second floor of a building in the nearby city... I think you get what happens...

The character, though ready to jump, could not bring himself to do it. I wrote a page or two with him thinking introspectively about the things that had happened... and the twist ending is that his friend shows up to supposedly talk him down. That's when his friend reveals that he was actually the one killing those people all along, framing me. He ends up shoving me off the roof and I die.

What does it say, I wonder? Well, I would put others before myself, for one. I couldn't end my own life... I refuse to give up... and yet, it also says, that I think that any one person could betray me, even my best friend... now thinking my best friend could kill me... ah... what did that say about me?

What changed? What changed?

I think, as it happened this weekend, that the change perhaps began with ES. What's ES? ES stands for End of School. Back in middle school, I thought to myself: People always talk about going to parties and such, but I never get invited. Wait, do I want to? I don't really want to dance and hang out with those people, you know? So, wait, if I threw a party, what would it be? I guess I would do one about video games...

Ah-Hah! Video Games, of course...

ES: End of School Party, launched 13 years ago this month. If I did my math right, that means it was 1994, and I was 12. I got a bunch of people (friends, but also just people who liked to play video games) and we all ended up at my room at home and we played games all night long. It was fun. It showed me I could have some kind of social outing just for myself and it be good.

The next year, ES2: Night of the 64, we rented out a Japanese N64 and played lots of Mario 64, and a whole lot of Super Bomberman 2. I think we only had my TV... but ES3: 24 Hours of Games, I fixed that. I got 9 people that year, all in my room... about four TV's, lots of systems, games, everyone had a blast. I got the hang of it, and it was much bitchin'.

ES was something I had. It was mine. ES4 was a huge letdown by comparison. I was on so much restrictions I couldn't have but two people over. I realized something that year. I deserved ES. It was mine. I was for everyone to come together and have fun, but I made it. It couldn't be broken... not by parents, nor anyone else. I decided that for ES5, things would be different. If I had too, I would have it at someone else's house... whatever it took to not have to be quite... to not worry about restrictions or anything like that.

It took some time, but there came a year (6, I think) where my mom said she would cover the cost of ES if I could find a Hotel Room or something in which to have my party... I searched around, and I found the Ramada Inn in Clemson. It had the space, the furniture... and we've never had someone complain about the loudness yet (so I assume the rooms are well insulated). It was perfect.

Still is. This year was ES12 (yeah, should be ES13, but no one was around Senior Year for ES6, so it was delayed a whole year). It wasn't the greatest ES ever (that would be ES7: All Time HigH Score), but it was still good. It had a sore spot here and there, but overall, it was good.

I should note, I did this long section about ES for two reasons. One is, to note that this year, ES12, was good... that it was this past weekend, and that I think people enjoyed it very much. The other purpose, of course, was to talk about myself in trying to figure out what it was I changed in my life.

I think I know what I changed... or I can guess. I think what I changed was thinking not just about others, worrying what others would think, trying to please parents, or thinking that I was being given the shaft... but actually doing something about it. That is, perhaps, the hardest thing: Making that realization that you deserve better, and making the effort to create change in your own life.

My friend, well, she hasn't gotten there yet. She keeps making choices out of obligation. She puts off confrontation for those things she should be fighting for. All over, she hasn't yet decided to make her life her own.

There comes a point where you must do two things at once: Decide that if you value other people's advice, to listen to it... and to decide that if there's something you want, to ignore all others and go for that goal. These things are not mutually exclusive. You can do both at the same time, or alternate on them from thing to thing.

...

The truth is, Sarah (yeah, you knew I was talking to you this whole time), you are unhappy not so much because you choose to be... but because you do not choose to not be. Being happy requires a whole lot more effort than being unhappy. Being unhappy is easy. It's too easy. It's so easy, most people who are nigh-permanently depressed don't even realize they are doing it.

Your phone bill? Easy problem. Getting a Mac? Easy problem. Not letting the stress in your personal life get to you? Easy problem. Each one of those problems which is Easy to understand has an equally Easy solution. The phone? Put it off. Getting your Mac? Don't have the money for it right now. Personal life? Believe it will just get better.

The more difficult solutions require more effort: Canceling the phone, paying off the bill, and switching over to Cable (if that's what you've decided)... because the longer you put it off, the higher it goes, the more charges you get... and you don't even have the phone right now, just DSL... and that's almost turned off.

Getting a Mac? Take out a loan. No, really. You get enough pay each month to float the $100 extra to pay on a loan if you wanted a Mac. You think you don't because you don't seem to have your money... but I know how much you make, and so do you... think about it.

Personal life? Make the hard call... the hardest call... Ask yourself if the person your with fills in your blanks. Do they complete you? Does he enjoy all the things you do, or just some of them... if he wants to do something you don't enjoy, can you let him do those things on his own? Can he let you do the same?... Relationships are about compromise... and a compromise is only working when both people are left a little unhappy. Seriously. If one person is way happier about a choice than the other, it's not a compromise...

But, hey, decide if you want to listen to me. Maybe you don't. Maybe you're sick of hearing other people trying to tell you how to run your life. I, myself, had the opposite problem. At one point, I asked a bunch of my friends (this was back when I moved out the first time) what they all thought, because I was unsure. Instead of getting some yes, no, maybe so... I got a whole bunch of "Dude, get the hell out of that house"... so I went with what everyone else was saying, and got out.

I went back one time. It was hell. I knew it was a bad idea, and I regretted it very much... so the advice there is to listen to yourself... Funny thing is, hope can get you. Don't let hope get in the way of your common sense... no matter how hard you hope. If there is no logical reason to get a result you are looking for, then cancel hope out. Hope is awesome, but it can also hurt you. Don't be fooled by it.

Perhaps I've said to much. I want you to hear my words as much as I want everyone reading my Journal to take something from this: Hope for a better tomorrow, but do not depend on it. Realizing that getting happiness does not mean you have to sacrifice anything... but that making things better in your own life, better for you, better for those around you, and then ending up with happiness because of it... can often only happen by putting forth effort. Without effort, your Will is but a leaf in the wind (be that breeze, tornado, or hurricane)... Put forth some effort, and your Will becomes as steel.


See you in the Future,
—The One True Huntermun