Rafiel

In the spirit of Thanksgiving I will write a second post about my sentiments towards this and the holiday season to come.

Thanksgiving is very intriguing to me. It’s funny how the origins of this holiday have nothing to do with the “traditions” and what not we associate it with today. Anyways, I do think it is incredibly important to reflect on our lives and think about what we’re thankful for. I also like the idea that this time of reflection can transcend all religions, races, and any other categories we create for ourselves. Everyone has things to be thankful for and I think it’s important that we express them at some point.

I am thankful for my father. As I grow older, I can peer into his life and see that he really sacrificed a lot of himself to serve others and take care of his family. In my younger days it was harder for me to appreciate all the things he does because of ignorance and lake of maturity. I still posses both of those things, but I like to think I do in a lesser degree, and I feel like I can appreciate my father more. He is probably one of the hardest working people I have ever met and I almost never hear him complain about it. When I compare the amount of stuff he deals with compared to what I deal with on a regular basis I feel like a little bitch (sorry, I don’t really know how else to express this one). He works about 12 hours a day and comes home only to do more work, and like me, take some complaining from my mother. Despite all this, he is almost always smiling and he continues on without the need of other people’s sympathy. I think back to my days in Townsend and how much everyone complained about how much work we had and how hard certain classes were. If I could go back into time and catch myself complaining I would take a stick and beat myself with it. Even now I’m still learning to work hard and just deal with it. I know I just went on a full rant about how it’s hard to work hard below this, but if you ever see me at a job (that gives me money) you’ll see that I do actually work hard sometimes. It’s just the school stuff that I’m still lazy with. Anyways, in short, I really am thankful for my father who worked so hard to get my family out of the mother land and into America because the opportunities here are much better than they were back home.

I can’t write a whole paragraph about my father and not talk about my mom. So I will write one not because of equality (being as neither of them will ever read this) but that I do have things to be thankful for. I am a bad son. If I have a kid one day and he turned out half as annoying as I am to my parents he’d probably die via slow and painful death. It’s amazing that after all these years of bickering my mother can still find it in her to love me. She is the closest thing I have ever seen to unconditional love, because if there were conditions to her love I would have stopped qualifying years ago. So, thank you mom, for sticking with me and still having love for me even though I’m an annoying brat and deserved to be slapped until I’m in a coma.

Finally I am thankful that Maggie, Winny, and Jason came back to church. I find it amazing when prayers get answered. I wanted so bad for you guys to start coming back to church because it’s really been changing my life now that I’m asking more questions and really trying to understand this “religion” stuff. I wanted to share with you guys but I don’t have the balls (cause it’s a bit weird for me) and our schedules don’t match up at all. It’s been really encouraging to see you guys and I hope you read this because it really means a lot to me (and I know it does to liz too) to see you back in church. We missed you guys and I hope that this time things will be different, and we can grow as a group whose lives radiate with God’s love.

As a disclaimer I already feel as though I’ll end up sounding like a whiney little girl by the end of this but this has been on my mind for a while now and I figure it’s about time to put it into writing.

Success is the most difficult to achieve being born into the middle class. I feel as though from the start a person born to the middle class is doomed for mediocrity. I don’t think I’ll end up homeless on the street or starving to get by, but I do think it takes more effort for me to achieve great success. Now I think it’s obvious that rich people almost always have it easier. Even if they fail at whatever they fancy to do with their lives, they still have financial stability and likely excess finances to cover their asses. On the opposite extreme a poor person his born into almost nothing. He or she is in a situation where everything comes hard and almost no one believes in them. I feel as though for these people they are given a purpose. No matter what they have nothing to lose, and if they try hard, they couldn’t possibly end up worse then where they started. So the poor are able to have a mental state where they can push themselves to excel because their life is already so difficult that something needs to happen to get them out of the situation. In the middle class, all conditions are conducive for complacency. I personally don’t have a lot of things to worry about. There is food the table every night, we make enough to be comfortable and every once in a while I can get something nice. I even have the free time to worry about the life of a fictional inside of a talking box. This however is a trap that’s almost inescapable. I have nothing to escape from, and stability to lose. I could possibly shoot for my dreams, but if I were to fail, then I’ll be forced to lose many of the things that make my life comfortable. On the other hand, I feel as though there’s nothing really to fight for. I can’t will myself to study hard for something I don’t care about with the idea that this will make things better. It’s not as though I’m ignorant to the benefits of having a degree and working hard, but for some reason, when it comes down to it, I can’t get my brain to say, “Yes, push yourself”. I feel as though I’m too comfortable and it’s hard for me to set goals to work towards.

I am terrified of the idea that I won’t be good enough at what I truly love and I’m not excited enough in the things I’m studying to push myself to excel. I feel as though I’m in the same mental state as I was in highschool, with no progression and effort, just barely scraping by with mediocre grades. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming my whole situation on the fact that I’m born in the middle class, I’m sure there are plenty of people who still work hard, I’m just saying all the conditions are right to make me the laziest person on earth. And when it all comes down to it, laziness is the hardest thing to overcome.

Scrambling to get myself together and make an effort towards living my dream. What’s the point in going through life doing things to get by when you know exactly what you want? Current Goal: grow balls and start a fashion empire.