Right now I can tell my mood is down a bit. I don’t know if it is due mostly to the weather outside, or heck maybe even just the rush of emotions I feel after watching Star Wars and becoming enveloped in that world for the first time in years (it feels a bit like going home).
These moods suck, but I find that they are when I am at my most philosophically deep, and when I find answers to many of the most important issues of my life. Right now, a crucial question has occurred to me:
I’m 21 years old, and I have no answer to this question. I can debate politics and religion with the best of them, I am going to a great, well respected school, I have had high test scores, and I have been involved in many causes, but I do not know how to answer this question. The most important question in life.
As Nine Inch Nails (and more famously Johnny Cash) said, “You could have it all. My empire of dirt.“
I normally don’t do resolutions, but this one has come naturally to me. In 2016, I need to learn how to be happy. I need to find out what makes me happy. And I mean in a real way, not just short term. It’s not that I expect to find a way to never be sad, but I mean that I want something I can always rely on. A certain stability. Not to be dictated by day to day events.
I know passion makes me happy. Whether it is my passion for band/music or my passion for Star Wars, but how far can those things take me? And what is really the essence of what makes me happy? Is it just being passionate?
(Inspired by my need to select a class for next semester and realize that I can just pick whichever one I want because I can finish my requirements easily. Then I asked myself “OK, what could I take that would make me happy” and I had no answer.)
