There is always hope. It is just a long climb....

There is always hope. You just have to know where to look..

To be honest with myself, I haven't been too happy lately. The people around me seem fathoms happier than yours truly, and that bothers me. I want to enjoy their happiness, but I want it to be a global thing. I want others to ascend to a level of happiness and include me in on the action too. The world I would think, would be a lot better that way.

 The scene I picked for this post is in the Dark Knight Rises. *Spoilers!*  In the movie, Bane throws him in some dungeon in a remote location. Crippled and spirit destroyed, Bruce Wayne must climb his way out and get back in the fight. The inhabitants there have mentioned many have tried to climb their way out, but only one person has ever done that(it was Bane, obviously!) Being as stubborn and strong willed as Bruce Wayne is, it was never an easy task to do. Bane broke his back and kicked him down there, making him consider a lot of things while he recovered.

Eventually, our battered hero starts to ascend the seemingly bottomless pit and is back on the track for redemption. In my honest opinion, it wasn't how I was expecting nor wanting the Nolan trilogy to cap off, but it was decent enough. The Batman movies(the Nolan Trilogy) can connect to people in such a captivating way to give them hope.

Why did I use this picture as my example for this post? Because the Nolan trilogy is a prime example of what everyone can go through in their lives. Tragedy, heartbreak, depression, ascension, redemption, stability. Though he is a fictional character, seeing him go through his struggles, both internal and external, made this entire film trilogy a timeless classic. Nolan is, hands down, one of the most influential directors of all time to convey a superhero film the way he did.

This post isn't about me being a film critic. It's about me relating this masterful movie trilogy and pointing out the parallels in my life. No, my parents weren't murdered in a dark alley by some thug and caused me to don an alternate ego to avenge them. As I mentioned earlier, he's just getting hit in the face by this thing we all call "life".

How does this relate to me? Right now, I'm what experts would call a "rut" in life. The friends I have around me(most of them) are starting to form into "couple" units, or seem to be more successful in aspects I have failed hard at. Is it jealousy? Yes. To say it isn't would be ignorant and confronting problems I have is better than always having a condescending attitude about things.

The next thing is that gray area with trying to be direct to people, but holding back. As humans, we're all instinctively designed to be flawed. We make mistakes all the time, but the best thing we can do is own up to them. One of the things that makes our lives great is being honest. Sometimes honesty isn't always the best way to handle things, for fear of making things a lot more awkward or potentially losing a best friend.

What do I do then? Do I pen up these feelings and harbor them until things finally hit a climax and create worse things? Or do I be honest about it and risk losing a friendship I've established over the past decade that has been stabilized and strong up to this point? I honestly don't know.

Another thing in this "rut" that conflicts with my happiness is friendship or relationships in general. No, they don't always have to be boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, they can just be professional or acquaintance relationships.

The biggest problem I have with them is it's difficult for me to see why I would want to invest in them.  I have friends here and there, but is it really worth it, when they pick up some significant other and break off ties with you?

On their behalf, not all of my friends are like this. There are those that genuinely care about my well being and want me to be happy and successful. And for that, I am thankful. I'm thankful that God could have us cross paths and take on this rocky road together, instead of going lone wolf again.

But when they do get wrapped up in everything they're doing, they're happier, start a new relationship and things are going so fast that you're left behind, it sucks. It sucks because instead of maintaining a balance between dedicating time to hang out with your boys, you're off with a new girl that you don't even know you want to be serious with. This may seem like a low blow to a particular friend of mine, but it's not. I have had this scenario play out several times and it just gets annoying knowing I can do little to intervene or amend this dilemma for myself and not do it in the name of a selfish act.

I have no control over what happens. Best thing that happens to him/them is they get married, start a family and then say sayanora to being carefree and a bachelor. Worst case scenario is things collapse, they go their separate ways, then back to square one.

Of course, all of that is hypothetical and only God will know what happens to them. Besides the person themselves involved in that scenario.

This is why I'm so cautious with trying to meet new people. Maybe it's why it's tough for me to talk to women too. Every investment I make in connecting with new people is something that is always a gamble for me. This may be viewed in a pessimistic way, but I am starting to understand that my circle of friends is diminishing. There are those that are still there, but they're living their own lives and I should be happy for them, but I'm not. I want that happiness too! I want that acceptance and good feeling they always experience when someone they are with accepts them for who they are and doesn't expect them to absurdly modify what they have fought to mold into to appeal to them.

And that's where my next problem comes in. I would have thought that thus far in my life, I was happy with who I am, where I've come from, and who I'll turn out to be. If that were only the easy part. Now, because all of this stuff is happening, I don't know anymore. I want that happiness other people have found, but it seems to always come so later in life for me.

I want to be able to do the things I love and not be judged for it. I want to also be able to meet others that seem to like the stuff I like doing or at least accepting of it. I guess in life you can't always have your cake and eat it. If I like video games, girls don't like video games and think it's weird. If I dress up too professional or uptight, I give off a bad vibe that I'm too strict about stuff. And it makes me feel uncomfortable. There's no middle ground between being happy who I am and changing to have others accept me so I can branch out more. It's either one or the other. I don't intend on doing the ladder because I dealt with it in high school..

The best thing to do in this situation is to move on with my life. Being trapped in the past doesn't help me move forward, it just holds me back. A good example is this clip from 500 days of Summer, one of my all-time favorite movies ever.



I can't say that I went exactly through what Tom was going through, but I can say it runs parallels to my situation. He puts all his hopes and dreams on the lovely Summer(Zooey) and when things don't work out for him, he slips into a depression that just seems to keep spiraling. The beginning of the clip is him climbing out of that hole and moving on with his life. He doesn't hang onto something that he couldn't make work. He puts all of his feelings and efforts into architecture and it lands him a job, and a date. Not to say that will happen to me if I poured all of my feeling into something I was passionate about something awesome will happen to me, but it's worth a try.

I know I've rambled on enough (because this is the 2nd post for today) because it's obvious when I look at this later, it will be a wall of text that I am unsure whether I want to go read again. I'm just frustrated and need to vent everything out there and this is a prime place to do it. Whether it's feeling insignificant and inferior at work, getting back-seated in established friendships, or trying to move on, I have to fight to make that change. I am the only one that can change that.

And I don't mean to end every post with some incitement, meaningful and inspiring paragraph about how you can turn your life around. I just view it as a personal pat on the back to myself and to others. There is always hope out there. Even when things may suck the hardest and everything seems to go wrong, with no one to turn to (except God), it will always get better. It's something I won't understand now, or 5 years from now when I hopefully have a good career and more things going on for me now, but as of now, it's something I'll have to fight with. I hope that future me will look at this later and say that's where I was at that time. Now I'm different because I chose to make it different and better for myself.

I'll be gone for a month from America, the Beautiful. I'm going to Thailand to visit family again, get away from the struggles of real life, and get to know where my mom and dad grew up. Plus I haven't been there since I was 13! Time sure flies by. Maybe it will be therapeutic for me to do this. I will clear my head with what is going on, take in the beauty that Thailand is and finally lay to rest my father's ashes in the sea.

I just want you to know Dad, that it's been rough not having you around now. Even if it's little things, there is no element from our past that I forget about you. I miss you so much and wish you were still with us. It might be easier for me to get through this phase of my life if I had you to talk with. You went through stuff like this and I sure would recover faster. But you're not here. You're with God and in my dreams. And when I talk to God, I still feel that you never left our family. And that you're watching over us grow and go on with our lives. Thank you for that. Those words can never be said enough to truly say how happy I was to have you raise me to become who I am. You never gave up on me when I was at my worst and always had a smile on your face. I have you to thank for that ability to see the good in others, even when things appear to be hopeless. May you continue to rest in piece with God and I'll talk to you both soon enough.

To all those that read this, thanks a lot. Thanks to the inspiration of danwhoeatscatfood, I will no longer hold back my feelings I've harbored to myself. It's good to get things out there when you feel you have to and no physical person around to talk to. So take care and until next time!