Nerdfighters Gazette

I believe there comes a time when all of us suffer the strange realisation that where we are isn’t at all where we want to be. What we are doing isn’t really what we want to be doing. Unfortunately, this happens far too often for many of us. Just look at the average college student. It doesn’t just stop at college though, the average working class citizen will completely change his career several times during his lifetime.

Why is this? I’ve been me for 18 years, shouldn’t I know who I am by now? Is it even a case of ignorance of oneself? Could it be that it’s because we actually mentally and physically change, many times just beyond our vision, into something different and unexpected? A different but recognizably similar you?

I sit here in a classroom pondering, “Does the typical college student choose his major out of his own free will?” Sadly, I was one of the many who did not. While the decision is all mine to make, external factors play far to great a role for me to truly decide and it be from me. My parents pushed me one way, my teachers prodded another. “You want to make good money don’t you?” “Don’t be ridiculous, no one enjoys that.”

It wasn’t until college forced solitude and personal thought on me that I realized how much much of my own personality had been stifled by those around who wanted what was best for me in their minds, unknowingly shoving me out of the way to make those decisions. Months spent in self-thought and reflection can do wonders for the mind. It lets you actually see you. It slowly scrapes away those nagging voices of everyone else. When the only personality left is yours, the only one who’s interests are still heard, albeit nervous and uncertain, the only thing that suddenly matters is what you want.

Mark, where are you going with this? Do you HAVE a point?

Of course I do. Throughout life you have choice. One choice that shapes how you interact with the world and how it in turn reacts with you. Its a deceivingly simple decision:

What opinion matters most, mine or yours?

What makes this so deceiving is the added fight of learning what opinion is yours in the midst of all the chaos.

-Mark Todd

PS:
I am me and you are you
But who are we to say its true