there are some of us who are weighed down with the weight of the world. i remember back a long time ago when i used to fret, lament, and bemoan over every little thing in the world. i used to worry about things that were out of my control. i used to be concerned over details to things that had no relevance to my life…but worse yet, i would obsess over all the potential things that could happen to me.

for a time i lived in a world of fear. fear of what the future may hold, fear of what could happen. i would doubt myself and how i might handle certain situations. most of the time it really amounted to nothing. all of the worrying was for naught. my biggest fears never came up, and the things that i did obsess about weren’t as bad as i had thought that they were once i got through it.

i remember back in high school i had a lot of anxiety about my math notebook. it was completely unorderly, messy, and missing pages. i had a lot of anxiety about it because we had to turn in our notes for a grade. i dreaded the day that i would have to turn it in and see what kind of grade i would get.

sure enough, after i did turn it in, it was left to be graded, i got it back, and got some comments about how to improve it. i didn’t get a good grade either, but after it was all said and done it wasn’t as bad as i had thought. and when i think back to those times i realize that all of that worrying really didn’t help the situation, it just made my quality of life much worse.

there was this other time when i was dating this girl and i would dread having to talk to her. i would avoid her, i would try to make sure to call her at times she’d be unavailable, and i’d pretty much do whatever i could so that we wouldn’t talk. not exactly the shining example of maturity there…but it was inevitable that if we were to talk, we would fight, and i figured that it was better to not talk and not fight than to talk and fight. the biggest problem was that we never were really any good at problem resolution. i didn’t want to deal with the problem to find an agreeable answer and she didn’t want to compromise. in our own ways we were both stubborn and unempathetic to the other.

well, this caused no end of grief for me and i spent my days living in denial, fear, or anger at the situation. the problem was that i just ended up worrying about everything and didn’t move to get any resolution to anything.

some would call this the burden of life. some would argue that life is full of neverending struggle in the pursuit of perfection. i think the way i see things now is that i can choose to be difficult and not try to proactively better my quality of life if i want to. that is a choice. i can choose to live in denial and not accept reality. that is my perogative. but if i make these choices, i cannot blame anyone else but myself.

perfection is a nice ideal. it’s something that many people strive for. these days, i think that i’m rather comfortable with the idea that the world is not perfect. there are injustices out there and it’s a shame, but we can’t cry foul about how messed up things are and just do nothing about it. everyone does have a choice to try and better their own life. it’s just a matter of making the effort to try and improve your life however it is that you can.

i don’t consider the challenges that i have in my life as a burden of life. it’s just life. you roll with the punches, try and make the best of what you’ve got and push through it.

i recently had a conversation with a friend who seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. perhaps part of it is a growing process. perhaps realizing that the way the world works is not perfect is a difficult pill to swallow. i remember the shiny-eyed boy that i was when i started working at my first job, earning a life for myself for the first time. i remember being shocked at how different the real world is compared to that of the school life that i had. i don’t remember the moment when my vision of utopia came crashing down on me and i was left with reality, but i do know that it is how we handle this transition that defines us.

some of us choose to continue live in denial. others of us choose to push through our ideals and do our best. there’s been a lot of talk about how disappointed people are about the results of the election. i’m disappointed too. but that’s life. it isn’t the end of the world. it’s now a question of what do we do from here?