First of all, my oh my has it been a long time since I’ve written anything in my own free time. A whole lifetime seems to have gone by, and I feel as if I’ve already become an entirely different person and lived the life of a stranger until now. Senior year has a weird way of forcing us into hurrying into adulthood and change. As it has been so long since I’ve written down some of my thoughts, it seems sensible to write about change, as that’s been the prominent theme of my life these past couple of months, and I would say was the theme of 2014 for me. Oh, happy New Year by the way!
Anyways, along with that, I’ve been mulling over this concept known as change for a while. Change is hard to define. For how do you define change without using the word change? The process of things being different? Close enough, apparently the literal definition would be, “the act or instance of making or becoming different.” An interesting notion for sure, one we’re all well acquainted with. However, we all treat change a little bit differently. Some fear change, others embrace it. Few might chase it, while still others run from it. People abhor it, people love and desire it. There are even those who appear to be indifferent towards it. By no means am I able to link the cause for such reactions to anything in particular, I’m no genius. However, it seems logical to assume that the basis for these reactions lies within a person’s temperament and personality, which is also effected by the environment in numerous ways. (Yeah. I took Psychology the beginning of this school year. Hence the simple psychological analysis.) Someone who’s incredibly stubborn is naturally going to hate change, as it is in stubbornness’ definition to be persistent in their position. Meanwhile, someone who is spontaneous seeks out change intensely, even to the point where it can become obsessive. I make this point to emphasize that there are tons and tons of different personalities and people that react to change differently, but usually not in those extremes.
In my case, I’m one who loves change, but I don’t necessarily go and seek it out. If I find a steady pattern or uniform in my day that is satisfactory, I’m more than likely to keep it that way until I’m required to change it. Though, when I am required to change a consistency of mine, I do so with open arms, often times because I realize that I needed the change. As I’ve said before in Supplemental Mentality, I can go a bit crazy if I don’t have some sort of spontaneous event occurring every now and again in my life. I’m exceedingly poor at making plans, and just as bad at sticking with plans I’ve made. So naturally, my life is full of spontaneous change at a moments notice. In a way, I see that life is simply full of change, and it’s unavoidable. Things simply happen, and often times when they do, there’s nothing you can do about it. Plans won’t always work out perfectly. That’s simply a part of life. It’s those larger aspects of our lives that we cling to for stability and comfort. We seek our friends to maintain their consistency and some might not seek out new friends, or seek to increase their relations with their friends, since that would mean a change, either for better or for worse. Others on the other hand, constantly seek new friends, and wish to improve and be closer to the friends they currently have. They’re willing to have change in their life in that aspect of it. I feel as though there are so many different categories of change in our lives, though I suppose they fall into two different main categories. Exterior change, and interior change.
Exterior change is some of those aspects I just described, plans being ruined, sudden events, and fluctuations in relations with people. I feel as though I could go on, but I’ve talked plenty about such matters.
Interior change however, is often a result of the exterior changes in life. For example, in drastic circumstances, someone’s mother gets in a car crash and is fatally wounded. Several days later she dies while this person watches her in the hospital. It’s only natural for this to change the person. Something so sudden and intense is bound to change the attitude, thoughts, and outlook on life of such an individual. A sort of bitterness grows, for the world, for God, for people, anything that can be blamed for such an unfortunate event. If that individual doesn’t let go of that bitterness, it will eat away at their heart and develop such a pessimistic view on life and others that might never have even been remotely there before. Again, such a circumstance isn’t guaranteed to change people for the worse. Humanity is strangely unpredictable.
Though I’ve not had any experience at all like that example, I’m currently in the second semester of my senior year of high school. I became a legal adult last semester, and am finding myself filling my schedule to the absolute maximum, even more so than usual. (I’ve also talked about this before, I’m weird.) For one of the first times in my life, I don’t want things to change. I find myself wishing that I could have another year in high school. Wishing that I could go back and stay a kid forever. If only I could stop aging from now on. As I get closer to graduation, I become more and more reluctant to get that diploma and gown. It means I’m going to have to accept responsibility for everything I do. Things will no longer be easy. My life is going to change more than it ever has before after that moment. For myself, I find it especially frightening, considering I might be the first in my family to actually leave the house for college. I have a chance of going to a University outside of my city, like I’ve always wanted. But all of a sudden, I’m not sure it’s what I want. I can only guess as to whether I’m truly ready for that change.
Anyone familiar with me knows that I’m extremely into music of all kinds, and listen to it continually. As I was contemplating this idea of graduation and life, I decided to listen to some music I used to listen to quite often. One of these artists was John Mayer, who I haven’t listened to in quite a while. As I played through his Continuum album, I came across Stop This Train. I can’t even begin to describe how perfectly this sums up my feelings about senior year. I encourage you to go listen to it, it’s a fantastic song. To give you an idea of the theme of the song, here’s a snippet from it.
“Don’t know how else to say it
I don’t want to see my parents go
One generation’s length away
From fighting life out on my ownStop this train
I want to get off
And go home again
I can’t take the speed it’s moving in
I know I can’t
But honestly, won’t someone stop this train?So scared of getting older
I’m only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun”
Life is moving so quickly. I feel as though I might be overcome by it at any moment. I often have a strange sense of being simply overwhelmed by the changes that have occurred in my life, changes I can’t even begin to count. The experiences I’ve had these past years have been plentiful and my life has abounded with adventure.
As I think about all this, it lifts my spirits to think of the many, many adventures left in my life to be had. As they say, one may grow old, but that doesn’t mean one has to grow up. I’ll definitely continue to make the most of every second of my life, even if it looks completely different later in my life than it does now. As long as I continue to seek making a difference in people’s lives, I know I’ll find a way to make life long and full of, well, life.
P.S. OH. Also. I got a haircut as a symbol of the changes that have occurred in my life. Here’s a picture of it! In case you were strangely curious. It’s especially important to me considering I’ve had the same style of hair my whole life until now. Might have also dyed it slightly red, but I don’t really have a good picture of that. Anywho.
Man. My face is a strange one.
Growing older,
Josiah Serravalle.
Supplemental Mentality | 