Despair

It hits you like a Mac Truck. One minute you're sitting there, normal as can be, a perfectly functioning member of society. The next you're overcome by a paralyzing feeling that you can't shake no matter how much positivity your mind can attempt to conjure.

This feeling can be brought on for a number of reasons. The reason never seems explainable to another person yet it's totally understood by you This horrible feeling can be brought on by any number of factors but most likely by something small. Perhaps it's brought on by a quick snippet of a painful memory of the past passing though your mind. Perhaps it's brought on by seeing something you never wanted to see on Twitter/Facebook. Perhaps the source of this sorrow is the realization that someone is better off without you. No matter where this feeling comes from, you can be sure it will be nearly impossible to be rid of.

It's just an incredibly bad feeling. It stops all progress made in your life immeadiately. What you've done before is no longer important. No matter what you've accomplished in your life, you can never become immune to this feeling. It's ever lurking as a dark symbol that we are not safe from our own minds.

In some ways this feeling is like a drug. Your mind is altered while you're inflicted with it and you do things you wouldn't normally do. The government has no policy against it, there are no groups dedicated to make sure kids stay away from it.

The feeling I describe is the feeling of despair. Each person treats it's arrival differently. For example, my worst bouts with it consisted of me laying on the floor in my house. I'd lay down there for hours because it seemed like too much energy to muster to do something else. I'd lay there doing absolutely nothing except for occasionally banging my head against the ground. I'd lay there not texting, not talking, not watching tv, just thinking. When things became too painful to think about, my brain would just stop. I would drift off thinking of nothing, almost as if I was sleeping. Only I was wide awake in some other plane of non-thought. I would suddenly realize that I was concious not knowing how long I had been laying there but more importantly, not caring.

While each person may be inflicted with despair differently, I would wager that each reader knows of what feeling I speak. I urge you to enjoy each free moment you have as much as possible. Because once despair infects you, enjoyment will be a thing of the past.

Heavenly Profile

I found myself on Facebook the other day viewing the profile of a young man I knew. I don't really remember knowing him very well, I may have met him once or twice. Yet it seems as though all of my friends were close friends with him. His Facebook made it appear as though he had friends from everywhere, just so many friends. That young man died the other day.

 He seemed to have lived such an incredible life. The posts of his friends discussed memories of their past experiences and told such incredible stories. He seemed to mean so much to everyone he came into contact with. Even people who barely knew him felt compelled to leave their condolences on his page. Friends posted funny pictures as a reminder of that night and people poured their hearts out about how much they were going to miss him.

As I began to scroll down through his posts I began to feel oddly jealous. My life couldn't possible compare to the excitement through which he seemed to live. I don't have that many friends, I don't mean that much to anyone. I could die and I doubt anyone would notice. It felt like my life was simply a continuous stream of going through the motions. Nothing I did was exciting, none of it would matter to anyone after I was gone. I wished that I could be so much more like the guy whose page I was looking at.

I scrolled back a little further, past all the posts of his friends to see his own posts before he died, what I saw shocked me. Despite all the fun he had, despite all the friends that cared for him; he wasn't happy. His posts expressed his displeasure with life. It was as if he had no idea how important he was to anyone, as if he had no idea what an incredible life he had. His last post shocked me the most, he expressed how unhappy he was with his life, in the last line he indicated that he wanted to leave. How could someone who had so much and meant so much be so down on himself?

At that point I took a look at one of his pictures and realized that he looked a lot like me. What was his name anyway? I scrolled all the way back to the top and was dumbfounded at what I saw....It was my name. I was looking at my own Facebook. It was then I began to wonder where I was. I seemed to be in a barren room in the middle of nowhere. How could this be? I was dead.

Right then I was overcome by happiness. I had never realized how important I was to those around me. It had never dawned on me that I had a lot of friends, a lot of great friends. This experience made me realize how special my life truly was. This experience could only be described as heavenly.