Personal Writing

Luke Frantz

English 102 041W

Professor Leslie Jewkes

December 10, 2012

Personal Writing Piece

            What have I learned in life? That might sound like a strange question to some but for me, it is the ultimate quest. Life, from my standpoint always seems to travel in circles. I have found myself, time and time again experiencing the same things with different people, often times leaving me dizzy and confused at my personal behavior. “Can I not learn lessons?” or “am I just destined to relive and experience the same things over and over?” Baffled at how confusing things can be I armored myself with wit and set out to discover what on Earth I was supposed to be doing here.

            I have a tendency to leave jobs on the drop of a nickel. Sometimes creating elaborate stories of self-justification. Though the things I often tell myself are not the complete truth, they can, and do, make hard situations more bearable. Yet, why do I, and why have I struggled with finding purpose through day-to-day life? At first, as a younger man I would blame the job. Often times finding exactly what I was looking for, and that being a reason to leave. “Oh, I just can no longer handle my boss! She is over the top and makes me do this and that! It is time I find a different job!” Being outgoing at first glance I have rarely struggled to find work. People seem to respond well to my personality so finding new friends or a new line of work has never posed a challenge. But as inconsistency goes, I began to notice it in more than just my job.

            As it turns out that little glitch in my mental processing begin to appear as the root cause of my problems. My life felt as though anytime I had anything worthwhile in my hands all I could do was sit back and slowly watch it melt through my fingers. “Why is this happening to me again?” was a lamentation I proclaimed on numerous occasions. Failing to realize it was nothing more than a thought. Somewhere along the lines I decided that perfection was what I needed and anytime those needs were not met, I was on the run.

            From relationship to relationship I sat back and watched as friends came and went. Saddened by the passerby nature of people I decided it was time I take a little mental retreat. Thankfully at this point I was in a situation where I could do just that. Living alone was something I had yet to do, but after another fall out with a close friend I decided it was best. Coincidentally the house I was renting just so happened to belong to an older antique dealer who loved to collect books of a spiritual nature. Within the collection I found a barrage of literature on both the nature of reality and ways to further personal spiritual evolution.

            The next few months I did nothing but read. Blasting through book after book I felt more connected to myself than I ever had in the past. Not only was I in awe of the knowledge being presented to me, but also I was also eternally grateful to the forces that guided my life to this point. Everything seemed to coalesce, and I felt perfection in the process of my failures. Every failure, every flawed relationship had led my life to exactly the place it needed to be. I knew there was no turning back, and determined to find solutions I found just that. Teaching me that life is a reflection of what I, as a person, decide it to be. Through trials I learned to control my breathing, and focus on a world outside myself. I learned to love people, and value friendship, and most of all I learned to love who I was as a person.

            As Bill Hicks so poetically states: ”The world is like a ride in an amusement park and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and around and around and it has thrills and chills and it's very brightly colored and it's very loud. And it's fun - for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: is this real? Or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, and they say, "Hey, don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because... this is just a ride."

Works Cited

American: The Bill Hicks Story. Dir. Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas. Perf. Bill Hicks.       2009. DVD.