Just straight cruisin

Today a friend was pretty harsh with me. They really offended me, out of the blue, passing judgement on my personality on some things that I really didn't feel they had the right to say. Nor was it the kind of place to do it. All of a sudden they were talking about me and how some things I did showed a lack of character.

My first response to this was to get huffy and silent. I didn't really know how to take it and in my mind I got extremely defensive. The normal slew of thoughts ran through my head- how dare they say something like that, certain tough responses that would prove them wrong, and why do I even care anyway.

But that got me to thinking- there are aspects of my personality and my character that I need to work on. I realize that. I should be a little bit more humble, think about things beforehand a bit more. I started actually thinking about what they said and being thankful for it, like I deserved it.

When I told some other friends about it, they were quick to try and make me feel better. I realized then that I'd gotten quite hung up on this encounter today and that in and of itself makes me feel kind of shitty.

How often do I let the remarks and judgements of other people affect me? And how often do I do things just because I know it will please other people or make them see me a certain way? And how do I want to be seen?

What motivates my behaviour and my actions is something that interests me. I've yet to get a clear definition, but I know that a lot of what i do is because society deems it to be the correct thing to do. Or sometimes I do things because I know it isn't the 'norm' but by doing this I just conform to the 'un-norm'.

Why am I in school? I am going to uni to get a degree that will get me a job, that hopefully I will like, but in the meantime I'm accruing all sorts of debt, trying to figure out how I can afford it and wondering why I should. Will a job I get with a uni degree be so much better than one that I could get without it? I'm not very interested in getting a job so that I can just pay for more things and work to live and a job I hate. I read a note on facebook (ew, facebook) recently that talked about how we rely on cars and how its this endless horrible cycle.

People equate having a car as giving them independence and freedom. However, people usually get tied down to a job that they hate having to pay for this car. They need to go to this job to be able to afford this car, that supposedly gave them freedom. Yet they spend all day just typing away a computer or something really lame, then get into their car to go home and relax. When they leave work, its usually with a sense of relief that they day is over- then you dread coming to work the next day.

Do I want to live for those miniscule hours that I am away from work, always dreading the next day because i have to go to something that I hate? Or live for weeks on end dreaming endlessly of my vacations?
I don't want to live for my vacationtime and dreading the everyday.

I know that this all went nowhere. Oh my head.

But truly- I do know that some things need to change. Within and without- I'm not ready to say fuck school. I love learning. But uni has somehow taken things I'm passionate about and made me hate them.

And I need to work on some things.
Its a work in progress. Constantly and endless. But I like it.