Get Over Yourself

If ignorance is bliss, this lesson would appear to be a deliberate attempt to deprive me of happiness, the pursuit of which is my inalienable right according to the declaration of independence. I therefore assert my patriotic perogative to not know this material. I'll be out in the playground. -calvin and hobbes

MTV has been my only friend for the past few days on account of being relegated to the couch, and secondly, that it is the only channel in English other than BBC news (by the way about 1000 times better than North American news I might add mostly because it's actual news and not 'let's talk about Britney Spears as our top story again today') But, yes, MTV... in particular Super Sweet 16. Which highlights the great tragedy that is growing up and maturing between 14 and... say 30... it's always been a problem, and Whitman can say it a lot better than I can... "Beginners… How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward, And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase."
Price to be paid? Too often and To most everywhere... Cases in point, pretty much anyone not living in a retirement home... but especially college freshmen... wide-eyed, hopeful, scared, naive, seeking, curious, courageous, arrogant, and humble. The world is their box of chocolates... failing a whole lot more than they're succeeding, hurting themselves and others all the time... and then coming back around and doing it all over again. It's like success is simply that one good decision you made in the succession of 10 really bad decisions. But no worries... nothing all that serious is put on the shoulder's of a beginner... (right Barack?) So you can't screw too much up anyways... “Overnight success usually takes 15 years. Be patient.”
And forget faith and hope for a second. It's arrogance and humility that are the only survival tools you have in this life. How many times could you look back at your life and think that you would never have even tried, let alone succeeded, if you knew how hard something was gonna be. Fortune favors the bold... Favors the arrogant one's that act like they somehow have the secret that no-one else knows and that makes them better than everyone else... You can't tiptoe around in this life not knowing if you have what it takes... cause "Them as asks, shan’t have."
And humility... humility in the exact opposite meaning of arrogance... humility that takes over the second that arrogance fails, only to fade out once arrogance starts back up... humility that for some reason you think you're missing out on some great secret. That you haven't experienced all you need to. That you have to complete some inner checklist of what you think it takes to graduate into an adult. And it's not "smart people learn from other's mistakes..."... it's not even about that anymore... it's experience... it's you make the mistake just so you have it as a story. And thus every time the price gets paid again... And do you come to some new place of knowledge that hasn't been found before? Your arrogance says yes... but I doubt it... as Chesterton wrote: "I am the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before. I worked with elephantine efforts to discover the obvious… I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."

- Edited by Danelle