Sitting in an office, listening to someone you don't like tell you something you don't care about so you can go back to a home you don't love and pay more money than you want all in order to get up and do it again tomorrow? Or, if you're a bit younger or in college, sitting in a room of strangers listening to lectures you don't want to hear, about subjects that don't interest you, for hours on end? It can begin to feel a bit unfair.
Don't think of me as a negative nancy, here. Or, I guess, a depressing dave. You see, the truth is that I'm NOT a depressing miser whose sole belief system entails hatred for my current existence...quite the opposite. As I learned in a series of memorable battles (literal and figurative, as I will soon explain,) being happy and feeling awesome is not something that necessarily comes from external forces. Sometimes, the only way to feel great is to stop moping around, and BE the awesome in your own life.
When I get down, I find ways to NOT be down. As Barney Stinson from 'How I Met Your Mother' puts it, "When I get sad I stop being sad, and be awesome instead!"
I believe that's probably where this story begins.
In 2007 and 2008, I was having a rough time. I was sick, a lot. Heck, I'll say it, I was seriously ill for months. I had been dumped by my first adult girlfriend, and my parents and I couldn't talk without someone slamming the phone in order to cut back on the cussing. Usually it was me, because I was angry all the time, and that made whatever OTHER problems I was having much worse. I was hurting for money, and I was lonely, and I felt bad, and generally things weren't going my way.
(Don't worry, the story gets better. I promise!)
This pattern continued for months, and months, and all the way through a full semester and summer, and back into the start of the 2008 school year, when I headed into sophomore year of college. I had just moved due to unfortunate flooding in the original house I'd been staying at. I found out my best friend was now secretly DATING the woman I had fallen for and then been hurt by, and he had been hiding it from me. All of these nasty things fell in my lap, and I was profoundly depressed by them.
I really felt like I was going to be depressed and unhappy for as long as I lived, and in this moment of despair, I stopped being successful in any way: Socially, romantically, academically, and professionally.
LONG STORY SHORT; NOT GOOD TIMES FOR BRIAN AND HIS BEARD.
Then something magical happened. Something truly wonderful, and stupendous. Something unbelievably fun, but equally stupid.
In an older post, I mentioned a good friend who scared me by dressing up as a zombie. He was an awesome friend that I was, at the time, getting to know better. We were buddies, but we still didn't know each other that great yet. However, he was better than me at being happy, so I spent time with him, because he was sort of the fun-times-happiness sort, and I needed that.
Let's refer to him here as Beardo. The same guy, while I was having the 'perfect storm' of shit-storms hit me was trying desperately to keep me upbeat, and like most folks do when depressed, I refused to feel better because wallowing was so much easier. Hell, I imagine I would never have broken out of that wallowing depressing phase if Beardo hadn't decided one night that instead of being sad and mopey, I was now going to be hilarious and stupid. He decided that if he couldn't make me happy by BEING happy, he was going to make my happy by forcing me to either be happy, or be in pain.
He found me downstairs playing video games in the dormitory we'd both moved into, and he told me that something was terribly, terribly wrong. His voice was upbeat...but I didn't notice. he was smiling, but the words 'something wrong' convinced me to believe him, so I slowly picked up my video games and decided to follow.
"Brian, you have to come with me...there's something...something messed up happening upstairs."
"I'm coming. Shut up. God, give me a friggin' second. Stop rushing. It'll still be a problem in 5 minutes, I mean damn."
I was NOT a pleasant person.
I heaved a heavy sigh, and stood up, and begrudgingly dragged my feet up the stairs all the while whining about, "Probably just another piece of crap on the crap-sandwich that is my stupid life" and other similarly worthless and world-hating phrases.
Luckily, Beardo's natural sadness repellant (hint, it's part of his face, and fluffy, and is related to his current appellation) ignored me, and as we got to my room, I found two toy lightsabers sitting on my bed. Two large plastic lightsabers, as well as a giant robe that I kept around for no reason, since it was old, had holes in unfortunate places, and really didn't function as a usable robe anymore. I stared blankly.It took me a moment to understand what was happening. "What...the fuck....what the hell...what? What's wrong?" My eloquent query finished, Beardo decided it was time to let me in on his plan.
He slunk over to the bed, and pulled the long green saber out of its collapsible sheath, and held it up. He pointed at me with his free hand, and said, "Well, you're being boring and sad, so I thought..." and then he slashed at me with the plastic lightsaber, slamming it against my face, and quickly dashing from the room cackling maniacally.
As a mature adult, I was convinced I could ignore his stupid prank, and was ready to close my bedroom door when another friend, let's call him Monkey, emphasis on the Monk, ran past my door with another plastic saber and slashed at my chest. I reflexively jumped back, and for some reason still unknown to me, picked up the remaining lightsaber...it was red. Monkey yelled, "Take that, Sith Scum!" He turned tailed and fled the way Beardo had just run.
Without warning, I was the Sith.
Throwing the old robe over my shoulders, and pulling my red lightsaber to full length, I chased Monkey down the hall. Beardo, at the end of the hallway, was sitting crouched rather Jedi-like now wearing his a thick jacket. Monkey disappeared into another dorm-room and came out wearing his own robe. Beardo tossed me a SECOND red lightsaber, one yelled, "Sith! Come at me!" and we took off.
I spent the next 2 hours, as the leaves dropped off of fall trees in beautiful autumnal night air, chasing my two friends around a college campus with plastic lightsabers, through busily working study-groups, in and out of buildings such as the library and music building, and across the whole of campus until we reached the gym. Beardo and Monkey went upstairs to the sparring room for martial arts and we had a duel. I, as the sith, was given my two twin red sabers, and they as the Jedi fought me off until we were all sufficiently battered with plastic-lightsaber marks and we heard the public safety officers looking for 'Idiots making a fuss', when we decided now was a good time to walk home. We were doing something childish, and stupid, and wildly inappropriate for young adults, and it was awesome. Really and truly awesome.
 |
| An unrelated occurrence when Beardo attacked me with lightsabers. Because these things actually happen to me....often. (Thanks for the picture, Megan!) |
Every time I get down, I remember that night. Over the next semester, my GPA rose from a 2.8 to a 3.5, I picked up more fraternity responsibilities, re-joined a choir after spending the previous semester refusing to do anything outside of the minimal course load I'd taken, and built lifelong friendships with Beardo and Monkey. It was, without a doubt, one of the best periods of my life, and it was in no way any different in circumstance than my life had been before, where I was depressed, unhappy, and perhaps at the worst moment I can remember in my life.
Whenever I've felt crappy, I try to go back to what I was taught in college (though, not the lessons taught BY the college, since those aren't actually always as important): Happiness is an attitude, not just an emotion. Whenever shit hits the fan, and you feel miserable, as happens from time to time even in the luckiest of lives, you have to make a choice.
Will you wallow, alone, and play video games? Will you sit in your room and mutter at the television about how stupid people are? Will you separate yourself from others and choose depression as an active choice, or will you choose to say "Fuck it all" and move on to something awesome, if stupid, instead?
There is no cure for misfortune, but there is a treatment for its secondary symptomatic depression. You must choose, actively, to do something profoundly stupid and fun. You get up, and take action, and improve your situation. If all goes well, you'll come back with a broken lightsaber, a plethora of bruises, VERY confused study-groups in the library and a good story. If you're lucky, you may also gain a better attitude.
In my experience, there's nothing that stops a lightsaber. Even a terrible mood.
I love your comments and feedback, and look forward to hearing what you guys think, or if you have any OTHER great tales and similar stories! Leave me a comment below, or check out my other posts about college experiences and amusing life lessons, such as How a Kitten Stole my Manhood, or Choir Boy to Mountain Man.
Thanks a ton,
Brian
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