Happiness in the Millenium..

I keep thinking about my life over the past seven years, and of course, many know it's not of my own choice.

It's interesting to think about what "choice" really means to me, considering the living situation that I was forced through during the past year. It's changed me in a lot of ways, both positive and negative, and I'm not trying to hang onto more baggage than I already have.

Considering, my family and I have really tried to change ourselves... we've all tried to sort through our own individual issues, besides feel like a loving, connected family. Though I doubt any of us really understand how complicated it all becomes. Secondly, living through sorority issues, especially after 9/11, was much more of a dramatic scene than any of us ever realized at the time. And especially for the poli sci majors of 81 and 82. None of us really opened up to one another about how we felt about the overly politicized environment on U of M's campus, and that's really the only major problem of our class. And, lastly, just dealing with all of these changes and comparing my life to others who successfully went through the adaptations and whatever else that one must deal with "crossing over" to the another side of human life.

It's incredibly confusing for me, knowing that many of my peers are simply tired of the "living life to its fullest" mentality that we all pushed ourselves through during the beginning of the millenium. But now that my peers and I have all graduated, some of us going through grad school and finding "focus" rather than the "other side", and some of us just getting comfortable with visualizing a new self, rather than feeling hopeless, helpless, defeated, or completely unmotivated with school and etc - all of which are common mass feelings that teachers witnessed during the midpoint of the millenium.

I am happy to say, that I did witness a lot of smart people talking about that issue, and all the possible causes surrounding such a low point in America's student body mentality. And I'm lucky to say that my goals did remain quite strong, well, I didn't get to medical school, but my guiding prinicples were always there. And I am happy to say that they still are, and that I was able to share them with a lot of important people, in both Korea, Asia and America.

However, does any of it help me to continue on with the life that I must live? We all have to deal with other people who come from different places, different backgrounds, and different educational intentions. And whether or not we always see eye-to-eye is where all of the interesting stories arise.

But what's happened within the last group that I found myself in, is a forced sense of community that didn't seem as natural as the community that I felt when I first joined my first student organization. I wonder, the same motivations and intentions that drive many of the kids from my generation, are they really being understood by the people who are directing us?

Or do we repeatedly have to meet THEIR needs, and their expectations of us? Though they constantly try to 'understand' us, are they just saying hollow words to please us or them? It's something that I tried to accept, but just couldn't by the end of my interned year. I tried to listen, and I tried to patiently understand the different viewpoints of everyone else, in order to just "get along" rather than go against the grain, as I always seem to do, but it just didn't help. Why try to see something that I'm already seeing?

Perhaps it was my fault for not truly enjoying what was being offered to me. Perhaps it was my fault in wanting more out of life, in wanting a better life.

Why don't others want this better life? Did they completely give up? Did they forget what a better life was all about...?

It's obvious to see that kids from my age already know about all of these struggles that divide us. We already know of the life with the jealousies, the life with the mysteries between us, with the life of th unspoken apologies, and thanks yous.. We already feel a lot for our age. Perhaps for us, it's more about feeling for others, in actuality, rather than feeling for ourselves. I'm not sure how or why we grew up that way, but we just did.

It's about time that the people pushing us around, actually saw the connections, within our hearts, that we already formed without them. It's about time that they made those connections, too, and realized how much we emphasized those connections over and above everything else, when everything was said and done. (What else did we have at the end of it all?)

I saddens me that my life has changed so much, and that I have to keep racing in order to find all of those changes. It's hurts that I spent most of my college life trying to prepare for those changes, and yet, I'm left back at the beginning of it all....

I'm so stressed out, I wish I could cry! I wish I could cry over the trauma that I feel, but I can't because I know feeling left out is worse than all of this. So Thanks..