Movie Buff

When can I stop waiting?

When can I look forward to all I am doing, meaning something?

When is the monotony going to end?

When will I get to do what I want to do and stop doing what the world tells me I need to do?

When will I finally meet him?

When will I enjoy my life?

When will I make it?

When will I be happy for more than a mere moment?

When will I no longer be tired?

When will I want to go out and do things again?

When should I stop waiting?

When should I look forward to what I am doing?

When should things be monotonous?

When should I take charge of my life and conquer the world?

When should I forget about ever meeting him?

When should I not enjoy life?

When should I say I’ve made it?

When should I not be happy?

When should I be tired?

When should I just stop?

Life is all about experiences, opportunities taken or lost, choices made or forgotten, the what ifs, the if onlys, the next thing, little tastes of other peoples ordinary. What we may find monotonous someone else at the exact same moment finds unique.

We can never be happy with our own lives, until we can find the unique in the ordinary. The grass is greener on the other side syndrome. Always wanting so much more than what we have, unable to see our opportunities that we can grab. We envy those who have what we think we want, but if we had it nothing would change, because we would still be wanting what we don’t or can’t have.

Take your everyday experience, look deeper, take it apart piece by piece, find the unique, then you will be happy and content with who you are and your life.

If we don’t look close enough, if we don’t pay attention we won’t find or see the unique of the differences. There may be nothing new under the sun, but as each snow flake is different, everyday though filled with the same things is different. New people, old people that we encounter in our journey change. It’s not like all the exact same people are at the grocery store every time we are.

Different people doing different things, but you have to look or you’ll miss it.

Without structure or something constant, we can’t function. For if everything was all together different all the time, to where we never did the same thing twice, that would be ordinary and we would not appreciate the different, for the different then would be doing something again.

Why do we do something again? Why do we ride the same roller coaster twice? It didn’t change any in the last few moments since we last rode it, so why do it again? Because we wish to repeat the experience we had the first time, it thrilled us and we enjoyed it.

That’s another part of life, apart of the cycle. Looking and searching to repeat a feeling from a past experience. But can we ever duplicate it again? And if we can will it be as good as the first time? Again nothing can ever be exactly the same, so the odds of duplicating or replicating it aren’t good and even if we did, it won’t be nearly as good, for a copy is never as good as the original.

This takes us back to the beginning, which life is all about experiences, opportunities and choices. You’re never going to be in the exact same place, experiencing the same things at that very moment again. So enjoy the simple and little pleasures of life as it happens, because it will never happen again.

Until then.

What does it mean when you have a day planner that’s empty?

A day planner, something ment to organize your life.

So does an empty one mean that there is nothing in your life to organize in the first place?

Is your life empty and nothing more than a helpless void?

Why do I feel like I’m doing so much with so little to show for?

When will I be able to get away from this part of my life?

When will I not feel so alone? When will I be content with my life?

I know God is supposed to be the one filling my life and the empty feeling should be gone, but does God ever leave a part of you still wanting for a reason?

I feel lost, I feel hopeless.

And most of all I fear I’m losing my trust that I once had in God.

Am I failing a test? How can I persevere through it?

How did I get here? Why do I feel this way?

It feels like no matter how hard I try or what I do nothing will ever change.

I find I like solitude, but I crave to be surrounded by others.

Instead I stay home and chill with my family.

There were a couple things I wanted to do the last couple of days, but I had no one to go with and wasn’t brave enough to go alone, so I just stayed home and felt odd.

Not sorry for myself, not bad, just…odd.

I feel like the life I want, the person I want to be is just out of reach, barely unobtainable.

I miss my friends, but even if they were here, would I hang with them?

I always feel out of place when I’m with a group of them anyway, like I don’t belong and I’m just in their way. I can’t figure out why they hang out with me, or if they’re just being nice.

I want so much more out of life, than what I can have right now.

Can I ever have it? Or should I just stop dreaming?

Isn’t this supposed to be some of the best days of my life? Shouldn’t I be out having fun every once in a while instead of worrying about everything and doing things I don’t see a point in doing?

Will I ever amount to anything? Will I ever be worth something?

Will the things I’m stuck doing now really pay off later and I’ll be able to say to myself I’m glad I did it, or will I look back and think what a waste of time it was?

I see nothing grand or great in my life right now.

I question my existence.

Why did God save me?

He could have taken me and spared me from what I’m finding to be a drab, lonely, and meaningless life.

I can’t see what I would have missed out on.

Everything that is important to me, that I’ve always wanted, I’m told isn’t all that and isn’t worth it.

They tell me I’m not missing out on much of anything.

I thought I knew at one time what my purpose was.

Now I’m unable to see what purpose I serve or could ever serve.

Don’t worry, I’m not suicidal. I’m not going to kill myself.

I’ll continue on, living a life I don’t understand.

Waiting for something better to come my way, or death to finally find me.

Who knows which will come first.

I don’t really want a reply or an answer to any of this.

I just want to send these questions and thoughts out into the void.

So good night, dear void.

Our Choice

Started: March 13, 2006\Finished: May 15, 2006

         Unhappiness is a mentality, a feeling, an emotion caused by one or more events, situations, memories or experiences. Anything from a cloudy day to the death of a loved one or even something that we can control can send an individual into depression. These are triggers that can affect different people in different ways. One thing that might make me laugh could make someone else cry. It’s different for everyone as to how unhappiness affects people, how it makes them feel and act and how long it lasts. A cure for unhappiness could be as simple as a rainbow or the laugh of a baby. Again it differs for each individual and depends on the depth of the unhappiness. Plus, I believe that in extreme cases of unhappiness or depression, people must be willing to let go of their unhappiness in order for it to dissipate.

         Happiness is also a mentality, a feeling and an emotion, caused also by one or more events, situations, memories or experiences. To achieve happiness is obviously the goal of every member of the human race. Some might argue peace, but even peace involves a contentment which is happiness.

          However, sometimes we can deceive our peers as well as ourselves into believing that we are happy, when the underlying truth is that we are in turmoil, unhappy, worried, concerned, or stressed. We do this because we want to hold onto the idea and the high of being happy, but inevitably we will fall back into some other mentality, feeling or emotion that is always at our core.

         Robert Schenck is an English teacher at the Elkhorn Valley campus of Metro Community College. He grew up in Shenandoah, Iowa, but was born in Red Oak, Iowa five years earlier in 1943. He attended Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, after graduating from high school as an “A” student K-12. Originally his major was engineering, but he changed majors and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English with minors in history and philosophy in 1965. In 1967 Schenck earned a master’s in English at Indiana University. He started his first teaching job at Upper Iowa College in the fall of 1967, and three years later he attended Arizona State University from 1970 – 1972 where he studied literature. He returned back to Upper Iowa College where he taught for another seven years. In 1980 he left Upper Iowa College and started teaching at Metro Community College where he has been ever since. Schenck has had a few poems and essays published in newspapers and literary magazines. He has also written an unpublished novel about “the eternal war.” Schenck has been married twice and has four children. His wife Denise Brady is an artist, photographer, designer, book artist and a publisher. She published a collection of Schenck’s poems called Psychograms in 1988.

         Schenck’s view of unhappiness and happiness is that because everyone wants to be happy, but aren’t, they kill other people to gain happiness. They believe that the cause of, and who they blame for, their unhappiness, is other people and the things that those people have done to affect them. In a short untitled statement on “Killing,” Schenck writes: “Unhappiness assumes many forms – dissatisfaction, annoyance, frustration, fear, anxiety, stress, discontent, depression, despair, desire, envy, resentment, anger, hatred, even boredom and indifference.” Here he states what he believes unhappiness is by associating it with other familiar moods, feelings and emotions. Schenck’s utopian ideal of nonviolence may show what he believes happiness is, though he never clearly defines it. So one must conclude that for him happiness is the opposite of all the things he says unhappiness is.

         According to Schenck, Chogyam Trungpa was a Tibetan lama. His parents relinquished him to the monks who were looking for the next tulku in 1940, a year after he was born. At the monastery he was educated and trained to be a lama. He became, even as a teen, a priest and teacher. Quickly he became the head of a particular order of the monks, gaining respect and admiration. In 1948 the Chinese Communists went into Tibet and subjugated the people, and they destroyed 90% of the monasteries in 1958, executing the monks, priests and lamas, declaring religion illegal. In 1959 Trungpa led hundreds of his students and followers on foot across the Himalayan Mountains into India. From India he went to England, continued his education, and then moved to the United States where he rapidly became famous among those interested in philosophy. When he entered the States, he renounced some of his vows, married and had children.  In the early 1960s Trungpa established Buddhist schools and temples through his organization Shambhala, dedicated to teaching the principles and practices of Buddhism. Trungpa died in 1987. His son Mipham is now the head of Shambhala.

         In his essay “Suffering” from his book The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation, Trungpa explains that there are three categories of pain: all-pervading pain, the pain of alternation and the pain of pain. All-pervading pain is the basic pain of unhappiness, irritation, discontent, anger, and the disconnection of ourselves from others as well as from the world, which leads to loneliness. Overall this pain is general dissatisfaction. The pain of alternation is when we acknowledge we are carrying a burden, and the pain of pain, the toppings on our ice cream sundae of pain and suffering. All-pervading pain is the foundation of pain.

         His central idea is that pain and suffering is the major part of our lives. In fact we can never rid ourselves of it. Forever will it plague us and cling to us like stripes on a Zebra. We cannot help the fact that it is there and we must instead learn to cope with it. He writes: “We cannot pretend that we are all happy and secure. Pain is our constant companion” (12). Trungpa means we cannot ignore the pain which resides in our lives. We should not always put a front up and deny how we really feel. There should be true expression of feelings.

          Trungpa also thinks what we call life is a label to cover up what it really means: human suffering. We just don’t like to think of it that way. We want to continue thinking everything is okay, or it will all work itself out, and time will heal all wounds. We would rather live in a constant state of denial, looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, than face the truth of what’s going on in the world, in our lives and in our hearts. He writes:

Sometimes you begin to feel that the burden has disappeared because you feel free, that you do not have to keep up with yourself anymore. But the sense of alternation between pain and its absence, between sanity and insanity, again and again, is itself painful. Shouldering the burden again is very painful…. Resisting pain only increases its intensity. (11)

         Trungpa means that we fall into a rut, a pattern of how our pain affects us by coming and going. At some point we think, it’s finally gone, it’s over now, but lo and behold, it never left our side. Time after time we do this to ourselves, relieved one moment, lost in the pit of despair the next. This process alone can be more painful than the pain itself. Not only do we have to deal with this pain which refuses to leave us but we also begin to feel the anxiety from the tormenting continuance of this agonizing routine. Then we have to look at our baggage, our burden square in the eye again as it taunts us, until we think it’s gone again while it plays hide-and-seek with our hearts and minds. This leads to a couple of questions for us.

         Can we ever escape the death grip of this suffering? Is this ever going to end? Plus when we try to ignore and resist our unhappiness it worsens instead of retreating. This boils down to the fact that we don’t take time to acknowledge the unhappiness, to work through our pain and understand, perhaps even appreciate, why it is there. Pain tells us we are alive, we can feel and we care about other people, events and other things. If we didn’t feel remorse or pain over these things, then we are all cold-hearted bitches. Sometimes we end up placing our priority and care too much on insignificant things.

          In retrospect happiness and unhappiness are phases of our lives. One moment we experience the euphoria of happiness and just as suddenly we are derailed and targeted by unhappiness.

          According to Schenck, Scott was a student of his in English Composition I at the Elkhorn Valley Campus of MCC during the Fall quarter of 2003. In “All It Takes Is One,” Scott’s first-person narrative essay written for that class, Scott tells the story of how, from junior to senior high and even up to the time he wrote the essay, his usage of one mind-altering substance to another. When he was in eighth grade he started drinking on the weekends. Then in ninth grade he started smoking pot, not only on the weekends, but occasionally during the week, too. In tenth grade he added partying to the mix, drinking up to twenty beers a night on the weekends and smoking pot every day. He tried crystal meth in his junior year, loved it, and started using every weekend. A few months later his meth habit went from just the weekends to everyday, and in his senior year he started dealing crystal meth. When a close call with the cops shocked him enough to quit meth, he replaced it with more alcohol. Even at the time he wrote the essay he still drank beer every day, unable to remember the last time he was sober.

          Scott’s main theme is irresponsibility for his life in general. He allows himself to be susceptible to using substances first out of the ignorance of his youth, then because he believed0020it would help him find the happiness he was looking for and was unable to find in the home. At the same time he didn’t look to solve or face his problems. Instead he tried ways to escape. About his use of alcohol and drugs, he writes: “I was bored and didn’t have anything else to do” (8). Later on he states: “I took that first hit, loving it” (9). Further on he continues: “It seemed to bring out that side of me that I had never brought out before or maybe [I] had just been too lazy to let [it] happen” (10). Scott talks repeatedly about how dependent he was on drugs to live a happy life, or so he thought. He came to believe pieces and functions of him didn’t exist without the assistance of a substance.

          To Scott this was the only way to remove himself from the unhappiness of his current situation, conflicts at home or life in general. Though this often all seems to him fine and dandy, in reality Scott could obviously never truly escape the cold hard facts of his life. Time after time Scott had to take another hit or another drink, because every time the effects wore off and the alternate reality would disappear, truth was there staring him in the face. This is what Trungpa calls the pain of alternation. No matter how hard Scott tried to ignore the pain, forget the suffering, run from the dizzying torment or hope it would all vanish, it clung to him like Velcro. He writes: “But the long nights of staying up, writing, playing guitar, and drawing started to become old, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. It sucked being up three to four days a week and just living my life around a dirty ass drug, but I would keep doing it until I had a good reason to stop.” (12) Scott explains here how he lacked direction in his life. Having forgotten his original reason for doing it, he continued just for the heck of it or “until I had a good reason to stop” (12). Scott found his life cold and lonely, without purpose.

          For Scott the beginning pain or unhappiness which may have driven him to using various substances had been added upon and replaced from time to time until now he could no longer remember why he had started to begin with. Yet, though the original pain may be gone now, he was causing his own unhappiness with his decision to live around a drug. Was Scott ever able to find or attain happiness? No. Though he may have felt through intoxication a lack of unhappiness, he was incapable of attaining that which he sought so hard. Not even peace was granted to Scott, as the distraction he chose turned on him, making everything worse. In the end Scott’s happiness turned out to be an illusion he had fabricated for himself. Unhappiness is always real. But happiness taunts and eludes us, hanging just beyond our grasp, and we believe maybe just being close to it is good enough until we realize we are lying to ourselves.

          According to Schenck, an unnamed author, whom I’ll call Jane Doe, was a student of his in English Composition I at the Elkhorn Valley Campus of MCC during the Fall quarter of 2001. In “Overcoming Alcoholism,” Jane Doe’s first-person narrative essay written for that class, Jane tells the story of how she started drinking, began denying she had a problem, got into trouble due to drinking, realized she has a problem and started to take control of it. At fifteen, Jane and a couple of friends began drinking the alcohol her parents kept in the house. She discovered she liked it, mostly because she wasn’t supposed to, and she liked how it made her feel. Eventually her mom caught them, which stopped Jane from drinking for a while. Then she met and started hanging out with Chris, who drank with her and even got her drunk for a whole week. After a couple different run-ins with the law, all due to Jane and others drinking as well as driving, she broke up with Chris. For a little while she stopped drinking, but she continued to go to parties during her junior year of high school and drink. By her senior year she had to drink every Friday and Saturday night, relying on finding someone older to buy her Jack Daniels and Coke. Then finally one night she received a DUI. The next night she went to a concert with some friends and still decided to drink. After graduation she drank every day, drinking a little bit during the week, but getting trashed on the weekends. She lost her license for thirty days, which hindered her from going to as many parties. During that time she broke up with her boyfriend and got drunk every night for a week, before she realizes that drinking isn’t fixing the problem. After receiving her license and a warning of going to jail the next time she has a drinking offense, she decided to be more careful. She still drinks now, seeing and knowing that she has a problem, but she only tries to cut back on occasion.

          The author, Jane, though generally an introvert, likes the idea of adventure, and the closest thing to adventure or taking risks for her was to disobey someone or something with the chance of getting into trouble. Trying to do something she knew she wasn’t supposed to without getting caught probably felt good, exciting and thrilling. This made her happy. Even though Jane may have been in a state of happiness to begin with, this ensured it. The way she did this was by drinking alcohol underage. She writes: “I didn’t really see what was so great about drinking. I guess I probably liked the fact that I wasn’t supposed to do it. I’ve always liked doing things where there is a chance of getting in trouble, just to see what I can get away with” (1-2). She continues: “After a while I started to see why they [people] liked it so much. It was kind of fun to get drunk, because I didn’t care about anything. I liked how it made me feel because it made me more outgoing” (2). Jane found that distancing herself from all cares and worries through alcohol enabled her to be gregarious. She enjoyed the feeling of being able to let go of being shy and be the outgoing, exciting, friendly person she obviously wanted to be.

          Yet, she began to believe she could be this person she prized to be only when she was drunk. Jane states: “I found out that drinking made me more confident and outgoing…. I have always been a really shy person, and when I was drunk it was like I was a totally different person…. For a long time I thought that was the only way not to be so shy” (5). Poor Jane couldn’t see in herself this vibrant wonderful woman without some assistance from alcohol. She couldn’t obtain the courage to talk to others and be social unless she medicated herself against her fear of rejection. Her medicine was alcohol.

         We have to ask ourselves questions to which we can only speculate about the answers. Was her life at home unhappy? She doesn’t mention anything to confirm or deny it. What was causing her the unhappiness that drove her to solve it with drinking? Perhaps it was wanting acceptance, the inability to be happy with herself unless other people loved her, liked her and accepted her. This helped her start to drink, the pressure to follow the crowd in the accepted behavior. She couldn’t be happy with herself. Jane thought she was boring unless she was drunk. She writes:

I drank to fit in and to try something new…. Alcohol made me outgoing and more comfortable around people I didn’t know. Drinking was kind of like my mask, because I used it to become a different person. I thought people liked me more when I was drunk, when actually it was just because that was the only time I could really talk to people. At first alcohol made me happy and outgoing, but after a while it made me the opposite, depressed and antisocial. (19)

         Now Jane has discovered the error of her ways. She began to rely upon alcohol to make her happy, but when the illusion dissipated and she could see through the fog she found herself right where she started, only now not so sober. Jane says: “Then I realized that drinking wasn’t the answer because that’s what caused the problem in the first place…. All that did was make me forget about it for a while,” (15-16). She adds: “I’ve made it sound like I couldn’t have fun unless I was drinking, and I guess at the time I didn’t think I could,” (18). Even after realizing all of this, it didn’t truly hit home until her boyfriend told her:

“I like you better when you’re not drunk, because then I know the real you and not the drunk you. All you’re doing is fooling yourself by drinking to be a different person, because all it does is make you feel different for a while, but then when you’re not drunk you go back to being yourself. It may seem like it solves problems at the time, but eventually you will have to face them.” (19)

         I do believe at some points Jane was truly happy. She was enjoying her moments of risk and adventure. But along the way she convinced herself this was the only way to be happy, until finally she forgot her original reason for starting to drink, to disassociate herself from who she really was so she could be what she thought everyone else wanted her to be. Her cure became her disease, and she fears the new cure. Can she survive reality without chemically enhancing her perspective? Can she accept herself?

         The fear of rejection and living our life to avoid this is a major contributor to unhappiness. At all lengths we strive to be liked, loved, accepted, just to be happy. We convince ourselves and believe we can’t be happy without this acceptance, we have to sometimes be someone we’re not, just to be happy. But are we really happy then? Or are we just fooling ourselves again?

         According to Schenck, Katie Burnside was a student of his in English Composition I at the Elkhorn Valley Campus of MCC within the last five years. In “Pre-Mortem,” Katie’s first-person narrative essay written for that class, Katie tells the story of how due to depression and losing her virginity when drunk in her junior year of high school, she was prescribed countless types of drugs to try and help her. Then Katie fell in love with Jeff, he made her feel better about herself and so she started cutting back on her appointments with her counselor and shrink. But when she and Jeff started fighting and finally broke up, Katie tried to hide how she felt about it so that she wouldn’t have to go back to therapy. In November, she arrived to an empty house, poured herself a rum and coke, started to cry and decided she wanted to die. Katie found and took a more than half full bottle of aspirin and upon feeling worse continued to search for more drugs to take. She found two hundred Prozac, about the same of Wellbutrin, a bottle of No-doz and Sonata, a sleep aid prescribed to her in the past. After Katie took them and chased it with some more rum, she proceeded to write a letter explaining herself. Remembering that Kaylene was going to call that night, Katie called her first, telling her she was sorry and good-bye. This alarmed Kaylene who left work and called 911. They found Katie and rushed her to the hospital where her stomach was pumped. After she was released from the hospital the next evening, Katie’s parents checked her into Richard Young Hospital. Here Katie made a break through by releasing her thoughts and feelings when talking to Kevin, a counselor sent by her doctor. After a week at Richard Young, Katie was released and has continued to take new medication and regularly visit counselors, psychiatrists and other doctors.

         Katie, just like everyone else in this world, more than anything, just wanted to be loved and accepted for who she was. For someone to tell her and make her feel like there was nothing wrong with her, that she was a wonderful person, she didn’t have to change a thing about herself so she didn’t have to compete with someone else to be loved and accepted. Katie writes: “In my life I have never really been pleased with myself, satisfied” (1). Later on she states: “I wanted to stay home….I loved being alone, being in silence” (2). Here she reveals her home life wasn’t grand, there was a lack of what Katie craved to be given to her in the past, from her parents, at home. So she grew up with a low self esteem, because she felt if no one else could believe in her then there must be something wrong with her so why should she believe in herself? Katie was unhappy, depressed, and miserable. Her family members inflicted most of her unhappiness, so being alone was a sanctuary and a sanctity. No one was there to make her feel bad. Alone with herself she didn’t have to prove anything.  Katie writes: “I fell in love for the first time with a wonderful guy, Jeff, and for once in a long time I felt great about myself. I was so happy and felt like nothing could get in my way” (1). She continues: “I thought everything was going okay, and so did everyone else” (2). Katie confirms here what she wanted, needed, she received and all was right with the world now because of it. Someone made her feel like a person again, she could be okay with who she was because somebody else was.

         Sadly this was short lived for Katie. Katie explains: “We broke up. I was so traumatized, but I tried my best to cover it, to hide it, to conceal it, anything to make other people think that I was okay. And it worked, they all thought I was handling it well” (2). She adds: “I would have done anything to avoid going back to therapy sessions, and I did” (2). Katie reveals here that on top of her inner turmoil, which she hid, she didn’t want anyone to know how she truly felt and what was really going on. Apparently therapy wasn’t helping, in fact it may have been part of the cause. Though in what way exactly can only be speculated. Perhaps her parents forced her to take therapy. So therefore, out of rebellion, she wasn’t a willing participant in the sessions and probably bottled most of her stress and anxiety, creating even more stress because she didn’t want to go there in the first place.

         Now Katie was down in the dumps. She states: “My frame of mind at this time was destroyed…. Before I knew it, the bottle [of pills] was empty. I began to feel even worse, and the idea of dying became more enticing as every minute flew by.... They all went down so smoothly. There was no resistance in my body at this time. Nothing was fighting back” (3). Obviously all she wanted was to make all the pain and suffering stop. Unable to see a way out she took what looked like the only escape, death. Katie continues: “I screamed, ‘God damn it!’…Then I blurted out, ‘It didn’t work’” (7). Later on she states: “I was so disappointed. The only thing going through my mind was that I wished it would have worked, because now everything was going to suck even worse” (11). Poor Katie, having unsuccessfully taken her life she must still trudge through everything she wanted to go away. What caused her to lose hope? Why was her unhappiness so unbearable she couldn’t think to live another day? What drove her to the edge of her emotional sanity? These can be answered by what Katie has to say here: “I saw one of my sisters, Dara, and Kaylene standing together with Dara shaking her head in disapproval at me” (6). She adds: “It made me feel like shit that neither one of my sisters even made an effort to come up to see me” (10). Later on she states: “We talked about my family, how I always felt different than everyone else, so out of place. I always had to measure myself up to my sisters; or else my parents would otherwise” (16). Clearly people and how they make her feel, the way they show her how they feel towards her, mean a lot to Katie. She weighs her self-worth upon what others think of her or how they treat her. By the way her sisters and parents treated her, the “something must be wrong with you and that’s why you act this way so we are going to try and fix you instead of asking you to share your true feelings with us and showing you how much we care about you”, didn’t help. Katie writes: “I felt so much better just knowing that my nurse cared” (10). She states later: “Fay just looked at me and smiled, and that was all I needed” (13). Here we see a positive feeling shown towards Katie who in return feels peace, joy and happiness.

         Katie, at this point, depends upon others to feel happy or unhappy. Only through time and instruction can she pull herself out of this dependency. True how others react and treat us can affect how we feel, but it is still up to us to decide whether to let them have that power and control over us and our emotions.

         After reading and evaluating these accounts what have we gleaned about happiness, unhappiness and their causes? Though everyone reacts to things differently there does seem to be a patter. According to Trungpa, they all started with a form of all-pervading pain until it graduated to being a pain of alternation. Then of course there were pain of pains heaped on top of it which usually caused them all to crumble. However, were does the pain of un-acceptance fall? All-pervading pain is a basic pain of unhappiness, irritation, discontent, anger, and the disconnection of ourselves from others as well as from the world, which leads to loneliness and overall general dissatisfaction. The pain of alternation is when we acknowledge we are carrying a burden, and the pain of pain tops off our pain and suffering.

         I find the pain of un-acceptance should be a type of pain all on its own. How could Trungpa have over looked one of the most bothersome pains of them all? This world is driven by the acceptance factor. Doing things to fit in, to belong. Diluting ourselves and who we are to feel accepted and loved. Instead of being individuals we all strive to be the same and equal. Though some equality is good, to be completely the same and expected to follow this fad and trend is pure insanity. No longer can we be accepted for who we are. Media and pop culture has set the bar to high for that. We are either not smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough, muscular enough, rich enough, fashion trending enough, friendly enough, or the opposite of all these things. Can we never be happy?

         When you talk to people about what they look for in other people, who are they drawn toward, they inform us they are drawn toward the ones confident in themselves. How can we be confident in ourselves if we don’t even know who we really are? And if we don’t know who we are, how can we accept ourselves, so we can be confident in who we are? The problem lies within ourselves. We cannot rely upon others for feeling happy or unhappy. They are just as fickle as we are. To be truly happy is to be happy with oneself. We are not like everyone else, and we shouldn’t try to be. We should rejoice in our differences and discover that if we would just be ourselves, there are others who will like us and treat us justly. No one is perfect, so we must not look for it in others and they must not look for it or expect it of us. Happiness and Unhappiness is a choice. We allow others’ actions determine how we feel, we consent to the rainy day to cloud our internal sunshine. No one can make us feel something we don’t allow them to. True feelings and emotions can not always be controlled, so they can tend to run away with us. But in the end we decide how we want to feel.

Works Cited

Burnside, Katie. “Pre-Mortem.” Unpublished student essay. Omaha: Metropolitan Community College, n.d. Class handout.

Doe, Jane. “Overcoming Alcoholism.” Unpublished student essay. Omaha: Metropolitan Community College, 2001. Class handout.

Schenck, Robert. “Killing….” Class handout. Omaha: Metropolitan Community College, 2004.

Scott. “All It Takes Is One.” Unpublished student essay. Omaha: Metropolitan Community College, 2003. Class handout.

Trungpa, Chogyam. “Suffering.” The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation. Berkeley: Shambhala, 1976. 7-12.

 References

Schenck, Robert. “Academic Discourse.” Class handout. Omaha: Metropolitan Community College, 2005.

Schenck, Robert. “Changing My Mind.” Class handout. Omaha: Metropolitan Community College, 2002.

Schenck, Robert. In lecture and discussion. Omaha: Metropolitan Community College. March – May 2006.

Schenck, Robert. “Peak Experiences.” Class handout. Omaha: Metropolitan Community College, 2006.

Schenck, Robert. “Truth and Understanding.” Class handout. Omaha: Metropolitan Community College, 2004.

U.S. Census Bureau. "World Vital Events." March 8, 2006  http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/pcwe

 Until then.

Unspoken thoughts and feelings tear me up inside

And since they cannot be expressed, I wish they would subside

But what I wish even more is an opportunity to utter

That which society deems inappropriate to mutter

Why must I hide my true feelings and cower in the corner

Disguising my real thoughts as I cry like a mourner

Crying over things which I may never say

Not even to the strangers I meet everyday

I thought we lived in a time when a woman had a voice

But really all we’ve done is given men another choice

To disregard and look down on us for saying what we feel

As the men I am surrounded by choose not to listen or to deal

They pass me by, ignoring me and the thing I want the most

To be welcomed, open armed, given a small chance to boast

That I am a real person, with feelings like the rest

And given the opportunity I’d put them to the test

If they could only see what it is I have to offer

Would they still turn away and never even bother

When I can only judge by what’s happened in the past

These feelings will be murdered no matter how long they may last

So is it fear or society that keeps me from speaking

Of what my heart is so full of, it now has it leaking

The day may come soon when I can no longer contain

These thoughts and feelings that when shushed give me pain

So I beg forgiveness from the world for the feelings by which I am bound

Since the truth I am hiding will inevitably be found

Most likely by the one that has caused all of this

Maybe only then will I truly find bliss