A man is whatever he wants to be. After his obligatory childhood, he is free to become whatever he wants. This could be the worst thing ever invented by God. The freedom to choose how to live your life. No one is ready for this; not if they truly know how important this decision is. Through years of observation and study, I have seen many people choose many choices. One of my dearest friends choose to be a drug user, and thus chose to spend time in jail. Another of my friends has chosen to be a successful college student. He is involved in many clubs and always volunteers for events that are beneficial to others. For myself, I like to think that I have not made a decision yet. My life is still a blank canvas, still awaiting fresh paint.

Since childhood's end, I have waited. I have waited for something to help me make a decision on what direction I should take my life. It is only now, after roughly three years, that I realize there will be no sign. There will be no mystical revelation, telling me what I was meant for. I am left with the awful truth that I, myself, have to make a decision based on nothing but personal wishes and demands. This is where it gets tricky.

We all must figure out what we want for ourselves. No one else can make this decision for us. How I wish to the heavens that this were not so. Sure, others might have a say and help with direction, but at the end of the end, it is your own decision, and only your own. This leaves us to figure what we want our life to accomplish. Most people do not stop and think about this nearly enough. They just follow a path set out for them, not questioning the reasoning behind it. I am guilty of this very deed. I was given the advice to become an engineer and attend Purdue University, a fine engineering school. Without any hesitation, or deliberate reasoning, I signed on the line and accepted this as my fate.

This was the beginning of my failure as a human being. I did not stop to think, even for a moment, about what I truly wanted to accomplish with my life. I blindly followed the path set before me, never considering another option. Only after I had already followed the road too far did i realize what I wanted to do. But, sadly, it is too late. I am forced to stay the course, and plow through my misery and angst. At least for the present time. I do have hope, however, that once graduated with my degree in civil engineering, I can make amends for my previous grievences and start anew.

My former theory of my life still being a blank canvas is obviously faulty. There are clearly lines drawn, and colors roughed in. This is only a minor concern. I believe I can easily erase these errant marks, and put down fresh ones in their place. These new marks will be more to my liking, and prove more useful in drawing my picture of life.

As I have stated above, we all must figure out what we want for ourselves. The obvious answer to the question of "what do I want?" is happiness. You cannot go wrong with that answer. Above all, human-beings strive to be happy. But happiness is not something that can be reached externally. It is an internal function, and does not require anything but the right state of mind. So then the quest of humanity becomes reaching the right state of mind in order to achieve happiness. And how does one reach the right state of mind? A good question indeed. From what my study of humans has gathered, the right state of mind can only be reached by those who want to reach it. A person must first want to be happy in order to achieve happiness. This is, of course, a trivial point. All human beings want to be happy. It is an inherent desire. Second, a person must allow themselves to be happy. This, at first, also seems trivial. Who would not allow themselves to be happy? The answer is "a lot of people." There are many who dwell on this earth who do not allow themselves to be happy, me being one of them. A certain character flaw or mind warp has clouded their thinking, making them conclude that happiness is not attainable. At least not for themselves. Looking at the situation logically, it doesn't make much sense. If, in order to be happy, you must allow yourself to be happy, and everyone wants to be happy, then why doesn't everyone allow themselves to be happy? It just doesn't make sense.

In my case, I believe it to be a problem with fear. The fear of failing to be happy. If I want and allow myself to be happy, yet am still unhappy, what then? Of course this doensn't make any sense, because we concluded earlier that you just have to allow yourself to be happy in order to achieve happiness. So let me rephrase my concern. I am afraid that I will fail in what I want to achieve in this life, and thus will not allow myself to be happy until I achieve what I am afraid to even attempt. And I am afraid to even attempt what I want to achieve because the fear of failure is too great to chance even more misery and sadness than the misery and sadness I already feel because of not attempting. What those words try to mean is that, right now, I am comfortable with the level of sadness I am at. Trying to become happy comes with the risk of being even sadder if I fail. I do not want to take that risk.

Knowing I do not want to take that risk, I promptly decided on another life goal that would make me happy. I logically told myself, that since I wasn't willing to risk in that area, I would choose another where I would risk. And risk I did. I threw myself whole-hearted-ly into trying to achieve this life goal, which i believed would lead to happiness. Every waking moment, and even in slumber, I planned and schemed to be successful. I spent enormous amounts of time and money in this endeavor, only to fail. Looking back on the goal, it is clear it couldn't work. Happiness is an internal function. I was trying to use an outside source to run an internal function.

So this puts me in my present state. Alone and unhappy. An optimist would look at this and say it is the perfect occasion to become happy. There are no outside distractions to place false hope on. All I have to do is reach the right state of mind.