On my own...

Yet again, another fulfilling weekend night. Several friends and I went to the okonomiyaki dojo, a restaurant where you can make okonomiyaki, a dish that consists of flour, eggs, cabbage, and whatever topping you decide to add to it. The cool thing is that you get to cook it yourself on a grill at the table. I ordered pork for my topping and I had a good time cooking and eating it. Plus, we had fried foods on sticks (cheese, garlic, onions, mushrooms) as an appetizer. All of it was tasty. I will definitely have to go back and try the experience again with different toppings. Afterwards, we walked home in the rain and hung out for hours. I ended up staying up talking to someone about learning to be content with yourself. I was very reluctant at first to think that it’s necessary to accept that you have to learn to be completely happy alone, but looking back, he had a point. It is true that if surrounded by friends, you can find people to do things with, but quite often, we get roped into doing things we don’t want to do to remain near those people. Yet when you can learn to be happy alone, it doesn’t matter what everyone else in your life is doing, you will still be happy. Plus, if you are always doing what you want to be doing, you will find yourself surrounded by other people who are interested in doing the same things. It’s inevitable. I have taken great leaps and bounds in the last year to extend my peer group so that I would never be alone, but I was looking at it the wrong way. It’s not about being happy with the people surrounding you so that you’re never alone, it’s about learning to be alone so that you’re always happy. Period. I used to think that was one of the ways that I would quickly deprive myself of friends, but in truth, it’s a way to gain a whole new contentment in life that will show in your interactions with other people. So I guess it’s my goal to become more content alone. It sounds easy enough on paper, I guess, but I know it’s something that I will struggle with. I do tend to get attached very easily to people. I need to try to learn that being happy alone isn’t going to prevent me from being around the people I care about, but instead from being disappointed or frustrated when they aren’t around. So I guess this is a goal worth working towards. I turn twenty tomorrow. I guess I can’t be a kid forever.

Music equivalent of the day: kid playing theme song to Super Mario on his guitar
Food: okonomiyaki
Meditation/ inspiration/ thought of the day: Being alone. And being happy about it.
Priority: Turning 20!