Prerequisites for Enjoyment

College teaches you a lot of things, going to a really small college in a really crappy town probably teaches you more than the average college does. One thing I've learned in my four years here at Waynesburg University is that enjoyability of life isn't about where you are or where you're going or what you're doing, it's all about the people around you.

People, including myself, complain about the town of Waynesburg a lot. There's very little here. The buildings are ugly, the air is dirty, the townies are disgusting; trust me there's no reason that anybody should ever want to live here. But guess what, none of that stuff should have anything to do with how much Waynesburg students enjoy their time in college. They say college is the four best years of your life, and while I can't vouch for that right now, I can certainly see a scenario where that is true, although I think it's more true for people who never do very well in life, and I don't plan on making that the case for myself. Anyways...

It doesn't matter where you are, if you have good, funny, creative, smart people around you, you're going to enjoy yourself. There are some people that I know that I can literally stand in a lunch line with for 15 minutes and have those 15 minutes be the best 15 minutes of my day, while everyone else around me is upset and moping because they have to wait to get their food. I think the younger generation has lost the ability to genuinely enjoy a conversation. I'm not saying that you have to be talking about anything specific, the conversation can be at a 5th grade intelligence level and it can still be very well worth the time. Just talk to people, make jokes, think about things you don't normally think about. Be different. What excuse do you have for not having fun every day of your life? You don't have one. You don't have to be on vacation to have fun. Right now I'm nearing employment in a field that I've never been all that excited about. I'm doing it because I know I can get a job and I'll get paid well for that job. But I'm not worried about it not being the most exciting work because I know that I can make a good time out of pretty much anything.

I think people would go a lot further in life if they could figure out how to enjoy things that they don't naturally enjoy, and that all starts with their brain. If you're original and smart enough to enjoy life no matter where you're at, you're going to be successful, there's no way around it.

All of this is easier said than done, every day at Waynesburg I walk past dozens of people who really just don't seem to have the mental depth to do any of the things I've just described. I don't know what to tell those people besides like go read a book or watch a PBS documentary, I'm just glad I'm not one of those people.

Anyways, more to come this week on this blog, I hope.

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Think

Have you ever stopped to think about how you think? Because it seems to me that a lot of people don't do much thinking at all. It's becoming common practice for a person to hear something and have it just go in one ear and out the other, without giving its truthfulness or usefulness a second thought. People these days are so incredibly predictable and gullible. I say "these days" like I've been alive for more than a couple decades. How would I now how people used to be? Maybe they've always been like this. I need to talk to more real adults about this kinda stuff.

I just feel like college kids don't even know how to think. They may know how to study hard and get good grades and play sports and drink alcohol, but they don't know how to think. There are so many followers and so few leaders... which really gives a huge advantage to the small number of people who know how to lead people and realize the extreme advantage of knowing such a thing.

Another thing that has always bothered me and has been bothering me recently is how people try to turn their opinions into facts. I'm going to use Nickelback here. 95% of people hate Nickelback, and probably 5% of those people have an actual reason for why they hate Nickelback. Some people feel that their taste in music/literature/sports/etc. is so refined that anyone who disagrees with them is straight up wrong. But what makes those things positive or negative? Your opinion of them does. If there was an underlying good or bad with ART, the bad art wouldn't make enough money to stay as art. See how I used a thought process to sort through that and ultimately prove my point? Weird, right?

If you like something, like it on your own account and don't let that affect the way you view other people, because who knows - you might just end up never getting to know who could be your future wife because she enjoys listening to Nickelback.

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