Motivation: n. that which gives purpose and direction to behavior

I wonder if anyone has ever been surprised by me. It is no doubt that I regard myself as one of the most boring people on the planet -- I cannot stand me, so I highly doubt that anyone else could. No one has ever said, "Wow! I didn't know you were awesome at _______!" No one has ever said, "Wow! I didn't know you had really good taste in _______!" No one has ever been surprised by my ability to do anything. I have friends who paint and sing and write and play instruments and photograph and listen to great music and are loved by any animal they meet. I don't think I have anything like that. I am good at school, and "well done, me!", I get lots of academic awards every year. But 1) Why couldn't I keep that up in the only year that counts?, 2) What sort of worthwhile skill is "being good at school"? And 3) It is neither exciting nor surprising. I set myself a precedent, and the only way I could surprise people was by failing the great expectation that they and I had placed upon myself.

I am so tired of living the life of a cliche. I am a cliche of myself. Even if I haven't, I feel like during high school I became a stereotype of myself, hence, to be "M." seemed to hold some mythical sort of meaning. And whether I am the only person that sees that, or feels like that, it doesn't really matter, because this image has influenced my life beyond belief.

It is difficult these days to even know what I want to do, because I cannot tell whether my motive is my own desire, or my desire to destroy this image. Why do I get drunk - because I want to have fun or because people expected better from me? Why do I want to travel next year - because I want to see the world or because people expect that I would go to uni? Why do I want to get a tattoo - because I want to remember something or because it would shock people? I don't even know my own motives anymore, because I am expending so much energy trying to break down something that I created, held onto, and now, desperately want to destroy.

OK.

I have only just come to realise the significance of two letters in the alphabet, which, when put together, side by side, form one of the most commonly used responses in the English language. OK. Although at first I saw this simply as a throw away line when mum would ask how school was or someone was explaining a concept that was not remotely interesting, as I have stopped to think about what it actually means and how many times it has appeared in my thoughts during my deepest and most desperate moments, it would seem that these two letters may have more serious connotations. For what does it mean to be OK? Okay means that we are coping; it means that even if things aren't at their most ideal, we are handling it and accepting it. Okay, to me, suggests a sense of deeper contemplation, and provides a satisfying answer often accompanied by a breath of relief. Okay suggests the worst is over.

For a perfectionist, however, okay is also a fine and delicate point that lies between order and catastrophe. After all, if something is not okay, then that is exactly what it is -- not okay. One cannot escape, one cannot breathe, one cannot be content with the current state of affairs. Hence, the incessant statements that appear in my mind -- I am okay, I am not okay, life is okay, life is not okay, things are okay, things are not okay -- have greater implications than the flippancy in which we use such an adjective would suggest. With this word balanced on such a fine line and being so closely related to one's ability to cope with a given situation, it feels on occasions, that simply being okay is the line that separates life and death. Am I being too dramatic? I have found myself saying lately that, even when bad things happen, all you can really do about it is find it within yourself to "be okay"; to find a way to deal with it. And that is it, because in the end, being "okay" is the only way we will ever get through all this. It is the only way we will stay alive through all this because we have to find a way to convince ourselves that it is all worth it, that we have a reason to keep going and that we can keep going.

For now, all I can do is take each day as it comes. As for today, today I am okay.

Flying.

I always find myself asking the question: Don't you wish the world would just stop? Well travel wil do that to a fair extent, won't it? I won't be on anyone else's terms or preoccupied with any real troubles. It will be an opportunity to enjoy myself, find myself and learn something that no uni degree will teach me. I hope more than anything that I will finally, FINALLY be free.