First!

The emotionally immature person has low levels of self-esteem and self confidence and consequently feels insecure; to counter these feelings of insecurity, they will spend a large proportion of their lives creating situations in which they become the center of attention. It may be that the need for attention is inversely proportional to emotional maturity, therefore anyone indulging in attention seeking behaviors is telling you how emotionally immature they are.

The above idea struck me as I was lying in bed one night last week. I dunno if it's been said before, I just had to put it on paper. Going over the things that have changed for me in the past few years from when I decided to live a better life it just came to me. I had been living a life full of lies. I love myself and I don't really think the only thing that I'm good at is mediocrity. I deserve better opportunities and better relationships with my friends. I deserve better friends. I deserve these things because I don't have to settle and would no longer settle with good enough. All my life I was told to be choosy in my friends and in whose company I keep. Never did I listen to that advice; I always thought it would be better to give everyone an equal chance at being a friend. I have learned through experience that it is not always wise to do so. Sometimes, you have to let people go, keep them at a good distance. You ARE judged by the company you keep and getting ahead in life is not going to happen if you're hanging around bottom feeders. I've noticed this from my experiences after high school and in watching my dad struggle with his life in Florida. His friends needed to check in with judges and parole officers and take weekly drug tests. He filed for bankruptcy protection in the fall of 2010 and has since moved away. He had people crashing on his couch and he used to drive his friends around who had lost their licenses due to drunk driving or something stupid like that. He went through three cars while down there, he struggled to pay his bills and yet he kept helping those around him. He called them friends, but really they were just using him for what he had or what he could do for them. That is not what I call a friendship.

I stopped hanging out with certain groups of people either because of their actions, inaction or apathy towards any sort of change, be it positive or negative. I used to be homeless, living on anyone's couch for as long as they'd have me no matter what went on in the house. I've lived with drug dealers (pot and coke), I've lived with people that didn't feel the need to actively find a job and who were perfectly content accepting money from their parents to pay their rent due to a lack of job. I lived with people who felt they were entitled to things because their parents had it well off and they never had to do any work in their lives. Like two of my last roommates. Their parents worked, they cleaned the house and took care of basically everything for them until they moved out so they were horrible at basic living. They never cleaned, didn't work, sat around and complained all day and felt that others needed to be within earshot of their complaining.

There is a club I belong to, I will not name it. I don't go nearly as often anymore, mostly because I can't stand the people that go there any longer. I mean, there are a handful of people who go there I would still have fun hanging out with and spending time with, but the majority of the people who go there I wouldn't mind never seeing again. I'm not sure if it's a product of getting older, but the more I see them, the more I see the drama they bring with being associated with them.

Since I decided it was a time for a change for me, I have done so much and been pretty much drama free. I got a promotion at work, even though it means almost nothing, save for the fifty cent raise associated with it. I live on my own now, and I'm not going hungry. I may not be able to go out and drink every night I like I could when I lived with six people in a one bedroom house, but I have my privacy, my sanity. I don't have internet currently, but that's only due to me having to get some other things in order, things that matter more, like making sure the utilities are paid up and old debts are paid off. I am also trying to save at lease two hundred bucks a month so I can open a CD or an IRA at the end of the year. It's my goal, to be able to be out on my own and not have to survive paycheck to paycheck, and it's not an easy feat considering how little money I make. Also, I'm looking for a new job while we're on the topic of not making enough money. My other goal is to get either a full time 9-5 kind of job and stay at ABC for part time money. I need some sort of job that has some sort of set schedule, this having to be on call from 9-9 Monday through Saturday is kinda annoying. Also, I'm only making 10.50/hour so it's not really worth it, as I don't get any overtime, the state doesn't really like that. Sad, cause I be willing to work about 50 hours a week if they'd let me. I just want something with a more set schedule, a higher wage, and health benefits. The next time I move, I want to go back to the west end so I would be closer to everything that matters in my new life: work, my new group of friends and the pub. It sounds like I drink a lot, putting the pub in my list of things that matter but it's about the only place I ever go anymore. I met most of my new friends there and they've been quite a positive influence in my life. I want to be able to be seen as doing well for myself, like I see them doing. I want to shine by comparison and if I'm comparing myself to the people in my new group, I need to really step up my game, not at all like being the shining start of the old group. I didn't have to put forth any real effort for me to look like the one success story among the rejects, mostly because I have a job and a car and am not on drugs. Woo, not hard to do there. With the new group, everyone's finished college, some own their own business, some make six figures a year and they're not much older than I am. I have to get back to college, start over at the community college and work my way back to university. I wonder if I end up getting a 4.0 at JSarge if they'd accept me at UofR if I can swing the tuition. It might be easier to do now that I'm on my own and I'm not obligated to put down my parents' incomes on my FAFSA form. There is nothing holding me back now, at least, not anything that is out of my immediate control.

This is the start of another new chapter in my life, and hopefully I will like how it shapes up. I'm quite pleased how the first two years have gone and I'd like to keep on that positive track.