Growing Up

As I prepare my end-of-the year budgeting audit for my parents, I have once again realized that I have spent way more money than I have made and must once again depend on my parents to settle everything. I hate that I cannot be self-sufficient, especially when my parents have already provided unlimited support for me. I used to be such a good kid. I always did what my parents told me to do, frugal, worked hard. I defined the typical Asian boy. Now fast forward even just a few years, on the brinks of growing up, graduating and being on my own, I still have yet to master the small things like how to talk to people, how to manage my finances or study hard on my own, let alone figure out a realistic future for myself. Furthermore, throughout the last two years, I have (mostly) freely skipped out on what my dad refers to as the number one social obligation of an Asian. While this is definitely a story for another time, I think in hindsight, he'd probably be glad, as that obligation comes at great costs, especially with the people I tend to meet it seems. Oh whoops semi-sidetracked.

Ok back to the original post topic. Sometimes it seems like I have spent the last three years regressing. On my own, I formed some pretty bad habits, that I spent much of this year fighting and "reprogramming". But despite these changes, I still find myself falling behind what I use to be and what I wanted myself to become. Perhaps, nothing hits as hard as looking at the college plans I had for myself when I entered freshman year. They were goals that were seemingly simple: run the Boston Marathon, do well in school/get into medical school, be happy and a few others. Through the last year, I knew that I would be sitting here today, not matching all of those goals. At least at that time, I had the delusion/plan to salvage parts of my plan/list of goals for college. Now a year later, I am more keen on the realities of my world and probable future.

This is generally not how you want to end things (research has shown that the emotion attached to the end of an experiences has an overwhelming effect its perception later), but I guess this is what I have. If you say I should look towards the future and a new year, I may never talk to you again. This is not being sad or depressed (clinical term, not to be used lightly), but a reality of what the last three years and a half years have been from an objective standpoint.