[WayToTwilight]

I don't believe you are on a low level for your age. There really isn't a 'right' level for you at any given time... just as long as you recognize you want to develop yourself, grow, and raise your awareness.

I currently consider myself spending most time wavering between Fear and Grief with inklings in desire, anger and courage.

This is a long story, hopefully it will fit. I will also reduce the font size. It has some mature elements in it, most people have probably faced these kinds of things, but I though I'd put this disclaimer here anyway.

I believe that for most of my life I had been stuck in fear and grief. I had a really low self-esteem in high school and drowned my sorrows in video games, which I think is probably just as bad as drowning your sorrows in drugs... except drugs physically harm your body so that's still probably worse. I didn't actually really drown my sorrows... more like I used video games as a way of keeping me distracted from my real problems. Eventually I got into this habit of only having happiness whenever I was playing games or watching anime, which I also really liked at the time. But whenever I finished a game or anime series, I felt apathetic and just overall lethargic. Occassionally feelings of anxiety and depression would hit me, it would be really painful because I would be reminded of things I didn't want to face. Also all the friends I made during high school were gamers, they weren't the kinds of people that were very social and all they did was play games as well. This continued to feed into video game lifestyle.

Then came my first year in college. I was still in my high school mode, still very fearful but also so excited at having a college internet connection so I could download movies, anime, and pirated video games... as well as play games on an excellent connection. For my first two quarters there I played and played until my head split open. I was happy that way... or at least it was an artificial happiness. Then third quarter came and something happened. Now I hope no one gets offended by this, this is a bit more of a mature subject.

Still here? Well in high school I never did anything. I stayed home all day playing games, never went out, never drank, never did drugs, never you name it. I would stay home or study. In my spring quarter I tried weed. Now I don't want to claim my awakening to weed. Rather during that quarter I started to have some courage to take risks, which led to trying weed...

During the summer I worked at my mom's company where I met some really cool people. They were all really young and into drinking and stuff like that. On my last night working there, one of my co-workers, brought me into San Francisco and into a strip club. Well the point of that wasn't to just show me naked ladies, but my co-worker later explained she just wanted me to expose myself to more things, and take risks. In fact I was very averse to going into the strip club, hope no ladies get too offended by this, but I enjoyed it, I'm not gonna lie. But at that point I started to get a bit of courage.

But I would also like to say, it was during my awakening time, about the time I started getting courage to take risks was when I found Steve's site. It was amazing because the moment I read his articles, everything made sense to me. All his advice just clicked. I attribute a lot of my growth to finding this website. I found this website because I started blogging on my Xanga. My friend posted on his Xanga, Steve's article on Being an Early Riser and I've been hooked ever since

My next year, sophomore year, I started drinking. I started getting into this mentality that if I drank, did drugs and stuff like that I would start to get to know more people and be more social because I thought "Oh that's what everyone's doing." At this time I stopped playing games and watching anime. I just wanted to go out and do stuff for once in my life. Unfortunately, after going through a quarter of alcohol and marijuana I realized this wasn't right, because all the druggy friends I made were just that... druggy friends... they didn't do much, all they did was party and/or sit around while high. I realized after a quarter this wasn't right, I wanted to go out and DO THINGS not just sit there and plug my body with chemicals until I reached an induced state of [artificial] happiness.

The next quarter rolled around and I started to finally think about what I wanted to do in life which was also for me, synonymous with my major. I eventually decided what I was going to do, I'll save that story for later if anyone ever wants to hear, because it is rather long. This story is long enough. Fast forward to now, and I've met a friend who really supports me. He listens to my goals and philosophical talks about purpose in life, spirituality and what not. He himself is a very goal oriented, business type but he's also very spiritual. He asked me if I'd like to join a club with him, the Undergraduate Investment Society. He asked me to run for an officer position with him. I said yes, even though I wasn't that interested in learning about investments. Instead I said yes because I wanted to expose myself to new people, new ideas and hopefully forcing myself to be social in a better setting than the ones I used to put myself in. And that's where I am right now. I feel though I still reside in fear and depression because I still am very fearful about making decisions. I desire some things but fear some sort of consequence. I get doubtful about my choices and become depressed whenever I see people who are both very successful in both academics and extra curricular activities. However I am so glad that I have reached this point because it has been a tremendous change in my mental thinking. I always think of growing, even if I falter sometimes sinking into depression. Growing is immensely important to me and I’m just really happy to have a found such a great community.