Serious entry deux!

On May 27th 2006 I walked across a stage at the Sioux Falls arena and received a leather wallet to the sound of applause. I did it. I completed my education. I had only then realized that the wallets did not contain our diplomas and we had to walk around into a back room to pick up them up if we got one. Did I get one? I speed walked to the table where they lay. There it was, in a nice manila envelope, waiting, congratulating me. I went home to cake without a thought in my head other than “I did it.” Little did I know the elation was long over.
A month later my girlfriend broke up with me and my dad was hounding me to get a job. I was living in my parent’s basement sleeping sixteen hours a day, never lifting a finger to help around the house and with no future in sight. What was wrong with me? All my friends had plans for college and were talking about all the money they had saved up to use on great TVs they were going to put in their dorms. Why hadn’t I put more effort into getting into college? Why didn’t I put any effort into getting into college? Was I under some foolish delusion that they would take me anyhow?
My father told me about an opening in another division of the company he works for; he thought it would be a wonderful way to catapult me to a better job. I said sure and went to the interview. I had dressed up and prepared for something similar to the Spanish Inquisition. The interview lasted less than three minutes. He asked me if I was going to school any time soon. I lied…. “Yes I will be attending Southeast Tech in a couple months time.” He was apparently desperate for a warm body because he had said “Look, I’ll make it easy on you. If you want it you’ve got the job.” So as I watched the training videos I thought about the fact that I was now a janitor. I felt horrible, I felt pathetic, and I felt like a failure.
About two months later I felt wonderful. I had a job, I had a place to live, and I wasn’t robbing banks, what more could I ask for? The job was clean, the people were kind, and it paid fairly well. The only issue that I had at the time was how incredibly tedious the work was. I think the only thing that kept me from thinking about how menial my work was was my iPod. As long as I had music I was safe. The existential quandary of loathing and self doubt that I had fallen into was appeased by the ten minute guitar solos of Frank Zappa. Three months after this “momentary” elation I forgot to charge my iPod and the depression returned.
I blamed God for all this. How could he have done this to me? I only now look back and realize how foolish I was to blame it on anyone but myself. I wondered if I was being punished for something. Never coming to grips with the fact that I had brought this all on myself. A couple days later a friend of mine took me for a ride and I complained about my job. He asked me if I hated it so much why didn’t I just find another job. I couldn’t answer him. I had settled. I hated where I was… but I was comfortable with it. It was a lovely routine and we’re creatures of habits. He told me that if I actually cared to change it I would. I told him I couldn’t do anything about it. I was stuck where I was because that’s where God had thrown me.
He told me that I was the ruler of my own destiny and if I tried hard enough I could make it out of the hole I had dug. He told me to go to my former high school and get information on taking the ACT so I could go to college. I was pretty blown away it was a lot to swallow. It all sounded very wonderful but how realistic was this goal?
Some how I managed to scrape a 26 on the ACT and was shortly thereafter accepted into DSU. It was like a dream come true. I figured that God had finally decided to stop punishing me. I was still adamant on believing that this was all God’s doing and had nothing to do with my own decisions. I got a good chunk of change from filling out my FAFSA and then my parents were turned down for the PLUS loan so I automatically got 4000 dollars. I thought everything was going my way after that. Then I applied for an alternative loan. I was denied because of my lack of credit. I thought it was just the bank and not a universal thing so I applied for more loans, eight of them, all were denied. I began blaming God again.
So I moved into the dorms and still didn’t have the money to pay for school. I got a deferral as fast as I could in hopes of stalling until I could figure something out. Why was this so hard? I was always told getting the money for school is the easiest part. I was in a brand new world with new people, and new experiences. I was attending classes and becoming attached to teachers while keeping the thought in my mind that they were going to kick me out.
Why was he doing this to me? I wasn’t a horrible person. I had my faults of course but for the most part I was a decent person. I had come so far: from taking out trash to planning for classes in less than a four month difference. Why was I falling so fast? It obviously wasn’t my fault. Or maybe it was I started thinking. Maybe I should take responsibility for my own actions. God probably was angry with me but not for being a bad person but using him as a tool. Blaming him for everything that goes wrong in my life and rarely thanking him when something went right. It could all be coincidence but it was barely a couple days later when I was alerted that there was a payment plan, which would be exactly what I needed since my nonexistent credit destroyed my chances of getting a loan.
All this has brought me to question why we, or at least I, seem to be bent on believing the very first thing we think of. Why was I so fixed on blaming a “perfect” entity? It seems especially strange that I came to this decision considering how I always blame myself for everything. My rage was so immovable. I was blinded by my hatred for my situation. I think this habit is why people can rarely be civil when speaking about religion or politics. We are so set on the fact that we’re right when the very person that we’re reasoning with, whether ourselves or another, are just as convinced that they’re right.
All this also makes me want to ask is the Blanket of Destiny the product of one creator, of a master and an apprentice, or two working side by side to make something beautiful? Do I have full control? Does someone else have control? Are they there to patch it up when I make a mistake, is there someone else ripping the holes? Or am I responsible for the end result.
I suppose the only realistic answer to this question is unfortunately whatever I feel comfortable with at the time. The answer I want is that there is someone there to pick me up when I’m down and that the end product be a beautiful creation. More often than not though the answer I succumb to is whatever I feel like at the time. “Of course there’s a God, and he’s destroying everything I worked to make.” “Of course there’s a God, I wouldn’t have been able to get a 26 without him.” Or the everlasting “It’s all my fault”.
I guess I’m just looking for concrete answers in a world of Jell-O. I suppose the root of the creator question and the question of why we immediately assume we’re right is laziness. For the creator question I generally go with the answer that’s easiest at the time. And as for why people generally assume that they are infallible is because of convenience. It’s convenient to always be right. You look much more intelligent that way.