Of small and large

I think I'm afraid. I'm afraid of being passionate. I'm afraid of being passionate because I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of failure and ridicule from, I don't know who. My family. Maybe my friends maybe nobody. Maybe I'm afraid that nobody will scoff at me because that means nobody saw me try. That means that maybe nobody saw me succeed. If you succeed but no one was there to see it, did you really accomplish anything? Is it possible that I'm afraid of success? Or maybe I'm just afraid of change. Success in our society is often measured by how much change took place. Andrew Carnegie, for example would not have nearly the renown he does today if he had gone from rags to a peaceful middle-class home. His passion took him beyond that, in almost every way, good or bad. He gained so much, but he lost a lot too. Passion is what propels us forward, and evokes powerful changes. What humanity often forgets is what falls by the wayside in our powerful pursuits. There comes a point on everybody's life where they have to decide to pursue their biggest dream and fill their life with that, or whether they are going to follow a gentler road, and fill the void of a forgotten dream with the smaller graces of life. Perhaps one path is better than the other; who's to say? Maybe it doesn't really matter. What matters is what each of will choose for ourselves, and when we do, can we ever turn back? Is a discarded dream lost forever to only be taken out of the attic and dusted off every now and then? Or can it age like wine and become riper with aging? Events like passions and dreams are so independent of each other, yet so intertwined. You cannot generalize people's desires, yet as society we always try to. I cannot say much for the dreams and passions of the world. I can barely say anything about my own. I can say this, though. Whether you lead a life of one strong passion or many mild ones, do not let fear govern your choice.

Sarcasm and Silly people

Today I experienced a rather awkward moment. It was one of those iconic moments where you text someone in your contacts, and unbeknownst to you, said person has changed their number, and so you end up having a very ambiguous conversation with someone you don't know, trying to figure out whether you really have the wrong number, or if your REAL friend is just playing a ridiculous joke.
Well, I sent a text message to what I thought was my brother, with just some standard small talk, and I ended up having the following conversation. I've put in my thought process during this conversation in order to clearly make my point. *ahem*

Me: "Stacia Hardy says hi."
Mystery Not-My-Brother Man: "Who is that"

Me: "She was Chamber with you, right?"                    
MNMBM: "? Wrong number?"                                    (Well, I hope not because then that puts me in that stupid situation where I have figure out whether or not this is Drew, and then it's super lame if it is him, and super lame if it isn't. Especially since I've had his number in my phone for the past, well, eternity.)


Me: "Wait. This is Drew, right?"
MNMBM: "Goodbye stalker"                                 (goodbye stalker? ok either my brother inherited my Dad's warped sense of humor and it's only just now manifesting itself after a quarter of a century, or this dude can't give answers that make sense.)

Me: "Arrrgg! What is wrong with my life?"
MNMBM: "?"                                                          (yeah. That's how I feel right now, too. Just like one giant question mark. Help me out here, buddy. Are you my brother or not? Hey! maybe I should write a children's book about that and call it "Are you my brother?" Haha! Oh I crack myself up sometimes.)

Me: "This is my brother, right? Andrew Forbes?"
MNMBM: "Nope"                                                         (....... You couldn't have said that the first time?)

Me: "Well. This is awkward. Sorry about that."
MNMBM: "Is this hannah brown?"                                  (Seriously? Hannah Brown? Have you not been paying attention?)

Me: "Obviously not, since, well, my brother's last name is Forbes. Who is this?"
MNMBM: "No, its your mother, jk lol this is barack obama"      (Ok. A: Just tell me who you are and then we can both move on and sleep in peace. B: jk? lol? Really? Who uses those anymore? C: You honestly couldn't have come up with anyone better than my mom and the president? Sheesh. Some people's kids.)  *At this point I can feel my IQ physically dropping. In an attempt to maintain some sort of intelligence, I resort to sarcasm.*

Me: "Ha. Ha. You are cracking me up right now."
MNMBM: "Bcuz ima BAUSS"                                              (jk and lol were bad enough. bcuz. ima. bauss. I cannot believe this. Why am I even still talking to you?)      *My Braincells are now reaching critically low levels. Some sort of intelligence must be established in this conversation.*

Me: "Who is this really?"
MNMBM: "BARACK OBAMA"                                         ("You wanna stick with that lie or choose a different one" - Mr. Birrell and Ms. Woolsey.)


Me: "Ok. You're not the president. He would actually bother to spell the words 'because', 'I'm a' and 'boss' correctly. Nice try, though. If you're not going to tell me, I'll just go. Bye."  (Fairly rude, yes. I probably shouldn't have, but it had just the right combination of sarcasm and sass. I really couldn't help myself.)  *Brain levels of activity now begin to adjust back to normal.*

All in all, it was definitely one of my more sarcastic moments in life, and definitely not my noblest, but it was just one of those times where you're rolling your eyes and "SERIOUSLY??" is stamped across your brain in giant, bolded, size 294 sans-script font.  Anyway, it was rather satisfying to let my unbridled sarcasm dictate the converstation, but I'll try and reign it in next time. I guess I should go figure out Drew's real number now.