the symbol I most believe in when it comes to life

by Peter Marus

I wanted to take this time to share with something I really believe in, and the symbol it takes.  I always believe that in life you are at some form of a balance.  What I mean is that if you ever feel something good and feel a lot of it, life has a way to do something bad to ring everything back into balance.  The same obviously works the other way as well, where when you are at your lowest, something comes along and bring joy and happiness into your life to balance your life again.  This doesn’t’ happen right away often, but sometimes it takes years to happen.  I believe in all this so much that in high school I had the symbol put on my class ring, and if I were to ever get a tattoo, it would be this symbol (but I can’t get a tattoo ever, would feel guilty since my dad HATED tattoos)

I have been looking back on my life since my father’s passing (which on June 5th is the 6-month anniversary of his passing, so don’t be shocked if I’m a little down, just pass a kind word to your ol’ pal), and I have noticed what I believe in is true and has happened in my life.  Take for example:

-When I had bad eyes, it sucked but I found out that I have a family that is supportive, helpful to almost a fault, and fiercely protective of me, so that helped me be not so sad about my eyes.  

-When they were fixed, and things are going well, I get hit with my ankle problems.  SO for two years I was down because I really couldn’t hang out with friends and really enjoy the high school experience.  But from all that trouble, money came up and that helped me go to college.  

-During college I learned what I needed for the real world, and I really was in a “high” with the accomplishment of graduating from an esteemed school (yeah it was a state school, but check out some of the programs that are world-renound, bitches!!).  After college though, the real world kicked my ass and it led to a deep sadness (maybe depression but I never was checked out for it) with no work and a feeling of failure.  Once again, friends and family did things to really make me feel like a person again and gave me confidence in myself.  

-When my life was starting to look like it’s getting back on track, my father passing brought everything back into check, and eventually back to sadness because he was not around.  What did help me come back into balance is the fact that I now have a job that I don’t mind and that all I learned form him I am putting into practice and are now seeing some improvement in my life.

Even just recently as last weekend, I was at such a high, that something came along and knocked me down and it left me in a funk for a bit.  After some wise words from someone and evaluating that I was not the one at fault, and shouldn’t regret or feel guilty for what happened, I am now back into a balance and starting to feel at peace.

One thing I always liked about the Ying-Yang symbol is that in both sides there is a little of the other.  I always believed that what that meant is that even in all that good, there is a little bad you must accept, and in all that bad, there is good in the form of a lesson one must take from it.  I always took something form my failures and sadness, and those are the most important things to remember in life.  Those lessons you learn from anything negative are the foundation of life, and all the goodness in life are rewards from the lessons learned from the negative.

All I can say is that I am done looking for “happiness”, I’ve been trying to do that in life, and so far it isn’t happening.  What will I look for now?  Nothing really, but I’m going to just live life.  If I do find someone special and she sticks around for a while, cool.  If I’m stuck alone all my life, that’s ok too because I know there is going to be something else in my life that makes everything balanced.  That’s not to say I won’t be doing things that make me happy, but I am don’t’ looking for things in like to make me happy, because in the 27 years I’ve been alive, it’s not there.  I know that this goes against my new whole “thinking positive” attitude, but when I look for something to make me happy, I forget about what I got, and that should always be the first things one should look at, because there’s always something positive there.

I think I’m done rambling on.  Anyway hope you got something out of this.  I don’t know what you were supposed to get out of it, but if you did get something out of it cool.