Everything's Gonna Be Alright

Okay so I am going to rant here. I absolutely hate, loath, abhor it when people tell me "everything's gonna be alright" or some equivalent. They all assume that I think it is not, or that I am too stupid to see that Life is what we make of it. I hate being told that over and over again as a method to try and comfort me because it really is just a cop out answer. People are well intended, but they are just trying to let you know that even when bad things happen there is a silver lining. I am sick and tired of all of that horse manure it really is a demotivation not a motivation.

When I was in High School and applying to the US Air Force Academy I heard this all the time to try an calm my nerves. Everyone told me oh don't worry things will work out. I ended up being disqualified from the Academy because my English Teachers evaluation was lost by the Postal Service. By all other accounts I should have gotten in. I have taken this as a sign that I was meant to go to BYU (not there anymore) or that it was because of my health conditions, that it lead me to a love of my life, or that it helped me come to terms with my sexuality.

All of these are possible silver linings, but I am sick and tired of just being left with the silver lining. Sometimes I want the Sun. I want sunshine in my life, not to be grasping at despair and trying to find some tattered meaning. I am sick of being unhappy and only occasionally finding some temporary happiness by drowning myself in a sea of flesh on the dance floor where I am surrounded but alone. Because that happiness is fleeting.

I want some sort of permanent happiness in life. But I also want to do what is right. Can they be the same? or does choosing one make me miserable in this life always reaching for that silver lining while the other makes me feel guilty and pain for the future while I participate in that which will make me temporarily happy?

Is it too much to ask that the reward for doing what is right be happiness? I really hate it when people tell me these words of encouragement, because to me it is just a cruel reminder of the cold reality. That we are all miserable creatures clinging to this rock hurtling thousands of miles per hour around a mass of heat and gravity. And that as we each cling for meaning in our lives, that meaning only leaves us in pain and desperation. So again is it really too much to ask for happiness AND joy?