(3:21 GA) Moslem
I remember a distinct memory of when I was at the gym, there was this brown guy that people know, but he's overseas. I was working out with my friend, and the brown guy struck up a conversation with us. He kinda irritated me because he has a bit of an ego, but it's whatever, I've dealt with big egos before. During this conversation, the brown guy looked into my eyes and straight up told me "your eyes look dull." And I looked at him funny, and my friend instantly tried to protect me from his comment. But ever since then, there were days that I pondered whether or not and why he told me that. And he was right, my eyes are dull. They don't have that light, that shimmer that I see in the rest of my friends. Even the brown guy's eyes are jubliant and full of life. Sometimes I look in the mirror, then I look into my eyes, and I remember what he said to me. It's not that deep bro. But really it is. It is something that he saw that I didn't see up until now.
This incident was nearing the end of highschool, and I could tell that I was falling off, at least only my grades were. My work ethic basically vanished due to the amount of extracirriculars I took, and I burnt out way too quickly. Not only that, I was quite well known in my highschool due to a page dedicated to random people in my school. I would never say I was popular, just known. This definitely made my aura high, and also boosted my self-esteem—which I basically never had until now—and unknowingly, my ego. When people looked at me, they saw a hard-working young adult. They didn't know my eyes told a different story than what was shown. I'm sorry for those that I might've burnt and overwhelmed during this burnout, I wish I was stronger for all of y'all. I developed high amounts of FOMO, and began doing everything I wanted. Sacrifices had to be made, and I genuinely did not have a good time. It was fun, but it was rough. I really stopped caring about the things that I once cared for—because I kinda had to—and I had to give mixed signals because I couldn't spend time with the people I truly wanted to spend time with. Of course I didn't have to, but I have limits. At least, now I have limits. I had to learn it the hard way.
In a way, burnout taught me a valuable lesson on valuing things. Everything is noise, and everything gets in the way, and other people don't want what you want. But when you do so much, you don't know what you want, unless you know exactly why you do those things. I actually still don't know what I want, but I want to do. I am what I am, but only because of the circumstances before me.
I think my way of valuing things became so much more radically different from before—or even radically more authentic to me—and I prefer this over the old system. But it's still not the way I quite like it. I prioritize passion in the moment rather than schoolwork, leading to my GPA going under and me retaking classes.
This life is as impermanent as a cherry blossom.