Everyone has wants. Things they want, people they want, things they want to do, places they want to go, the list goes on and is limited and created, really, by everyone's own mind. As we get older the things that we want in life get bigger and more expensive even though our wallets or skills may not be able to match them, that's a fact of life that we have to come to terms with in our own ways and that can be vastly different for each person.
For me lately the problem I've found is that I want to do something but I lack, usually, the money to do it but also the time or availability to do it and I feel that this is having some consequences that I had never forseen or expected.
The entire subject of 'wants' revolves around a few things in my life at the moment and one of the particularly worrying things is friends. There are things that my friends want to do as a group that include me that I want to do for many reasons (I haven't seen them in a while, the things they want to do are fun, my friends are fun to be around, I've not been doing much lately etc.) but as much as I want to do them there's one hindering factor to it all: I can't afford it. Well I can afford to do one of the things they want to do, so I am exaggerating slightly, but on the whole I just can't afford to do everything they want to do.
'Get over it' is what one person might say, 'Borrow money from someone' is what another may say. To both of these people I would say 'No'. I refuse to 'get over it' because these people are my friends, they matter and so I shouldn't just brush the problem aside. I refuse to 'Borrow money from someone' because I won't be able to pay it back for a while, it's not fair on who I'm borrowing from and some people may not even be able to lend me money. The fact that I can't do everything I want with my friends is disappointing, that's true, but it's just something that I'll have to deal with because I can't change it. I'm not always going to have the money I want to do the things I want...but that doesn't mean that things will be like that all the time, sometimes I may have more money than I want and be able to do everything I want, it's just unfortunate that this time I don't have the money I want.
Money's a huge factor in things as much as I wish it wasn't...but that's not the worrying thing about this scenario. What's worrying is that as a result of me not being able to go I fear that some friends will think I'm avoiding them or have no interest in them when that could be farther from the truth even though it may not seem like it. The friends I have are amazing and some have been with me for 5 years, it wouldn't make sense to avoid them so of course I'm not doing that. As much as I want to do things with them things just aren't right for me right now and they've been difficult in the holidays otherwise I would've tried to do more.
It's the biggest hope of mine right now that things change once the college term starts because not only will I be out more but I'll have a bus pass again, so travelling around will be a cost I don't have to worry about or compensate for. Unfortunately that's still a very long week away.
If I had to apply anything I've learnt from this scenario to life then I'd probably have to say this:
What you want isn't always in your practical reach...but don't let that get you down because things won't always be that way, just be realistic, know your limits and hope that any people it affects will understand your situation.
Given the number of birthdays and the holiday season coming up in the next few months (Christmas may only be in December but you just know they'll have snowmen out at Halloween) I may not have a lot of money coming my way...but I hope that I still have my friends and I hope that's not a hope that I'm keeping in vain.
-Aiden
