Pet Peeve 1-"Finding yourself"

The other day I read a very frustrating article about a senior who had fallen on some rough times during her high school career and decided to defer college for a year and go backpacking in Europe in order to "find herself".

That's the most amazingly stupid and annoying bullshit I have ever heard of.

First of all, there's no such thing as finding yourself. That cliche is a complete gimmick made up by Oprah and psychologists in conjunction with travel agencies in order to pump out money from tortured souls who feel they need to tan topless on a beach in Greece to understand the meaning of life. So many people have this fear of losing direction in their lives that they feel the urge to do something out of the ordinary to fulfill themselves. Newsflash: We're all humans, not Moses. Our lives are not about parting the Red Sea and hearing the voice of God. If that happens to occur at some point during your life, whoopee for you, but living your life without such an event is perfectly fine. 

I think as Americans, we don't realize how incredibly lucky we are. We have access to the most amazing life compared to the rest of the world. Since we don't embrace this, we start looking for more, convincing our spoiled-brat-selves that what we have is not enough. I understand that there are some people out there depressed, lonely, and hopeless, but you have not lost yourself. Even if you think that, you are not a poor lost soul for God's sake. You are lucky to be alive and it's selfish to think that you need to go to Tuscany for some soul searching.

My advice for those people packing up for that backpacking trip to Europe? Look in the mirror. If you don't like what you see, take care of a real poor soul. And appreciate life and embrace it fully, because that's what living is all about.