“2 adult tickets, 2 child tickets, and this one is still under 3 years old.”

“But Daddy, I’m already 3 and a half.”

I remember my father briefing me beforehand, telling me not to say anything as he was going to try to get my admission for free. I don’t recall whether my father ended up having to pay for my admission or not, but I do remember him being quite upset that I spoke honestly. For a long time, I remember that I was always very honest with everybody. When checking out at the store, if the cashier typed in the wrong price, I would correct them; if somebody asked me for my age, even though, back then I looked older than I actually was, I would answer truthfully.

However, somewhere while growing up, I started learning how to fib to get the things I wanted. Maybe it was because I wanted to get away with buying a pack of cigarettes or a 6-pack of beer. But somewhere along the lines, the thrills of deceiving to get the things I wanted took over, corrupting the boy that was just a little too honest. I made new friends, I went to big parties; I was living life. I’m not too sure that version of myself stayed around for, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that the people I was hanging out with weren’t true to themselves. At school, they would be a totally different person than the ones attending those parties. An unrecognizable persona which I can only describe to be as stark a difference as Bruce Wayne and Batman. I didn’t want that. I wanted to be myself. From there, the honesty started seep back into me – I wanted to be true, I wanted people to like me for who I was and to get an uncensored version of myself.

It was a few years later, well after high school, but I still remember the day when somebody close to me told me that trust is the foundation for a lasting relationship. It’s what binds friends, families, and lovers together by opening the door to the inner comfort zone that sits in between two people. At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but as time has passed, and as I’ve watched friends and relationships come and go, those words have left a lasting mark within me. Looking back in life, during the times of my party days, I feel that a lot of my friendships were false and built on a fake persona. Unsurprisingly, most of those people are no longer a part of my life.

Good friends stand by to support each other. They listen with open arms when you need somebody to talk to, and willingly share the details of whats bothering them in their personal life when they are in need of a good venting. But this only happens when you build that foundation of trust between one another; built upon girders of honesty, these are the friendships that you’ll look back on and cherish forever. Be truthful, be honest, and life will reward you with something much more meaningful.

We made our ways back to our lockers to grab our bags and our books, making our ways to our first classes of the day. Filing out of the hall, the boy walked behind me continuing his tirade on me. Like cutting the green wire instead of the red, something inside of me snapped.

“That’s it.”

I turned around, wrestled him, pushed him to the ground and lifted my fist. He easily had 40 pounds of weight on me and was at least half a foot taller, yet I was the one that had him pinned to the ground, fist in the air, I let it go in one swift motion making contact with the side of his face. Fueled by adrenaline, the swing of my arm wound up again to make another blow. It wasn’t until my 4th or 5th punch that somebody pulled me away and held me back. The physical spat evolved into a ping pong match of profanities directed at one another, but within seconds, the crowd disapated, leaving no trace of anything out of order in the halls.

Twelve years later, the series of still frames from that day still vividly flip through my mind.

It didn’t take me that long to ask myself, what was the point? So he was being annoying to me, but did that really give me the right to try to kick the shit out of him? Ashamed and embarrassed at myself, that day, I made a vow to myself to never get into a fight again. At the end of the day, maybe I knocked some sense into that pest, but in reality, did I actually solve anything? His personality certainly didn’t change, and he was still recognized as that annoying kid who could ridicule others because he had the frame of a giant.

Did he deserve the harm? Maybe he did. But when there’s other means at obtaining the same goal, why not use those? I could have just talked to him, and I’m sure the result would have been the same. There’s too much pain and suffering that goes through the world today for people to get into fights over such mindless, meaningless matters. Looking at a girlfriend the wrong way, saying something wrong, spilling a drink at a club – the countless reasons and ridiculous rationales that initiate fights these days just don’t quite make sense. The consequences are severe; in some cases, people have become seriously injured to the point that they will have to live the rest of their lives with a worse memory or a constant pain in their spine.

It’s simply not worth it. The chance of getting charged for assault, the possibility of living with the conscious that you injured a life eternally are enough to damage your future forever. Use the gift of gab, talk to the aggressor, explain your side, and almost always, you’ll be able to talk your way of a fight if you just try to sensibly talk to the other person.

Some people may still resort to it, but for me, I’ll never use violence again to solve any of my issues. The power of words not only cause no physical harm, but they also leave a more lasting impression, offering the potential to make a bigger impact on the lives of the world.

I wasn’t always this way. Looking back, I spent the bulk of my time throughout middle school, high school and university not really caring about anything. My grades definitely spoke for my nonchalant outlook on life – and all things considered, I can’t really be upset about the outcome of it all. Although today, deep down, I have this feeling that I could have been more. Maybe it’s a part of growing up. Maybe it’s a part of becoming mature and realizing that life is too short to spend it working at half capacity. But, for me, that light bulb finally shone bright in my head after graduating from university. After a year of literally doing nothing I told myself to stop wasting the gifts I had been lucky enough to be given by lucking out on the gene pool lottery.

All my life, I had been told, you could be more if you put more effort in. Of course, back then, those words were meaningless. I just cared about having fun. If I could go back in time, I would tell my former self, “you know — your parents, your teachers, your peers – they’re all right in telling you that if you were to put an ounce of effort in, you would be able to do whatever you wanted. Maybe you should just stop and listen to them and for once, put some effort in.”

I don’t really regret the course of life that I took; I feel at this point in life, there’s really no point dwelling on the past. But knowing what I know now, all I can do is learn from my past mistakes and put my 110% effort into everything that I do.

And that’s how it’s been for me for the past 4-5 years. I’ve really tried my hardest, gone above and beyond, and I’ve been satisfied with the results. I feel that I can make a difference, that I’m making an impact, and most of all making the most of life. Not always, do I succeed in what I do, but at least I know that I tried my hardest to get there.

Looking back at those nights, it’s pretty surreal that we were able to pull off our underage shenanigans on a weekly basis. Although it was seemingly fun back then, there are some things that burn bright from my memories. Sometimes people outside of the group would come to our parties. Maybe dressed a little differently, maybe had different beliefs or maybe they were just plain old weird. Sometimes there were just people who didn’t fit into the crowd, and when they did come to those parties, whispers upon whispers of “what are they doing here” circulated throughout the rooms.

It made me realize the truth about the society I was immersed in; that in this world, there were people who were ignorant, that disliked you for the way you looked, the way you walked, the way you dressed, or maybe because you had a funny haircut. And sure, everybody is entitled to their own judgments and opinions, but in this time and age, I would have hoped that most people would see past those things. Every individual has a unique personality and a different outlook on life. Maybe if some of those people took the time to see past the intimidating leather jackets and studded belts, they’d realize that underneath was an intellectual being who would actually give you something to talk about rather than the last ten times you got drunk. I know that’s what I did, and I made some of my best friends by approaching and talking to these people.

After a full year of going to these parties, it dawned on me that most of the people who I had first gone to these parties with, didn’t even have any unique personalities anymore. They had tried so hard to be popular that they shed all individuality and did whatever it took, by picking up the lingo of the cachies, copying the mannerisms of the jocks, and dressing like the preppies. They had gone from being someone I liked hanging out with, through these house party factories, and emerged as a cookie cutter Bubba Fett clone, straight from China, manufactured like a Tridel semi-detached in suburbia. Anyone who wasn’t like them were to be excluded, ignored, and ridiculed when they weren’t around.

It never made sense to me. I stopped going to those parties and I just went on with my life, meeting new people that I got along with, that I liked for who they were – whether they were different, dressed differently, spoke weirdly; it was cool by me. I didn’t want to base people for what they looked like. It taught me the lesson that, you’ll find people who will like you for who you are. There’s no need to change yourself to fit in – as long as you stay true to yourself, people will want to get to know you. Even if you’re a complete freak weirdo, there are other complete freak weirdos out there that will be able to relate and will connect to you on so many levels. If people are going to judge you for being you, then ask yourself, is it even worth a friendship? I never thought it was worth it.

And that was the pinnacle start of my life. I told myself, I wanted to live the way I wanted to live, I wanted to be the person I wanted to be, and I wanted others to like me for who I was: me. It’s been over 15 years since those days, and I’ve never looked back to the misguided life of popularity; it’s overrated anyway.

I guess life for me has always been lived how I wanted to live it. Ever since I was in my adolescence, I just made my own moral code of the rules of life I wanted to follow. In some ways, you can think of this like Dexter Morgan’s cardinal rules, except instead of murder and serial killing, it’s for general life guidelines. I guess in some ways, I learned pretty early on in life the person I wanted to be, and ever since then, I’ve stuck to those same set of principles and morals.

Anyhow, this same friend, who when we unite together in the same area forms team obnoxious with me, also told me I should write a book about the way I live, so here it is ~~ maybe not a book, but just things about me, and why I do things the way I do.

With my piggy bank full of tokens, things have finally been falling into the right places lately. Projects wrapping up, a life with less drama, and just personal milestones being met. Maybe somewhere out there, the karma gods have decided to instill a bit of luck for the tail end of the year.

I certainly hope so.

With each step I took, memories took a hold of me, reminding me of certain moments of my past only to reveal a smile on my face and the occasional laugh. Every few minutes, another one conjured up only to result in the same response. Until finally I reached that spot. Across the street stood the plaza reminding me of that one time. Grin on my face, shaking my head, remembering how ridiculous we were that time.

And that’s when I turned around, standing there, staring into the fountain, watching the water flow away. I felt at ease. Watching the running water as if was taking it all away, I finally felt free.

Looking back at my academic tenure, I can honestly say that I was an underachiever. In some ways, life was too easy fo me, I was always able to get by school with doing the minimal amount of work, yet still I did relatively well. I got into a program and university which, at the time, was considered a very competitive program to get into. And even with these successes that I achieved, year after year during high school, my teachers would tell me the same thing. “You know, if you tried, you could do so much better.” My parents often echoed their words, reminding me everyday to study, work hard, and make the most of what I had. But to me, those words were nothing more than pests nagging and gnawing away at me.

In hindsight, I wish I had taken heed of their advice. In some ways, I feel like I should have made more of my potential. And that’s not to say that I don’t regret the fun I had or the experiences I shared with my friends, but since then, I’ve realized that with that extra ounce of effort, I could have achieved more than I did. But in your adolescence, you’re young, naive, stubborn and stupid. You make mistakes, and become jaded by distractions in life and choose your paths based on what you believe in.

As I’ve grown up and as I’ve matured, I realize now that many of those friendships have dissolved and those memories have faded. I look back and wonder where would I be now had I put the extra effort in. Would I be saving the world? Would I be the president? Would I be an astronaut? I’ll never know, but moving forward in life, all I can do now is make the most of what I have now.

In my recent years, I’ve been trying my hardest to put in my fullest effort into the things I do. This is especially true for my job, and the game I’ve been making.  For the past year and a half, I’ve been working late hours night after night, going into work during the weekends, and on rare occassions, too focused to even stop to eat a meal. And at the cusp of its release, I can’t help but feel proud for the effort that I’ve put into it. As the previews of the game slowly trickle in, there have only been positive words to describe our game.

High school and university may be well behind me in the past, but I’ve finally gotten that sense of pride and accomplishment for making the most of my potential and putting in my fullest effort. It’s a great feeling to have, and although I may have missed out on it for the past two decades, I hope to continue getting that feeling in the future years to come.

Standing in the produce section of the store, I was picking out avocados from the neatly stacked pyramids.

“All these avocados are way too ripe. The ones in the organic section are perfect, but they’re a dollar more.”

My roommate, with a face of disgust from my complaining, reached out, and picked up an overripe avocado.

“Come,” she told me.

Avocado in hand, we walked over to the organic section where she reached into the basket of avocados, pulled one out, swapped the two stickers and threw the organic avocado into my basket.

“There, now you have a non overripe avocado for a dollar cheaper.”

The things we did in university to save a dollar.

I beg to differ. If there’s one thing that I wish I could do, it would be to be a part of Google street view. In fact, I think it is my new dream to be immortalized as a part of the internet in Google street view dressed up as Waldo. And if that isn’t possible, I will settle for Carmen Sandiego.