I have hit a wall. I have hit a wall so hard and I cannot be inauthentic anymore. The start of my 21st year has opened my eyes to more than I would have cared for, yet somehow exactly what I need to see. "Twenty-fun" is a very nice way to put the start of an age where too many nights are spent looking for connection in a tequila shot, self worth at the barrel of a beer bottle, and fulfillment at the kiss of a Jack and Coke. I step onto the bar scene and into a fog of loneliness. The nights get blurrier and more hazy as they go on and nothing seems to change. You see, the vast majority of people this age drinking, and doing so heavily, are not doing it because it brings them happiness. There is something missing and people are searching for it where it cannot be found.

I have always been a very observant and intuitive person, very aware of others and constantly vibe-ing off of people in my environment. When I began going to our college town's local bars this past spring following my coming of legal age, it occurred to me after a short time that I had no idea why I was going. Brief nights with friends spent drinking more than authentic me would ever care to do, led to much longer nights, followed by days and weeks of feeling unhappy. I began asking a lot of questions, trying to further understand this urge to keep going back to the bars and keep drinking with the people I was with and keep doing this thing that just did not feel right to me. Was I looking for something? What did I hope to gain? What was my purpose? I try to live my life with purpose and drive, and when something feels empty, it eats away at me until I truly acknowledge it. So here I am at this wall of fog, of misunderstanding, of disjointedness, witnessing everyone from close friends to acquaintances to complete strangers unconsciously echo the words of Sia's "Chandelier."

"I'm gonna swing from chandelier, I'm gonna live like tomorrow doesn't exist. But I'm holding on for dear life, won't look down won't open my eyes. Keep my glass full until morning light, 'cause I'm just holding on for tonight."

The problem with this is that tomorrow does exist, and if you run from your present you push your most longed for tomorrow further and further from reach. You can swing all you like from the chandelier but there will be a time when you have to come down.

I get it. This time is an unbelievably transitional stage and you are trying to figure out everything from who you are, to what you are doing with your life, to how the hell you are going to get that documentary edited and the 15 page paper on Haitian political instability due tomorrow. There is so much happening all at once and it feels impossible to even fathom taking it all in. Sometimes it feels like you are flying and drowning at the same time. When so much is happening that you do not understand and even more that you do not want to deal with hits you, the easiest course of action is to not deal with it at all, push it away, numb yourself. It has been a long, stressful week (month? semester?) and the simplest thing to do seems to be to drink it away. Why not, everyone else is doing it? The more you drink, the further you get from this reality, and the higher you swing from the chandelier. Not only is it drinking, but heavy drinking, and a lot of it. Why is that? The party culture of today breeds it.

It feels virtually impossible to have genuine fun in a bar where you cannot engage in conversations with other people or even hear yourself think due to the blaring expletives and derogatory music. This unfortunately leaves everything to be based on physicality alone. It is next to impossible to create deep relationships with people through physicality alone.

I am not referring to other countries where heavy drinking may be a significant part of their culture. I do not mean to say that going out for drinks is no fun or that it's wrong, nor am I saying that if you drink a lot you are a bad person or have a list of unresolved issues. I also do not lack realization that everyone goes through different types of phases at different points in their lives, most of which are not permanent (I know I have). None of that is what I am trying to convey. What I am talking about is our demographic's culture, right now. A culture which drowns out authentic connection in exchange for alcoholism, one night stands and flickering cell phones screens, leaving us somehow wondering why we can feel so alone as human beings, despite our constant "connections" through ten different social medias. I am talking about the cheapening of the immensely rich lives we are so fortunate to have and the avoidance of self-awareness. The numbing of feelings as opposed to pushing through them. I am referring to the people that go out to bars because they feel lonely and look for connection. The people that drink heavily as a method of escapism, that party to find security. There are more out there than we would like to admit. The issues will not go away, they are still there in the morning, and often times, bring with them new ones from the night before.

There are no external solutions for internal conflicts. You can search the world over but you will never find fulfillment at the bottom of that whiskey bottle or in the superficiality of a bar scene. Save yourself a lot of wasted youth and invest your time elsewhere. Grab your best friends and road trip the country. Close your tab and open it to adventure. Invest in yourself, in enriching experience, not in a numbing agent. Be present to the world in front of you and do not numb yourself to it.

Invest in that which returns the favor. The only relationship of this earth that you are guaranteed to have until the day you leave it is the one you have with yourself. You owe it to yourself to invest in your happiness and fulfillment and figure out what it really looks like for you. We each are unique and special in our own regard, and each of us has an individual set of that which brings us joy. Maybe it is surfing off the Australian coastline or maybe it is baking and being the resident Betty Crocker for your friend group or maybe it is helping solve the hunger crisis in a third world country. No one can discover what fulfillment looks like for you besides yourself. However, I can promise you this: you are not going to find it at 2 a.m. with a vodka cranberry in hand.