This past week, I had to read a short story called “Just Desserts” for a class. It was about this guy named Sandy who started embezzling millions and millions from the company he was employed at, and didn’t get caught for years.

The story started off describing Sandy as someone who felt invisible at work. He realized that he could start using that to his advantage for the worse by writing out fraudulent checks to himself. My first impression of this guy was that he was feeling unnoticed, disposable, and underappreciated, and was in turn becoming selfish. And it’s no doubt that he isn’t the only person whose felt this way about himself, or his job.

My immediate reaction was money won’t and can’t buy everything, and that karma has its own plans for people like him. I am still somewhat confused as to why my professor wanted us to read and write a reaction to this particular story, but its probably because it forces you to stop and think.

What’s sad to me is that too many people get to this point of self-pity, and self-loathing, because they think they don’t have something that others have. Whether its money or attention, its all subjective to the person. A majority of people who end up in these mindsets look to empty, materialistic incentives. They look for not only wealth, but also acceptance and acknowledgement from the wealthy, or the narrow-minded.

The overall vibe the author gives off is that Sandy had no moral conscience, but just by reading through the story, I knew that deep down, every single one of his sorrows were eating away at him more than anything else. He could’ve stopped after spending the first thousand, or the first million for that matter, but he kept going almost out of spite of his unhappiness.

Shortly after reading this, my mind travelled back to this quote: “You know who’s gonna give you everything? Yourself.” -Diane Von Furstenberg

This cannot be stressed enough. I thought of it because Sandy was clearly in a horrible place mentally, and instead of helping himself, he suppressed his emotions with empty materialism and short-term entertainments. Sandy took for granted what he had in his life. He had a job that provided food on the table. He had a wife. As far as I know, his health was alright. He risked the freedom of his own being to become an ignorant, rich, attention-seeking snob. And that freedom ended up being taken away for good.

So many people look to others, or objects, to make them feel some type of way, when really the only person that we can truly count on in this life is ourselves. We are responsible for loving ourselves, being here for ourselves, providing for ourselves, and chasing after what we want. We are in charge and too many people forget that. They think, I can’t do it, or are told that, and believe it.

At the end of the day, we are all humans equally equipped with our own bodies and minds, and have individual wills to find our purpose. Don’t forget that you are all you will ever have. We all end up leaving this life alone.

We are supposed to go through times of struggle, feeling invisible, confusion, or pain, because it directs us to what is good in this life. And it’s up to us to throw what we want out into the universe, and make sure we do whatever we can to gravitate towards it. We are going to give ourselves everything, through honesty, not deceit.