"My house is not a home" -Drake

  Although I was born in Idar-Oberstein Germany I grew up in Columbia SC on a little street called Hazelwood Road.  I lived on 1832 Hazelwood Road from the age of 3 till 15 and no matter what this will always be the address I think about when I talk of home. It was a very old house built in the early 1960s with outdated everything.Our windows were so old we couldn't open them up and our roof should have been replaced 10 years before I was even born.  It was a simple 3 bedroom 2 bath house that oftentimes felt cramped for my family of 5.  However, around the age of 10 we hired a construction company to turn the garage into a 4th bedroom so that my sister and I would no longer have to share a room.  My description of my childhood home probably doesn't sound all that great but all know is that I loved that house and would give the world to return to it.  When I think of this simple brick house I am filled with fond memories of running around in the sprinklers during the summer and in the fall making my dad mad when we jumped in piles of his freshly raked leaves.Because our house was on a corner lot we had a HUGE background and though I played in it ever day I still feel there are parts of it I left unexplored.

     I didn't just love my house I also loved my neighborhood.  Beside us lived a man whose house was barely visible due to the fact that he left old cars sitting on his lawn and never seemed to cut the grass. My sister and I  would often slyly shovel our dog's poop into his yard and to our amazement he never seemed to notice.  Mrs. Caughman, an old lady and friend of the family lived across the street and form time to time she'd invite us over from time to time for, as cliche as it might sound, milk and cookies. For about 3 years a woman named Michele Davis lived in our neighborhood, she became a close friend of the family and would let us cut through her yard to get to school.

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     My sister, brother and I would ride our bikes so fast down a huge hill in our neighborhood that we would almost always crash and burn.  On the weekends we'd play on the playground at our elementary school and take pleasure in being able to be far more reckless on the equipment than we could under teacher supervision.

     I got so caught up in my neighborhood I almost forgot to mention my room in my childhood home.  Once I got my own room I turned it into my own little slice of heaven.I decorated it with all the things I loved, at the time mainly Pirates of the Caribbean and Orlando Bloom.

    

     Since 15 we've moved countless times but never once did any of these houses fill like home.  I'd always compare them them to my house on Hazelwood Road and be upset when I noticed differences. Its ironic because out of everywhere I lived this house was to the ugliest and oldest but still my favorite.  This is a case in point example that money cannot buy happiness.I'd have to assume that since his fame Drake had bought several homes but probably not feel like home to him like the house he grew up in in Toronto.

A balancing act

   

  The word balancing got me thinking.  People always say that things are best in moderation, meaning we must learn to balance things within our lives. Then I also remembered that my astrological sign as well as Drake's happens to be Libra. The sign of the Libra is coincidentally illustrated through the use of the scale.

I find it funny that Libras are described as having a secret desire to live an easy uncomplicated life because for me nothing could be more true.  I always say I am a person who strives to make everything in life convenient. I work tirelessly to balance things in my life so that everything runs as close to perfect as possible.  For example recently I spent hours upon hours on my schedule for the spring semester so that my classes would all be in same general vicinity and back to back, I wanted my semester to be easy and uncomplicated.  Many call me lazy but I like to look at it like this: why exhaust more effort than need be?

I'm not one to follow my zodiac sign but I did find it eerie that my horoscope for today was dead on. People always say that horoscopes are written in such a manner that no matter what any sign could fit any person's life at any given time. The assumption is that they say general and ubiquitous things like; today you will encounter a problem....hahahaha  However I read the horoscopes for the other 11 signs and none of them came close to fitting me as perfectly as my own sign did. The Libra's horoscope for today reads:

"Even if you don’t have secrets, when you keep your thoughts to yourself it can seem like you are hiding something. Further discussions about your future are due to take place. Tighten the purse strings, it’s time to consolidate. "

Just today my family not so jokingly accused me of having a secret life  because I don't talk to them as much as I used to. I guess in the future I do need to "consolidate" with my family more.

      The two things I must balance on a daily basis are school and my own happiness while Drake must balance fame and normalcy. "Fame is like a drug I've taken too much of" -Drake

And just like real drugs it is so easy to get hooked on an impossible to quit, which is why Drake fears fame so much. Its a recurring theme/fear in his songs is that he will get caught up in the superficial life and lose sight of humble roots. He fears mostly that he will never find a mate that will love him for who he is rather than just Drake, the record breaking rapper, we hear blasting on the radio.

"Bein part of this life I feel like I'm bound to end up with somebody that's been with everybody" -Drake

"I fall in love with girls caught up in superficial glamour" -Drake

When I say I must balance school and being happy I basically mean that school for the most part is the sole source of any unhappiness.  I want to do well and  get good grades but at the same time I still want to have a social life and not spend eternity studying and writing papers.

"I just wanna be successful" - Drake and Trey Songz

Drake wanted to be a hip hop star and in his song Successful he defines success as having cars, clothes, money and hoes.  I too aspire to be successful except I define success as simply attaining happiness.  Happiness and success are inextricably linked and it is impossible to talk about one without mentioning the other.  In today’s society everyone wants a good job that will allow them to live in a nice house and drive a nice car. Why? Because for most people it is these material possessions that they believe will make them happy.  To an extent I’m also part of this materialistic society, however I do recognize the fact that money alone cannot buy happiness. Though it can’t buy happiness it DEFINITELY helps.  Think about it: are homeless people or families on welfare ever depicted as being especially happy? The answer is obviously no.  The source of their unhappiness probably stems from their inability to live comfortably.  However it is important to note that the standards involved in living comfortably have significantly changed over the years.  Once upon a time a person was thought to be living comfortably if he or she just had their basic needs met.  But then as time progressed there become new tools to separate the haves from the have nots.  Advertisers began to make it their mission to make you believe you needed a certain something in order to feel happy and fulfilled.  In turn those who couldn’t afford the newest ipod or flat screen TV then felt as if something was missing from their lives.   The truth of the matter is more often than not nothing is missing in these people lives.  People are just made to think something is lacking and then despairingly strive to attain material objects because they think it’s the key to their happiness. Life’s a balancing act between what u want, what you think you want and what you actually need.

I firmly believe that if a person is healthy and has their basic needs met they should feel a certain degree of happiness.  However, sadly society is constantly telling a person whether it is through commercials or billboards that they need the latest in everything  if they want to be happy.   I’d like to again bring up the idea of being successful and how its currently defined. Let me give an example of a  cardiac surgeon making 250,000 dollars a year living in a 400,00 dollar house in the suburbs and a swim coach that barely makes 20,000 and rents a 3 bedroom apartment. I think most people would say without hesitation that the surgeon is a far more successful individual then the swim coach. However I conveniently left out that the surgeon is battling prostate cancer, has a wife who cheats on him and although he fervently wanted to has no children because they were unable to conceive.   He was never passionate about being a surgeon and only pursued such a career to follow in the family’s footsteps.  His real love was for teaching but knew his family would forever condemn him had he chose such a career. The swim coach on the other hand is healthy, happily married and has 2 children whom he adores.  The swim coach chose his salary in an effort to make his program affordable to more families.  Swimming is known as being an expensive sport that is primarily made up of upper middle class whites. The entire family is actively involved in the sport and hopes that in time money will no longer deter people away from the sport.  I’d also like to mention that these examples are not fictional, I know both the surgeon and swim coach.   Who now would you consider successful? This example shows that money should never be the sole indicator of success. “Money just changed everything I wonder how life without it would go…”   -Drake