too busy to think clearly. go figure.

today, in a nutshell, sucked. i feel like i'm going, going, going all the time and never have the time or space to think about what i'm really doing. i can study for hours to take an exam. i can write a 35-paged paper with a group of students. i can sit in front of a computer for hours on end until a batch of photos look good. and i understand that i'm doing it for my career and for my future. but what about all the other things that i want in my future...the ones that that matter even more than my career? the ones that matter so much that i just assume every person should and will have them, regardless of their actions and behavior prior to "receiving" them.
that's another thing. we are taught to be competitive in the workforce to get to the "top," make as many contacts as we can for OUR well-being, and, basically, blow everyone else away with whatever we do. what is the "top"? having a successful career? knocking everyone you care about out of the way until you get what you want? and then what? you sit in your gorgeous, too-big-for-just-you-and-your-cat house, sipping on a beer on your front porch, looking out across the land with...nobody by your side? who in their right minds wants a life that's filled with love for their career over love for someone else? granted, loving a cat is ALMOST as fulfilling as loving another human.
i don't know what to do. i think i've underestimated almost every relationship i've ever been in. i'm pretty positive i know why, but i don't want to live that way anymore. then again, it sounds like i'm living the way everyone's telling us to: you can't trust anyone but yourself, so make yourself happy by putting your heart into your work.
if fixing the past is supposed to make for a better future, at what point do we see our hard work pay off? i feel like i have finally realized what went wrong/right in my childhood and past relationships in order to understand how to achieve happiness now. then what's keeping me from feeling happy? maybe it's the result of this being the end of the semester and everyone is in panic mode. maybe it's because i'm cramming a lot of decisions into a dangerously short time period. maybe it's because i may finally have everything that i want, but i was told by parents, teachers, friends, etc. that it's supposed to take longer than this, so i'm consciously deciding that i shouldn't settle for what i have right now. is there always going to be something keeping us from what we want? if we say, "if only i had _____, my life would be complete" and then suddenly we "received" that one thing, would we really shut up and be happy?
sure, we work hard on projects then get the professor's appraisal as a result and we move on. this, however, is beyond college and a career. this is the time for us to start weighing our individual options and decide which direction we're going in life and who we want to go through that life with. if college teaches us how to be good at a career and choose that path, why doesn't it teach you the OTHER part -- the one that goes hand-in-hand with growing up: how to be successful in relationships?