I keep telling myself that I am going to escape from my shelter and venture forth into the world and actually see what's out there. After many days of saying I'm going to leave but staying inside anyways, I find myself outside. Being outside is only the beginning, once outside I find myself closing up and putting up barriers to keep others out. If someone passes my barrier then I play along and socialize for awhile, but I never initiate anything - I only follow other people's lead. As the relationship grows I once again fall back into my seclusion and start distancing myself and closing up once again. What is holding me back?

I get depressed and bored when I am always in the house and not doing something with friends, but every time I get a chance to make new friends I decline and move on. I find myself hopping from one new friend to another, after I start getting to know someone I move on to find someone else and never cultivate a good friendship. I make the excuse that there isn't anything to do by myself, but I turn down opportunities to do new things with others. Am I still living in the past?

How do you overcome yourself? When you become your own worst enemy, how do you win the fight? My fears take hold of me and instead of ignoring them I yield and head back to my shelter all alone. Why is it that the easiest things in life are sometimes the hardest to do? Pulling over when you are fighting sleep while driving, walking up to someone new and starting a conversation, saying "I don't know". Yet it seems so natural when it comes to hard things - living your lies, juggling all your masks so that others won't catch on and keeping up your outward appearance even when life is falling apart on the inside. When did we get things turned around? Who told me that the easy is hard and that the hard is easy?

I've been told it's just a mind game, tell yourself that you can and you will be able to do it - some how it never works. Instead of me convincing myself that I can, myself convinces me that I cannot - and I believe myself. Oh God, Have Mercy - Save me from myself! Help me to take my eyes off from myself and put them on you, help me to die to myself so that I can live for you instead.

The voices came back today. After receiving the rejection e-mail from my 12th application, I responded and asked why they chose someone else. Most of the other positions that I had applied for was understandable when they chose someone else, but this one I exceeded all written requirements except for first hand call center experience. I figured it was a sure fire in, but I was wrong.

Their response was blunt and cut deep, "Your skill set was a little less than what we were looking for." How could that be, did I sell myself that far short, did my four year degree mean nothing, how low do people want me to go? In all my interviews so far it appears that on job experience is held higher than a degree, do they expect nothing from students? I wanted to write back demanding why they had required so little and yet graded so high, how could they think that I was below their standard? I resisted, perhaps I was over reacting, maybe they didn't mean it the way I took it.

I was just feeling good about everything, as well as I could hope, when I decided to re-read the e-mail. The pain came back with the voices of failure. Why did I spend thousands of dollars and four years just to make it to the "real" world to find out that no one cared a shit about it. I did not take all my classes as serious as I should have, nor did I retain as much as I could have; but I did put a lot of energy, time and money into it and came out more refined. It's hard to watch someone take those four years of my life and stomp on them as if they mean nothing.