Confused and VERY discouraged...

[Twisted_Hippie_Chick]

Whenever I'm around my friends and sometimes my family for long periods of time, I'm always left feeling like a wanna be hippie. I mean, I've always had very liberal beliefs, I even remember being six or seven and getting mad because my mom was making me listen to some conservative radio station in the car. But it seems, the more I get into the lifestyle, the more people seem to insist I'll grow out of it and sometimes even question what I know about the sixties. It seems like everyone I know discourages the hippie lifestyle, saying it's either just a phase I'm going through, and I'll be over it when I'm older, or telling me I should never get into it at all because it's just a lot of sex, drugs, and weird fashion statements. My family and friends always leave me feeling totally drained because they make me feel like it's a bad way to be, and/or I don't understand the culture of it at all. I guess my real problem is, I understand the lifestyle in theory, and the idea of it totally turns me on, but I'm left feeling this way because I'm surrounded by people who believe so differently, I've never had a chance to fully experience it. When I'm around the people here, sometimes they make me feel so bad, they want make me want to take off my beads and flowers and start blending into the background. Has anyone ever felt this way before?
-On a side note, congrats if you read this whole thing. It seems incredibly long to me.
--Also, I think I've been a downer on this site so far...sorry for boring you all with my personal problems. And thanks to those of you who've tried to help. =D

[Raschied]

You sound a lot like my mother did in the letter she wrote in '66 when she ran away from home. She was living in a small conservative town in New Jersey, and ran off to find another way. She ended up in Greenwich Village for a while before heading west to SF.

Where are you planning on going to college? One way to get the experience you are craving is to head far away for school. Now is the time to think about it - a good plan will put you in the right position in 4 years. Look for colleges out in Cali or near NYC, and GET GOOD GRADES NOW and in High school! They'll be your ticket to wherever you want to go to college, regardless of what your parents are willing to pay for. My sister-in-law went to a terrible ghetto high school, and got a free ride to Princeton, so I know it's possible.

[rygoody]

Don't let them suck the joyous energy out of you! Although, if you can spare some certainly give it to others as it helps things progress.

Just sit there and smile :)

This is long but, it's from a book I liked. Raja Yoga by Swami Vivekananda
He is talking about becoming a Yogi, but I think what he says here can be applied to anyone thats trying to pull at something better through the chaos.

---
Be like the pearl oyster. There is a pretty Indian fable to
the effect that if it rains when the star Svati is in the
ascendant, and a drop of rain falls into an oyster, that drop
will become a pearl. The oysters know this, so they come to
the surface when that star shines, and wait to catch the
precious rain-drop. When one falls into the shell, quickly
the oyster closes it and dives down to the bottom of the sea,
there to patiently develop the drop into the pearl. We should
be like that. First hear, then understand, and then, leaving all
distractions, shut our minds to outside influences, and devote
ourselves to developing the truth within us. There is the
danger of frittering away our energies by taking up an idea
only for its novelty, and then giving it up for another that is
newer. Take one thing up and do it, and see the end of it,
and before you have seen the end, do not give it up. He who
can become mad upon an idea, he alone will see light.
Those that only take a nibble here and there will never attain
anything. They may tittilate their nerves for a moment, but
there it will end. They will be slaves in the hands of nature,
and will never get beyond the senses.

Those who really want to be Yogis must give up, once for
all, this nibbling at things. Take up one idea. Make that one
idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea. Let
the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, every part of your body
be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone.
This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual
giant are produced. Others are mere talking machines. If we
really want to be blessed, and make others blessed, we must
go deeper, and, for the first step, do not disturb the mind, and
do not associate with persons whose ideas are disturbing.
All of you know that certain persons, certain places, certain
foods, repel you. Avoid them; and those who want to go to
the highest, must avoid all company, good or bad. Practice
hard; whether you live or die it does not matter. You have to
plunge in and work, without thinking of the result. If you
are brave enough, in six months you will be a perfect Yogi.
But, for others, those who take up just a bit of it, a little of
everything, they get no higher. It is of no use to simply take
a course of lessons. Those who are full of Tamas, ignorant
and dull, those whose minds never get fixed on any idea,
who only crave for something to entertain them—religion
and philosophy are simply entertainments to them. They
come to religion as to an entertainment, and get that little bit
of entertainment. These are the unpersevering. They hear a
talk, think it very nice, and then go home and forget all about
it. To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance,
tremendous will. “I will drink the ocean,” says the
persevering soul. “At my will mountains will crumble up.”
Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and
you will reach the goal.