The End of The Beginning

Freshman year is over.  I am almost 19 years old, with only 3 years left of college.  Then I’ll be moving on to bigger and better things and starting my life on my own.  I remember the first day of 1^st grade like it was yesterday.  I was the first person to line up to go inside the school so my new teacher dubbed me the line leader for the year and I got to hold the 1^st Grade sign so everyone lined up behind me.  I felt so special, so mature.  Now, almost 15 years have passed since that day. 

I feel like my life is passing before my eyes, before I have a chance to catch it.  Maybe I’ve been spending so much of my time thinking about the future that when it actually comes, I barely have time to enjoy it.  Everything we do is supposedly in preparation for the future.  We study and get good grades in high school so that we get into the college we want, then we have to do well and be involved in college so that we get the jobs that we want, and then we have to find a husband or a wife that will take care of us in the future, and make enough money so we are stable in the future.  Why can’t we just enjoy the present?  Everything we’ve ever done has been leading up to this moment that we are in now, so why are we always thinking about the next one? 

The future scares me.  I barely have a grip on the present, how am I going to take care of my future?  I’m terrible with commitment, I’m terribly impulsive and never think things all the way through before making a decision.  Maybe that’s because I’m better at handling the consequences than the regret of making the wrong choice.  I like to make mistakes.  I’m good at making mistakes.  I’m used to making mistakes.  I believe that making mistakes is the only way to better yourself.  Because if you never do anything wrong, how do you know that you’re getting it right? 

I want to live a full life.  I read books about fabulously fascinating people who have done all thing crazy cool things with their lives and have gone on so many adventures.  People who have learned from their mistakes and have lived to tell the tale.  That’s the kind of person I want to be.  I love being spontaneous.  But sometimes I feel like I do things in my life just to say that I did them, just to have those stories in the future.  We live in a terribly fake age, where everything must be recorded and put on Facebook for the world to see or else it isn’t real.  We live in a world where nothing matters until other people see pictures or read about it online.  Our lives are so intertwined with the rest of the world it’s hard to sort out what is truly ours. Not even our own memories are truly our own.  We share those with everyone else too.

I know I’m just rambling now; there is no real point to any of this.  I just like to get my thoughts out.  I wonder if I’m the only person who thinks about these types of things, like life and the future and what we are doing in the world.  It’s incredibly hard to grasp.  I’m just trying to figure myself out.  I do a lot of really stupid things, but somehow I always seem to make it out okay.  I just hope that my luck won’t run out any time soon.

Un-Motivation

Do I REALLY need to improve myself? To what extent do I need to keep going to the gym and trying to make myself into a better person?  When do I actually become the person I want to be?  Is it enough to accept yourself the way you are, instead of constantly trying to improve? Aren't I good enough the way I am? Are all these questions just an excuse to not go to the gym and avoid actually working hard?

This is something I struggle with.  I'm all about being true to who you are and accepting your body and your personality for how it is.  But at the same time, you should be aware of points when you need to improve yourself.  If you are out of shape, work out.  If you are lazy, get off the couch.  If you are having relationship issues, work them out.  So what is the point where you realize that you need to improve, rather than accept yourself the way you are?

I get on the scale and I think, I can live with that.  I am still in the healthy range, still above-average.  But I'm definitely not where I aspire to be.  But that acceptance allows me to make excuses for myself, and thus not try to make myself better.  By accepting myself the way I am, I stop working to make myself better.

So, today I reject this version of myself.  No, I accept it, but I desire to be better.  So I'm going to go to the gym.  Good.  Re-motivation.  I'm glad I could work through that.

Starting Over

This morning I woke up running from my dreams.  Nightmares, more like.  When I have a nightmare, sometimes the easiest thing is to do jump from my bed and leave my room far behind me.  When nothing is going my way, it is easiest to run in the opposite direction.  Start over.  That is my default attitude toward any failure. Start over.  But sometimes, you can't start over.  You have to pick yourself up and fix what you have broken, try and try again to make it work.  I can't keep running from bad reputations or missed opportunities.  I can't keep starting from scratch.  Starting from scratch it easy, with a clean slate you can do anything.  But I can't use that as a crutch.  I have to learn how to clean off my own slate with my own sweat and tears, not rely on others to let me start over.

This morning I woke up running from my own dreams.  It's hard to see yourself for who you really are and decide that it is you that needs to change, not the world around you.  Your dreams should compel you to move forward, drive you to do better.  But sometimes your dreams hold you back, in fear of what you can accomplish, in fear of what you can lose.  I don't want to be afraid anymore.  I want to do better, be better.

Tomorrow morning I want to wake up walking with my head held high, toward the day to come.

Adventure

Do things I've never done before. Be brave. Be bold. Step outside my comfort zone. Try new things. I want to have adventure in my life, because that is what keeps life interesting.

Grades are important, class is obviously something that I must do, but having stories and living the life I want is much more fulfilling. There are some things that are higher up on my list of priorities than getting a good gpa.

Like, for instance, sneaking into the football stadium without getting caught. Impossible, you say? Not for fearless and adventurous me. The other night, me and a few friends successfully snuck into the football stadium here at school. Not just the stands either, the field itself. We got to run the whole 100 yards, feel the wind in our faces, and imagine what it would be like to have thousands of fans screaming us on as we ran. It was probably one of the coolest experiences I have had at school yet, maybe even in my whole lifetime. I wasn't drunk, I was just doing what felt right at the time. It was risky and it might have been stupid, but you only live once, right?

We have all these constraints on our lives. School, work, homework, there is always something we should be doing with our time. But what about what we want to do? Isn't that important? Shouldn't it be even more important? Yes, you should prioritize that which can be a means to an end goal, but you also have to live in the moment. Do the things you want to do because in the end, that will be what you remember.

I will never forget what it felt like to run down that field. Pure freedom and bliss. It was amazing. That is a story I will tell for the rest of my life.

Being Sick Sucks

Why on earth do we need to have disease and illness and colds and flus?!? I don't understand the point. All they do is slow you down and make you hate your life. And then you spread the misery without meaning to or knowing you're doing it to the next helpless person so they end up feeling just as shitty as you do. Is this some sort of twisted part of the natural selection process??

I just want to be better so I can go back to my life of productivity and happiness.

And maybe write a semi worthwhile blog post for once. But for now, this is all I got for you.

Resolutions Update

Also, I worked out today for the first time in a while! It's Tuesday, so I've still go time to make my 5 days a week goal. It's possible. I'm proud of myself. I need to remember what this feeling of accomplishment is every time I tell myself I don't have time to go to the gym. You can always make time for something you really want to do.

Baby steps, one day at a time. Soon I'll be a work out fiend and wondering how I ever hated going to the gym. One day.

What do you want to do before you die?

Last night I went to a performance at school where the guys from The Buried Life show came and spoke to us. The show is about four normal guys who decide to make a list of things they want to do before they die, and then actually do them all. Along the way, they help other people cross off things on their own lists of dreams. It was truly inspiring. These guys had no money, no resources, just pure desire and determination to succeed. And they actually did it. It started off as one small idea and it turned into a huge multi-national television show that exceeded all expectations.

It makes me think, what can I do that will exceed expectations. They ask what your dreams are, no matter how far off or impossible they might seem. Write those dreams down, and then go after them. Don't let those dreams stay just ideas in your head, something you think about when you're fed up with your normal day to day life. Let those dreams drive your day to day life. Do what inspires you.

So what is it that inspires me? What is my big dream that will make the impossible possible? Is it possible that my big dream is to figure out what my big dream is? I guess that is a start at least. So first on the list of things I want to do before I die, is to make a list. I wonder if that's cheating the system somehow. Oh well, it's my life right?