I've got a lot to say and I'm not sure I'll get it all out right now. Not because I don't want to, but rather because I'm not sure how well I'll string it together. If you're here, great, bear with me because there's bound to be some nonsensical blabbering shoved in your face in the next five-hundred words or so. Just try to find what's worthwhile and take it with you.
So I am, and for the past two weeks have been, a second semester college junior. That means another full year has passed...(remember to date papers 2015 not 2014). 2014 was an eventful year of my life. I'd rank it right up there with 2012 as far as most productive/most defining years. In 2014 I solidified a great new friend group, maintained a high grade point average, helped pay for my schooling with a job, landed the internship I've wanted since freshman year, played a good amount of baseball with my favorite team, began living with a few of my best friends, met my girlfriend, spent too much time worrying about insignificant things, made plenty of (non-life changing) mistakes, and still ended up right where I was at the end of 2013...wondering where the hell this life I'm living is actually going.
Sure I've made some strides towards solidifying a future for myself. An internship is a great start. Even more than that my job with the football team is a push in the right direction as far as future debt goes. But even with all this good going on around me I feel like an owl, my head spinning 180 degrees, asking who? Who? Who? Who am I? And more than that, where am I going?
No matter how "together" your life seems, there is always an undeniable, unmeasurable amount of uncertainty present.
As I lay in bed listening to my roommates banter, looking up at the stick-on, glow in the dark stars scattered across my ceiling I can't help but feel small. Somehow my queen size bed consumes my entire being and for a moment I realize how minuscule I am in relation to the world at large. But in that moment I also realize how fortunate I am to have walked/stumbled/crawled my way into the current life I have.
I close my eyes and drown out the noise of the house with my own breathing. It reminds me that I have a lot of life left to give to this world and that there is an unbelievable amount out there for me to experience.
Not to jump around but back to the whole "where am I going idea."
I think I've figured out part of why so many people spend so much of their lives being miserable. Bear in mind this is just my view of the matter, and I'm in no way contesting that it's any more right than anyone else's view.
I think the reason we all worry so much about what we're doing and where we're going is because we feel like, to one degree or another, we have to do something remarkable with our lives. We're so consumed and overwhelmed with the idea of being something else, something that we aren't, that we ignore who we really are. We ignore the things that make us tick. Instead of doing what makes us happy we do what we think will be remembered by those around us.
That's not to say that greatness is something you should shy away from. For god's sake you'd have to be an idiot to ignore greatness. But what I'm saying is this: you don't have to cure polio, you don't have to write another of Beethoven's symphonies, and you don't have to the first person on the moon. Salk already cured polio, Beethoven is long gone, and Neil Armstrong already beat you. So sorry, but you can't do any of that. And even more than that, YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO ANY OF THAT.
You don't have to cure cancer.
You don't have to hit 74 home runs in a season.
And you don't have to be whatever it is you think you have to be because someone told you that you can't be that thing.
Be what you want, and measure success however you see fit.
Instead of measuring success in how many years after your life you're talked about, why not measure it in how fondly people remember you? You know, like curing cancer would be one hell of a rush, wouldn't it? But would it really be any better than seeing a smiling face of hundreds of little kids you help as a pediatrician? Maybe for you it would be. For me, it wouldn't. (Not saying cancer is good. That would be idiotic. Just trying to make the point that monumental discoveries don't define a person.)
See success isn't measured in dollars or in notoriety. I promise you that. Just look up the definition. Success is defined as "the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors; the accomplishment of one's goals."
So don't get caught up being what someone else wants you to be. Or what someone told you that you can't be. Be who you want to be. And be the best damn you that you can. Our time on this spinning sphere is too dmm short to be anything else.
Do what you love. And do it as often as you can.
Be an artist or a songwriter. Be an architect or a teacher.
But before you worry about being anything else, be happy.
This has gone on long enough. Hopefully I'll see you all again soon.
NP: Chocolate- The 1975
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