Your Life is Now

It was quite a strange feeling to have my coach as me, "so what did you think of freshman year?" the other day. In my head, I was thinking, what do you mean? I'm still a freshman! Where did all the time go?

I don't feel like I'm one to waste time, in general. I've got this inability to sit still, to not be doing something, or to not jump in and do something when I get the opportunity. So why do I always feel like I'm still chasing time like a dog chasing their tail?

It also makes me think of how the other day I was pondering the differences in culture between here and everywhere else. In Spanish class in high school, we learned about how many Latin American cultures focus on the now, and us Americans are fixated with the future. It makes me wonder, is this fixation with the future what makes us always feel like we need more time? Maybe if we looked at the now, enjoyed every moment while it lasted instead of thinking about what to do next, our lives would be a little bit brighter and more full. Maybe if we did what we actually wanted now instead of acting in a preemptive strike for our futures, we wouldn't all be so confused with what we're doing, and we would all actually enjoy what we're doing now. I see a pretty clear correlation between living for the now and happiness. For people who have a choice, people who are doing things they actually enjoy, working in places they actually like, as opposed to working in someplace that gives them more money for the future are so much happier. For those who can't choose, who cling dearly to the present and are just trying to survive, even through all their suffering, they still seem happier to me. Maybe this is a bit of an overused image that doesn't actually reflect things as they are, but what immediately comes to mind as an example of this is a video I saw a few years about refugees from the genocide in Darfur, in which the closing section was just footage of them singing, dancing, and just joyously being with each other. You don't see that here, and we have so much more than those people will probably ever have. Think about it.

To quote John Mellencamp, "Your life is now,/in this undiscovered moment/lift your head up above the crowd./We could shake this world/if you would only show us how./Your life is now."

random

I'm super excited for a summer in Colorado! It'll be nice to get out of this state, be completely on my own and without anyone I know there for awhile. And it'll be weird to go home at 5pm and literally have nothing to do except read or watch movies or go on hikes and such.

These next two weeks may possibly kill me, but at least I feel like I'm doing something worthwhile and productive for once.

I hate that I don't know what I want in the end, that I'm working my ass off here for reasons that I don't even know, only to procrastinate actually figuring out what I want to do even more. I know I want to make a difference, but it's so hard to find an avenue to do that, to change what I see as the most important problems that I feel like here are overlooked or ignored for the appeal of something that can be solved by building a cool machine or something else that doesn't really float my boat.

I feel, in some ways, like high school again, but not really in a great way. Sort of like everything that I tried not to have happen here in some places just has come full circle and ended up exactly like I didn't want it to. Then again, in other ways I've gotten way more than I would initially have expected, so I guess it all evens out in the end.