The desire

Today I slept in for a change, it felt amazing. I got up at 8:15 and got ready to go and tutor in the math lab. In the math lab it was EXTREMELY quiet and no one seemed to need any help. I gravitated towards another tutor and we started doing calculus on the board. I know.....I'm a geek, because who would ever just sit at a board and do fake calculus problems. Anyway, I was fascinated as he taught me about second degree integrals and the use of spheres to measure distances. It was a great opportunity to learn and as I left to go to my class I promised myself that I would take Calculus 2/3 someday, even if it was when I was in a career and the courses were just for fun. I was inspired to learn, and that inspiration is a defining aspect of my life.

I remember being little HATING when summer came, because I would not want to have to stay at home and just learn to entertain myself and work, when I could be at school and learning new things. I LOVED TO LEARN, and so I would read hundreds of pages of books over the summer, and I would study all the online encyclopedias like Encarta with a fervor to learn more about our world. This passion for learning was mitigated rarely as I grew up, and those times of mitigation came about whenever I started to divulge myself into a relationship or competition. However, the pursuit of knowledge always brought me back.

I am not in college and I love learning still. My ability to comprehend is not where it use to, and now I have to study and repeat exercises to understand concepts, but as those concepts are integrated into my being I find such satisfaction in life. If I could forever travel the world and learn languages, history, math, culture,, and religion, I think I would be an extremely happy man. However, the need to be efficient and give back to society is too strong for me to fall into the trap of pursing knowledge at all costs.

This leads to the problem I have contemplated all day.....there is too much to do and learn and never the time or ability to experience it all. This precious gift of life becomes all that more precious when we realize that our choices are restricting our future chances to experience something. Now with a finite number of possibilities we have given value to every action that we take With so much to do and learn, how do we decide what we sacrifice and what we don't?

I firmly believe that for every door we close in the maze of our life, we open another three and we have the ability to continual progress to a new path. The answer to which path is best, is that the path you are traveling is the best, if you allow it to be. It is not so much about what you do, as it is about LOVING, or learning to love what you do and where you are. EACH day needs to literally be the best day of my life, and I need to remove those obstacles I feel bind me down and push onward with the pursuit of joy. Man is that he might have joy, and I attest to that. Joy comes in many manners, but it never comes from selfishness. So as we decide which path is best, we need only be selfless and learn to love the path we choose. When we love what we do, life becomes easier and the knowledge we start to gain is useful no only to us, but to those around us that we can share not only in thought but in our very deeds.

The maze of life continually stretches before me, and honestly I am excited to see where I go next. Doubtless I will be stressed and complain, but I know I will enjoy the challenges that arise, and will have to learn to overcome new trials in my life even as I experience new things. This short memo is in dedication to the best day of my life which was today, and which I hope will be tomorrow as well.