I've been working on adding a teaching degree to my history one and have, overall, enjoyed the program and the colleagues I've met. I finished the program earlier this month, after finishing a very challenging, if rewarding, adventure teaching in an semi-isolated coastal community.
Prior to that I was working the farm all summer: worked harder and longer than ever. I love that job, but I was becoming exhausted by the end. I took a mini-vacation in the late summer, as I've been prone to do, but this time it was only three days and I used them to hike the West Coast Trail, and that pushed my physical and mental limit in a new way.
I was best man for my good friend's wedding this summer, and I was proud of that.
I taught some classes at the middle school on the island and the kids made me laugh daily.
The church I've been a part of spread its wings and landed in a new location with a new vision.
Meanwhile darkness surfaced, exposing his long spiny ridge along the pristine scene and threatened to turn the boat and swallow its travelers.
A marriage who were family crumbled.
People got hurt physically. Others suffered physiologically.
The world seemed as full of displacement and misunderstandings as it ever has.
I seem to keep losing sight of myself as confidence, self-esteem, and projections quake.
A relationship breaks.
When was the last time I even though I might ask a girl out for coffee?
At a place where I am supposed to be full of life, and trembling with the romance of possibility I sometimes feel like its business as usual. Nothing to get excited about.
I've been looking for the choices I can make that are likely to make positive changes. And I think i have an ok strategy now.
1. I arrange my values: I often feel pressure to do the thing which equates security. This typically means following the dollar. But will this really make such a big difference? My history professor friend Norm recently recommended worrying less about getting a downpayment on a house, because you can chase those money-holes for many years to come. However, if you want to go on a trip, or spend time volunteering, you might as well do that while you have less pressure on yourself.
The thing I've always wished I had more time to do was play music. Its the thing I don't ever want to settle into the future wishing I'd done or wondering "what if?"
So maybe I throw all caution out the window and commit to having a sorry bank account and one year of rich lifestyle filled with music every day - just so I know what will happen, instead of always wondering. To answer my soul, rather than my banker.
2. Give it time. I started thinking this spring, after a relationship had crashed and burned real bad and I was feeling like a retched person, and while I was trying not to drown in anxiety and some dismay. I thought about how much had changed in the past five years and I thought that, with the right framing of the next five years that maybe by the end I could be somebody really whole. Somebody I could be proud of. Or at least somebody who is happy. I turn 30 next year. What better time to make such a goal. But what things do I need to intentionally do which will shape these years?
Exercise more? Read more? Dance more? Employ myself in a noble cause?
3. Probably all of the above, but one idea has captivated me the most. I think doing something I find value in is good, but better yet, doing something of value with good people around me.
Back to the notion of community.
I wrote down, prior, some quotes from Donald Miller's recent book, but I omitted the one that I've probably been giving the most thought.
"I read an article that said in the next five years we will become a conglomerate of the people we hang out with."
I don't need to look up reputable studies to confirm that there's enough truth to this. Its not a new idea, and just from my own observations I suspect its more true than I want to even believe. So rather than using this information to say how little control I have over my own personality and character, I can use the information to shape myself. I just choose two things: 1. to be around people and 2. for those people to be the kind of people I want to become. So I think this is the strategy. I rearrange my priorities. I put my collegiate first, check that I'm not valuing the fleeting "security" too high, and allow time for these things to play themselves out.
I have a plethora of possibilities ahead of me, but if I keep my priorities in-line, a five year plan might work.
But how do you learn consistency? I find myself so changable. Even the past two months I feel changed me. Will I stick to this, or float like my generation floats? Dingy on the current, beating darkness with a paddle whenever it comes too close.
