Life and Aspirations

So last night I was laying in my bed thinking random thoughts that I think before I finally pass out when my thoughts brought me to memories of AP Economy with Mr. Stiglich and how the class was fun...if of course you removed him from the setting and added much much sarcasm and jokes from my corner of the room. During my reminiscence I thought about how I loathed the time I was forced to sit within that classroom's confines and then realized that even though I thought I tried to take the time I had in high school to heart, I really took it for granted.

Why mention this? Well when I woke up this morning I thought about how I had swim practice and thought 'I am going to enjoy practice today'. I went to practice and did great because I decided that I wasn't going to mindlessly swim while counting down the minutes until the end. I enjoyed the time I was using, not wasting. It really had me thinking about how we all focus so much on what will happen in the future. When you're 5 you can't wait until you can be 6. When you are 11 you just want to be 13 so you can be a 'teen'. But things really boil down to the nitty gritty stuff after that. I remember in 8th grade everyone was 'so done' with middle school and high shool was the next step and everyone talked about how they CAN NOT wait until high school (including myself for atypical reasons). However, most of us (or anyone for that matter) found ourselves 'counting down the minutes' because we just got tired of the flair of the new experience and began to resent it. But why? Why do we look so far forward that we forget where we are standing? The almighty milestones that the high school student had were the ending of the quarters or the school year or, better yet, Prom and Graduation. Even though high school is over I feel that we are forgetting how to live. I recall sitting in one of my classes where a particular student spent almost her entire 2nd term talking about prom and graduation. She actually diverged onto the subject so much and missed so much material that she was incapable of experiencing either because she failed that class. We are becoming lazy...we are looking forward to great things but are blinded too much by the experience that we forget that we are living in the present.

Graduation was talked about so much it was ridiculous. Yes, I was excited too...but it's funny...it turned out nowhere near the way I thought it would and it was a bit of a letdown (shocking). Surprise folks, life continues after graduation and nothing at all has changed about you. Sitting in the sun for three hours and getting a piece of paper while wearing a dress has not made you grow profoundly and you are still going to be sleeping in the same bed you always had, things don't suddenly have a silver lining because you graduated from high school.

Wow...major tangent. The point I guess I'm trying to make about 'looking forward' to something is that maybe it's good to just have a plan or know something will happen, but to not make every day leading up to it a waste. I thought of a great metaphor on how people, or maybe just our society, desire so much to race to the next appealing milestone in their life and that would be an escalator. An escalator is fun...well...it's fun for me. When you get on the bottom of an escalator (beginning of life) there isn't much movement because the stairs haven't really gone anywhere. As you start to rise the fun starts. You dash up to the next step, leaving behind the lower step, because you want to get to the top. As you keep climbing you get closer and closer to the top...but eventually you don't want to go any higher because then you will have reached the top and the fun (or life) ends. Try as you may, you jump down steps to attempt to cheat the inevitable...suddenly your original step and original speed seems more appealing because the ride would've been longer and you would have had more time to enjoy it.

When an image of myself rolling down an upward moving escalator, causing me to be stuck in place, came into my head it really wondering. All the days and nights I have mindlessly wasted are irreplacable and I cannot retrieve them. I have already, in a sense, fucked my future because I wanted to reach the next milestone but never took the appropriate actions to ensure that the milestone would have been one that was well earned. But then another thought occurred to me at work when someone literally came up to me and said they wished they were half as attractive as I...right before throwing up on me.

Dreams, hopes, wishes, DESIRE. It is present in us all...don't lie, wanting to go to the bathroom counts too. I have found that we, as a society, are unhappy about ourselves, but you don't need me to tell you that. There are plenty of commercial ads of idealized people with the 'perfect' bone structure, the 'perfect' clothing, with the 'perfect' life to do that for me. We all wish that we could change something about ourselves, be something we're not, have something we don't, etc. It's depressing, really....and I'm the worst contender. I constantly wish I could 'reset' life and have the cheat codes that would make me an amazing swimmer or the smartest person alive or a talented musician, actor, linguist...well you get the point lol. But what about the other kinds of aspirations? What I'm talking about are common goals like getting that car, that girl, that house, or becoming a doctor, lawyer, or businessman for example. I think that these dreams are dangerous actually. Desire is so strong that it can consume you to the point to where you become solely dedicated to the one thing you desire most. But what happens AFTER you obtain it? To tell you the truth I'm scared. What the hell is gonna happen after college? You know what? What the hell is gonna happen IN college? We are all in the time that we once looked forward to, but what are we all doing right now? We are not profound. We are not 'adults'. We are new members of society and most of us don't truly know what is going on or what is going to happen to us. Some of us are working to become businesspersons because those are the jobs with the money, but does money dictate happiness? Real happiness? How do people 'know' that they want to dedicate their body's time on this planet to managing paper?

Dreams and goals are dangerous, whether if it's getting the job or the car, whether if it's beating a video game with every item, or swimming below a 52 point in your 100 Freestyle (lol), they do exist. But after obtaining it then what? How do you adjust to the new change. Sometimes I spiral into depression when I obtain a goal and have nothing to do, I lose my sense of purpose (especially after studying for those horrid AP tests). We all are working for something but what is it? What the fuck are we trying to really get out of life? To get rich? Get real. There is no real purpose for our being here. We are the result of chance and now we have organized ourselves in a way where we carry out our lives according to the result of ancestral goals. It almost seems pointless to try but you figure hell...the escalator may not have a real purpose but i'm here for the ride, so go with it.

To an extent, I feel that unattainable dreams are the best kind, because it means you will never stop trying to reach it. However, there are the exceptions which of course are the ones that are so unattainable that they force you to give up. Right now, under my current situation I feel that the dream of going to Harvard for medical school is unattainable, almost to the point where I should stop now and go home while I can. This is probably due to my previous failure at getting into UC Davis which is hindering my confidence in my future success. However, this is the perfect chance for me to prove myself or at least shift the way I ride the escalator. We should take the time we have and enjoy the ride up and absorb as much as possible along the way, even if we don't know what the hell is going on.

I think I might rewrite this...it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to...or at least I think it didn't. Let me know how it is, whether through comment or message, and whether you even saw a point to this...i'm tired, time for sleep.