The question has been asked an unfathomable amount of times, “what do I want to do the rest of my life”. The phrase brings the usual thoughts to mind ‘cliché’, ‘trite’, ‘good luck’. Personally, it has been asked perpetually over the last 5 years of my life, an unwanted heavy burden that lay on my back like so many other people of around my age. A question who’s answer is elusive, evasive, and perpetually changing. The answer is the solution to and the cause of so many of a young person’s emotional valleys. The question’s answer is the difference between a job and a career, a pay check and success. The ideal, a job that you love that won’t feel like work is the goal. Make a mistake in answering and a life filled with unfulfilled dreams and frustration. The asking and answering of the question is of the most vital importance; shaping a person’s mind, personality, and plans for the next ten years of his or her life. It shapes how you spend vast amounts of money on cars, houses, and education (and in some cases inebriation). It is seemingly impossible to answer this question.
What if you ask that same question, but this time answer it as if it has been asked in a different tone? Answer as if it was asked as “WHO do I want to BE the rest of your life”; make it nothing to do with career, education, money. Apply your mind to thinking about the person you are and the type of person that you would altruistically like to be. Answer honest, raw, provocative.
I have spent the last five years of my life answering the right question the wrong way, planning my life out in black and white and green. Money, success, adoration, belonging; I answered selfishly and even more tragically, unoriginally. Answering while influenced by outside sources I have failed, as so many others have, in answering the question all together. Who I am hates what I have wanted to do, and who that would make me; because I haven’t been answering the right way. Now it is time for me to love WHO I want to be the rest of my life so I can love WHAT I do the rest of my life. If you become the type of person you can love, then you will love what you do, and that, I am starting to understand, is happiness defined.
“What do I want to do the rest of my life?”
Simply,
I want to be a person who loves, lives, and forgives without regret, worry, or hesitation.
Jh
Love Well
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Comment as Needed
I am wondering if you have seen this photo?
Stiff from a hostel’s mattress, a long slender figure stands feebly in the midst of a nearly empty tube car within London’s Underground. A photo of a man, no longer a boy, backpack attached, approaching the end of a journey. An odyssey with purpose, to break free, to experience Europe, to feel alive, to find oneself; an often perpetuated, if not cliche gesture. The florescent running lights in the car blur in the slight quiver of the tube, casting a golden glow over the shoulders of the young man. The back ground filled with strung out motion seen through the dark car windows. Only one other lonely sole is to be seen huddling in the corner of the car, seemingly in a trancelike state, enveloped in the music proceeding from the white buds found in the ears of the London nocturnal. The photography snapped during those oddly still, precious few moments somewhere between the point at witch night has ended and morning has not yet begun. Yet another ride in a chaotic myriad of train, buss, and boat traverses. A grey t-shirt hangs from the shoulders of the man’s thinned frame, emaciated from little sleep, weeks of endless walking, and living off a diet of coffee and chewing gum. The shirts original print faded and cracked to point of relative obscurity, wrinkled from time spent with the straps from the large knapsack straining the every fiber of the piece of clothing. The man’s jeans sitting a little lower on the hips then before he left and the his belt now resting in a previously unused notch. The once vibrant blue-jeans distressed almost to point at which they could pass off as an expensive designer label; the pants stretched down to running shoes with scuffed and pealing toe caps. The running shoes along with the rest of his body showed from the cruel abuse they have been under over the past weeks. Possessions and money is all but extinct on this parson, all that is presumably left in his drooping burden was a change of dirty laundry, a picture filled digital camera with nearly spent batteries taking its last picture, a note pad filled with events and random never before entertained thoughts, his passport, and a ticket out of Heathrow. Through the shadow cast by the overhang of his sun ravaged, tattered, sweat stained Boston Red Sox cap; and through the clumsy beard finding its place on a thinned face was an indifferent look and a piercing, exhausted stare. The eyes windows to some of Europe’s finest sights: the romantic beauty of the Eiffel Tower, the quiet wonder of the Vatican, the horrific mortality of Auschwitz, the enigmatic marvel of Stonehenge, and now the heart of the fog beleaguered ancient city of London; and yet his eyes pervade nothing of these sights. Within the piecing black stare a certain quiet confidence comes through the gloss of the photo; an unspeakable, untamable confidence stemming from, for the first time, truly coming to know...
Stiff from a hostel’s mattress, a long slender figure stands feebly in the midst of a nearly empty tube car within London’s Underground. A photo of a man, no longer a boy, backpack attached, approaching the end of a journey. An odyssey with purpose, to break free, to experience Europe, to feel alive, to find oneself; an often perpetuated, if not cliche gesture. The florescent running lights in the car blur in the slight quiver of the tube, casting a golden glow over the shoulders of the young man. The back ground filled with strung out motion seen through the dark car windows. Only one other lonely sole is to be seen huddling in the corner of the car, seemingly in a trancelike state, enveloped in the music proceeding from the white buds found in the ears of the London nocturnal. The photography snapped during those oddly still, precious few moments somewhere between the point at witch night has ended and morning has not yet begun. Yet another ride in a chaotic myriad of train, buss, and boat traverses. A grey t-shirt hangs from the shoulders of the man’s thinned frame, emaciated from little sleep, weeks of endless walking, and living off a diet of coffee and chewing gum. The shirts original print faded and cracked to point of relative obscurity, wrinkled from time spent with the straps from the large knapsack straining the every fiber of the piece of clothing. The man’s jeans sitting a little lower on the hips then before he left and the his belt now resting in a previously unused notch. The once vibrant blue-jeans distressed almost to point at which they could pass off as an expensive designer label; the pants stretched down to running shoes with scuffed and pealing toe caps. The running shoes along with the rest of his body showed from the cruel abuse they have been under over the past weeks. Possessions and money is all but extinct on this parson, all that is presumably left in his drooping burden was a change of dirty laundry, a picture filled digital camera with nearly spent batteries taking its last picture, a note pad filled with events and random never before entertained thoughts, his passport, and a ticket out of Heathrow. Through the shadow cast by the overhang of his sun ravaged, tattered, sweat stained Boston Red Sox cap; and through the clumsy beard finding its place on a thinned face was an indifferent look and a piercing, exhausted stare. The eyes windows to some of Europe’s finest sights: the romantic beauty of the Eiffel Tower, the quiet wonder of the Vatican, the horrific mortality of Auschwitz, the enigmatic marvel of Stonehenge, and now the heart of the fog beleaguered ancient city of London; and yet his eyes pervade nothing of these sights. Within the piecing black stare a certain quiet confidence comes through the gloss of the photo; an unspeakable, untamable confidence stemming from, for the first time, truly coming to know...
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