4 years in the making...

In each and every moment of our lives, everything—each decision, each act—seems to be life or death.  In high school, the SATs were make or break.  And now, choosing that fulltime offer, I feel like I’m in court ready for life-time sentencing.  Am I—are we—over dramatizing? 

Perhaps not.  After all, each moment is all that we really have.  We cannot control the past and we cannot predict the future.  We can only exert ourselves on the present.  We can only breathe the air in this room at this moment—we cannot breathe yesterday’s air, nor tomorrow’s air.  All we have is today’s.

But it is the very significance of every moment that makes each moment utterly insignificant.  Every moment is exactly that—a moment.  By definition, it will pass and dissolve into nothingness as the next moment takes its place and becomes everything.  Yesterday, this exact moment did not exist, nor will it exist tomorrow; still, it exists now and it is everything right now.  Meanwhile, that moment you had yesterday?  It’s gone.  Meaningless.  You are in a new moment.

And here we have it.  The very juxtaposition of life—it is a singular, solitary moment of significance which is truly defined by its very and absolute insignificance.  Thinking back to the SATs, I remember the sleepless nights and the knots in my stomach as I sat in my chair, determining my fate with little circles.  Well, those little circles mean nothing to me now.  They are ink on a piece of paper.  My score?  Just a string of numbers.  Everything matters today, but tomorrow it will mean nothing. 

So how do we reconcile this concept of the present?  The significance and insignificance of this thing we called the “now”?  What are we supposed to focus on, now or later? Was it wrong of me to place so much emphasis on the SATs?  On that one moment that means nothing to me now?  Should I have spent more time enjoying life? 

I spoke with an MD yesterday.  He told me that 80-90% of his success luck.  He told me that his secret and the most important thing that I could do was to remain true to myself.

I’ve had all of these thoughts marinating in my head for the last two days.  I’ve synthesized them into some semblance of order, culminating in the following realization:

We need to stop focusing on Now and we also need to stop focusing on Later.  Both are locations, and locations are out of our hands and out of our control.  They are ending points which are not a function of us or what we have done, but a dynamic combination of our circumstances, chance, and luck.  Despite our best efforts, we will never be able to control Now or Later.

Instead of focusing on Now, we need to focus on How.  We cannot control our destination, but we can always control how we get there.  When you get in the car, you cannot control the park or the trees in the park but you can control over how you get there.  Will you turn or take a straight line?  Will it be the road traveled, or the road less taken?  You cannot control your destination, but you can control how you get there.

I cannot control whether I am an investment banker in 20 years or a stay at home mom.  After months of agonizing between the two, I’ve finally realized that it is fruitless to worry over these endpoints.  I cannot control them.  What I can control is how I get there.  I will get there by holding my values, by never sacrificing my morals, living without regret, and sleeping comfortably with myself every night, knowing that I have done the best that I could. 

And I’ve begun to realize, that if you do live like this, living true to yourself, it really doesn’t matter where you end up.  You will be happy wherever you end up because, most importantly, you will be happy with yourself.

Why do we wait for the moment to take our breath away rather than just breathing in the moment?

Today on the bus ride home, the guy sitting next to me starting talking to me.  At first I was really annoyed b/c I was completely grossed out b/c the first thing he had said to me was, "Nice dress."  He then proceeded to ask me if I worked out and such and such, and in general, those conversations don't lead me to places where I want to go, but the guy actually turned out to be a really nice, and  I ended up talking to him the whole way home.  It was the only time I've ever stayed awake the entire ride home on the bus.

He's in management of the MTA transit system.  He's going to run in the New York City marathon in November.  He's been to Egypt.  He's trying to get involved in real estate.  He wants to move to Arizona.  He's also thinking about California.  He previously lived in Brooklyn.  He wants to do a cycling tour for leukemia.  He works out twice a day.  Once at 5:30 AM and after he gets off the bus.  He's wants to go to Australia.  He lived in Brazil for a month.

I was just struck by how alive he is.  Here was a man who commutes everyday to New York City, and didn't make excuses for himself.  Then there was me-- the privileged girl who can't even make it out of the house to see her friends after work.

He asked me what I was passionate about.

I lied.  I said I painted.