Archive for May 27, 2008

summer

{ May 27, 2008 @ 9:00 pm } · { future, random rants, summer }
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Many of my friends are going to governor’s school this summer. I applied and really wanted it, but didn’t make the cut. Now, all my friends can talk about is how excited they are and how much fun they’re going to have. But guess what I’m doing this summer? Nothing exciting. I’ll hope to be productive, certainly, by working more (and thus earning more money) and applying for scholarships and figuring out my college application plans, but productive and exciting are very different things. It’s more than a little disappointing.

My summer is going to be stressful. I have to apply for scholarships, and narrow down my list of colleges to apply to, and figure out what I need to do for the actual applications. I am a little worried about all of this. Okay, a lot worried. First of all, though, is figuring out what to do, and I feel like I’m just floundering without a clue. I wish I had someone who’d gone through all of this around to help!

living in the moment

{ May 27, 2008 @ 7:11 pm } · { future, philosophical musings, random rants }
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It’s common advice to focus on the present, live in the moment. It’s also common advice to think wisely about your future, especially for seventeen-year-olds who will soon be applying to college. It’s contradictory advice.

But, really, is it? Don’t we need a balance? We need to appreciate the present, and to make the most of it, but not at the expense of the future. We have to consider today and ten years from now with every decision we make. Sure, it’d be easier to decide that your life philosophy is to live for the now, or to live for the future, but you’ll never really be happy if you choose an absolute, I don’t think.

And that’s true with a lot of things in life. Absolutes are rarely the answer. Nothing’s black and white. Nothing’s that easy. Sure, life would be a lot less difficult if there were no shades of grey, no need for balance–but it would also be a hell of a lot less interesting, less terrible, less wonderful. You can’t have the highs without the lows, and I guess I, like everyone else, need to remember that more.