So there I was on another long run, this time in the rain. Two weeks ago this would have been snow and it would be twenty degrees colder. My mind wandered as it usually does when I run long distances. Something has been bothering me lately. I have been feeling like I’ve had a lack of energy or ambition. I felt as though I had stopped advancing in all areas of my life. I am graduating this May, and although I have never been more excited in my life, I am ridiculously scared. For the first time in my life I will not have assignments due on a daily basis. Maybe subconsciously I want to delay this moment. I will have a full time job and an income. These are a few things I am excited about.
The one thing that scares me the most is the idea of momentum. I have it now. Heading from high school to college, and through the semesters towards graduation. But after college, what comes next? I have had goals all of my life, one leading to the next and higher goal. What goals do I have after school? I have some, but they do not exactly pertain to a professional life. They are goals like ruining more road races and climbing more mountains, but that is my leisure life. What goals do I set for myself for the rest of my life? I don’t ever want to stop learning, but I will not have teachers and professors there handing out assignments and grading them in accordance with my performance. I will no doubt have teachers, but they will not reflect the model I am accustomed to. I suspect that the rewards for a job well done will be something like more work, or the ability to keep my job. My momentum now is derived from the want to reach this overall goal of graduation. It scares me to think that there will be a time when the overall goal will not be concrete. I worry that I will lose momentum and the ability to get back on the path to that goal.
Momentum is one thing and the goal is another. What is to be my goal after my ‘academic’ life? I keep coming back to this one question again and again. To try and answer it I have begun to look around me. I see people of all professions. Living and working towards their goals. I see the wealthy businessman, increasing the size of his wallet, and that makes him smile. As his wealth increases he feels he is living. I see the social worker working with another family; I see the family improving their relationships. This makes the social worker smile and feel as though she is living. I see the mountain guide follow his own footsteps up a mountain he has guided oh so many times. His client stands at the top and yells for joy, probably the greatest physical accomplishment of his or her life. The mountain guide smiles as he has brought this to the person. This smile makes him feel as though he is living. Finally I see the doctor who has just completed an operation on someone. Giving them the ability to live and reasons aplenty to smile. This makes the doctor smile a bit and she is living.
I realize that I don’t know what path my life will take. I don’t know what goals I will have set for myself in the future. There is no way to know. None of these people probably knew either. I want to get a job after graduation. That was my whole reason for going to school. I owe it to myself to put my education to work. I wanted to find something that I was good at and enjoyed, and turn it into a lifestyle that will be able to support me. I never thought for one minute that I would be a millionaire. I never want to be one either. Excess money in those amounts brings trouble. It always does. So making money is not my goal. My goal is deeper. It goes beyond material possession and tactile proof of completion. In fact the only time that there will ever be proof of completion will be at my funeral. If one day when I pass on at least one person says, “he was happy,” then I will hold success. Only in a posthumous third person analysis will this be evident though. My goal is to be happy. I want to smile everyday, and have some reason for that. It doesn’t matter what that reason is, but as long as it produces a smile, it is sufficient enough. I would put happiness before money, success, or achievement. I want to make it my major so to speak. I want to be a pupil of happiness. That is my goal. When I feel that I may lose momentum towards this goal I will again look to those who matter and influence me for help. As I have done this time and will do in the future, look around me, at perhaps why I am here.