Work/Life
Republished with permission
Getting old confuses me. It’s like, there’s only a certain period in your life in which the day can be exciting, different, and new. But we all have to get old eventually, no? You can’t just have fun forever. One of these days, it’ll be time to be done with school, and to become a 9-5 kind of person. It seems inevitable.
Granted, I love where I work. I love the people, love the challenges. I love that I’m learning. If I wasn’t so tired or hungry by the evening, I’d probably just stay there just because it’s just cool being there and doing cool things.
But it’s definitely a drastic change from college life. At least in college, you walk to different classes each day. Or, some days you don’t even go to class, you can just skip. One time, my EE friends and I just ditched our Device Physics class to go to Georgetown. On our way back, we drove by Reagan National Airport, and my friend gazed at one of the planes taking off and said, “I would so get on that plane right now, and just take a trip.” The spontaneity and sense of adventure thrilled me. If we weren’t so broke, we might have done it. Just gotten on that plane, and see the sights in another, more grand kind of place.
I also think of other times where I made some out-of-the-ordinary decisions. Such as turning down well paying internships to knock on doors in the scorching heat and sell Christian books. Crazy summer. Each neighborhood was different. Each door was someone new, living a totally unique life. Each conversation was impossibly distinct from the next. Each experience something profound to behold.
These kinds of things don’t seem like they’ll happen anymore. Life was more real when they did happen. It felt more right. Times when maybe we as young people thought even the world couldn’t stop us from doing whatever, and especially whenever, we wanted.
But can that kind of dreamy, spontaneous lifestyle really last? Eventually, we have to face the harsh realities of the world, don’t we? Those who don’t work, don’t eat. That’s life. Eventually, we all have to focus on figuring out how to meet the basic needs of life.
Oh well. Maybe it’s really not all this deep. But it’d be nice if one of these ordinary days somehow turned into many extraordinary ones.