A week and a half.

Back in the good old USofA for only a week and a half and if feel like I'm already back into the swing of things.

Tonight I met up with a few friends for Lawson's going away party. Lawson is a good friend from high school who joined the army and is headed to Fort Benning on Monday for basic training. We're all sad to see him go but proud of him for taking such a huge leap towards his future.

College has been on my mind alot lately. A few years ago I dropped my classes and began working in Corvallis. I didn't have passion to learn and felt like the only reason I was there was to make the World happy. Though this may seem foolish, I think whats more foolish is to expect people to all learn the same, function the same, achieve the same, live the same. Some may say, "too each his own", but often those are the same people saying, "but he is still making a mistake". Which is true? Is it a mistake to understand a system and choose an alternative route? Or is it a mistake to continue doing something your heart isn't in?

The last few years of my life have been full of learning, about myself, about life, and about others. Not to say I wouldn't have learned some of the same things while in school, but it feels a little like a slaughterhouse sometimes, except we pay our way through. From the womb to the tomb(I apologize for that), we are walking talkinh credit, debt, bills, expectations and requirements. I feel we are so required to be this and do that, staring at the concrete floor as we walk towards the hammer, that we miss what is REAL.

The expectations and requirements put on us by the world and ourselves, taint the experience that is life. Sure we can take a vacation, go camping, buy a dog, build a house, EXPERIENCE life, but have we really? How is that vacation knowing you've charged it to the long list of credit card charges? Are you living it or just going through the motions? How is camping when all you can think about is what you have to do at work when you get back on monday? Have you turned your house into a home, or are you too busy worrying about paying back the vacation, working on monday, and why did you buy the dog in the first place when he doesn't even obey?

The problem is we are so wrapped up, tied down, suffocated, force fed, expected to be and required to be, this, that, him or her, that when we do actually have a chance to experience the miracles and joys and real meanings, we let them drift by not having noticed what value they hold.

My fear is not in failing to get a degree, to have a career, to provide, to own a home. My fear is having done all of that and looking back between the last breaths I take, knowing that of the billions of seconds I was given to enjoy this life I spent the majority of them in worry instead of in wonder.