I remember when I was I child I couldn’t wait to grow up. I think I was so excited about growing up because of the independence that seemed to come with the territory.
In elementary school, I couldn’t wait for middle school. In high school, I couldn’t wait for college.
Now that I’m in college, I’m not sure what I can’t wait for.
The grass is always greener further down the road, but with independence comes responsibility.
Responsibility is a kind of fog that makes the grass seem less green than it did from the distance of the past.
In high school, I remember thinking that I would finally get to make decisions that would impact my life in a measurable way in college. I was eager to reach the crossroads of my life and to choose once and for all a direction.
It never happened, and it never will. Last week at 4 p.m. on an idle Tuesday, I realized why.
The summation of every minute decision you make is what affects your life in a measurable way.
Picture it like this: life is like a rock in the bottom of a stream. At first, the rock is rough, but over time the stream smooths the rock over, gently and deliberately removing its jagged edges.
The rock doesn’t have the ability to remove itself from the stream or to stop the water from flowing to allow itself time to adjust. It just happens.
Every ridge, every point on the rock affects the water, just as the water affects the rock. It is this duality that illustrates the relationship we have with time.
We cannot remove ourselves from its torrent to re-adjust our lives; we can only hope to affect the time around us as it wears us down.
Time, like water, is so extraordinarily dynamic that we must take every step with intention. There will never be a moment when we have enough perspective to make the big choices once and for all.
It is the insignificant choice you make a thousand times a day that dynamically affects you toward or away from your goals. Every moment is the product of those that precede it.
I can’t tell you how profoundly this affected my outlook.
Suddenly every action I engaged in took on significance of epic proportions, right down to how I chose to dress from day to day.
Consider how the way you affect the world around you, in turn, affects those further down the stream. When you think of it like that, everyone becomes a super hero.
Beyond all the warm fuzzies that intense consideration may bring, It gives you a reason to wake up in the morning. Just imagine you are saving the world with every free trade bag of coffee you buy.
If I’m going to tie this into current events somehow, the most pertinent way to do so would be to mention the presidential election that is little more than a year away.
Keeping in mind my previous statements about intentionality of action, overall voting percentages are at an all-time low. If there was ever a time to do something significant, now would be it.
I don’t care whom you vote for, be it Stephen Colbert, Fred Thompson, or Hillary, just do it. Everyone needs to stop complaining about how bad the president is and do his or her part to elect our country a good one. Every vote counts, just like every step you take counts, just like every choice you make, counts.
