Memories That Will Last

I find myself contemplating life quite a bit as of late. A lot of past reflection, current analysis, and future outlook. My new job, while laid back and not stressful for now, gives me way too much time to sit and think. Routinely, my thoughts are dark and scary places that the Boogeyman likes to hang out.

• I find myself wanting to leave Iowa, yet turning down a great position with the Mayo Clinic because they want to stick me in a town I don’t want to be in. Bummer.
• I’m reconnecting with people from my past purely out of guilt, morphing it into greed, and leaving out of spite. Regretting that.
• I haven’t played much guitar lately, because I have a roommate and don’t want to bother him. Not his fault, but it still sucks a bit.
• I don’t take time to read, to listen to or make music, to write, to dabble in photography… anything dealing with the arts have been neglected.
• My happiness is directly correlated to my level of participation in some form of artistic activity. This, coupled with my month long job hunt and various other factors, has led me to be insanely unhappy.

I’ve always tried to adhare to the “less is more, and more is a waste” mantra. And I thought I was succeeding. But what I’ve discovered is that the things I kept around, like sports and video games, are things that leave me feeling hollow and empty. Neat, I just played Minecraft for 5 hours. Wow, that was an awesome afternoon of football. I’m so glad I was able to comment on that person’s status/tweet within a minute after they posted it.

… now what?

My life isn’t your life, but I’d be willing to guess that there are days you feel the same way. I’m sick of waking up every day thinking “oh great, this again”. I want to be excited to wake up, to do things that are both enjoyable and meaningful. I might not be able to completely eliminate the more mundane activities from my life (nor would I want to… I really do love sports), but I can at least look at moving them lower on my priority list, and replacing it with things like these:

• Read a good book, one that you’ll remember and be able to recommend to others.
• Exercise, so you can live a long and healthy life.
• Create something and hang it on your fridge, so you can see it and smile every morning.
• Spend time with your friends, doing things outside the norm.
• Keep people in your life that make it better. Discard the ones that drag you down.

Make memories that will last you a lifetime, not ones that will be forgotten an hour from now. No one ever remembers the days that they sat on their asses watching a week 7 NFL football game, but they do remember the trips and the books and the music.