Garden of Daisies

A New Year

August 28th, 2006

1.) It’s 10:30pm and my boyfriend calls from Montreal to wish me a good night. He tells me he’s out with a friend, and a friend of a friend and that their conversations about politics and defining yourself have been incredable; that they’ve been sitting on a patio drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and talking and being inspired, and I’m happy and can’t wait to spend time with he and his friends in Montreal.

2.) As I hang up the phone I find myself wondering again, as I have many times this week, what I’m doing right now. Sure, of course, I’m studying things I am incredably interested in. And I have a job that’s putting me through school which is pretty awesome. But these courses I’m taking 9 times out of 10 they are not connecting me with people with whom I have inspiring life-changing conversations with. In fact, the combination between my introversion and the anti-social nature of my post-secondary school of choice has left me with a staggeringly low number of friends at university–but isn’t connections between people what this whole life thing is all about?

3.) Meanwhile I study psychology and philosophy and religion because combined those are the things that fascinate me the most; but what ignites me is talking about environmental issues, population growth, and the lack of literacy and education around the world–so am I even studying the right thing?

4.) This summer I have fallen madly in love. And it’s been incredible. And it’s had me rebuilding all sorts of plans. And it has me thinking ahead toward a practical life plan involving the proper allocation of money with which to raise children and how I can incorporate staying at home for a few years into a plausible career…And that’s not the track I’ve spent most of my life thinking about.

5.) My own hypocrisy irritates me. My inability to reconcile my lifestyle with what I believe in frustrates me. I try to be patient with myself (because change is difficult), but I worry that eventually I’ll just give up, and instead of building schools in 3rd world countries, and being involved in grassroot organic food co-ops I’ll end up in suburbia driving a gas-guzzling vehicle, buying genetically-modified food at my local grocery store and raising my kids to be as materially focused as I am.

Which breaks my heart. Not even because I think that kind of lifestyle is “wrong”, but because it’s not what I want for myself, or for my kids.

But how do you fund a grassroots lifestyle?

How do you make that about face from the world you’ve been brought up in and say “Listen: this is how I’m going to live my life”?

6.) How do you get to a place where you know that every choice you’re making is not just one you can be proud of and accept, but one that falls exactly in line with the person you want to be and the changes you want to help make in the world?

It’s time to start a new year (because I am a student and my year begins in September), and these will be thoughts I will struggle with as the year goes on.

Entry Filed under: Thoughts on other things..., My life, Education