A SENSE OF OCCASION

Moving around nurtures a mindset of reflection. As I look back on thirty years of life I realize that I spend a lot of time questioning the choices I have made, often doubting myself. Analyzing life as if from a comfortable seat on a jumbo jet 35000 feet in the air. I should have studied biology! I should have moved to denver! I should have quit my job long ago, Ive wasted so much time! It's easy to get carried away or lost in the moment of reflection and to forget the realities that surround us. We live in an era where the perception is that we have every option that we could follow whenever we want. This is seen as a positive development but leads to a kind of paralysis, a developmental immaturity. There are many trails you can take from where you are but you never leave because you are too afraid that a little ways up one trail you will be missing something better in another direction. This kind of thinking is useless. It's better to choose a path and make the most of whatever we find on that path than to spend our time wondering what could have been. In the last ten years i chose a path with sacrifices both socially and professionally. It's easy to focus on the price of this path and to forget what it was all about. That I wanted to become an athlete who could run the hardest hundred mile trail races. It may seems arrogant to keep focusing on this accomplishment but I have to remind myself that this is what I made choices for which weren't easy.

I WOULD RATHER BE ASHES THAN DUST! I WOULD RATHER THAT MY SPARK SHOULD BURN OUT IN A BRILLIANT BLAZE THAN IT SHOULD BE STIFLED BY DRY-ROT. I WOULD RATHER BE A SUPERB METOR, EVERY ATOM OF ME IN MAGNIFICENT GLOW, THAN A SLEEPY AND PERMANENT PLANET. THE PROPER FUNCTION OF MAN IS TO LIVE. I SHALL NOT WASTE MY DAYS IN TRYING TO PROLONG THEM.
- JACK LONDON