It's been said that from the momant we are concieved, we begin moving towards our certain death. Time is the enemy of life. On the other hand, time (specifically the passing of it) is what defines us during our lives.
It seems paradoxical. Time makes us who we are. We need time to live, but time is what will someday end our lives. It's a strange, funny world we live in. Now, almost a full 17 years of my life have come and gone. I'm still a young man, but I don't feel like it. Perhaps, I was forced to grow up too quickly. I attend a Jesuit High School where the dress code is suit and tie. I ride the train every day with the rest of the corporate world.
I've done that for about 4 years now. My time there is almost up, and I'll be moving on. Sure I'll hang on to my closest friendships, but it's still a huge change. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know where I should be. So how am I expected to move on so quickly?
Here's what I see in my future. Computers and cubicles and day old pots of coffee. Paperwork and paper jams and the daily grind in some godforsaken office tower. That's not what I want. I want peace and me with a laptop and a cup of tea somewhere in a nice quiet place to live where nature is right outside my front door. I want to live my life, not waste it on analyzing which hand emloyees open the doors with.
Maybe it's the stress talking. Maybe it's all the shit I've been through lately. All I know is lately I've been wondering more and more: Why the hell am I here, and what do I do now?
Comments
tcook | January 23, 2008 - 16:05
It's called teenage angst - and we are all the better for going through it. Find out who you really are - talk very honestly to yourself - and then find out what you really want to be. Plot a course between the two and set out upon it. There will be many a bump in the road on the way but it can be a fine and satisfying journey if you are brave enough to take it. Good luck!
fire_storrm | January 27, 2008 - 06:06
Amen. Time is a funny thing, that's for sure. A lot of people are made to grow up too soon and they start freaking out before they even get to the cubicle. I don't know how anyone could want to work in an office, and yet 90% of people do. And everyone gets stressed god knows, but teenagers do seem to have it the worst. I agree with everything you've said, and other than the stories that you should have been arrested for even thinking of much less writing, you know I love your work and agree with all of your serious ones completely.
Fire
Sooz006 | February 7, 2008 - 17:24
Still a young man at seventeen? Darling, you're still a baby. I don't mean that patronisingly. As soon as you get out of that suit, get into a pair of jeans, or shorts, or trackies ...and just take stock. It's your life, nobody else has a stake in it. You take as much time as you need to decide what you want to do. And if you don't get it right first time ... what the hell. If you hate the idea of the office... then don't do it. You are going to spend a third of your life at work ... see that it's something you can be comfortable with.