I’ve been accepted to a graduate Masters program. I’m very excited about it and strangely can’t wait to get started though I must be nuts. I only finished my undergraduate degree a year ago and I do work full time…
Thinking about this achievement I found myself pondering what things will be like when I’m done with the degree- you know- in 5 or 6 years. Will I have a boyfriend, or be married, or have kids? It’s impossible to say if I can achieve any of that, but I did find solace in the fact that I can control whether or not I finish my degree (at least to some extent) and that was comforting. It seems odd to me though that some of the most important things, with the most ultimate value, are the things we can’t control.
We can work hard to educate and better ourselves, to make money and lead comfortable lives, but that can’t guarantee love or happiness. Essentially all the effort you make doesn’t guarantee any improvement or goodness in the outcome. It’s a terribly unfair system. I know life is not fair and I’m wasting my time arguing to God or Satan or the heavens about the depressing truth. I’ve seen good, kind, funny people remain single despite working hard and trying to better themselves. And I’ve seen mean, manipulative jerks find love and get married to kind, patient people; seen slackers have great jobs fall into their laps and beautiful homes bought for them by parents with more love than sense.
What I have to cling to is that we do all still have a choice. You can do whatever you want with your life. If love is not for you (at least not right now) you can do your best to spend time doing things that make you happy with people who care about you. The choice to make the effort to concentrate on other things and look elsewhere for that source of joy is always within our grasp. It’s a small thing and to some, nay to all of us on some days, the effort required doesn’t seem worth the tentative reward. But on the days when you get there, these things come back to you, I swear. And whatever great effort you made makes the outcome far sweeter and far more worthwhile than it will ever be for the person who had it handed to them. You will relish the joy that much more because you remember the sorrow.
I know this has all been said before, and it’s very cheesy (and I hate blog entries that are cheesy) but it’s very important to remember this-on the good days and the bad.
