Child's Shadow Stretched Out--He Walks With A Purpose With His Sneakers
It's another day in the Northwest. I can't stress enough how much I like living up here. Just yesterday one of my (many) brothers Shae suggested that the military wants translators, and I could live in Monterey, CA and work for them with just my B.A. in English. I was suddenly horrified. Move AWAY from Portland?! From all this beautiful green and clean, fresh air? From all the organic, sustainable practicies? Plus, ew. Work for the government? Being told where to live, what to translate, having to be an officer? God, what if they made me go into a war zone? I am not a solider willing to trust in my country's judgment. I think their judgment sucks ass. Blegh, blegh, blegh. I'd rather be unemployed for a decade and sentenced to housework and children.
No, I chose this life. If it means that sometimes I can't live as freely because I don't have my own cash in the sense that I made it with my two hands, so be it. I will do the things I love. I won't sacrifice my life away just for money. I've watched people doing this, claiming that "we all have to make compromises." And I think that's as much bull as the line "Life isn't fair." That's shit. Life is the most fair thing in all creation. If you eat shitty food and don't exercise, your body will collapse sooner. If you choose to go grocery shopping at the same time that a strong wind will blow over a tree into the road, you will get hit and die. It's a really simple cause and effect. It doesn't care about your beliefs, or your hopes and ambitions. It will simply react to the things that you do. Life is the great fair hand in the world. People are unfair. When someone cheats you, or runs a red light and kills you, or when you lose your $100 and a rich person finds it and keeps it....those are people making choices to screw you over. So don't tell me that life isn't fair and that we all have to make compromises. I'm not living my life with those kinds of compromises. I will compromise, but only within a reasonable scope.
For instance, I will compromise that it's not possible for me to have an awesome job with just an English B.A. if I want to go into translating, and not something like teaching or whatever else. I even understand that I might not get into Portland State on my first try. But, I'm not going to give up. If I don't get in, I will go to teach in Japan for a year. And maybe I'll go and vacation in France for 3 months, or more. I will build up my experience and my resume. I will find a way to convince the program that I deserve to be in, and then I will go through it, and I will emerge from it in a timely manner.
And I will go out into the world and carve a place for me and my words.
I suspect that it'll be hard. I am prepared for it to be very difficult. I am prepared for bittersweet victories, and for just bitter disappointments. I know that I won't always be happy, and that sometimes I'll be stressed out and sad. But, I think that I won't ever sink so low again as I have, because I have that shining light ahead of me. I will do what I want.
I will seize my happiness with both hands, full on, looking on into the light even if it blinds me.
No, I chose this life. If it means that sometimes I can't live as freely because I don't have my own cash in the sense that I made it with my two hands, so be it. I will do the things I love. I won't sacrifice my life away just for money. I've watched people doing this, claiming that "we all have to make compromises." And I think that's as much bull as the line "Life isn't fair." That's shit. Life is the most fair thing in all creation. If you eat shitty food and don't exercise, your body will collapse sooner. If you choose to go grocery shopping at the same time that a strong wind will blow over a tree into the road, you will get hit and die. It's a really simple cause and effect. It doesn't care about your beliefs, or your hopes and ambitions. It will simply react to the things that you do. Life is the great fair hand in the world. People are unfair. When someone cheats you, or runs a red light and kills you, or when you lose your $100 and a rich person finds it and keeps it....those are people making choices to screw you over. So don't tell me that life isn't fair and that we all have to make compromises. I'm not living my life with those kinds of compromises. I will compromise, but only within a reasonable scope.
For instance, I will compromise that it's not possible for me to have an awesome job with just an English B.A. if I want to go into translating, and not something like teaching or whatever else. I even understand that I might not get into Portland State on my first try. But, I'm not going to give up. If I don't get in, I will go to teach in Japan for a year. And maybe I'll go and vacation in France for 3 months, or more. I will build up my experience and my resume. I will find a way to convince the program that I deserve to be in, and then I will go through it, and I will emerge from it in a timely manner.
And I will go out into the world and carve a place for me and my words.
I suspect that it'll be hard. I am prepared for it to be very difficult. I am prepared for bittersweet victories, and for just bitter disappointments. I know that I won't always be happy, and that sometimes I'll be stressed out and sad. But, I think that I won't ever sink so low again as I have, because I have that shining light ahead of me. I will do what I want.
I will seize my happiness with both hands, full on, looking on into the light even if it blinds me.