I feel like walking the world and you hear she's a beautiful girl..
Today this guy, Jon Kabat-Zinn, who is a meditation for stress reduction guru (apparently) came and talked at school over lunch, so I went. He said that he thinks no one ends up hearing him talk by accident. Maybe.
He was talking about how we tend to always live our lives for the story in our head. We're trying to get to the next part of the story, in which everything is going to be better. That can be getting in to med school, or getting a promotion, or moving, or retiring, or getting married, or whatever. We disconnect from our daily existance, not living in the moment, always living in our story. We walk around largely not paying attention to the moment. That is very true, I thought.
And then I thought about some of the reasons I've not been the happiest camper I could be lately. I think a large part of it is that feeling. We're all, every one of us, just trying to make it through. We're all wish that Friday could get here sooner, or think things will be better after first semester, or after that biochem test, or if only we weren't in lab this week. And, in honesty, its true. Life IS better on weeks without lab, or biochem tests. Life will get less stressful after this semester. But is that a good reason to be miserable?
The part that adds more to my personal misery is that life becomes mundane when you're working so hard all the time. I drive/walk/bike the same streets every day. I see the same people, and spend like 12 hours a day in the same two buildings. All of our lectures, except one, are in identical looking lecture halls. We just get up and move back and forth.
This does not make for a particularly stimulating existance. It was at first, the newness of all the people, and the new enviornment and all. And now, its just hours and hours upon hours a day of school and studying, going to bed tired, and waking up tired. And when something does hit you out of left feild (as it hit so many of us on Friday), its just that you bombed a test, which is something you've never done before (okay, once), or that you went tailgating and lost your car keys, or that you've started studying at 6 am every morning instead of at night. This does not strike me as what they mean when they talk about the spice of life.
But then again, that isn't embracing the moment. These are adventures, they're just not fun ones.
I miss the adventures I had last year. Never knowing who I'd meet in a day, just out and about, living my life (now, I pretty much know that I'm not going to meet a soul, becuase I'm going to be with the same 142 people all day). I miss motorcyles and having kooky conversations with children, and stimulating conversations with friends about things other than trying to get inside our professors heads about test questions. I miss discovering new bands, picking up random books at the library, and test driving cars because I can. I miss eating at new resturants without guilt becuase I had an income instead of tution to pay. Yes, in general, I miss doing whatever the heck I want for a large part of my time.
Yeah, I'm pretty much a brat. Yes, I know how lucky I am to even have this problem. Yes, I know this is something I chose, and is something I want to do. But gosh darn it, I also know that I'm restless!! I need a little more fun while I'm at it. A little more true adventure. I guess with the change of weather, I'll get the adventure of perhaps starting to be forced to take the bus to school. Joy, just the change that I need.
He was talking about how we tend to always live our lives for the story in our head. We're trying to get to the next part of the story, in which everything is going to be better. That can be getting in to med school, or getting a promotion, or moving, or retiring, or getting married, or whatever. We disconnect from our daily existance, not living in the moment, always living in our story. We walk around largely not paying attention to the moment. That is very true, I thought.
And then I thought about some of the reasons I've not been the happiest camper I could be lately. I think a large part of it is that feeling. We're all, every one of us, just trying to make it through. We're all wish that Friday could get here sooner, or think things will be better after first semester, or after that biochem test, or if only we weren't in lab this week. And, in honesty, its true. Life IS better on weeks without lab, or biochem tests. Life will get less stressful after this semester. But is that a good reason to be miserable?
The part that adds more to my personal misery is that life becomes mundane when you're working so hard all the time. I drive/walk/bike the same streets every day. I see the same people, and spend like 12 hours a day in the same two buildings. All of our lectures, except one, are in identical looking lecture halls. We just get up and move back and forth.
This does not make for a particularly stimulating existance. It was at first, the newness of all the people, and the new enviornment and all. And now, its just hours and hours upon hours a day of school and studying, going to bed tired, and waking up tired. And when something does hit you out of left feild (as it hit so many of us on Friday), its just that you bombed a test, which is something you've never done before (okay, once), or that you went tailgating and lost your car keys, or that you've started studying at 6 am every morning instead of at night. This does not strike me as what they mean when they talk about the spice of life.
But then again, that isn't embracing the moment. These are adventures, they're just not fun ones.
I miss the adventures I had last year. Never knowing who I'd meet in a day, just out and about, living my life (now, I pretty much know that I'm not going to meet a soul, becuase I'm going to be with the same 142 people all day). I miss motorcyles and having kooky conversations with children, and stimulating conversations with friends about things other than trying to get inside our professors heads about test questions. I miss discovering new bands, picking up random books at the library, and test driving cars because I can. I miss eating at new resturants without guilt becuase I had an income instead of tution to pay. Yes, in general, I miss doing whatever the heck I want for a large part of my time.
Yeah, I'm pretty much a brat. Yes, I know how lucky I am to even have this problem. Yes, I know this is something I chose, and is something I want to do. But gosh darn it, I also know that I'm restless!! I need a little more fun while I'm at it. A little more true adventure. I guess with the change of weather, I'll get the adventure of perhaps starting to be forced to take the bus to school. Joy, just the change that I need.