It’s so easy sometimes to get caught up in the day to day aspects. The past two weeks I’ve been pulling pretty intense hours at work (between Monday and Wed I’ve already pulled about 40 hours) and it’s just so ridiculously easy to get caught up in the now and think “If I had time” or place everything else into the “later” category.
My point is that it was a beautiful day today and I didn’t step outside at all. We had a bloody fire alarm and I stayed in my office working. I figured that if it was a real fire I’d smell smoke and I shouldn’t waste any time not being productive.
It’s a silly way of thinking, really. We all have to do what we gotta do, but we need to embrace ourselves too. It’s not just about figuring out our priorities, but about living them and refusing to forget them everyday. And, in the end, I’m becoming more and more convinced that the long-term plans don’t really matter at all. It’s how we live our lives today that makes all the difference.
It’s about the decisions we make now regarding how we want to be seen and how we want to see ourselves. For me, it’s about running. It’s about feeling those connections with others, it’s about reading and having passionate conversations about politics, philosophy, economics, international relations and whether or not the Indiana Jones series were the best movies ever made (like I would hang out with anyone who wouldn’t agree with me).
Recently this has been a running (ed: heh) theme in my head that I want to touch upon briefly. In a sense, the marathon itself, the big events and decisions in life, almost don’t matter at all. At least not really for me. What I mean to say is that the commitment matters a great deal, but that the importance of the marathon in six months or the test in a year, or waiting to hear back from the ABA...is, in a larger sense, missing the point. The importance is in the way that you live out your life between now and the great big moments down the line. That’s how you should define yourself…that’s where you find yourself. So, in spite of the crazy hours, the distractions, the pressure or the stress…try to reach down and find those things that not only help define you, but the things that you can look at and consider them to be successes on any level. While those two miles may not be a marathon unto itself, it’s enough and it means more than one can imagine.
Robbie Williams – Mr. Bojangles
Regina Spektor – Someday
Simon & Garfunkel – The Only Living Boy in New York
REM – Leaving New York
Death Cab for Cutie – Marching Bands of Manhattan
(The NY theme is totally coincidental, I promise (or is it?))
Architecture In Helsinki – Rendezvous: Potrero Hill
The Album Leaf – Thule