Monday, July 09, 2012

Live your life


Sometimes all those internet memes can get old, but this came across my path today and it connected with my world view. I've edited out the profanity at the bottom, but you still get it.

It's so easy to just follow the "path." I can't even count how many times people told me what my next step would be. I graduated college- a family friend told me I would be working "corporate" in a year. Never happened. I went to graduate school- a friend told me I would never get a job. Wrong. We got a house and a dog- everyone told us a baby would come soon. Instead we decided to move overseas. We had a kid- everyone told us we would never travel or go out on dates again. Even our hip urban friends said this. Well, that didn't happen. We travel. We go on dates. We help support the local economy of high school babysitters. Our lives are still fun and interesting. We didn't move to the suburbs and buy a minivan like everyone told us we would, instead we live in the city and I drive a mini-car.We take our toddler camping and to museums and to hip restaurants in the city. He's never been to an Applebee's, Olive Garden, or the like, but he has been to Beer Kitchen on many an occasion.

Even with all the choices I've made to live my life on my terms, there are days that feel like loops. My daily schedule this summer certainly feels like a loop. Research, reading, correspondence, not a lot of variety between a Tuesday and a Friday. It's inevitable that this happen on the small scale, but it's what we do on the large scale of our lives and how we spend our time outside of work time that I think defines us. Do we spend our evenings watching tv or connecting with other people? Reading a good book or refreshing the Facebook feed? Trying a new recipe or microwaving some junk food? It takes effort to forge your own path. But with the infinite possibilities available to those of us fortunate enough to be born into the middle class of a first world country, it's a crime to not embrace the potential of each day.

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