the waiting is over?
I was talking with my 16 year old brother the other day and some of the things that he said I have been thinking about a lot. First a little background.
He plays a lot of video games. A lot. If he's awake and not at school, there's at least a fifty-fifty chance that he's on the computer or the Game Cube or the Playstation 2 or maybe even on the X-Box borrowed from a little gamer friend. When he's not playing, he's reading a magazine about games or watching a tv show about games...when he's with friends he's playing games. Only rarely does he actually do anything, and that is only when his friends coax him into doing something else.
Needless to say, there are no girls. The other day one of them called him however. He was playing one game or another on his Game Cube while "talking" but by "talking a mean a string of gruntish sounds given off, his focus almost entirely on the game he was playing. It's not just girls either, but rather anytime anyone calls. If you're not calling about video games, it's too bad for you.
I asked him about it, about all the time he spends in front of the television instead of going out and doing the sorts of things that 16 year olds do. I've asked him before when he was younger about why he's never -- that's right, never -- played a pick-up game of football or soccer or any of the things I used to do. I've asked him how he could have lived in a house with deep woods behind it and never -- yes, never -- built a fort of any sort out there. I've asked him why he never simply goes outside, socializes, all that crap...
His answer this time bothered me. "That's what college is for". Not so much the fort and the like -- those potential childhood memories are lost forever -- but the girls and the rabble-rousing and all the stuff that's just part of being an adolescent. The sort of stuff that I sort of regret never doing myself. The sort of stuff that, deep down, I blame for at least part of my social ineptitude.
I tried to tell him that now is the time to fool around, now is the time to be stupid, because now is the time for him to be able to make as many mistakes as he can without fear of recourse beyond possibly being yelled at or grounded. But still, "that's what college is for". He'd rather just sit around and play video games.
It has occurred to me, however, that my being upset with him for being such a moron in these regards is much the same as my being upset with myself. He, after all, is doing that which I have done for most of my life...saying "later".
I am living right now. I am here and I am now. My life is nowhere and all I do is sit around and tell myself that tomorrow I'll go someplace. I make excuses, tell myself that things will be different once the sun rises again, but then I just sit back and wait for it...always finding that the rotation of the Earth alone does absolutely nothing to advance my life. Not one iota. I've sat and waited hours, sat and waited weeks, sat and waited months and years. I've been out of college for almost six bloody years and I haven't done a thing with my life and the wealth of knowledge that it has provided me. I tell myself that I will go back to school, I tell myself that I will learn to speak Spanish, I tell myself that I will travel more, that I'll get myself out of debt, that I'll get married and have kids, that I'll start a business, that I'll do this and that, large and small, but I don't. I just sit around and play video games all day long (okay, not video games, per se, but work dead-end jobs, write things that I'll never get paid for, that sort of thing) and tell myself that I'll get off my rump tomorrow...because that's what tomorrow is for.
Bullshit.
I do believe that I am happy. I do believe that I am a well-rounded individual. I do believe that I have purpose, profound purpose, in this world; but I also believe that I am squandering all of it, not living up to my potential at all. I must begin living in the now, I must begin doing thigns today rather than telling myself that I will wait until tomorrow...because a life of waiting is not a life, it is a breadline. I can no longer wait around for people to change their minds about me, I can no longer sit around and wait for the stars to align so that I can do what I want to do...I need to search out those people that want what I want now, I need to push those stars as closely together as I can to do what it is that I want, what I am meant, to do. I need to stop making excuses and just do it. Just be. I need to live, because God only gives us so much time on this Earth...to waste so much of it just waiting is just plain dumb.
He plays a lot of video games. A lot. If he's awake and not at school, there's at least a fifty-fifty chance that he's on the computer or the Game Cube or the Playstation 2 or maybe even on the X-Box borrowed from a little gamer friend. When he's not playing, he's reading a magazine about games or watching a tv show about games...when he's with friends he's playing games. Only rarely does he actually do anything, and that is only when his friends coax him into doing something else.
Needless to say, there are no girls. The other day one of them called him however. He was playing one game or another on his Game Cube while "talking" but by "talking a mean a string of gruntish sounds given off, his focus almost entirely on the game he was playing. It's not just girls either, but rather anytime anyone calls. If you're not calling about video games, it's too bad for you.
I asked him about it, about all the time he spends in front of the television instead of going out and doing the sorts of things that 16 year olds do. I've asked him before when he was younger about why he's never -- that's right, never -- played a pick-up game of football or soccer or any of the things I used to do. I've asked him how he could have lived in a house with deep woods behind it and never -- yes, never -- built a fort of any sort out there. I've asked him why he never simply goes outside, socializes, all that crap...
His answer this time bothered me. "That's what college is for". Not so much the fort and the like -- those potential childhood memories are lost forever -- but the girls and the rabble-rousing and all the stuff that's just part of being an adolescent. The sort of stuff that I sort of regret never doing myself. The sort of stuff that, deep down, I blame for at least part of my social ineptitude.
I tried to tell him that now is the time to fool around, now is the time to be stupid, because now is the time for him to be able to make as many mistakes as he can without fear of recourse beyond possibly being yelled at or grounded. But still, "that's what college is for". He'd rather just sit around and play video games.
It has occurred to me, however, that my being upset with him for being such a moron in these regards is much the same as my being upset with myself. He, after all, is doing that which I have done for most of my life...saying "later".
I am living right now. I am here and I am now. My life is nowhere and all I do is sit around and tell myself that tomorrow I'll go someplace. I make excuses, tell myself that things will be different once the sun rises again, but then I just sit back and wait for it...always finding that the rotation of the Earth alone does absolutely nothing to advance my life. Not one iota. I've sat and waited hours, sat and waited weeks, sat and waited months and years. I've been out of college for almost six bloody years and I haven't done a thing with my life and the wealth of knowledge that it has provided me. I tell myself that I will go back to school, I tell myself that I will learn to speak Spanish, I tell myself that I will travel more, that I'll get myself out of debt, that I'll get married and have kids, that I'll start a business, that I'll do this and that, large and small, but I don't. I just sit around and play video games all day long (okay, not video games, per se, but work dead-end jobs, write things that I'll never get paid for, that sort of thing) and tell myself that I'll get off my rump tomorrow...because that's what tomorrow is for.
Bullshit.
I do believe that I am happy. I do believe that I am a well-rounded individual. I do believe that I have purpose, profound purpose, in this world; but I also believe that I am squandering all of it, not living up to my potential at all. I must begin living in the now, I must begin doing thigns today rather than telling myself that I will wait until tomorrow...because a life of waiting is not a life, it is a breadline. I can no longer wait around for people to change their minds about me, I can no longer sit around and wait for the stars to align so that I can do what I want to do...I need to search out those people that want what I want now, I need to push those stars as closely together as I can to do what it is that I want, what I am meant, to do. I need to stop making excuses and just do it. Just be. I need to live, because God only gives us so much time on this Earth...to waste so much of it just waiting is just plain dumb.
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