Last night I sat in this library and looked around. Books were everywhere. The height of the racks felt like skyscrapers and rows felt like I was in a city built on information, and there was so much to pick up and learn. I felt so small compared to this metropolis-sized collection of human achievement.
So many stories were in this room with me. I wanted to ingest them all, and let them inspire me to become something bigger than I am. I wish I had more time. I wish I had better attention. I wish I smarter than I was so I was able to learn everything I can know. I wish I was a genius! I want it so badly. God, please make me as spectacular as I can be.
I finished the last week of school this week of Spring semester, and I’m sort of pondering which way I should go with my learning. Not the long term, but in the short term.
There is just so much learning out there… In life. There is so much to experience. I just want to have it all. I want to understand the meaning of it all, and live the journey with other interesting people who want to be more than who they currently are.
As I looked around at the bookcases I started getting lost and dizzy in all the information, and the ambition started to get intimidated. I’m willing to work as hard as I can. I’m willing to force the information into my skull, tattoo it into my spirit, carve it into heart, and mind, but there’s only so much I can do. I’m not as smart as I wish I was. My human body can only take so much of this obsession.
It was after my teens and early twenties that life began to teach me differently than books did. Life began to teach me that it’s not about what others want you to be, but instead life is about the journey you’re on, and I became addicted trying to figure my journey out.
I became addicted to understanding this new philosophy. I even remember at one point feeling guilty for taking breaks. I would feel pathetic if I stopped working to find truth.
Because of this non-stop drive, I became addicted to it like a drug. If I wasn’t moving, I was failing. I may have entered a realm of insanity for a little while because I started thinking that there were people who needed me to be the best I could be, and if I stopped my obsession for learning, then I would be letting them down. But nobody was there except me. Years of this built up, and I got to the point that learning wasn’t fun anymore. The pressure became a monster that controlled me. Even though I had gotten smarter, I was losing who I was. I eventually became so exhausted that I lost my ability to enjoyably seek my purpose.
It took me a year to find myself again, and after emerging from that wicked experience, I realized that the learning in life goes on forever, it never ends, and if you don’t occasionally take a break it will drive you nuts.
Even though I want to eat the whole library in one bite, it’s unhealthy, because all of that information consumed at once will bite back.
This morning I laid in bed and felt like not doing anything. Spring semester ended yesterday and I’m exhausted from it. I have summer school starting in a few weeks, and then I’ll graduate with a bachelors in Business Communications in August. I’m going to have to start building a career in the fall,. As I build the new Purpose Pages website, I find myself working until 3 AM at times because my learning curve is straight up and I love the feeling of creative success. As I laid in bed this morning, I realized, enough is enough. I need a break, because this lifestyle will go on forever if I don’t force myself to get away.
So after this post is published, I’m going for a walk, a drive, hang out with a friend, and just not do anything mentally challenging for the weekend. Some friends invited me to the Cinco De Mayo parade in St. Paul tomorrow morning and I’m going to forget about my writing and career for awhile. Sometimes searching for your purpose involves falling off the grid, and becoming refreshed by the experience.
I need a break. I’m not being selfish, or cheating myself, or others. The learning goes on forever, but my human mind can’t. Life is not about reading an entire library of books or becoming a genius. It’s about enjoying the journey you’re on. The learning will be there when I come back from my moment away with God.
I’m very much like this right now, nice post!