Look What You've Done.

This year is different.

It seems that my entire life, I have been living for the happiness and peace of mind of someone else. The times I take for myself are stolen, often selfish, and do not do me any service. The important things I have been doing, I have been doing for someone else, just because it seems the right thing to do, or the thing that I should do anyway. The choices I have made so far, I tried very hard to put other people first. I have never gone with my first selfish instinct, never gone with what clicks automatically in my mind.

The paths I have taken, I take because I want to make a difference in the world, do something for society, no matter how big or how small. This isn't a goal to be ashamed of, in fact it's something I find many people lack when they think about what they're going to do with their life. Sure, you can be successful in whatever you want to do, be awesome at your job whatever it may be, but at the end of it all, was your work really worth anything? Sure, you got paid a massive paycheque. But did you do anything worthwhile to earn it? At the end of the day, do all your efforts really matter? Does anyone benefit from what you do? More importantly, will anyone suffer?

While it is worthwhile (in my opinion) to bear these things in mind, such ideals will come at a cost. I think it is because of this way of thinking that I sacrificed studying something more intense like Physics or ElecEng or even something like Astronomy or AeroEng. I adored Physics. When I was younger I used to love to know how the world worked, and why things happen the way that they do. I used to want to know what was out there, to uncover the many secrets the universe was hiding. And then you grow up. And it becomes apparent that we're not nearly as close to the stars as we'd like to be, and that a moral conscience is probably one of the most valuable things you could possess. And suddenly everything had to have a justified reason behind it.

Ever since I have met you, I've suddenly found sight of something I had lost. You don't live for anyone else. Your future is for yourself. It's not a completely selfish future, but it's a future that you want for yourself. It made me wonder. What did I want for myself? Is this what I really want in my life? Have I used this whole moral highground as a scapegoat for thinking properly about what I really wanted? Choosing your future is never easy. And at 17, how on earth can you possibly know what you want to do for the next four years, and what you want it to lead to in the next ten?

I can't think of what I would like to have accomplished by the time I'm 30. By then you would think you might have done at least all the things you can do while you're single. I'm not sure how it happened but before 30 my mind's eye says I'd be married. After that you only earn money so that you can provide for your children. Then parenting becomes a full-time job. So what on earth am I doing in CivEng? In ten years it'll be too late to want to learn about the universe. What happened to the girl who was reaching for the stars? It seems a long fall from stars to soil.

----

Maybe that's why I feel a need to break free. Free from whatever that used to hold me back. I'm still trying to figure out how this big ol' world works. It's just... it felt as if you were going to help me get there.