This morning I woke up feeling very different.
For some reason, it was not how I thought I would feel. I got caught feeling like I had done the same routine yesterday morning. Then I realized that is exactly what happened. I woke up, I rolled around in my bed a couple of times, and I realized I needed to get up. I walked to the kitchen and made myself some coffee and a bagel with cream cheese just like I have every morning since this semester started. It kind of made me a little angry, because I always talked about how I never wanted to get caught in the 9-to-5 flow.
Somehow, I feel like, in my generation, it is so easy for us to get caught in a wake-sleep cycle. Not too long ago I was at my job talking to one of my co-workers about this phenomenon, and he said he really did not know how he got caught in it. One moment he was a freshman just having to worry about school and the next he had to take on a full financial responsibility. He did not understand how three years of college had flown by and he was still at the same job.
That made me think of how I do not want to end up feeling like I have wasted time. I think that is why I write in my free time. I think there is a quote that some people say that goes, "Good time spent is not time wasted." But how do you know if the time you spend is the time that you spent well?
How do you know?
I guess the answer is very simple: you just know. I remember my mom always telling me as a little girl to enjoy the days while I had no responsibilities. I would quickly reply, "I wish I had more things to do. I wish I was busy." Little did I know I would miss when things were easy like that. I think American culture is one of the only cultures that has long working hours and keeps students in school for most of the day. I am not sure where this trend came from or if whoever came up with it thought it would be more time efficient, but it isn't.
It is sad when you think about it because most people go on autopilot for most of their lives and they don't know that they really haven't been living. Instead, they have just been existing and adjusting and trying to survive. This is something that I have to work on too, and it's also about learning where to draw the line between doing what I love versus doing what I have to do because it is what I have to do.
We all need to wake up and learn where to draw the line between living and existing. Living is loving every single second of your life, both good and bad, and existing is just floating around and waking up the next day and doing it all over again.
