Posts tagged inspiration

I am on the train, going home from Keith’s. Outside it is chilly, but not too cold - just enough to make the warmth inside the traincar noticeably pleasant.

The thought crosses my mind that trains are more interesting than car drives in a few ways. You encounter people on a train. There are dozens of them on this one. Students, workers, artists, partiers.. people who identify as many different things. All of us are together for one brief moment. For a time, we are all going the same direction at the same speed.

For some, the train is almost unbearably slow. It is inconvenient, unreliable, and generally an obstacle between them and their destination. To others, perhaps the ride is a brief respite; from the cold, from isolation. Here on the train is a small community, however ephemeral, united in their mutal travels.

The train suddenly halts, I hear a horn. A car drove across our tracks suddenly, and we nearly hit it. Thankfully, we stopped in time and no one was harmed. A few passengers comment to the conductor on the stupidity of the driver we nearly slammed into.

A couple is making out, the man across from me is staring blankly into space. The girl next to him is looking at her nails. The girl next to me is listening to her iPod. But we are all here in this moment.

I struggle to find balance in my life. I often feel like I lack discipline. I either do way too much or way too little. Case in point: the past year at school relative to now. This past year, I overloaded myself with obligations, responsibilities, work, stress, etc. Now that the semester has ended, I spend whole weeks hardly doing more than playing videogames until I feel sick of that and want to make myself do something productive.

Part of the reason I fluctuate so much is that I don’t always give myself suitable time to relax, so when I finally get a break my productivity collapses. Another major part is the stress of being home. Even when my Dad is being uncharacteristically nice, as he has been, I feel stressed knowing that sooner or later it will probably end. I’m also stressed over finding an apartment. I have less than a month to do so, though thankfully I have some places to look at this weekend.

Part of my goal for this next year, as I take on my AmeriCorps position, is to find a balance between work and leisure that is healthy and right for me.

As a whole, though, I suppose I’m a bit hard on myself. I have been seeing friends, apartment hunting with some moderate progress, looking into my finances, doing a little bit of work for my clubs (heck, I’ll never stop lol) and other things. I’ve also been getting into better shape and making some progress at that… it just lacks balance. Too much time playing video games, staying up too late, etc. Eventually, I need more.

The nice part about being me, though, is that these phases never last long. I had a week after I graduated where I was lazy, then I came home and have been on and off lazy for another two weeks, and I feel sick of it. I can’t even go a month of being a bum, haha. That is probably relatively good, and shows that I truly do want to make the most of my time. No matter what stress I’m recovering from, I always return with a desire to do more, to make the most of myself. Usually it is a sort of epiphany after a slow descent into vice and lethargy.

This epiphany came as I watched the end of Millions. I put it on while I played a video game on my computer (which I’ve spent far too much time playing and today finally grew sick of). Sadly, I didn’t pay enough attention to the movie as a whole - I could summarize it for you but I’m sure I missed many nuances - but I stopped to watch the last third or so. It was really something. The movie was a quirky comedy about two children finding a ton of money, to essentialize it, but it had a deeper message pleading for the good of all people above the corrupting influences of this world. The main character is a little boy who sees visions of Saints and wants very much to be a good person… it speaks to me on a substantial level. Seeing how hard he tried and that he just wanted to do good for those around him regardless of whether they “deserved” it or not was inspiring, and has reminded me of my own desire to do good.

And in doing that, I believe this movie has kicked me out of my little slump there and now I’ll have to start working again. I do think that as time goes on I’ve been approaching closer to a healthy mindset and balance in life, which is good. This past year, despite all the stress, I really proved something to myself about being a good person and I can finally move forward with real confidence. There is some lingering fear that I’ll become lazy or stop trying as hard, but moments like this really show me that such traits just aren’t part of my personality. I’m going to keep trying, always.