I want, I want, I want.

            Sometimes I feel like I have ADD. Not in the sense of an inability to sit still but in the sense that I want to do so much that I feel paralyzed. Everyday I am overwhelmed by my desire, yearning, need to do so many things.

I want to teach until I’m old and grey.

I want to be a photographer.

I want to travel until I’m penniless.

I want to work until I can pay off my all loans (don’t we all?).

I want to start a revolution.

I want to campaign for a better education system in the US.

I want to feed the world.

I want to do nothing but write for days on days until I’ve produced something of worth.

I want to learn how to sing.

I want to paint.

I want to spend my days, blood and sweat helping anyone who needs it.

I want to always be open enough to see the world form new angles.

I want, I want, I want.

            We live in a world of consumption. Buy this, this, this, and that. We want it all. We work to buy and we buy to bring ourselves happiness. We’re like junkies on the wrong drug. Our consumption and materialistic outlook has us determined to work so that we can purchase more goods which bring us a short-lived high. I don’t want a short-lived high. I don’t want to shy away from the road less traveled and shuffle along with everyone else. I’d say I refuse to but I haven’t yet veered away from the common path so we’re just going to have to wait and see about my next steps.  See if I have the guts to tear myself away from the clear path that has been paved so clearly before me.

            What’s really hard about tearing away from this perfectly paved path is that it still leads to a beautiful life. I consider my paved path to be one with me heading straight into my own classroom. Building a life, a family, and very likely being happy. I stare into this clear path and I feel security, excitement, and happiness.

            Then I stare down the path less taken: an overgrown, nearly hidden, dirt path. One filled with bumps and bruises, potholes, fear and the great unknown. Those last two, the fear and the great unknown, are like magnets. Pulling me away from my clear path and plunging me into what many would see as foolish. But that fear, I find it invigorating. After all when do we feel most alive? I can tell you my most alive moment: paragliding. I wish I could say I’d had the balls (and the cash) to do skydiving, but I didn’t. Regardless, paragliding was terrifying. Every part of me was shaking in its boots. But that fear, that rush of leaping outside my comfort zone and taking a leap of faith, it has a kind of magic to it. A beautiful and terrifying magic.

            I want to be surrounded by this magic. I want to shed this shell of who I am and let myself be everything I can be. I want, want, want, to do all those things I listed and so many more. And I’m not going to get them by following my beautifully paved path. But I have a shot at getting it if I pull back the brush and push forward onto the hidden path of unknowns. If I just close my eyes and take a leap.