Friday, September 10, 2010

Motion Can Belie Activity

I have always been a thinker. When I was a child, people would ask me questions about this or that and I distinctly remember taking a few seconds (okay, sometimes minutes) to think about it before answering. They always looked perplex that I had such "profound thought" for a kid. I just thought it was common sense. As I grew older though, I found that sense is not all that common and that thinking before you answer or act is not a desired trait these days.
I'm entering college soon and I had a few doubts and concerns. I've been out of high school a year, community college about three months and I still don't know what career I want. So I soon went to work on trying to find what I like and consider myself good at.
To outsiders looking in, I was making pointless lists and diagrams, searching and researching for nothing, and basically chillin while reading and looking out windows. I should just do it. I should just go out there and do something, anything besides sit and think and type. Move! Be! Do!
While listening to "Trashy" by J Dilla and hanging out with my (neighbor's) dog Cookie I thought to myself that moving for the sake of moving, or for the sake of other people wanting you to, doesn't lead you any nearer to who you want to be or your goals. If anything it distracts you and makes trouble, making the decision process unnecessarily long.
I figured that out earlier when I was at my job of folding and hanging at the mall. The more I focused on this one job, this job that wouldn't sustain many of my needs for stimulation (mentally, financially, socially, take your pick) the further I got from myself and what I was trying to accomplish. I got the job to help out my mother, to make it so she wouldn't worry about my few bills or nag me to death. We all have some sort of mother figure, so we know how that goes; even when you have the one thing they wanted you to have, you now need to have it better, bigger, broader.
My mother and my book addiction compelled me to find another job, but I declined. I thought more about what I wanted out of life. To my mother, my father, my friends, I was lounging like LL and Total in the 90s. But in my mind, so many things were going on that I had to decide, to do. What did I want out of life? Who did I want to be? How would I get there?
As I said before I was always a thinking child, which hasn't gone away in all these years. So I sat and thought about it for roughly 3 weeks before deciding that an English degree in Austin was what I wanted. Now the only thing to do is set that plan into motion.
The point of this whole schpeel is that thinking before you act is the smarter decision. The world is going to press upon you what it wants from you; the faster you make a decision, usually the higher the risk later and the dumber you find the decision was in the end. Think about it; in the check out line at a store you see the candy there and the cashier's ringing you up. You don't really want the candy. Or do you? You don't have much time before they finish ringing you up and if you get it later you have to make a whole new transaction. Buy it. Buy it now! See? Pressure. Fast decisions, movement before you're ready, leads to hasty and rash results. You probably didn't even want that candy.
So what do you think? Take your time, feel it out and get back to me.
XoXo,
Testorshia

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