And bad mistakes...I've made a few...

At 25, I was watching the Grammys, and saw Lauryn Hill, who is as old as me, win five Grammy awards. And at 25, I was in the middle of naturopathic school. But for the first time, I felt like I was squandering my life. I literally sat up and asked out loud, much to the befuddlement of my friends, "God...what have I done with my life?"

Boy, I'm glad that my 25 year-old self can't see me now, let alone my 16 year-old self. I mean, here is a list of that young man's ambitions back in February of 1992:

1. Keep up a high morality code with integrity.
2. Ignore what the TV says.
3. Single-handedly redefine the genre and ideals of American literature by the use of short essays. In short, start a new era.
4. Make a couple of classic albums.
5. Be a teacher.
6. Be a researcher or doctor.
7. Become a new Socrates - as great a thinker as he was.
8. Live life deeply and lovingly.
9. Love.
10. Be religious.
11. Be me!

Yeah, I was one ambitious motherfucker, wasn't I? Needless to say, I've not made a single album, let alone a single song. I get drawn into TV far more than I would like. And bringing American literature (VERY loosely defined) into a new era was apparently not up to me, but the tech-savvy inventors of blogs. And Socrates? In college, I derided one of my friends for being down on herself because she wasn't as great a thinker as Dostoevsky was. Um...oops. So much for that. (At least I won't die from hemlock poisoning.)

But life happens. Laundry needs to be done. Someone needs to bring home the bacon. Mundaneness settles in. And also, goals change. But having said that, a strong, stoic core part of me maintains that there's still a LOT of living to do, and a LOT of ambitions yet to realize. Gotta keep moving.