Head Down
There’s a point in your life when you realise exactly what matters to you. It doesn’t have to be a poetic Fight Club moment. It could be a slow-moving process where you get so caught up in your life’s inertia that you stop to take stock, and notice everything that you’ve left behind.
I’ve lived the latter of the two. I’m not quite running lean, but I’ve been subconsciously drifting in that direction.
The things and people that don’t matter just fade into the background, into the distance as you keep moving. They’re far behind, now, and still caught up in their incessant bickering about endless trivialities. Caught up in the minutiae of life.
Glenn‘s eighteenth birthday post made me stop and smile. Such optimism and enthusiasm for what’s ahead.
I can’t pretend that any of the things that concerned me when I turned eighteen were anywhere near as important as the concepts and possibilities that Glenn is currently juggling. I was writing, sure, but without a purpose or an audience.
Girls. Drinking. The opinions of my peers. These are the things that concerned me at age eighteen. As much as I wish that I’d been grappling with notions of personal accountability or building self-value – I wasn’t.
Realising that you’ve got to put your head down and just go for it – that’s an important point to reach.
Stating that ‘nothing else matters’ is over-simplifying a little, but hell, you’re in control. It’s the difference between crawling, or choosing to stand up and walk.
I’d hate myself if I missed out on the decadence of those girls-drinking years. It’s absolutely necessary to occasionally accept distraction.
You’re right. “If you don’t have a drink once and a while or play some dumb video game or do something reckless and stupid, you’re not creating memories or stories or a life worth living. Just lots of to-do lists.”, as you said.