I'm not too concerened with what I am going to do

Earlier today, I was thinking about a question: What do you consider to be your personal achievements? I thought about it for a bit, then bulleted out a few of my accomplishments.

• Being elected one of the captains of my college cross country team, despite being the slowest
• Publishing a scientific article in a peer-reviewed journal
• Having the courage to move to across the country to Portland despite not knowing anyone
• Maintaining this blog for as long as I have, and learning to love writing
• Sustaining old friendships east of the Mississippi

As I looked over this list, and reflected a bit on what I’ve done with my life up to this point, I got to thinking. And I remembered the words of the humanity activist Shane Claiborne:

“I’m not too concerned with what I am going to do. I am more interested in who I am becoming.”

As I try to decide where to go with my life, and what sort of accomplishments to shoot for next, I’m really shifting my focus from tangible goals like getting x job or winning y award, to the sort of person I’m becoming. I figure, if I become more and more the sort of person I desire to be, the accomplishments will fall into place.

Sidenote, Amulya and I always used to talk about how we were “intangible” guys. At its core, it was basically our way to explain us not being as good as other people on paper. Other people might have higher IQ’s, harder abs, faster cars, wittier jokes, but the things that can’t counted, we had that. Or at least, it helped me sleep at night.

Anyways, I summed up the sort of person I want to become in three points:

1. I want a, “For the horde,” mentality. I think life was meant to be lived for the good of society. We were meant to both, be taken care of, and take care of. It’s hard for me to remember this, but I want to put myself in a position to give back. past post

2. I want to always place myself in an environment of growth. I want to have the courage to leave old environments and enter into brand new scary ones. I know it’s easy to get stale, and then be scared to leave that comfort, but I also know I will just get frustrated with myself in that stale zone.

“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.” – Abigail Adams

3. I want to be grateful. I want to always remember the opportunities I’ve had, and have now. past post

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

from ken

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