Graduation Really is Just the Beginning

"I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing." ~ Neil Gaiman

My dad was one of the smartest people I ever met, and yet he never even received his Associates Degree. He skipped two grades, graduated high school at 16, and then spent a few years bouncing around different colleges before ending up at NYU for a bit, taking classes that interested him but never settling on courses to fulfill a sequence that would warrant a degree of any sort. He was just fine with that, too. For him, it was about learning.

I think today we've lost that idea. I now hold two degrees, but for most of my classes, I learned what I needed to know to get by and then forgot anything that I didn't really care about, and some of the stuff I did care about as well. In fact, I even have a minor in Spanish, but am not even close to being considered fluent in the language. There is definitely a problem there.

Back when I had my life planned out, I was perfectly fine with this idea. Now that I am debating about what path my life should take, I'm a little angry that I didn't spend more time taking classes I was interested in, rather than just fulfilling my requirements. Sure, two degrees and a minor with honors in four years looks great on paper, but I missed out on what was really important. And now that I'm not going right into the work force, not going right to law school or grad school, none of that really seems to matter all that much.

I was explaining to my mom why it's so important to me to go to Thailand, not that she's against it or anything. It will be the first time in my life I do something that doesn't follow this set path. In high school, I didn't enjoy myself because I was focused on doing everything possible to get into college. In college, I was focused on doing what I would need to get a great job. Now that I've realized I don't have to follow that set path, and that really, I don't want to anymore, I think this is the best time for me to set out on a journey like this, allowing myself to enjoy what I'm doing, and at the same time, learn in a way others can only imagine.

Oh, and I'm finally learning to enjoy myself.

I Took the Plunge

"If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be too cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down." ~ Anne Dillard

I went skydiving today. It's something I've wanted to do for a pretty long time, and just never actually went through the process of researching, saving the money, and doing it. But I started talking about it seriously once I decided to go to Thailand, and for my birthday my mom's gift was the money for it and a bunch of research on places in the area, and that was the push I needed.

It was an indescribable experience. It surprised me that, for the most part, I wasn't even very nervous (except for the moment the door on the plane opened). I wasn't thinking about the dangers or the things that could go wrong, I just knew it was something I had wanted to do and I was finally doing it.

As I was talking to other people about how they felt leading up to their jump, during it, or after, I realized that the way I was feeling is the way that I feel about most of the chances I take in life. It struck me as funny that I have the same reaction to a physical risk as I do to an emotional one, and reinforced my view of myself as someone who is determined to go after what I desire.

In the end, my first parachute deployed incorrectly, so after the first free fall, we went into another before the reserve was pulled as we soared through a cloud. My instructor told me later that it had not happened to him on a tandem jump in about 7 years. Even now, I would still do it again given the opportunity, and have another thing to check off on my "Bucket List."